Clavici shook his head,
"A few years ago, before David Lyn ca up. People from the Rose Army visited here. They were pretty decent, didn’t exploit the locals, and even gave them a lot of food and supplies, trying to build good relations with the local residents to gain their support for resistance—what happened in the end? The daughter of the head of the Rose Army’s guerrilla team was abducted by the locals."
"And then?" the passenger asked.
"What do you think?"
Clavici shrugged,
"The mutants discovered her body could regenerate, and imdiately considered her a treasure bestowed by the Heavenly God, cutting and using her repeatedly, raising her for over half a year before the Rose Army guerrillas found out."
"Ironically, the guerrilla who found out was delivering food to the mutants and discovered the girl’s leg cooking in a pot. He was terrified, hurried back to report, and the high-ranking mbers of the Rose Army, guessing the truth, purposely didn’t tell the guerrilla head, sending an internal affairs officer to negotiate instead."
The passenger remained silent while Clavici continued,
"The officer ca back and said the girl was already dead. The Rose Army needed the mutants to provide soldiers, so they hid the truth, purposely sending the guerrillas to remote areas. Years later, David Lyn ca to power, the Rose Army was recruited, and the incident spread."
He took another puff of his cigarette, then suddenly laughed,
"Dongyue Ridge is such a hellish place, full of man-eating monsters everywhere."
"What about the abducted girl?"
"Who knows, maybe she’s long dead, maybe she’s still suffering."
The train gradually slowed down. Clavici stubbed out his cigarette and went to operate the train. Soon, the train ca to a steady stop.
"Hey, kid, we’re here."
Clavici turned his head and shouted to the passenger.
The passenger slowly stood up and prepared to get off the train. Suddenly, he noticed a piece of chain used to secure firefighting equipnt hanging on the wall.
He raised his hand, pointed to the chain, and asked,
"Can I borrow this?"
Clavici scratched his head, "It’s not worth anything, take it."
Dingling—
The passenger wrapped the chain around his wrist and nodded, a look of gratitude in his violet eyes.
As he stepped off the train, the biting cold wind instantly frosted his body. The gust lifted his hood, revealing the chiseled, angular face of Isaac Maxim.
Li Aozi stood in the hall of the Dongyue Ridge subway station, the faint rustling sounds from all around as bone-gnawing mutant creatures secretly observed this stranger from afar, seemingly calculating when they would make him their next al. However, as soon as they felt even a slight touch of his aura, they imdiately abandoned their impractical thoughts.
Plop, plop, clop, clop...
Li Aozi, clad in a well-fitted formal suit over a protective padded coat, walked step by step on the icy ground. The biting cold wind was weak and laughable before him.
He walked out of the subway, strolling on the barren fields of Dongyue Ridge. The white sand under his feet had frozen into solid rubble, each step feeling like a dagger piercing his feet. Li Aozi advanced indifferently, his qi energy autonomously shielding him, expanding into a blood-colored barrier that stood out too conspicuously in the bleak, snowy Outer World.
The entities lurking in the dark could wait no more and instantly surged forward in a frenzy. A group of mutants opened their mouths wide, shooting their tongues like bullets at the qi energy shield without causing even the slightest ripple.
They raised the rifles gifted by the Rose Army high, their eyes bulging from their sockets, striving to focus and aim. Then they pulled the triggers, but the bullets, though hitting the sa spot precisely, still could not break through Li Aozi’s shield.
Howling sounds filled the air!
Trained mutant beasts ignited with explosives on their bodies, hurling themselves madly at Li Aozi.
Dinglingling—
Silver-gray light flickered, and the chain instantly smashed into the ground, stirring up a cloud of frost and dust, extinguishing the bomb fuses and confusing vision.
Li Aozi coldly swung the chain, thrashing and whipping, smashing them to pieces. The blood froze into ice on the ground.
"Capture... then... eat..."
The mutants mumbled in unclear speech. Despite resembling humans to so extent, they were, in so sense, even less human than pseudo-humans.
The butcher wouldn’t feel guilty about the livestock.
Whenever Li Aozi swung down the chain, mutants fell one after another.
Swing, smash, whip, cut, chop, hamr, entangle, twist.
It sounded just like cooking.
He calmly trampled on their bones, treating each mutant equally, engaging in an ordinary task with a normal mindset.
When he stepped on the skull of a mutant infant, no more mutants remained in Dongyue Ridge.
Li Aozi took off his protective coat, now filthy with blood and flesh.
He slowly walked to the location his main body had detected. At this point, Li Aozi’s emotions were unexpectedly calm. He felt neither the excitent of soon seeing Nomi nor the guilt of arriving too late.
Li Aozi rely walked calmly over the shattered ridges of Dongyue Ridge, heading to the summit—there, an ancient mutated giant tree grew. Its canopy didn’t grow leaves but was full of muscles and bones, its branches adorned with firefly-like flesh balls glowing faint blue in the night. Its defeated, gelatinous bark was ringed with human spines.
This was the deity worshipped by the mutants—a mutated Flesh and Blood Tree.
Yet it was not an evil creature, rely one among the millions struggling to survive on this harsh planet. Its grotesque exterior and bloody posture were just evolutionary adaptations for survival.
Darkness did not dissipate, snow covered the ground.
Under the Flesh and Blood Tree, a grotesque and hideous monster knelt, asuring over three ters tall with a gaunt fra. Her head of silver-white hair draped to the ground like sea anemone tentacles, swaying with the wind. Firefly maggots infested her decaying body.
A skeletal head bore malford antlers resembling moose horns. Though her lower body retained a humanoid shape, it was exceedingly thin, and intestines hanging out from her abdon ford a skirt-like veil, the only hint of femininity visible.
Perhaps sensing the long-missed presence of soone approaching, the rotting monster slowly lifted her head. When her empty, tilted single eye reflected Li Aozi’s figure, she seed to hesitate montarily.
Then, she dropped to all fours, grabbing a massive industrial wrench from the ground’s skeletal remains. Using it to support herself, she struggled to stand.
"Wuru..."
The monster straightened up, raising the sinewy arm holding the wrench as if it were a lance in a knight’s duel, targeting Li Aozi.
Li Aozi took a deep breath.
[Eye of Truth]
[You glimpsed the truth and obtained the following information:]
——————————
[Na]: ’Da of Decay’ Nomi Anderson Guesette
[Species]: Ersha Body Corrosion
[Gender]: Female (before death)
[Age]: 19
[Template]: None
[Faction]: Lord Entropy—Apostle of Entropy—Ersha Body Corrosion
[Total Level]: lv.60 [Ersha Body Corrosion]
[Health Points]: (Uncalculable, target is deceased)
[Arcane Energy]: (Ersha’s Arcane Energy combined with Health Points)
[Attributes]:
Strength—25
Dexterity—24
Constitution—Nonexistent
Charm—0
Will—0
[Status]:
Willof Entropy—The Supre Lord Entropy forbids your death; you cannot attain true release until the Ersha corruption is removed.
[Specialty]:
[Violent District]—Damage increased by 10% when using crude weapons
[Happy Wildcat]—When in a ’happy’ mood, lee evasion rate increases and reduces the probability of being hit by random flying objects (shrapnel, stray bullets, cursed waves, etc.)
[Well-trained]—You are knowledgeable about military weapon operations and skilled at driving vehicles. Even with unfamiliar vehicles, you can quickly master and excel at them.
[Entropic Aura]:
[Proliferative tamorphosis]—The Will of Entropy grants your cells imnse power, accelerating their proliferation and division at dozens of tis the normal rate.
Bad news is, theoretically, this division speed shortens your lifespan the more you recover.
Good news is, you’re already dead.
Even if you recover, proliferation continues, whether you grow teeth and bone spurs or tumors and calcified crystals—it’s all good.
In the end, whether this ability is good or bad, it doesn’t make a difference to you. Whatever Lord Entropy grants, even a curse, you must praise and sing its glory.
Do not attempt to control the proliferation of your cells; they have already left you whole; you should be grateful and forever revere the Supre Lord Entropy, Your Excellency.
[Skills Possessed]:
[Professional Combat], [Expert Level Wilderness Survival], [Roadblock Clearance], [Bully the Weak], [Limit Evasion]
[Hierarchy]: Alpha Stage
——————————
"...Nomi."
Li Aozi looked at the monster confronting him.
No wonder the main body couldn’t find her.
Turns out, Nomi’s corpse is here.
Half of her soul still resided here, in that broken shell.
Indeed, he should have thought of this sooner. Dying in the Outer World would most likely result in becoming Ersha Body Corrosion or falling into being an Apostle of Entropy.
"Wuru..."
The monster let out a low growl, or perhaps it wasn’t a growl, but the wind passing through her decaying lungs.
She was dead, yet not dead.
Lord Entropy’s corruption had trapped her life in a never-ending entropic reversal, unable to truly restore life. She simultaneously died and revived, ultimately becoming sothing even less than the undead—a form of corrosion.
Such was the fate of most Outer World inhabitants.
"Don’t be afraid, Nomi."
The chain hit the ground, and Li Aozi felt as though he had returned to the day he first entered the Starry Abyss.
Only now, the companions who once walked by his side were all gone.
"I’ve co to take you ho."
But before that—
Li Aozi suddenly leaped, his qi energy surging, and his eyes ignited with a demonic red fla.
—he had to kill her once more.
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