Chapter 149: The Zombie Emperor

The fire blazed high, dyeing half of the sky a fiery bright red.

The turbulent flames were precisely controlled within a very limited range, but then, the next second, chilling ice spread through the same place and the sound of cracking ice resounded throughout the block. The flames, which were so hot that the air was all distorted were instantly covered in a layer of bone-chilling ice.

In less than five minutes, the dense crowd of zombies turned into burnt black ice sculptures.

The very next moment. Web-like tiny cracks started extending from corners of the ice sculptures, and then spread rapidly like a chain reaction.

“Crack”.

Immediately afterwards, the ice covering the entire block suddenly shattered, countless crystal fragments scattered around, the icy dust glittered under the light.

The crisp sound of colliding ice shards echoed through the buildings.

The fragments of the corpse which were enclosed in thick ice after being scorched to the bone crumbled down. The scene looked both cruel and beautiful, one could not help but be shocked physically and mentally.

The four zombies moved skilfully.

They rummaged through the ice, searching for the zombie nuclei scattered among them.

Ever since Xie Shili’s abilities had improved astonishingly, their utility value had been greatly reduced.

The group attack range of the fire ability was too wide, bringing multiple increase in his efficiency.

During this process, Xie Shili’s improvement in strength was terrifying.

He not only used the energy in the mutated zombies’ nuclei to improve himself, but also explored his bottom line in actual combat again and again. With an extraordinary patience and perseverance, he gradually improved his control and preciseness over the abilities. He even created various attacking strategies through training.

As Xie Shili became more proficient in using the ice and fire abilities, the lethality he caused became more and more terrifying.

In the end, Number One, Two, Three and Four only had the job of picking up frozen crystals from the wreckage left.

Xie Shili drove the car with five zombies towards dangerous areas occupied by zombies one after another. A systematic hunting system took shape rapidly, capable of harvesting crystals with absolute precision and high efficiency.

He had mostly become the main force in collecting crystal nuclei.

——Not only was the job of the four zombies being threatened, but even Ge Xiu’s responsibilities had been covered by Xie Shili.

Ge Xiu, on the other hand, became extremely idle.

Except when he needed to take action when encountering more difficult mutant zombies, Ge Xiu hardly had any work at other times, most of the tasks being done by Xie Shili.

Ge Xiu was sometimes confused, between him and Xie Shili, who was the one who was raised as the reserve rations.

Soon, those four backpacks were not enough.

So after sweeping through supplies in one mall, they dragged a few huge luggage bags to the car to hold the hunted crystal nuclei.

However, although the acquisition speed of crystal nuclei was several times faster than before, the speed at which crystals were being used up also become several times faster than before.

Because with the passage of time, Ge Xiu’s demand for the number of nuclei had increased rapidly.

Number One, Two, Three and Four who were also zombies, and would feel hungry all the time.

However, after absorbing a certain amount of crystals, or the crystals of higher-level mutated zombies, they would have a long “satiated period”, and wait until the energy of those nuclei was digested before they started feeling hungry again.

Ge Xiu was different.

For him, hunger was like a bottomless pit, abyss that could never be filled.

The nuclei poured like waves down the black hole, but the longing in his bones seemed endless, always clamouring for more.

The desire to eat tortured Ge Xiu’s body all the time, slowly cutting every inch of nerve in his body.

Ge Xiu liked staying by Xie Shili’s side more and more.

Not only because the other party had a delicious tempting smell around him that wouldn’t dry out no matter how many nuclei he ate, but also because as long as he stayed by Xie Shili’s side, even if he didn’t actually bite him, with just smelling a bit or grinding his teeth on a part of the other’s body the intense hunger would become less torturous.

Ge Xiu started to get lethargic.

Logically speaking, zombies don’t need to sleep.

But Ge Xiu was different, the more he devoured, the longer he slept, even when he woke up, he was drowsy—— through 24 hours of a day, Ge Xiu was either eating nuclei or sleeping .

Xie Shili discovered something that the other zombies hadn’t noticed.

As Ge Xiu ate more and more, the instinctive fear of the zombies towards him seemed to increase exponentially.

Even those four began to be less and less likely to approach Ge Xiu, and instead spent more time wandering outside the car, only boarding the car when they needed to drive away.

Originally, even those zombies who were driven by instinct without any IQ were unwilling to appear beside Ge Xiu, just like the instinctive fear of small creatures against bigger stronger predators originating from the depths of their bones— at first, they were unwilling get close within distance of ten meters from Ge Xiu’s body, and soon, this distance was extended to fifty meters, one hundred meters…

In the end, as long as Ge Xiu was nearby, no zombies dared to approach.

Xie Shili had no choice but to let Ge Xiu stay in the car, and then park the car a few streets away from the selected hunting block. Only in this way could the scattered zombies wandering in the city be gathered and attracted to the specific location.

Regarding Ge Xiu’s current situation, Xie Shili actually had some guesses in his mind.

Xie Shili actually witnessed the battle between Ge Xiu and another mutant zombie in the shopping mall where he met the superhuman team.

He noticed something unusual.

That mutated zombie shouldn’t have been lurking in the store from the very beginning— if that was the case, the supernatural team that had been trapped in the mall for nearly several hours might have been wiped out long ago, and couldn’t even survive until their arrival.

Therefore, the mutated zombie must have arrived later.

Most of the zombies that sensed Ge Xiu’s breath would show instinctive fear and retreat.

But that mutated zombie was completely different.

It appeared in the shopping mall some time after the crowd of corpses dispersed.

Besides, Xie Shili noticed a detail.

The mutated zombie had already caught a human being before Ge Xiu arrived. It dragged the supernatural ability user behind the shelves to tear and bite, but it immediately changed direction when it saw Ge Xiu, and discarded the food that was already in its mouth, rushing towards Ge Xiu instead.

——Its desire to attack its own kind was even greater than its appetite for humans.

Coupled with the strategic awareness it had showed in the battle afterwards, it could be seen that it already had intelligence and not low to that.

Therefore, it was very possible that the mutated zombie was entirely targeting Ge Xiu, another high-level zombie.

It could hide, so it entered the shopping mall with Ge Xiu unaware of it, but the supernatural team near the other end discovered it first, so it had to change its plans and showed itself.

As the level of zombies increased and their intelligence grew, they tend to feed on supernatural beings or other mutant zombies.

This gave Xie Shili a bad association.

The entire world swept by zombies seems to be a huge Gu farm*, where the mutated products fought and devoured each other—until the strongest Gu King emerges.

*Gu farm is a practice where you put different poisonous/venomous bugs together in a closed jar, and the one that survives is said to be the one with strongest toxicity and greatest fight power.

Xie Shili controlled the steering wheel with one hand and turned to look beside him.

One of the “Gu Kings” was sleeping soundly in the co-pilot seat.

The young man lowered his head, his slightly long black hair drooped down, hiding his pale face. He was still holding Xie Shili’s arm tightly in his arms in his sleep, slowly grinding his teeth on his arm unconsciously.

Xie Shili couldn’t help but soften his eyes.

He stared at the high-level zombie rubbing against his arm for a few seconds, then raised his head, and continued to look at the road extending into the distance.

Out of sudden, he noticed there was a roadblock at the end of the road ahead.

Several people who were obviously supernatural human users were patrolling and interrogating people driving by.

Before the roadblock, several vehicles had already been stopped.

In apocalypse days, such a scene was quite unusual.

Xie Shili narrowed his eyes slightly, and glanced at the surrounding scenery.

There were also traces of human activities around the road, with obvious traces of protective nets. Obviously, this place was very close to a human base.

The speed of the car gradually slowed down.

At the roadblock in front, the dressed-up people seemed to have seen their car and walked towards them.

——————————————————————————————————–

Bamboo: QVQ SORRY, I am so lazy recently