Ethan Clark's hunger was growing stronger and stronger, but he knew that if he didn't leave here tonight, Grace Bennett and those few attendants who had escaped from the zombie village would definitely report to the clergy at the church in the nearest town. The next day, those clergy would come to purify this village that had already been cursed by a wizard.

"I must leave here, or I'll surely die." Even as a zombie, Ethan Clark still had his wits about him; he would never just wait here for death.

Ethan Clark had been resurrected by sorcery, and now he was extremely afraid of the purification magic of the clergy. Those priests would also eradicate abnormal beings like him.

Most dark creatures fear sunlight; the warmth of its rays would corrode their cursed bodies. Now, the fallen Ethan Clark was no different.

So, after breaking away from the horde of corpses in the middle of the night, Ethan Clark headed out of the village. He remembered that when he and Grace Bennett had entered the village, there was an abandoned house halfway up the mountain road. If he could hide there, he might be able to escape this disaster.

Ethan Clark's body was now extremely heavy; running was out of the question. He could only trudge forward with heavy, laborious steps.

Finally, before dawn arrived, he reached that dilapidated house. He deliberately searched for a dark basement, and luckily, in the collapsed lower left corner of the house, he found an underground pull ring. With great effort, he managed to open the door.

After dying and being resurrected, Ethan Clark's body had become very stiff. To regain the agility he once had, he would probably need to undergo multiple rounds of magical tempering.

Ethan Clark closed the basement door and struggled to hide in the wine cellar. Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, a series of gurgling sounds came to his ears, and he even felt a cold wind brush past him!

If Ethan Clark were an ordinary human, he would have been scared half to death. But he was a wizard who had studied sorcery for ten years, and had even read through the vast library of the capital; his knowledge was quite extensive.

Now, these things that occasionally whispered gurgling sounds in his ear and made strange little noises in the wine cellar were precisely those lingering ghosts.

These ghosts were called "imps" among the dark races—a kind of lowest-level undead that, apart from scaring people and causing minor mischief, could not actually harm the living, and were even more insignificant than skeletons.

The presence of imps meant that the place was heavy with yin energy. Even when Ethan Clark was human, ten years of sorcery training had made him gradually accustomed to this cold, silent, chilling aura. After becoming a resurrected corpse, he was even more obsessed with this thick yin energy, as if inhaling the fragrance of a woman who stirred his desires!

"Listen up! If you don't want to be purified in broad daylight today, stop your mischief immediately. If you attract even one priest or cleric, we're all finished!" Ethan Clark knew these low-intelligence imps were the most likely to cause trouble. For the sake of his own life, Ethan Clark deliberately used his higher dark creature's authority to intimidate these reckless little things.

These imps were all ghosts, different from Ethan Clark; they had no physical bodies. Although they too could be purified by priests and clergy, they weren't at all afraid of a dark creature who couldn't even touch them.

The imps, with their grinning greenish faces, did not stop their mischief. They continued to float around the abandoned house, making gurgling noises, and a few even tried to sneak outside for another round before dawn.

"Hmph, I don't want to be killed by you idiots." Ethan Clark had originally thought about letting these little things stay, since he was the one who had invaded their territory. But they had no sense of danger at all. To prevent these fools from attracting the clergy, he decided to eliminate these troublemakers.

Because this underground wine cellar had not been opened for a long time, and a murder had once occurred here, the yin energy was extremely heavy. Now, Ethan Clark only needed to use sorcery to draw out all the yin energy, and those imps—who relied on this dark aura to breathe—would instantly vanish into thin air.

Refining death energy meant increasing the concentration of yin energy; conversely, thinning out the yin energy would have the opposite effect. Ethan Clark was a wizard and could refine death energy himself to breathe, but the imps could not.

Ethan Clark deliberately crawled out of the basement and dispersed all the surrounding yin energy. Soon, the concentration of yin energy here was no longer enough for the spirits to survive.

The imps, wailing and shrieking, were like humans who couldn't breathe, crashing about everywhere. Before long, they all turned into mere remnants of souls, and were then absorbed into Ethan Clark's body.

After dealing with all the imps in this abandoned house, Ethan Clark returned to the underground wine cellar. Just as he was about to open the basement hatch, he suddenly felt something drift by, and then a drop of blood fell at his feet. But when Ethan Clark looked around, he found nothing at all.