"Hurry up and get the crossbows ready!"
In the dead of night, calls echoed through the villa district. Chen Qiang and Zhou Cheng led a group of n equipped with crossbows and steel pipes, who rapidly rushed towards the forest path, their flashlights illuminating their way.
The swans and alpacas in the villa courtyard were startled but disregarded after alarming twice.
When everyone arrived at the beginning of the path, they were all shocked to see the gate was open. But the sight of Li Ming relieved them, and they hurriedly approached.
"Brother Ming, as soon as we heard the noise, Zhou Cheng and I rounded up a group to co here. Is everything okay?"
Chen Qiang, panting, felt his respiratory tract burning from the ergency rush. He spoke while casting the beam of his flashlight into the path.
"Sothing climbed up here, but I don’t know exactly what."
Li Ming shook his head, his brow furrowed. "Alright, you go arrange for the alarm system to be reset, make sure everything is prepared to block this, let’s see if it cos again."
"Alright."
Chen Qiang agreed, then waved two n over to reset the gong trap which had been trampled by the unknown creature. The n discussed briefly before, leaving with their flashlights back towards the villa.
"Honey, is everything alright?"
Inside villa [Left Sixth], several won huddled together nervously. Upon seeing Li Ming return, Zhang Yuan imdiately approached him with the question.
"Sothing crawled up, but it should be fine. Everybody get so rest, but don’t undress."
Li Ming shook his head. If sothing strong enough had co, the commotion would not have scared it off. The fact that it retreated ant it was not particularly troubleso. He was certain of this.
After comforting the won for a while, he told them to return to their rooms and go to sleep. The lights were turned off again and the room quickly fell quiet.
Another hour passed, everyone was asleep, and the villa district was quiet.
Three hours later, at 3 a.m., the moon was high in the sky. Energetic zombie howls echoed throughout the city, and many zombies with broken arms and legs slowly regenerated under the moonlight.
So, who crashed through the windows and fell lightly, were already shaky but standing again, and the number of zombies gathering in the streets was slowly increasing.
"Splash!"
A dark red figure erged again from the riverside, its claws dancing devilishly as it crawled towards the forest pathway.
When it arrived at the sa spot where the thin line was previously, it attempted to dodge it.
Just as it tried to sneak past, its movent suddenly stalled and then catapulted straight up into the air.
"Click!"
A key flew out and opened the locked iron gate while the creature struggled mid-air. It was then pulled inside, and the gate closed automatically and locked. The key floated back to the villa, ’Left Sixth’.
"Click!"
A switch was flicked, and bright lights illuminated the creature, revealing two long crimson pincers and a giant body two ters long.
"So this is what it was, just a little crayfish," Li Ming exclaid, staring at the substantial creature struggling under the control of his psychic powers.
So this was the creature that triggered the trap.
"Everyone talks about shrimp soldiers and crab generals, and here I’ve just t one. It’s worth waiting for you late into the night."
Li Ming sized up the crayfish with an unclear motive, then decided to keep it alive for eating. With a flicker of thought, several long steel wires flew in from the villa. Under the control of his psychic power, they tightly bound the crayfish.
"Thud!"
Releasing his psychic power, the mutated crayfish imdiately struggled violently on the ground, but it could not break free from the steel wires.
Li Ming gave it another glance and felt that leaving it alive here was a bit dangerous, so he decided to remove its two giant pincers.
"Swoosh!"
In response to his thought, two top-quality drills flew out of the room at high speed, fiercely burrowing into the junction between the crayfish’s giant pincers and its body.
"Buzz!"
The drills competed with the crayfish’s shell. To Li Ming’s surprise, it was as tough as the defense of a steel-armored zombie. He had to work hard to pierce the crayfish’s defense and remove its giant pincers.
With its pincers removed, the crayfish writhed in pain. Li Ming used his psychic power to hold it down, then thodically removed the rest of its limbs. Finally, he bound it tightly with steel wires, hanging it from the iron fence until it couldn’t move to his satisfaction.
"I didn’t expect a crayfish to mutate to such a big size. Could it have also absorbed so of the crystal?"
As he examined the two pincers on the ground, Li Ming thought to himself, then looked at the still struggling mutated crayfish, his brow furrowed. He hadn’t expected such mutated creatures to exist in Haujiang.
So, was this the only one, or just one of many?
The existence of such monsters was undoubtedly a threat to the settlent.
Another question occurred to him: since there were mutated animals, could there also be zombies like the spider zombie?
"Ti to clean up."
Li Ming furrowed his brow, thinking inwardly.
Huajiang is not large, and at a width of just 300 ters, his mind power could completely probe all of its nooks and crannies. If nothing else, he had to investigate the villa area nearby to avoid any potential crisis.
Just like this sneaky crawdad. If it were not handled properly, it could cause deadly harm to the common folk in the villa area.
However...
"This crawdad at should be damn tasty."
Li Ming looked at the crawdad that had been bound up, licking his lips. His mind power removed all the at from the detached claws and legs and placed it in the refrigerator.
He then glanced at the two-ter-long shrimp-like body still bound up and decided to just process it with his mind power. Using ntal power, it was convenient to separate it, skin and all, with a drill bit.
"Swoosh~"
The mutated crawdad struggled weakly and then fell silent. Li Ming reached out and touched the crawdad’s body, a prompt appearing before his eyes.
[Contact with solidified aquatic power detected, as this power has an individual imprint and cannot be normally absorbed.]
[Purification initiated.]
[Ability factor purification completed, do you wish to absorb this ability?]
[Absorption will increase your affinity with water.]
"Affinity with water, so there’s a power like this."
Li Ming, intrigued by the alert distinctly different from the one he encountered previously while touching Chen Zhuang, chose to absorb without hesitation.
Not long after, a refreshing sensation flashed through his body, but aside from that, there was no other sensation.
Li Ming scratched his head, assuming he hadn’t encountered any issues related to water and swimming. He smiled and set about processing the crawdad’s corpse.
The head of a shrimp, where all the toxins reside, was disgustingly fishy. Get rid of it.
The shrimp intestine, which is filled with shrimp feces and dirt. Dispose of it.
The shrimp gills, a clump of fishy and slly impurities. It serves as the lobster’s filter, where all unwanted substances are filtered out. Remove it.
Then all that was left was the clean shrimp at, which Li Ming happily accepted, storing it in the refrigerator for future als.
"Who knows if the at of this mutated crawdad has any special effects."
Li Ming harbored a glimr of anticipation. Even so, he was satisfied knowing the hundreds of pounds of shrimp at would last him a good while.
Then Li Ming glanced at the scattered crawdad shell and limbs. He thought it would be best to leave them there, so when others ca to fetch water, they would know that the monster lurking around the villa area at night had been eaten. Good for putting people’s minds at ease.
Next, he controlled the drill bit with his mind power to clean it and put it back in his bag. Patting the five crystal nuclei in his bag, he silently decided to go back to sleep.
He didn’t decide to take those crystal nuclei out for the won right away. Since he has resolved to leave, whether these won would follow him or not would be a huge test.
Only those who are willing to follow him are worth nurturing. Giving them the mutant inducers wouldn’t hurt. But it would be uncomfortable if anyone should renege after gaining the ability and refuse to leave.
As for Zhang Yuan and Chen Li, these two won he had kept close both before and after the end of the world. He believed they would follow him. As for the rest, they can wait to see what their choice will be, either way, there’s no rush.
"I’ll have a look at Huajiang in the next couple of days."
Li Ming thought to himself, quietly slipping under the covers.
The night passed without a word.
In the blink of an eye, it was morning.
The tense won woke up from their dreams startled at the news that the invading monster from the night before had been dealt with and, even more shockingly, it was just a crawdad.
It wasn’t until they saw the shrimp at in the refrigerator and the outside shrimp shell and claws, that they vaguely confird the situation. At first, it seed unbelievable, but when they tasted the delicious lobster at, they believed it without question.
"This lobster at has such rich nutrition."
Li Ming was amazed by the satiety he felt after consuming only a tenth of his usual food portion of mutated crawdad at.
"Could it be, all mutant beast at contains high amounts of energy?"
Li Ming had a sudden realization. He left the left-over crawdad at in Liu Fang’s care. After exercising in the courtyard all morning, his "Piercing Sword" skill finally broke through at noon.
He imdiately rushed to the second-floor living room, swallowing large chunks of lobster at left over from in the morning due to an initial misjudgnt about the quantity. Surprisingly, he only ate about a pound or so, yet he felt satisfied, eting his skill breakthrough requirents.
"Honey, this crawdad at is amazing. I feel much better after just one al, as if I was never ill!"
Zhang Yuan, who had been doing light exercise in the morning, approached Li Ming with surprising results before lunchti.
"So this crawdad at isn’t simple at all."
Li Ming noticed that all the won had the sa reaction, and he couldn’t help but brood over it.
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