Eternal Thief

The arrival of the Evernight Council spelled certain doom for the Corpse Clan, as without any excessive dialogue, they started to slaughter the members of the Corpse Clan and plunder their established territories without any mercy.

The Corpse Clan wasn’t a pushover either, as at the start, they resisted, but the highest cultivators within their clan were still Half-Abyssal Kings. But in front of just a single Evernight King, the Half-Abyssal Kings of the Corpse Clan fell like flies.

The members of the Evernight Council were extremely cruel, and they didn’t care about negotiations; they only wanted to claim the Undead Cradle for themselves.

For the first time since their existence, the Corpse Clan suffered terribly, and the irony of all that was that they had probably brought this calamity on themselves by performing that ancient ritual.

At that moment, the Corpse Clan really wished they could turn back time and kill all those guys who weren’t content with the safety of their home and wanted to experience the broader world.

Moreover, if the outside world was filled with experts like the Evernight Council, then they should’ve been content while living peacefully in the Undead Cradle.

Yet those old guys with almost endless lifespan were going mad and in search of freedom, they called forth a calamity which ended their miserable lives, which in a sense was a morbid relief for some of them.

Anyhow, the Evernight Council was very efficient, as if they had done this countless times, and within a few days, they claimed over 80% of the Undead Cradle.

However, even the Evernight Council hasn’t thought that the Corpse Clan still has a trump card, the Undead Boundary!

The Undead Boundary has always been considered the birthplace of the Corpse Clan and was their sacred site. Before the arrival of the Evernight Council, only the highest-ranking members of the Corpse Clan were allowed to cultivate here and considered it their holy ground.

But facing the threat of extermination, the Corpse Clan took every surviving member and whatever they could salvage and retreated into the safety of the Undead Boundary.

However, at the start, even the Corpse Clan wasn’t sure if the Undead Boundary could really resist an Abyssal King, but having nowhere else to flee, they placed every last bit of hope in their ancestral grounds.

In the end, it didn’t disappoint them, and even when three Evernight Kings of the Evernight Council joined forces to attack the Undead Boundary, they failed to even place a crack on it.

Moreover, one of the Evernight Kings seemed to be extremely overbearing and unwilling to give up, and in his rage, he constantly attacked the Undead Boundary for many nights.

That time was the most desperate period within the lives of the Corpse Clan, and filled with despair as they thought the Abyssal King would succeed at any moment, but despite everything, the Evernight King failed!

This not only brought the Corpse Clan great sense of relief and provided them with a ray of survival, but also thwarted the Evernight Council’s plans to claim the entire Undead Cradle, especially since the core of the secret realm was protected within the Undead Boundary.

Ever since that day, the Corpse Clan shut themselves within the borders of the Undead Boundary, and no one dared to go out as the Evernight Council was eyeing them like bloodthirsty beasts.

The Evernight Council not only sent some of their most powerful Abyssal Rune Crafter in the hope they could find a way to destroy this damnable barrier, but they also used puppetry arts to possess powerful puppets so they could kill the surviving members of the Corpse Clan.

However, they had greatly downplayed the Undead Boundary’s prowess as it could not only stop any living being from intruding inside, but anything related to the ’living’, like their abyssal or spiritual marks, would be removed even if they used some lifeless puppets to come inside.

This lasted for almost a hundred years, and in this time, the Corpse Clan greatly recovered their vitality, while the Evernight Council grew impatient and finally decided not waste any more of their resources on this failed endeavor.

This also led to the first negotiation between the Corpse Clan and the Evernight Council.

Although the Corpse Clan was afraid at first, they knew that even if the Evernight Council wanted to trick them into coming out, they could only kill a few members of the negotiation party.

After all, as long as the Undead Boundary exists, the Corpse Clan would never perish, and even though some of the old monsters of the Corpse Clan were crazy, they weren’t mad enough to kill their own race.

If someone has such a crazy thought about seeking freedom, they can also just go outside and kill a few of the members of the Evernight Council before perishing, making their lives meaningful.

The Evernight Council has also realized this point and decided not to do anything, no matter how much they hate doing it, so the negotiation went without a hitch.

In the end, the Evernight Council offered the Corpse Clan ’nominal membership’ within the council and declared them the ’protectors’ of the Undead Secret Realm, which should be turned into a ’training ground’ for the Evernight Council members.

Although the Corpse Clan knew this was just an empty title that the Evernight Council had given them to make the latter feel better about their failure, the Corpse Clan still accepted it.

Because as long as the Corpse Clan accepted this title and certain conditions, they can finally come out of the confinement of the Undead Boundary, and regain their lost territories.

However, the Evernight Council’s conditions were also harsh, one of them being that the Corpse Clan could never kill a member of the Evernight Council, while those members sent here to train could kill the Corpse Clan members as long as they found them. But they can flee if they have the capabilities.

Moreover, the Corpse Clan also has to provide the Evernight Council with an extremely precious and unique material that is only developed within the Undead Boundary in high quantity every decade. Lastly, the Corpse Caln can never leave the Undead Cradle.

Although the Corpse Clan absolutely hates the Evernight Council’s guts and wanted to turn them into their Corpse Puppets, they had no power to resist this terrifying enemy, so they accepted and became one of the Evernight Council’s vessels!