In the night, the stars were shining brightly in the sky.
Mu Bei mountain.
Over hundred years ago, there was a large clan on this mountain.
But a demonic Gu Master changed everything.
He used to be a servant of this clan. At the day of his wedding, his beautiful wife had been seized by a Gu Master of the clan and humiliated to death.
He buried this hatred deep into his heart and as luck would have it, he obtained the inheritance of 'Zombie King', a demonic head.
After enduring hardships for nearly hundred years, with rank five cultivation, he commanded an army of zombies and attacked the clan, slaughtering everyone. He did not spare their corpses, turning them into zombies.
After finishing all this, he erected a huge tombstone in the ruins of the clan.
On the tombstone, he carved his wife's name.
This event shook the whole Southern Border.
This mountain has been called Mu Bei mountain ever since then. Zombies roamed free on the mountain, killing wild beasts or passerbys, absorbing blood as their food. And the ptomaine on them would infect the corpses, producing new zombies.
Like this, there were endless amount of zombies on Mu Bei mountain.
To protect the safety of the trade route, clans organized zombie hunting squadrons every year to clean up these zombies.
But no matter how much they cleaned up, they could not kill all the zombies due to their endless numbers.
After all, the zombie hunting squadrons were limited in size, with so many mountains in Southern Border and dangers in the way, they had to make considerable expenditures for this long expedition. It was a situation where they had to invest a lot but gained less, and even then it was impossible to overturn Mu Bei mountain. As long as a zombie escaped, a zombie army would appear again after a short while. After failing several times even after large scale expeditions, the enthusiasm of the people started to disappear.
...
Ding Hao was originally a villager but was recruited to be a laborer by a passing caravan.
However, the caravan was attacked by a large number of zombies when they were passing through Mu Bei mountain. He was abandoned along with dozens of other servants, as cannon fodder.
While all the other servants died one after another, he ran deep into the mountain in panic. Just when he was driven into a corner, he discovered a cave; none of the zombies dared to approach this cave.
He entered this cave and discovered a demonic inheritance.
As it turns out, this was the hidden inheritance of that demonic Gu Master who killed the whole clan and erected the tombstone in the ruins.
This inheritance was deeply hidden and only mortals were allowed to inherit it.
Ding Hao awakened his aperture in this cave and began to cultivate, passing each test one by one.
He only had C grade aptitude originally, but with the use of a rare Gu in the cave, his aptitude upgraded to B grade.
He concentrated fully on cultivating, and after spending over eight years, he reached rank three realm which was the criteria to enter the final secret chamber.
The final secret chamber contained a stone slab which had an inscription left by that demonic Gu Master: I profess myself as the Second Zombie King. If a fated individual truly arrives here, if you so wish, you can go to Zhao Ze mountain to be my official disciple and follow me to roam the Southern Border.
As the final test, the Second Zombie King required the inheritor to kill thousand people and also raise a large zombie army. There were detailed standards to the test, such as how many white-hair zombies, black-hair zombies and green-hair zombies should be in the zombie army. However, if there was a blue-hair zombie, just one would suffice to meet the condition.
Ding Hao was an honest man and honest people usually had a strong point; they were steadfast.
He cultivated on Mu Bei mountain alone for over eight years. He had to endure the silence and loneliness, having only the zombies as his companions as he cultivated bit by bit to rank three.
He had been a servant who could only be a spectator to the world of Gu Masters, thus he did not understand many things.
During the time of his bewilderment, this inscription on the stone slab no doubt gave him a whole new direction and a goal to strive.
The fact that the Second Zombie King had also been a servant and their backgrounds were similar, resonated even more with Ding Hao's heart.
After reading the inscription, Ding Hao started killing people and amassing his zombie army.
Ding Hao soon realized these two missions actually complemented each other; he could use the corpses of the people he killed to obtain new zombies and the new zombies could thereby increase his strength to kill more people.
Mu Bei mountain was located by one of the three most important trade routes of Southern Border with caravans passing through it every month.
Ding Hao spent another three years of time to reach this point where he was close to accomplishing the mission.
There were caravans of all sizes, some big and some small; Ding Hao could do nothing more than hide far away every time a large scale caravan passed by. He did not dare to attack the mid-scale caravan as well. Only against these small scale caravans, could Ding Hao make his move and secretly command the zombies to attack.
When his luck was good, these caravans would abandon some livestock or servants to flee; when his luck was bad and ran into some tough nuts, the zombies would be slaughtered and inflict great losses to him. At those times, he could only slowly amass more zombies again.
For an entire month, not a single caravan had passed by. The wait made him increasingly restless.
What Ding Hao didn't know was that every caravan scheduled to travel through the area had been attacked by wild beasts—for reasons no one could understand.
Just as he was about to give up and order his zombies to retreat, a sudden and overwhelming sense of danger gripped him.
Looking up, he saw a man hovering in the sky—broad wings spread wide, staring down at him with cold indifference.
Ding Hao's heart sank. He could feel the immense pressure radiating from the figure above.
A Rank 5 Gu Master.
And he himself... was only Rank 3.
From above, Fang Yuan looked down at Ding Hao and spoke calmly: "Wind Blade."
A sharp gust of wind sliced through the air. The attack struck from the side, and before Ding Hao could react, he was decapitated—his head hitting the ground with a dull thud.
Without wasting a second, Fang Yuan landed, seized one of the nearby zombies under Ding Hao's control, and entered the inheritance cave.
Inside, he kindled a small fire.
And there, in silence, he began refining a Gu.