“Our matters will be settled later,” I said to the fat man. The row of stone heads gave me an extremely ominous feeling. The fat man surely felt the same; we exchanged glances, and he said, “Then there can’t just be one King of Hell.”

Logically, that shouldn’t be the case. Throughout our journey, I had never heard of multiple Kings of Hell appearing together. However, this row of heads and the fat man’s mention of “these things are fighting corpses” indicated that they were definitely not a solitary species.

I had seen some legendary accounts of fighting corpses in my grandfather’s notes. At that time, the Northern and Southern factions were embroiled in an inseparable conflict in the Yangtze River basin. The first account from the Northern faction described a large-scale murder at a relay station, where the bodies were shattered and the murderer was nowhere to be found. Only on the water side of the relay station were three small boats discovered, each carrying an ancient coffin.

The three coffins were from different dynasties, each with distinct styles, all covered in dirt (the grime that accumulates after being dug out of the mud and allowed to dry). The lids of the coffins were all opened, and the ancient corpses had vanished without a trace.

The tale was quite sinister, claiming that the three coffins were exhumed from various burial grounds and sent to this relay station controlled by the Northern faction, weighted down with copper coins. Then, the people quickly evacuated, and the corpses broke free from their coffins, killing everyone.

The main culprit was of course assumed to be from the South, leading to great anger in the North. This was not only a defeat for their faction but also a significant provocation against their principles. However, the South vehemently denied it, and after a long period of bloodshed, the matter remained unresolved, with countless lives lost.

Later, when the Southern fleet was camped at a crossing, they once again detected the presence of the Northerners, who were disguised and heading into the deep mountains. The Southerners followed them and discovered that the Northerners seemed to have found a large fighting corpse on the southern bank and were preparing to take action. However, this time they noticed that the Northerners were pushing a bull cart along the way, which carried a large iron barrel.

The Southerners ambushed the Northerners and brought the iron barrel back to their camp. Upon opening it, a headless giant corpse emerged and began killing anyone it saw. The Southerners suffered heavy casualties but managed to subdue this corpse king, discovering that its head had been deliberately severed and its body filled with a large amount of a special white sand. Several acupuncture points had been nailed with wooden pegs.

This was a fighting corpse raised by the Northerners, buried in an iron barrel to absorb yin energy. Creating such a fighting corpse often involved numerous sacrifices, whether from one’s own side or the enemy.

These legends now sound somewhat like mythical stories. I had never believed them, and neither did my grandfather, who said the elements of dramatization were obvious and that it was highly likely that later generations had fabricated them for entertainment.

Moreover, encountering a corpse transformation is also a matter of chance. If it weren’t for the peculiar and supernatural nature of the route I was following, my life would make it exceedingly difficult to encounter such a transformation.

In my grandfather’s accounts, he had never foreseen anything that could be called a corpse king. In the old stories, such corpses were generally transformed from ancient warriors, possessing enormous bodies. The chance of a giant coffin associated with a famous warrior appearing in a corpse-raising ground was exceedingly small, and even if it did, practically everyone in reality would instinctively kneel.

I asked the chubby guy if he knew something similar to what I did, but he shook his head and said, “Then your old man is being too arbitrary. Although these stories must be fabricated, the elements within them must have their origins. Although I, Fat Master, don’t have as much experience as your old man, I once witnessed what is called a corpse fighting, and that was a long time ago. However, I had no idea what I was seeing at the time; it wasn’t until years later that someone enlightened me.”