Published: February 8, 2025
“Just a heads up, there will be an outbreak on the 17th, starting in the afternoon.”
Next to him was a rusty, abandoned car. Ye Zhongming rolled behind the car, finally having the chance to catch his breath.
This period of time hadn’t been long, but the all-out sprint had left him gasping, and his chest felt somewhat hot. Ever since becoming an evolver, Ye Zhongming rarely found himself in such a state; the combination of charging forward while battling was truly a test of physical endurance.
However, Ye Zhongming could only try to suppress his breathing now because as soon as he dashed out, he saw the enemy.
First, he glanced back at the path he came from. Although he had broken through, the mutated plants had not receded; instead, they continued to sway their bodies as if searching for Ye Zhongming’s presence.
Along the way, Ye Zhongming had severed countless mutated plants, and those severed leaves had attracted others of their kind, making the entire path bustling with activity.
On the side of the street behind him, Ye Zhongming saw a group of zombies!
Ye Zhongming wasn’t afraid of these zombies; he was worried about attracting more of their kind. His current state wasn’t good, and if a group of higher-level ones showed up, it would be a desperate fight to escape.
But as Ye Zhongming waited, he noticed there was no sound at all. Those zombies seemed to have stopped there.
Feeling a bit puzzled, Ye Zhongming looked to the sides. Linhai, like other cities in the apocalypse, had shown signs of decay and ruin after a year—broken walls and overgrown weeds everywhere.
After waiting a while longer with still no sound, he wondered if they had noticed him. That didn’t make sense; if they had spotted him, they should have charged over immediately.
Finally unable to suppress his curiosity, Ye Zhongming slightly peeked over. What he saw was quite different.
These zombies standing there appeared to already… be dead!
Ye Zhongming cautiously observed his surroundings once again, and indeed, there was no movement. He carefully crept closer to the group of approximately a hundred zombies to examine them closely.
These zombies were indeed dead, but their state was very strange.
Since his previous life, Ye Zhongming had known—or rather, all of humanity understood—that the only way to kill a zombie was to sever its head, destroy its brain's nerves, and then extract the magic crystal, which was essential for human evolution.
However, these dead zombies had intact heads and undamaged magic crystals!
In his two lifetimes, Ye Zhongming had never encountered such a peculiar situation. He examined the neck area of these zombies carefully and found no wounds at all.
Then how could they be dead?
These zombies, standing beside the buildings, remained motionless, allowing Ye Zhongming to inspect them.
Their skin appeared grayish-white, with a dark, deathly hue underneath, and they were emaciated, with many parts of their bodies shriveled and lacking moisture. Their joints were stiff, and distinctive features were incomplete...
Ye Zhongming silently summarized these deceased zombies' physical characteristics, hoping to uncover something, but to his disappointment, he found many issues, yet none that could answer his lingering questions.
One thing Ye Zhongming could be certain of was that without the magic crystals, they looked more like mummies than zombies.
Finding nothing of value, Ye Zhongming decided to extract the magic crystals and leave. But just as he moved his dagger to the position of the magic crystal, he suddenly stepped back two paces.
He realized that these zombies’ magic crystals had no energy left!
Ye Zhongming had initially thought these zombies were merely ordinary grade 1 and grade 2 zombies, their magic crystals gray and white. But when he focused on the magic crystals, he noticed that these gray or grayish-white crystals had no energy at all, which was why they appeared in this color. He couldn’t even discern their true levels; he could only roughly see that there were no zombies above grade 5, as mutated life forms above that level tended to have more elaborate and complex anatomical features, far from the crude simplicity of lower levels.