Chapter 2455

2455 - City of the Dead

Middle Sector 666—Necrofortress Galaxy

Caesar advanced slowly on the soft ground, wearing a black shirt open at the middle that highlighted his elegant muscles, and below, short black trousers reaching above the knee. His hair was short and carefully styled, and his beard was short and pointed… As a general impression, Caesar looked as though he were on a trip to the beach, dressed up to attract the attention of girls.

When he reached a certain spot, he stopped, placed his hands in the pockets of his short trousers, and began looking around at a scene he had seen many times over the past years, yet it still amazed him every time, and still affected him every time.

He was on the undead planet.

No…

The planet did not have Undead as part of the galaxy; rather, the planet itself… seemed like an Undead.

The sky was covered with dense layers of grayish-black clouds that never disappeared and allowed only faint threads of light to pass through, such that even daytime was not much different from night. There was no clear sun in the sky, but merely a pale spot behind the clouds indicating that it still existed somewhere, while the planet's surface remained drowned in a cold gray light that made the colors themselves seem as though they had died long ago.

The air was heavy and humid, carrying the smell of ancient soil and eroded bones, and with every gust of wind, fine atoms of ash spread—it was unknown whether they were the remnants of old fires or bodies that had decomposed thousands of years ago. The trees were still standing, but they were black and twisted without leaves, and some were hollow from the inside, and when the winds passed between their branches, they made sounds resembling whispers and moans more than the rustling of trees.

Even the ground was not entirely still… in some places, the soil swelled slowly and then sank again, as if something beneath it was breathing, while bony fingers sometimes emerged from the cracks before disappearing again. And along the plains, groups of Undead moved without a clear purpose; skeletal structures carrying the remnants of rusted armor, dry corpses that still retained some flesh, and creatures that had died so long ago that it was no longer possible to know their original form.

Faced with that terrifying scene, Caesar sighed and then continued walking at ease, looking around him.

Not far from him, there was an extended sea shore—no, the more accurate description is a giant swamp.

The water was stagnant, dark green, and some dry patches revealed small mountains of moving bones emerging from them. There were also a number of distant islands visible on the horizon—islands that did not seem to be made of dirt and clay like anywhere else… for this was not like anywhere else.

In the vast swamp, incomplete corpses floated on the surface in their places, neither advancing nor retreating. Some stared upward at the sky with their hollow eyes, while others floated face-down… that is, if they still had faces.

Those floating corpses had most likely strayed from their herd at some point and lost their purpose. They might remain in their places for thousands of years until another herd of Undead passed by and they would join it, walking behind the leader as the rest did… without purpose. They did not know where they were going or why, for their ability to think had faded away, and nothing remained but bodies.

"Tsk~" Caesar showed an annoyed expression when he saw a certain scene on the other side—a scene of a small city overlooking what was once a sea.

A city that was neither known to belong to the living nor the dead, and this was perhaps the strangest feature of the planet.

The markets were operating, the broken gates opened and closed, soldiers stood atop the walls, and carts passed through the streets, but most of those doing this work had died long ago, or were on their way to it. Most of them did not know what they were doing, and none of them knew what they were guarding or where they were heading... in plain terms, they were just continuing what they had been doing in their lives.

It was not strange to see a skeleton haggling over a weapon, or a ghost entering a building through the wall instead of the door, or a man sitting in front of his shop while half his fingers slowly turned into black bones. Here, death was not the end of daily life, but merely another stage of it.

As for the most annoying of them, it was the Ghosts without a doubt, who were part of the planet's natural landscape.

They appeared as transparent shadows, often tinted with a glowing green, moving between the buildings, flowing over the roads or passing through walls without anyone paying them any attention. Some retained a clear human form, while others had become nothing more than a blurry mass with a distorted face or two dim eyes. In some areas of the city, the spirits gathered so densely that the fog itself seemed alive, and the whispers overlapped to the point where it was impossible to tell whether the sound came from outside or from inside the listener's own head.

The entire planet was like a giant corpse that refused to decompose; a world that had died long ago, yet something forced it to continue.

But the most dangerous, and the ones who truly must be wary of here… are the transients.

They are those whose transformation is not yet complete, those who came seeking a new lifestyle and escape from their past for one reason or another, who pay large sums to come to this Galaxy, whether intending slow transformation or seeking quick wealth in one of the most mysterious, powerful, and wealthy galaxies, only to end up failing.

They were still breathing, eating, and talking, and some retained a faint warmth in their bodies, but the signs of death had begun to creep over them slowly…

Pale skin leaning toward gray, extremities that had lost sensation, eyes whose colors had begun to fade, and hearts beating once every several breaths instead of their natural rhythm. Some of them looked entirely human from a distance, but approaching revealed that his chest barely moved, or that a deep wound in his body had stopped bleeding without healing.

Caesar spat beside him, "Here we are again…" then headed into the city.