“What?!”
Qi Chaoyang glanced out the window. The sky was clear and cloudless, the air foul as ever. The streets remained filthy and cluttered, completely empty aside from the zombie remains they had just dealt with.
Not a single wandering zombie was in sight.
Relieved, Qi Chaoyang relaxed. “Don’t joke like that—you’ll scare me to death!”
They had already scouted the area before coming. There were around seven hundred zombies left in town; though numerous, their levels were low, which was why only a dozen or so ability users had been sent.
Qi Chaoyang’s ability was nothing like Feng Jinghuai’s, which seemed bottomless and inexhaustible. If another zombie horde hit…
Rubbing his eyes, Qi Chaoyang thought he saw faint clouds of dust rising in the distance. A muted, indistinct thudding echoed as if the very ground was trembling.
Suddenly, an alarm blared frantically:
“Warning! Zombie horde incoming! All personnel evacuate immediately!”
“Warning! Zombie horde incoming! All personnel evacuate immediately!”
“Warning! Zombie horde incoming! All personnel evacuate immediately!”
***
“Holy shit!” Qi Chaoyang cursed under his breath, deploying his weapon as fast as he could.
No matter how one looked at it, this whole situation was utterly absurd.
An anxious male voice suddenly crackled through their earpieces. “Jiang Xu is surrounded by zombies! Get to the marked location immediately for backup!”
Qi Chaoyang was left speechless. Jiang Xu was the primary target of their mission; aside from bringing back supplies, their main objective was escorting him safely back to base.
Feng Jinghuai’s eyes lowered slightly, filled with an indelible chill. Walking past the dumbfounded Qi Chaoyang, he said coldly, “Let’s move. Time to help.”
***
Once outside, Huazhi casually dispatched several zombie animals that closed in on her.
These creatures seemed unusually fascinated by her; every single one that caught sight of her lunged forward, drooling relentlessly. Fortunately, with Little Gray Rabbit’s help, all she had to do was touch them to drain their energy, sending them crashing lifelessly to the ground.
According to the rabbit, however, the more energy a creature had, the longer it took to absorb.
After putting down another leaping beast, Huazhi began to slow down noticeably.
She was exhausted, starving, and fighting off waves of sleep.
Rabbits were nocturnal creatures that slept by day and roamed at night, and she hadn’t eaten anything in days. Even the gods in heaven had to eat, let alone a rabbit spirit who had only recently cultivated a human form.
At the thought, Huazhi’s stomach growled even louder.
The plants she had passed along the way were bizarre and misshapen, their leaves filthy and foul-smelling. The occasional puddles reeked of rot.
[Once we find a base, there will be clean food and water.]
Huazhi nodded, her spirits lifting a little. “As soon as I turn back into a human, I can follow that person to the base.”
Feng Jinghuai’s figure surfaced in her mind. Ever since arriving in this world, everything around her had been filthy, blanketed in a thick layer of gray. Only he had looked completely clean—like an elegant white lotus rising from a swamp. Surely wherever he lived would have clean water and food.
Before finding Feng Jinghuai, Huazhi began to sense that something was wrong. The zombie animals that had been chasing her seemed to have vanished. The road was completely deserted—not a soul in sight, not even a single zombie. It was far too strange.
Her soft white ears swiveled, and her heart-shaped nose twitched before she suddenly leaped onto a high platform.
Down below was a massive, surging horde of zombies.
They moved at incredible speed with shockingly agile limbs, operating on an entirely different level from the sluggish ones she had encountered earlier. Looking closely, she could even see a faint layer of black mist swirling around them.
The Little Gray Rabbit’s eyes went wide. [Huazhi, they have so much energy!]
It quickly pulled up the data panel to show her. [Look! It’s more than fifty times that of those zombie cats from earlier!]
All of this was pure energy. [If I could absorb the energy from these zombies, I could officially boot up!]
In the distance, figures were on the move.
“They’re heading over there too,” Huazhi said anxiously.
Since arriving here, she had only seen two living humans. The Little Gray Rabbit had warned her that humans and animals could be infected if scratched. If those two died as well…
Huazhi gathered her strength and ran in their direction.
By the time Feng Jinghuai and Qi Chaoyang arrived, the rest of the team was already surrounded several layers deep, locked in a brutal struggle against the undead. Having just finished fighting off an earlier horde, everyone was inwardly cursing their luck. The mission was supposed to be straightforward, but no one had expected a second wave of such formidable zombies.
“Ahhh!”
A bloodcurdling scream tore through the chaos.
A heavily muscled man had his entire palm crushed and torn apart by a lunging zombie. Blood sprayed everywhere, the pungent stench of gore and fresh human flesh instantly filling the air. The surrounding zombies let out low, frenzied growls of excitement.
That man was a Tier 2 metal-ability user.
Watching the scene unfold, Qi Chaoyang’s heart hammered against his ribs. “There are several Tier 3 ability zombies in there!” he yelled. “Where the hell did these things come from?!”
In this third year of the apocalypse, humans with Tier 3 abilities were exceedingly rare, and Tier 4 users were virtually unheard of. Yet right before their eyes stood several Tier 3 zombies.
Zombies felt no pain and knew no fatigue. Against one of the same level, it usually took several ability users working together to kill it unscathed. Here, there were at least several dozen, rough estimates suggested, and none were below their rank.
Feng Jinghuai tightened his grip on his Tang sword. He cast a cold glance at Jiang Xu, who, despite being sheltered right in the center, kept unconsciously shielding his left pocket. The item had to be there.
Stepping off a zombie’s head, Feng Jinghuai vaulted straight into the encirclement.
Moving in a blur of speed, he left no time for anyone to track his motion. The moment his feet touched the ground, the heads of the zombies lunging behind him were cleanly severed.
One second they were roaring; the next, heads littered the ground and bodies collapsed in thuds, every cut impossibly smooth and precise.
A breach was torn violently through the encirclement. A sudden hush fell over the area, and even the surrounding zombies hesitated for a few seconds. The only sound was the steady drip of blood from his sword.
Everyone around stared in dumbfounded awe at his terrifying strength. Even Qi Chaoyang couldn’t help but swallow hard.
Once the shock wore off, a wave of excitement swept through the group. They had assumed this would be their graveyard, never expecting such a dramatic turn of events, let alone that an expert of this caliber was among them.
Feng Jinghuai turned to Jiang Xu, his voice icy. “What did you do to lure them here?”
Jiang Xu’s face was still frozen in disbelief, clearly not expecting anyone to cut down those zombies with such effortless ease. “I—”
“What are you standing around for?” Feng Jinghuai cut him off sharply. “Fight.”
Even as he spoke, the nearest zombies were decapitated in a flash, collapsing heavily to the ground.
With their burden instantly lifted and a path to survival clearly in sight, the survivors rallied, focusing all their energy on taking down the remaining undead.
Standing under everyone’s protection, Jiang Xu looked at the sea of fallen corpses with deep, suppressed anguish. Forcing his emotions down, he joined the fight alongside the others.
Seizing an opening, Qi Chaoyang hurried over to dig out a metal-attribute crystal core and shoved it toward the muscular man. “Swallow this, fast. Just remember to pay us back when we get back.”
“Thanks, brother!” The man didn’t hesitate. He gave a quick word of thanks, wiped the crystal core haphazardly against his clothes, and swallowed it whole.
Within moments, a fresh layer of metal coated his body, sealing even the bleeding wound on his wrist beneath a protective metallic shell.
The slaughter continued, but Feng Jinghuai’s presence turned the tide instantly.
Jiang Xu glared at the field of fallen zombies, his eyes burning with venomous fury as he struggled to contain his hatred. He had spent months carefully cultivating these creatures; the remaining Tier 2 zombies only needed to consume this group of ability users to evolve. Yet all that meticulous planning had been utterly ruined by Feng Jinghuai!
Still, if his zombies could eat Feng Jinghuai instead—
Huazhi arrived just in time to see the man in action.
Silhouetted against the sunlight, he cut through the air as swiftly as the wind, bathed in a radiant golden halo that reduced everything around him to mere background. When he turned slightly, the striking profile of his face was breathtakingly handsome.
He landed with effortless grace as a row of severed zombie heads thudded to the ground behind him.
Her red rabbit eyes went wide. Tilting her head up, she stood frozen in place, utterly starstruck. He’s amazing! Just like the legendary Great White Rabbit who could take on a hundred foes alone!
Looking at the heads littering the ground, Little Gray Rabbit grew ecstatic.
[Huazhi, hurry up and touch those heads! The energy is still inside them!]
It had been worried that she wouldn’t be strong enough to fight the zombies in her weakened state, but now she wouldn’t even need to lift a finger. That glowing man truly lived up to his brilliance—he was incredible!
The energy swirled entirely around the zombie’s bruised, blackish-green head, thickening the dark mist. Strewn with severed heads and mangled corpses, the ground was a terrifying, bloody mess.
With a wet thud, another head flew through the air, landing squarely in front of Huazhi.
Its sunken sockets framed bloodshot, bulging white eyes that looked ready to pop out. Needle-thin pupils stared blankly, and a split mouth stretched back to the ears, baring a foul, blackened set of fangs.
The sudden arrival startled Little Gray Rabbit into a shiver. Before it could even react, the head twitched violently and lunged toward Huazhi, snapping its fangs!
[Huazhi, look out—]
Smack.
Huazhi brought her white paw down firmly on the back of the skull, pinning it to the ground.
Little Gray Rabbit was speechless. […]
Still pressing down on the severed head, Huazhi smiled a little sheepishly. “Are you done absorbing it yet? It’s really gross.”
Foul, stinking blood oozed from the head, feeling slimy beneath her paw. She was already dreading how filthy her white fur would get and wondering where she could go to wash it.
Little Gray Rabbit perked up. [Give me thirty more seconds!]
As soon as the time was up, Huazhi snatched her paw away. To her surprise, it was completely clean—the white fur remained dry and pristine, bearing no trace of filth.
Little Gray Rabbit stared in confusion, then gasped.
[Huazhi, you have a golden glow on you too!]