Such a mindset turned out to be correct, as the fourth alarm from Kuang Jing was indeed real. The shadows he saw turned out to be a real mass of corpses moving through one of the small passages between the tombstones. And to say the truth, if not for the alarm, Wu Guang would have missed them until they stepped into the light from his own, now activated luminous stone.
There were about a dozen undead or if Wu Guang used the blue planet term 'Zombie' moving through one of the passages in between Kuang Jing and Wei. It was right in the middle of them and so was not illuminated at all, adding to it that the undead generated absolutely no qi fluctuation, noticing them in the darkness was only possible by looking right at them.
"Close lines, I will take care of them" Wu Guang ordered and as soon the other three started inching towards the elder, rushed forward to meet the undead. He did not bring his luminous stone and neither could truly see in the dark, so in place of using any weapon, Wu Guang resorted to the 'Flaming Fist'. With the latter not only providing fighting capability but also illumination, Wu Guang met the walking corpses.
All cultivators under the sage realm were practically identical in physical parameters if comparing the same level, but even so, some were a slight bit stronger thanks to the training of unarmed combat.
Wu Guang was of the latter and with the fire from the technique added, each punch not only destroyed the location hit but also set the surrounding flesh on fire, fully securing the fact that the force would be extinguished even after a glancing hit. Still, with such slow and unresponding targets, Wu Guang's fists did not miss, with each punch hitting the target squarely.
With only one punch per target, it took Wu Guang only half a minute to finish the dozen undead approaching so stealthily. After confirming that there was no movement, he fell back. In the heat of the moment he had chosen to ignore it, but now he asked himself how could absolutely unintelligent corpses choose such a route. Ignoring the luck factor, he decided to keep a more cautious approach as if his worse scenario was right, there should be something or someone controlling them.
But even with such an approach, he did not and in truth could not expect what happened next.
The four of them were now circling the elder who was in deep meditation and everyone except Wu Guang carried an activated luminous stone, which overlaid with each other illuminated an area of thirty or so feet around them. And as Wu Guang was thinking of reorganizing the perimeter, several dozens if not hundreds of undead were approaching the light from all the directions.
"Lay down the luminous stones and prepare for an encirclement! If I am not mistaken this is a full attack by all the undead present here" Without doubting for a moment his intuition, Wu Guang exclaimed and prepared for combat. From what he saw and felt from the undead, his bow would not be useful, so after thinking for a bit, he unsheathed his saber and prepared to use the combination of 'Sandstorm' and the flaming techniques. As for how he sensed the undead, Wu Guang would only later understand that it was actually a sense of danger, which meant he had fully reached the first level of the 7th, intuition sense. Normally the sense would require to be trained with exercises, but either because of his memories or the danger that has been surrounding him, the increase came naturally.
Senses don't lie as all cultivators that have not met an illusion master would say, and in this case, they would be correct. It took only a few moments from Wu Guang's shouted instruction for the first undead to appear in view. He was indeed not in the light circle yet, but the shadow provoked by the reflection of the light was noted by Yuan Taotu, who contrary to his normal silent or whisper manner shouted
"Incoming from the north"
Seemingly there were more as both Wei and Kuang Jing similarly exclaimed after a moment citing their own directions, but Wu Guang had no time to look away, as his strengthened vision discerned several targets approaching from the front. He quickly repeated and completed his previous command and prepared to meet the undead
"They are encircling us! Don't stray too far, better fight on the spot"
Thankfully nobody in the team was weak-willed and so after a minute, the four of them entered combat.
As before the undead were simply corpses that for some reason, or to be exact the one that the elder was confirming right now, rose from their graves and started attacking anything with life force. Even if this wasn't logical for Wu Guang, it was still for the plane inhabitants, so except for adding the matter to the long list of questions to be resolved, Wu Guang could not do anything except fight.
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And he fought. The other three did so as well and either because the undead were so weak or because the team itself was strong enough, the fight would be described as the extermination of pests if anyone saw it.
Wu Guang kicked and punched with the flaming techniques as well made a few slashes with the saber, but after noticing that more than one slash was required, he used a small respite to sheat it and concentrated solely on unarmed flaming attacks.
Yuan Taotu seemingly reached the same conclusion and after a brief moment used his weapon solely as a blunt one, respectively switching from his normal quick point movements to the more slow and crushing shaft ones.
Wei had no trouble at all as his weapon was a mace, so with every swing, he easily swatted one or two corpses away. With his strength combined with the weight of the weapon itself, the corpses were not only flung away but also landed with broken bones and fractured flesh, not to rise again.
The one who was a bit more in trouble was Kuang Jing, but seemingly he learned from his mistakes quickly as after some moments he sheathed his sword and proceeded to use the same techniques with it. But this time with a fair more lethal effect, either thanks to the fact that he dropped his speed to add strength, or that the sword was sheathed and so could count as a blunt weapon.
For the next ten minutes or so the situation was unchanged. The four fought and destroyed undead after undead, while the latter appeared one after another. In Wu Guang's calculations, he concluded that there were about three thousand graves present, from which at least half were empty from the elder's words and judging from the fact that there were no undead roaming during the day, were abandoned by their residents. So in the worse case, they would need to fight off a horde of 1500 undead or so.
Dividing it by four, Wu Guang had also concluded that although he and Yuan Taotu should be able to resist such a number, the situation would be far different for Wei and Kuang Jing. Granted the former was a 4th level Spirit realm cultivator, but neither of the levels following the 3rd really increased the qi capacity, so only Yuan Taotu and he could boast enough qi to constantly use their techniques for hours thanks to the almost double increase from the secondary meridians. Wu Guang also had increased his capacity even further thanks to the wood essence and so in truth could fight such moving 'dummies' for five or six hours without needing to replenish qi. Considering that every hit destroyed one of the corpses, he would need only four or so hours to completely obliterate them if needed.
As he calculated, Wu Guang did not stop attacking and even counting each undead. But when he reached the one hundred mark, everything stopped. To say the truth, it's not that it stopped because the time did, but because the corpses stopped moving at all. Not only that, they began to fall down as puppets with their strings cut.
Maybe this could surprise an observer, but for the people present, it was totally clear. After all, how does such a meager amount of fake or even real-life force resist the pressure coming from the aura that suddenly expanded? The latter came from behind the four and so could only come from the elder, but still, until all the undead in view did not fall, Wu Guang and the rest did not turn around.
When they did, they found out that the elder had seemingly finished what he was doing as he indeed was the owner of the aura, and what an aura... At least a late-stage Soul cultivator one!
"The amulet was corrupted. I cleansed it. The bodies returned to their natural, dead state. We will leave now"
The elder said in his now far more likable monotonous voice. Well, likable to the ones involved in the incident, after all, the aura had saved them from having to fight the rest of the undead.
"Elder, if I may... Don't we need to bury the bodies?" Kuang Jing asked without much thinking as if it was natural for him. Granted, the corpses of people that fought for the island to be buried with honor and not simply left like this, but the question felt far more intimate than just simple worry about the right treatment.
"No need. I will notify a monastery. They will cleanse and bury everyone. Their alive family members will also be invited. To attend the ceremony" Unexpectedly the elder answered, albeit Wu Guang expected that in truth he would simply shrug off such questions.
"Thank you Elder" Kuang Jing bowed. From his tone, it could be understood that he had personal reasons for asking this. And it truth he had. Nobody except a few elders could recall it, but the Kuang family had lost several members who answered the call of the island powers during that beast tide. Between such losses were the several uncles and the Kuang family patriarch of that time, Kuang Jing's grandfather.