Xyrin Empire-Chapter 719: The Story of an Old Skeleton

Time flies, a rather large unit of measure, but it doesn’t detract from my reflections on the beautiful moments that quietly slip away.

While we were busy quelling violence, saving the world, maintaining peace, and protecting the people of Fantasy Country from the perils of flood and fire, the joyous carnival was silently nearing its end. Sandora and I hurried back, sometimes so quickly that we didn’t even finish our farewell meal in Fantasy Country (truth be told, I had finished, but Sandora felt she hadn’t had her fill), only to face the awkward situation that the carnival was already on its last day.

At this moment, I strongly despised the unequal passage of time between worlds. Just a few days had passed—how had the carnival ended so quickly... Oh, indeed quite a few days had gone by.

The various activities during the festival had ended, and today was basically the day for visitors from each world to pack up and go back to their own homes and find their own mothers. The fifteen-day festival had fully satisfied their craving for diverse experiences, experiences that are rare or even only depicted in literature in their own worlds. The amazing lives they heard about from friends from sibling worlds left them still wanting more after half a month of celebration, even wishing the carnival would go on indefinitely—the organizing committee did receive quite a few proposals and documents from the people of the Macro World, suggesting that the carnival should just never end and that making Shadow City a perpetual celebration paradise, even a true "Heavenly City," was the right path. Qianqian supported this wholeheartedly with both hands and feet, but Sandora and I still had to treat it as a beautiful fantasy.

If it’s already so chaotic on regular days, imagine celebrating the New Year every day. Just imagine how many city managers would die given the rowdy bunch I oversee, constantly in trouble and causing smoke. The Imperial Main Army would probably have to allocate a division’s worth of soldiers to form a City Management Team!

However, even though it’s the last day, it’s still the carnival period, and the slight quietness in certain venues doesn’t affect the overall festive atmosphere from fermenting further in Shadow City. Yesterday’s visitors from Fantasy Country arrived in Avalon, and under our personal leadership followed by Artemis’s guidance, they got a good grasp of the environment on the "Mysterious Side headquarters" of the Empire and expressed immense satisfaction with their new home. So many demons, in need of a place to stay, teleported over through the World Gate at Boli Shrine last night, registered, and then settled in the town next to the Fairy Forest (that unnamed small town has now been tentatively named Demon Territory. I don’t know who came up with the name, but it definitely didn’t take the namer more than a second). Meanwhile, several curious demons began wandering around Shadow City, eagerly observing the bizarre spectacles of "another world," seizing the tailbone of the carnival to appreciate the novel life and bustling atmosphere they had never before experienced. Boli Lingmeng, riding on the coattails of her shrine and identity, took the opportunity to serve as a committed tour guide, leading her fellow villagers all over the place based on her past experience of working in Shadow City, seemingly planning to make a hefty sum out of this opportunity. With the carnival drawing extraordinary crowds, the densely populated urban areas had reached a level of congestion that any statistician would find infuriating. The new group of demons quickly blended into the vast sea of people, their obviously new faces and rookie questions did not attract much attention. In summary—

Beginning from seven-thirty in the morning, the committee of Shadow City started to receive a crazy surge in reports of lost children and adults.

I always feel that Ling Meng’s presence in this world is just to lower the average decency of my grand Empire’s citizens. Can she not occasionally do something beneficial for me?

Additionally, considering it’s impossible for Sandora and me to personally lead every immigrant from Fantasy Country on a tour, the tour guide teams organized by Artemis before have now started their work. The residents from Fantasy Country arriving in this world are getting familiar with it under their leadership. Today is their first day on the job, and I don’t know what these tours, led by the Heroic Spirit gunmen, will ultimately turn into, but the cases involving Cu Chulainn and Leonidas reported by Artemis yesterday seem reassuring: maybe after a personal string of bad luck, they might end up bringing good fortune to their mission.

Given my personality, although it’s regrettable that I couldn’t enjoy the carnival to the fullest, having completed such an exhausting expedition, it seemed more worthwhile to lie down at home and rest for a full day. After all, "The Leader’s indisposition requires rest" is one of the few reasons that could legitimately excuse me from giving a closing speech at the ceremony. But contrary to my wish, this morning, just after eight, I was dragged out of bed by an energetic girl—the reason was to accompany her shopping.

Qianqian was full of resentment for being alone during the joyous days of the carnival and not being able to make mischief with her lover. Knowing this, even though my soul, inclined to idleness, was still yawning deep down, I happily joined Qianqian and ventured out.

Because I knew that with this girl’s personality, if I ever showed signs of fatigue, she would definitely pout and insist I go home to rest—even if she felt aggrieved or regretful about it. Though seemingly thick-headed, Qianqian is a kind-hearted girl who cares about others. It’s just that she’s usually oblivious and doesn’t notice her surroundings.

Hand in hand with Qianqian, we walked through the bustling festival grounds. Apart from Dingdang, who was busy with her third post-meal candy in her pocket, no one else followed us. We moved through the crowd like any ordinary young couple, and it was hard for anyone to imagine the shocking identities behind such a pair. Along the way, we saw street magicians, watched circus acts, bought barbecue, ate candied hawthorns, blew up balloons, shot air guns, appreciated the Bianberu people and the Skytopians co-hosting a fancy billiard game (I really felt for those heavy iron balls—their interests were just too bizarre), and even bought two sugar figures from Kaos’ stand. After a while, I vaguely felt like I wasn’t accompanying my girlfriend on a date but taking out a daughter for a fun day—it was just so youthfully refreshing to be out with Qianqian.

After wandering around for a while, we reached an area with noticeably fewer people and stopped.

The scarcity of visitors here was because this was the domain of Azeroth’s Forgotten. Thanks to the Empire’s propaganda, citizens of the Macro World didn’t utterly reject the Dead Souls, but to be honest, this didn’t mean that ordinary people could accept living with a bunch of skeletons, zombies, and ghosts. During the festival, the pavilions of the Forgotten always had fewer visitors, except for the performance artists, those who sought curiosities, and visitors from worlds without humanoid creatures.

Of course, for the Forgotten, who were once feared as fierce beasts and described in textbooks as utterly dark, deceitful, bloodthirsty, prone to robbery, murder, grave-robbing, theft, breaking up families, destroying marriages, polluting the environment, indiscriminate logging, bullying female classmates, letting the air out of bicycles, and putting caterpillars in the teacher’s chalk box, their current life of no longer being shunned and even having living friends was no small feat. They were, after all, a race adept at enduring loneliness. Even if their pavilion had few guests during the fifteen days of the festival, it didn’t affect their enjoyment of the holiday festivities. Activities like soaking their ribs in ion-calcium vitality water, planting mushrooms on Abominations, or throwing their arms out to tease Zombie hounds were all excellent entertainment programs they indulged in.

I think I knew why there were so few people here.

Ahem, anyway, what I wanted to say was that I came across a familiar "person" while I was there, although I didn’t recognize him at first.

He was an Undead wearing the wide cloaks common in Azeroth, tall with a very skeletal frame. Judging by the exposed head, he was a skeleton. By his side was a very small and shriveled zombie that caught mine and Qianqian’s attention, mainly because the little zombie was actually dressed in a brand new dress. It was uncommon for the Undead to care about their appearance since theoretically, they could only expect their looks to degrade further. But this little zombie was obviously groomed with care.

This odd pair stood in front of a stall selling mushrooms from the Dark City, with the former educating the latter about different types of mushrooms. It seemed they hadn’t heard our approach.

A somewhat blurred name emerged in my mind, becoming clearer as I took in the odd coupling of the two Forgotten before me. Finally, with some uncertainty, I spoke up, "Zaken?"

The large skeleton, who was introducing mushrooms to the little zombie, shuddered. I could hear his ribs rattling from the first to the twenty-fourth rib before he slowly turned around. At last, I saw his face—or rather, his lack of one. Damn it, I still didn’t recognize him. You can’t blame me, though. In this world, the only people who can distinguish two skeletons by their faces are medical graduates and the dead, and I’m neither.

But this did not affect my certainty of his identity, the mere fact that he responded to my greeting proved that he was indeed that Skeleton Warrior named Zaken whom I met in Tirisfal while I was wandering about with Anwina. He was the first Forgotten One I had encountered.

I remembered those unforgettable years spent living with issues like air pollution and declining water quality in Circle City, and this called Zaken, a hot-blooded Skeleton Soldier who lived with his soulless Zombie daughter.

I had always thought he was dead: before the war of salvation had begun, the Forgotten Ones’ camp had already suffered heavy losses due to the early betrayal of Valimas. When Sylvanas desperately escaped the city, the survived warriors around her couldn’t even make up a standard legion. Zaken was just an ordinary Skeleton Warrior, and he stubbornly took his soulless daughter with him; it seemed impossible for him to have survived that kind of battle. free𝑤ebnovel.com

"But luck favored old Zaken, Your Majesty," the Skeleton Soldier’s jaw clacked up and down, and a little box tied around his neck emitted a somewhat hoarse but clear synthetic voice, "Nina and I escaped from the ’sewers’ you mentioned, hiding ourselves in a collapsed grave that had already been checked by Ghouls. We did not surface until after the war of salvation had begun and were rescued by a Human patrol that had ventured deep into enemy territory. Old Zaken participated in the war of salvation, losing only a rib and a half."

I noticed that Zaken proudly lifted his head when he spoke of his participation in the war of salvation. This was a gesture shared by every warrior who had survived the meat grinder of the war of salvation’s battlefield, even those who had merely been responsible for cooking were treated as legendary heroes who had saved the world, not to mention this old Skeleton likely crossed blades with Variant Demons on the front lines.

The unexpected reunion made me somewhat reflective. I remembered that my initial meeting with Zaken had not been very pleasant—I had even kicked off quite a few of his bones. Now he had become one of my citizens, which made me marvel at the whims of fortune. Zaken’s Little Zombie daughter stood by his side, mute, her swollen yellow eyes unblinkingly staring this way. She was Zaken’s daughter, the "voice" when he spoke, though devoid of consciousness, the old Skeleton always treated her as alive and proudly declared to everyone that his daughter was a good child who could do many things for her dad. In the blink of an eye, two to three years had passed, and Zaken had started using a Spiritual Harmonic Electronic Voice Strip produced by Imperial Yangming Small Appliances—probably rendering the Little Zombie’s role to nothing more than an ay tag-along for the old Skeleton.

I had to admit, it was truly difficult for me to feel concern for a Zombie, but Zaken clearly regarded Nina as the apple of his eye. Noticing my gaze, the old Skeleton gently pressed his daughter’s skull, who, with an unchanging rigid expression, reflexively blinked.

...Blinked!

I immediately looked at the Skeleton before me with a bewildered expression. If my memory served me right, this Little Zombie had lost her soul long ago due to a very weak spirit; her movement was entirely dependent on Zaken’s Mind Control. If that was the case and Zaken was still controlling Nina to blink in response to him – had the psychological pressure over time finally caused the great father to develop a mental deviation, turning into a twisted daughter-con? The world was truly terrifying.

"Please don’t look at me with those eyes," the old Skeleton shook his head; I couldn’t discern any expression from his calcium-rich face, but his tone was slightly downhearted, "Nina, call the King."

The Little Zombie stood there woodenly for a moment, then spoke in a slow, hoarse voice: "Your Majesty."

I looked at Old Zaken with an even more bizarre expression.

"Cough cough, Your Majesty, actually, I wanted to say that Nina is recovering her memory..." The old skeleton spoke with an awkward but unmistakable tone of joy, "Her soul is returning!"

"This is the best gift Old Zaken received after death, my Nina is coming back... Yes, her soul has revived, this is a blessing of the Goddess! After the war in the Kepulu Star Zone ended, Dark City welcomed Archbishop Lilina’s Temple Knights, who were invited by the Dark Queen to solve the persistent problem of our own decay, but then an accident happened—of course, now I think it was the will of the Goddess guiding us, a drop of Holy Water fell on my Nina’s head! At that moment I panicked, thinking my fragile daughter couldn’t handle such a surge of Life Power and would be purified by the Life Divine Power into a puff of smoke, but..."

"Then, did she regain consciousness?" I asked eagerly, interested in this uplifting story, but I didn’t dare tell him that the so-called Holy Water was actually Dingdang’s bathwater diluted a hundred times over.

"No, the situation wasn’t that good at the time, but that night, I discovered that Nina was gradually walking towards me without any directive from myself... I didn’t know what was happening, but the Archbishop guided Old Zaken, saying, ’Follow the Goddess, and you’ll eat well, drink well, have power, and won’t even need change for parking your bicycle.’ I feel this is Lady Goddess making an exception for an undead creature, and since then, I have believed in the Life Goddess..."

At this moment, I was stunned, and with a gaze almost worshipful, I began to give Zaken a baptism by gaze, a victory for some mischievous Priestess, that magical girl had actually developed a follower among the undead! And using such a ridiculous method of persuasion...

"I began to pray to the Goddess, as an undead, begging the Life Goddess to grant my daughter a new life. The Abomination next door always mocked my unconventional faith, saying that one day my own belief would burn me alive, that the pure Life Goddess would bestow blessings on a filthy skeleton only if she had the leisure to go out of her way to bless a bunch of cave mushrooms, but the next day that Abomination was covered in mushrooms, and so I prayed even more fervently—this was indeed effective, after each prayer, my Nina became a bit more vibrant, her soul was gradually being restored by the power of the Life Goddess, and after two years of devoted offerings, it wasn’t in vain, I got the best reward in the world: Nina learned to call me daddy again. I have to say, this time she learned much faster than when she was a child, haha..."

The Skeleton Soldier laughed hoarsely, with a voice not very pleasant and mixed with a lot of high-calcium noise, but it was certainly the most sincere sound. The Little Zombie next to him still looked dazed, occasionally shaking her head uncertainly, as if she didn’t understand why her father was so happy. Looking at this undead father and daughter, for some reason, a sudden feeling of satisfaction arose within me.

Anyway, it seemed that my efforts had truly helped quite a few people.

But suddenly I remembered a pretty important question, although I knew this question was a bit tricky, curiosity made me ask anyway, "So, Zaken, when you prayed... did you include your name and address at the end?"

Zaken was suddenly stunned, "Ah? Name and address? Why should I include that?"

At this moment, I didn’t know whether to tell him that in theory, Nina’s recovery had nothing to do with his prayers, it was all the residual effects of that drop of Holy Water which was just at the right concentration...(To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian (qidian.com) to give your recommendation votes, monthly votes. Your support is my greatest motivation.)

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