Pioneer Lord: Starting From Daily Intelligence

Chapter 930: Chapter 121: Death Choir and the Decisive Victory Over the Undead Legion

Night Wanderer Corpses—aside from Old Jasper, that Legendary Level Undead Mage, and their corpse champion, Muhawa—the most crucial of their number are the Corpse Demon Envoys!

Before the Night Wanderer Corpses reach any given settlement, a figure clad in motley rags will appear. They dance along the road, their limbs jerking like a puppet with its strings cut. Ancient bells jingle and chime, every movement punctuated by a rhythmic crackling. This silhouette will sometimes draw behind it a trail of eager children, following in its wake in search of where the performance will begin. Sooner or later, it will reach the town’s heart—and there unveil its true face.

This figure is their Envoy. It will push back the broad brim of its hat, revealing a skeletal grin. Eyes glint in the light of Morse Rib, peering out from a face stripped clean of flesh. Then it bows, extends a hand, and delivers its ultimatum: ”Surrender your dead.”

This strain of Corpse Demon has earned the title of Envoy. The Night Wanderer Corpses never lag far behind them, and sometimes one can see the Envoys dancing at the very front of the procession. Their strange, twitching movements set them apart from the rest of their stumbling comrades. Beyond bearing messages, they never speak, nor do they ever cease their dance, forever beckoning passersby to join. There are many tales of those who accepted that invitation—and even more of those who refused.

The Envoys do not always dance alone. At times they appear among a town’s graves, and the dead will claw their way out to join them. The Envoys lead these corpses in a grotesque Morris dance around the settlement. It is said that such a spectacle can empty a settlement in a single night, the living abandoning their homes and leaving their dead behind for the Night Wanderer Corpses to plunder.

Their tactics are simple, depending on the size of the Night Wanderer Corpses’ host. The Envoy enters the settlement ahead of the main force. If the Envoy is slain, Jasper will steer the Night Wanderer Corpses toward a safer target. His aim is to gather as many Envoys as possible. He has no interest in engagements that do not favor him.

When their strength is intact, the Night Wanderer Corpses fight through sheer numbers. The mass of lesser Undead marches at the fore, clearing a path for Jasper.

He always prioritizes reaching graveyards. He has Zombies and Skeletons sow chaos within the settlement while he himself directs his hearse toward any possible graveyard or cemetery. Settlements that surrender to the Night Wanderer Corpses generally suffer no further harassment. The Night Wanderer Corpses will pass through, take away the dead, and leave the living who keep their doors barred unmolested.

When conflict is unavoidable, the Night Wanderer Corpses wear down their foes with waves of lesser Undead. The Life Energy of Zombies and Skeletons swells as the hearse draws near. Unusual for an Undead Mage, Jasper prefers, where possible, not to squander his minions’ existences; when greater threats present themselves, he sends his cheaper Undead Creatures and the corpses from mass graves to the front.

Thus, when a tide of Undead Monsters rose up behind Su Li, he paused in brief contemplation and concluded that the dark force at work here could only be the Night Wanderer Corpses. For wherever an Envoy and the hearse pass, a great mass of Undead Monsters inevitably follows in their wake.

Su Li did not stop to fight, but pressed on, precisely because those trailing Undead confirmed that the direction of his pursuit was correct.

When the horrific chorus began, his certainty only hardened.

And the ones performing this dreadful chorus were a special troop of the Night Wanderer Corpses—the Death Choir.

The Mole Knights in the party recognized this infamous, Undying and Unyielding nemesis at a glance!

”Damnable Death Choir! This time I’m going to wipe them out to the last! They’re our mortal enemy, Lord, you must not let these baleful bags of bones slip away!”

”Another of your mortal enemies?” Su Li clicked his tongue. ”You Mole Knights really have quite a few nemeses. What’s their story?”

This Mole Knight’s deranged state was little better than Demster’s. He was that very Elite Knight, Otus Sizik, who had engaged in Divine debates with the Territory’s Dawn Nuns.

He immediately launched into a teeth‑gritting explanation: ”Most Undead summoned from mass graves cannot persist for long. Usually, they’re nothing more than accidental by‑products of an Undead Mage’s summoning Magic, doomed to collapse in on themselves within a few hours. But the Death Choir is an exception.”

”Wherever the Night Wanderer Corpses go, these clusters of yellowed, cracked skulls follow, borne aloft on a swelling tide of clacking bones, serpent‑like spines, and spider‑rib cages. The skulls never cease their rattling song, chanting eternal elegies to Mole in ceaseless mockery.”

”Jasper first summoned the Death Choir in a Bone Hall outside the West Highlands. This little Church of the God of the Dead had, for generations, been the resting place of his faithful. Their bones adorned its walls, their skulls kept watch over Mole’s worshippers.”

”But over many years the small Church was abandoned, reclaimed by the Rickwald Forest. Mole’s protection gradually faded, and slowly the chapel became nothing more than a local curiosity. Scholars from the West muttered about its architecture, while children competed to dare a night within its walls. Until those skulls heard Jasper’s bell.”