~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday! Thanks!
Troy wasn't there, so Luo Wei didn't dare linger outside. She hurried back to the academy.
She didn't know whether that person was targeting her dessert shop or looking for the person behind it. One thread pulled could unravel everything, and she couldn't afford to let anyone trace a path back to her.
Back in her castle dormitory, Luo Wei pulled the bedding aside and carved a Magic Rune teleportation array directly into the bed board.
Siria was a long way from Demon Island. She wasn't sure she could make the jump from here.
If she could, she'd carve a few more in the courtyard as well.
She bent down and pressed her palm flat against the center of the rune. Light bloomed, and a damp sea breeze pushed up through her hand, scattering the hair at her temples.
Strange. She had completely drained her magic this afternoon. So why had it recovered so fast?
Somewhere along the way, without her noticing, her reserves had multiplied several times over.
Before she could think it through, the activated rune pulled her in and sent her where she wanted to go.
Demon Island.
The sound of axes rang through the distant forest, and the boom of voices echoed through the valley.
Luo Wei spread her wings and climbed above the trees. What she saw below had changed considerably.
The small hillside where the mercenaries had once thrown together leaf shelters now had over a dozen wooden houses. A full row of foundations had been laid beside them, with processed timber stacked and ready, waiting only for the posts to go in.
Her timber mill wasn't finished yet, so every plank had been felled and debarked by the islanders and the Undead themselves — nothing but hands and muscle.
The shift rotation was doing its job. It hadn't been that long, and this place already had the shape of a village.
Further south, she could still hear voices.
Luo Wei flew toward them and found a grassy clearing scattered with small triangular tents. Campfires burned outside, clay pots sitting beside them for cooking the vegetable mash.
More than seventy slaves crouched across the grass, working steadily. What surprised her was that none of them were cutting down trees. They were digging.
These slaves weren't in good shape — heavy labor was beyond most of them, and they had no tools for felling trees and splitting planks anyway. So they'd found another way. They were building with earth.
Luo Wei watched as they used stones to tamp the ground flat, then set a rectangular, bottomless wooden frame on top. One person poured soil in; another pounded it down with a rock. When the earth was packed solid, they lifted the frame away, and what remained was a firm mud brick. Stack them up, repeat.
It was actually faster than building with wood.
She recognized the method. Back in China, the Hakka people had built their sturdy earthen houses exactly this way.
She observed a while longer, then noticed someone was missing.
Where was Zachary Bunyan?
She scanned the area and came up empty. Luo Wei started drifting through the surrounding forest, looking for any Undead idling between the trees. She flew over several patches of woodland without finding a single one. Had they all gone back to the graveyard?
That thought sent her banking toward the mountain cliffs. She'd designated the graveyard on the slope below the rock face.
When she arrived, her frown deepened.
No Undead. Not one. Where had the lazy things wandered off to?
And another thing , it had been over ten days since she'd left Santanlie City. Ten days since she'd talked Zachary into sailing for Demon Island. Even if he'd crawled the whole way, he should have arrived by now. So why hadn't Patrick sent word?
She tried calling Patrick's name in her mind. No answer came, but she got a faint sense of direction.
The sea. She could hear waves under the connection.
She followed the sound south to the coastline, then stopped.
This was where they'd come ashore the first time. She recognized it immediately.
More than twenty boats sat beached along the shore. Every Undead she hadn't found in the graveyard was here, packed dense along the sand.
In the middle of the crowd, a hollow circle had formed. Inside it stood a cluster of necromancers alongside more than a dozen living people.
Luo Wei looked closer. The red-bearded man at the center of those living people , who else could it be but Zachary?
The person she'd been searching for this whole time had been standing here, ringed by Undead, the entire while.
Zachary Bunyan held his arms thrust forward in a rigid, unnatural posture. The whites of his eyes were shot through with red. The tide was washing over his calves, and he hadn't moved an inch.
His men behind him were in worse shape than he was. Their eyes were swollen, dark circles hanging heavy underneath , the faces of people who hadn't slept in days.
Across from them, Patrick stood at the head of seven or eight necromancers. They were perfectly still on the sand, upright and silent, like figures carved from stone.
How long the two sides had been at this standoff, there was no telling. The black sand the tide had crept up with was nearly covering their ankles.
Luo Wei was genuinely surprised. Patrick had been a high-level mage in life. After several hundred years of cultivation, he'd reached the rank of archmage. And he had seven powerful necromancers at his back. All of that, and he still hadn't taken Zachary down?
She was starting to wonder , what exactly did Zachary have up his sleeve that made even Patrick hold off?
Either way, this standoff wasn't getting anyone anywhere. She had a free city-state to build, and half her Undead were standing on a beach doing nothing.
Luo Wei touched down, folded her wings, and walked toward the water.
The beach was thick with black gravel, coarser than regular sand. It crunched faintly under every step.
Zachary's ears moved. His gaze flicked to her for a fraction of a second, then snapped back to Patrick like a bowstring, locked and unwavering.
As far as he was concerned, Luo Wei was less dangerous to him than one of that necromancer's fingers.
The Undead in the outer ring, on the other hand, turned their heads and blinked at her with that slow, vacant curiosity, blue flames guttering in their eye sockets.
[Master...]
Dozens of voices murmured in her ears at once. She gave them a nod, walked through the crowd, and stepped up beside Patrick.
"Mr. Bunyan." Her voice was pleasant. "What exactly is going on here?"
"Squaring up against my people — is that any way for a guest to behave?"
She clasped her hands in front of her and smiled.
Zachary kept his eyes fixed on Patrick, but his cracked, dry lips moved. "Miss Luo Wei, I suggest you start explaining. We agreed this was a delivery. So why are your subordinates trying to take me prisoner?"
His expression was dark. Beneath the gloom sat a sharp, simmering anger , the fury of someone who'd been played. His pine-green eyes burned with it.
He'd spent his life hunting. And now a goose had turned around and pecked out his eye. How was he supposed to swallow that?
Luo Wei laughed softly. "Mr. Bunyan, I think there may be a misunderstanding."
"I never told them to capture you."
Zachary shifted slightly. His pine-green eyes finally moved to her.
So maybe it really was a mistake. Maybe he hadn't made a fool of himself after all.
Meeting his uncertain look, Luo Wei tilted her chin up, her smile easy and unhurried.
"I only told them to take you prisoner. That's all."
➤ Next: I Don't Need Your Forgiveness
───── ⊹ ⊹ ─────
📖 Read up to 300+ advanced chapters on Pat reon
🔍 Search: p a t r e o n(.)com/BZDXG
───── ⊹ ⊹ ─────