Academic gathering with a lich-Chapter 165 - 158 The Bizarre and the Language of the Dead
They had been careless, their long-time brutalization of the weak leading their nerves down a dark path. They were bloodthirsty, yet foolish. They had failed to closely examine the wounds on the horses—wounds far greater than those caused by crossbow bolts—and they had ignored the black blood flowing on the ground. They were merely searching for those three lads scurrying away like rabbits, with nothing else in their bloodshot eyes even as the black nooses tightened around their necks.
Nia stood in the woods like a tree. Her branches were smeared with sinful blood, soaking the soil. With the faint light filtering through the leaves bestowing her, she resembled an eerie yet sacred cross, offering the last reprieve to the mortally sickened sin.
This was merely the inner thoughts of the three hiding behind the bushes, for the scene was too shocking; even after a quarter of an hour, none wanted to emerge, and definitely not out of fear. Especially when Nia’s gaze swept over them, the bushes where they crouched noticeably trembled.
"Lyle, did you just shiver? Look at you, scared by your own shadow," one teased.
"Pah, it was clearly Kevin who nudged me; it’s him who shivered! You have to be considerate of the frail noble lad."
"That’s slander; it was obviously William who nudged me! I’m the one who hunts regularly, strong as an ox, unlike this delicate mage, with his thin and feeble arms," Kevin retorted.
"I did not tremble! I... I was just thrown off by my own rampant Magic Power. Yes, that’s right, I was too excited! Look, it’s all its fault." Kevin presented his palm, frozen halfway by a chunk of ice.
"It’s just a disturbance from my powerful Magic Power," he insisted.
Until the end, the three lads all felt ashamed before they finally stepped out of the bushes together.
Turning back, Kevin said, "Remember, Lyle, we weren’t scared; it was all William’s Magic Power interference."
Lyle turned as well, "Remember, William, we weren’t scared; it was all your Magic Power interference."
William turned to find nobody there.
He lifted his palm with the ice chunk, "It’s all your fault."
"Gurgle! Nia is the best!" Nia excitedly flung the last corpse hanging from her tentacle, a man with a scarred face, his blood spurting out as if it cost him nothing. Nia was like waving an opened bottle of champagne.
"Enough, stop, put it down—you’re the best!" Lyle soothed Nia, and only then did the three approach.
Lyle knelt down, beginning to examine the corpses.
The cause of death was excessive blood loss from the carotid artery, and perhaps there were those who had suffocated too. Lyle wasn’t sure, as one poor fellow’s neck was twisted like a rope.
Their faces were haggard, eyes still full of terror, their skin rough and reeking with a sour smell, indicating they had been active outdoors for quite some time, the blood in their eyes congested. But if it had been merely suffocation, it should have been more than that. Looking into their eyes, Lyle felt he was missing something but couldn’t remember what.
"Kevin, come take a look." Lyle called over the squad’s lucky star, pointing at the robbers’ eyes, "Kevin, can you spot any issue? I feel like I’m missing something."
Kevin leaned forward, his hand stroking the slightly curled beard on his chin. After pondering, he had an epiphany, "I got it, Lyle, they resemble you!"
Lyle’s expression darkened in an instant, "Are you asking for a beating, brother?"
"I mean, they are just like you used to be. Remember the final exam at the end of the second year at Eiffel?"
"I do, the time I stayed up for three days and nights cramming, and my total scores tied with yours because you guessed the answers," Lyle recalled.
"The focus isn’t on the exam results; it’s that you had stayed up all night. Notice this person’s dark circles? It’s like he smeared coal ashes under his eyes. They must have also gone without sleep, even longer than you used to. That’s the crux of it."
"The crux is why these desperate thugs licking blood from the edge of their knives would choose to go without sleep. What were they staying up at night to guard against?"
Kevin shrugged, "Who knows? Heaven knows, the earth knows, he knows, I don’t; after all, the dead... hold on," Kevin paused, a realization dawning, and he looked at Lyle.
Lyle said the next words, just as he had expected.
"The dead do speak."
Under the influence of the sinister spells and the cold magic power, these souls that had plunged into hell were conscripted once more.
The body that had become emaciated due to blood loss twitched, and as the bones inside crackled and popped, the scar-faced bandit rose again.
He looked around with his dry eyeballs, his gaze resting on Lyle, not like the bodies Lyle had revived before with their abnormal vitality, this corpse seemed more like an idiot, or rather a patient who had received severe mental trauma.
"How many of you are there left?"
The corpse’s teeth clacked noisily, and a piece of severed tongue fell out of its mouth.
"Fifty, sixty?" The strange corpse spat out in Emo, luckily Lyle was a top student in Necromancy and it didn’t affect normal communication.
"Why aren’t you sleeping at night, what are you afraid of?"
The corpse lowered its head, mumbling like a mosquito, and just as Lyle was about to lean in to listen, the corpse, as if out of control, lunged at Lyle, but was swiftly pierced by Nia’s tentacles, the straight tentacles pinning it to the ground, where it writhed in continuous frenzy, "Mad! All mad! The sky’s mad! The land’s mad! The animals are mad! The people are mad! Hamlet! Mad! We’re all mad, all going to die!"
The scar-faced corpse’s features began to distort, and with a loud bang, its head became like an exploded watermelon.
The headless corpse immediately became docile, turning into a puppet in Lyle’s hands.
"Lyle, are you okay, what happened? You look quite shocked?"
"The corpse’s head, it exploded!"
Kevin covered his mouth in surprise, "I thought that was normal? I thought you made it explode."
"How could I? Didn’t you hear that string of madness he just uttered? He lost control."
"Madness? But I couldn’t understand what he was saying, all I heard were dark, bizarre syllables."
"Sorry, I forgot, you don’t understand Emo."
Kevin, puzzled, approached William, "Do you Mystics also have to know a foreign language?"
William shook his head, "I don’t know any foreign language, magic itself belongs to humans. But it’s not surprising that Lyle knows the Language of the Dead, he is a Necromancer after all, often dealing with the dead. Emo is probably just another name that Necromancers have for the Language of the Dead. After all, no one wants others to know they can talk to the dead."
"The Language of the Dead? Emo?" Lyle’s eyes widened as he stared straight at William.
"You mean you don’t know? The spells and language you recite are all in the Language of the Dead. Legend has it, every living being belongs to their own realm, with their own language. But once they die, they all belong to the Goddess of Death, and the dead are classified together. The Language of the Dead is the language the Goddess of Death teaches her subjects. No matter where you were born, when you die, your soul will take up the Language of the Dead as your mother tongue, while the languages you learned in memory will become second or third languages. The Language of the Dead, imbued with the magic power of the Goddess of Death, will draw any living being who recites it closer to death."
"This is all information I’ve collected through various channels, after all, my friend is a Necromancer. And yet, you didn’t know? You should know that the so-called Emo can affect your body."
Lyle knelt on the ground, this information even more bizarre than the earlier shock he had experienced.
"Mr. Dragon never told me these things. Emo is the first official language of Andrey..."
