Loser System and Berserker Me - Chapter 180: The Insider

“Psh!”

With the sound of splattering blood, a Tibetan envoy dressed in opulent clothes fell from his steed. Disbelief lingered in his eyes even at the moment of his death.

He couldn’t understand why a lofty archmage’s disciple would make a move on him.

I am just an envoy!

“That was a close one!”

After killing the envoy, Weryomahners reached into the envoy’s bag and took out Tsenpo Ling’s handwritten letter. The Tsenpo’s imperial seal was stamped on it.

“That fellow nearly got away.”

Weryomahners, wanting to compensate for her previous mistake by accruing merit, had been trying to stoke the other powers into backstabbing the Anxi army. Otherwise, she couldn’t face her master on her failure regarding the Great and Little Patola.

To her shock, her junior, Tsenpo Ling, had been haphazardly issuing orders for others not to engage with the Anxi army for the time being.

That won’t do! I won’t end well if the Karluks and Beiting’s garrison troops don’t make a move!

So, after Weryomahners discovered the envoy from the Tibetan Plateau, she first probed him for further information before killing him. She couldn’t let Tsenpo Ling get in the way of her plan.

“Junior, it’s not that I want to undermine your authority as the Tsenpo, but you aren’t that good at dealing with such national issues. Let me deal with it on your behalf…”

Weryomahners casually glanced at the content of Tsenpo Ling’s letter.

“…Ah?” she blurted out in shock.

Is the letter’s content true? Can the Tang army expand their army through slaughter?

Doesn’t that mean that as long as we aren’t able to cleanly take them down, any troops we throw at them will only bulk up their numbers?

Weryomahner’s face stiffened up.

It was not long ago that she stoked hundreds of thousands of moles into fighting the Tangs, and the moles fell in defeat…

God knows how many vengeful spirits the Anxi army can conjure out of that many moles!

While the Tibetan Empire was busy curbing the undead army’s growth, she was hurling resources at them!

If my master learns about this…

“Shit!” Weryomahners panicked. She decided to rush back to Suyab to stop the Karluks from mobilizing their troops. “I can only pray that they haven’t made a move yet. Surely those bunch of undisciplined barbarians won’t be able to mobilize that fast! I have to make it in time!”

On her way back to Suyab, Weryomahners noticed that something was amiss.

“Why did the sky suddenly turn dark?”

Looking at the sky, she saw dark clouds converging from afar, and sunlight was swiftly fading. The world was vanishing in the swiftly dimming light of the winter sky.

“Isn’t that the same as what happened in the Western Regions?” Weryomahners murmured.

After fleeing from Great and Little Patola, she passed by the Western Regions and saw the Eternal Blight looming over some of the crucial areas. It was said that the Eternal Blight tended to appear in places conquered by the Anxi Protectorate-General.

Now that the Eternal Blight had appeared in Suyab’s direction too… little needed to be said about the Karluks’ fate!

“Are the Karluks that weak?!” Weryomahners gritted her teeth.

It hadn’t even been that long, but Suyab has already fallen? Are your troops trash?

But Weryomahners couldn’t change reality no matter how angry she was. The Karluks’ Governor Ye and the troops they had gathered were most likely done for, turned into fodder for the Tangs’ undead army.

“It looks like I’ll have to head to Transoxania to seek the help of the High Shaman and the Holywolf Warrior,” Weryomahners growled.

Only such a powerful shaman and troops could stand a chance against the Tangs.

…

Boom!

Yet another Soul Summoning Tower was raised amidst loud rumbles, and a pitch-black fog started to gush into the surroundings. It didn’t take long for the day to turn into eternal night.

An idea had popped into Shu Yichao’s head after he discovered how useful specters were in Suyab’s conquest.

Could I exploit the specters’ ability to conceal in the snow? For instance, I could use the Soul Summoning Towers to further conceal the specters’ advancement.

So, Shu Yichao immediately got into action.

It worked better than he had expected.

White specters camouflaged amidst the snowscape in the middle of winter, with visibility obscured by the darkness of the night… that was practically a nightmare to deal with!

Karluk was not a nation with centralized power; it was an alliance comprising many tribes.

Even though Shu Yichao had conquered Suyab and slaughtered its governor, Karluk nobles, and all of its soldiers, there were still many Karluk soldiers in the grasslands… though none of them wielded the power to resist Shu Yichao’s terrifying army.

“The White Calamity is here!”

“The Black Calamity is here too!”

The Karluks residing in Transoxania had never been in such deep despair before.

The White Calamity and Black Calamity they spoke about usually referred to avalanches and plagues; those could easily take down 70% to 80% of their livestock, sometimes even ending in complete annihilation.

And for nomads, losing their livestock could spell their end.

With little food alternatives, they could either starve to death or attack and plunder their brethren. The latter would lead to widespread infighting, as the tribes slowly wore one another down until they were all destroyed.

It was not a joke that a single calamity could destroy a nomadic nation.

However, the White Calamity and Black Calamity they were talking about now was ten times more frightening than that!

A boundless black fog and an ethereal white fog slowly crept in from the horizon.

The black fog blocked the brilliance of the sun, plunging all beings into the silence of darkness. Chilling snickers echoed in the white fog as it swallowed every living person it enveloped.

Those who encountered the white fog or the black fog were cursed to death. A small handful of people did survive the ordeal, but those people had lost their mental faculties by then.

“Ghosts!”

“It’s the vengeful spirits of the Tang army!”

“The ghosts of the Tangs want to drag everyone to hell!”

The Karluks howled in despair. Terrified, they fled in a fluster with their family members and whatever livestock they had left.

Shu Yichao made his way across the Chu River with ease and crushed every opposition along the way. He proceeded westward to conquer Kulan, and beyond that…

A city he was more familiar with appeared before him—Talas.