Chapter 7

Watcher? What is that? Ang tilted his head, looking at the old lich in confusion.

Ang’s emotion was confusion, but he was a skeleton and his eye sockets couldn’t convey emotions. To the old lich, his action of tilting his head to look at him seemed more like ‘severe’, scaring the old lich so much that he immediately reacted, covering his mouth tightly.

“I didn’t say anything, I don’t know anything.” With his mouth covered, Philin’s voice was muffled, but his originally turbid eyes became bright, as if they were sparkling with hope.

Philin’s inexplicable actions left Ang at a loss, standing there dumbfounded, staring at him.

This ‘dumbfounded’ look, in Philin’s eyes, had another meaning: dissatisfaction, the Watcher was very dissatisfied.

Philin felt a chill, realizing he had lost his composure. He quickly rubbed his cheeks to make his expression and demeanor return to normal, picked up the staff on the ground, tidied his clothes, and finally straightened his back. Although his expression was still somewhat unnatural, it was no longer obvious that he had lost his composure.

Aisk returned from the entrance, surprised, and said, “What’s wrong? Lord Mayor, this is just a child, did you scare it?”

Child? Philin’s heart skipped a beat. He cautiously glanced at Ang, seeing that he had no reaction, and finally breathed a sigh of relief, saying, “Indeed, it is a quiet friend.”

As he spoke, he stepped aside, and in his heart, he roared: Child? His age might be older than your great-great-great-great-grandfather, and you dare to call him a child!!

Philin’s inexplicable actions made Ang somewhat uneasy, and he quickly walked towards Aisk.

Aisk looked at Philin with confusion, not noticing anything unusual, and then turned to Ang, saying,

“Don’t be afraid, Philin is a good person, but there is a soul suppression among the undead. Just get used to it. Enter this door, and inside is the underground city. It’s very safe here, with no predators. As long as you don’t attack others randomly, you can live until your bones rot. Find a place you like and stay there. If you need anything, come find me...”

Aisk rambled on, leading Ang away.

Philin wiped the non-existent cold sweat from his forehead, took a deep breath, but soon showed an excited expression. The Watcher had appeared, the underground city was saved!

If Philin were not a lich who had lived for over a thousand years, if he had not worked at the world’s transit station, he might not have known about the Watcher.

The Watcher is the overseer of the teleportation gate, the observer and guardian of the world. This is not an official term, but a conventional name used by some informed individuals at the world’s transit station, and it has not been acknowledged by the Watcher.

The Watcher does not have a fixed form. Sometimes it is a skeleton, sometimes a zombie, and it can even be a ghost. The common feature is that they all have a magic skin ornament.

The lack of a fixed form indicates that these are not the Watcher’s true form, but projections of consciousness. The powerful Watcher projects its consciousness into a temporary body from elsewhere to observe and protect the world’s transit station.

Due to the body, the Watcher’s strength is not very strong, and it can occasionally be killed by some bored individuals. However, it doesn’t matter, as it is just a temporary body and does not affect the Watcher. On the contrary, those who kill the body will face the Watcher’s wrath.

The most furious incident was when a powerful group of black knights, twelve in total, slaughtered a group of four hundred demon merchants who had been mischievous.

After that, no one dared to kill those unremarkable skeletons and zombies at will, unless the skeletons and zombies initiated the attack. Many people said that the Watcher was likely a projection of the King, otherwise how could it command a whole group of black knights?

Of course, that was almost a thousand years ago. Since the world’s transit station closed, this originally barren and desolate death world gradually returned to its original state.

Without the trade of the Undead Empire, the economy declined, food production decreased, and the population sharply reduced. The remaining people hid in a few underground cities, barely surviving.

And now, they might not even be able to barely survive. The food production in the underground city has been decreasing year by year, and it might not even be able to support the current population of over five thousand. Without a new source of food, the underground city might have to starve to death two-thirds of its population.

This is a terrifying humanitarian disaster, and Philin is doing his best to avoid it. He has sent several batches of messengers to other underground cities to buy food, but all have been rejected.

This is normal. Not only is their underground city short of food, but other underground cities are also short of food. Selling to others would mean starving themselves.

Under normal circumstances, Philin would have initiated a war mobilization, using all the power of the underground city to seize food from others.

However, the Resting Wind prevented this from happening. No underground city could launch a war while facing the Resting Wind.

With war being unfeasible, the last option might be a plague of the undead.

But at this critical moment, the Watcher appeared. What does this mean? It means that the world’s transit station might be reopened.

Even if it is not reopened, with the Watcher’s capabilities, solving the food supply problem would be easy, and they wouldn’t have to resort to the last option.

Thinking of this, hope lit up Philin’s face. The wind element lifted his body, and he floated into the underground city without touching the ground.

Walking through a dim tunnel, the scene suddenly opened up. A slightly sloping slope extended into a vast underground space, with numerous houses carved into the slope, extending along two main roads.

Oil lamps were lit on both sides of the main roads, providing lighting. Various creatures walked and conversed, presenting a bustling scene.

Aisk, who was walking ahead, turned around and said to Ang, “Alright, you’re safe here. As long as you don’t attack others randomly, no one will harm you. So, may your soul rest in peace, see you around.”

After saying this, Aisk climbed onto a wooden cable car and slid towards the opposite cliff. Although he had seen Philin, the underground city had more than one manager, and he still needed to report the situation to other management.

Ang and the small zombie were left behind, looking somewhat lost at Aisk, who was gradually drifting away on the cable car.

The sound of crunching bones echoed, and Ang turned to see a white bone skeleton carrying a wooden basket filled with coal blocks, climbing up the stairs.

The small zombie’s eyes lit up, and it bared its teeth, ready to pounce. In the Sea of the Dead, it went out early and returned late every day to hunt skeletons. After walking all day today, it hadn’t eaten anything and was already hungry and thirsty.

Ang grabbed the back of its collar, stopping its movement. Aisk had repeatedly said, “Don’t attack others,” and skeletons should also count as ‘others’.