Chapter Fifteen: The Gift of Destiny

"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
Four explosions in succession—Tang Tianjie used M67 grenades to deepen the pit Yan Luo had dug. After the fourth blast, a massive chunk of the corpse sphere was blown apart. As the smoke cleared, those who had sheltered among the bodies to avoid the explosions approached to inspect the damage.

"The bone layer is breached! But there's still the flesh layer."

The outer shell of zombies had been sucked dry, leaving mummified husks. Most of the zombies in the flesh layer were dead—or more precisely, rendered incapable of movement. Their flesh and fat, however, remained largely intact.

"Alright, brothers, let's get to work!"

Thinking of the central boss core, Tang Tianjie's heart burned with anticipation. With his destiny talent, he was one hundred percent certain he could eliminate the boss core—but he had to see it first.

Tang Tianjie jumped into the pit of corpses, followed by the others. The tunnel blasted by the grenades was large, almost like a grand bath. As Yan Luo landed, he immediately sensed a difference—the ground he'd stood on before was human skin wrapped around bones, hard beneath his feet; now, it felt soft.

"Roar!"

Under his boot, a zombie suddenly opened its tightly shut eyes, gleaming with a predatory green light, like a wolf scenting prey. Sharp teeth glinted as it tried to crane its neck, intent on biting the man standing on its chest.

Yan Luo smashed its head with his shovel.

A mass of brain matter and foul liquid splattered across his black boots. The rain boots scavenged from the town were much sturdier than sneakers. He lifted his foot and kicked another zombie's head to smithereens.

"Thud!"

A heavy body crashed down—it was Zhu Xiaoyong, over three hundred pounds of flesh landing hard. The soft sensation sent chills through the obese recluse; looking down, he saw a zombie staring up at him with blood-filled, cavernous eyes.

"Mother... ahhh..."

Having freed up fourteen points of pleasure, the Heartless Puppet immediately transmitted a wave:

You have experienced intense emotion:

Fear +5

The surge of fear was overwhelming! Zhu Xiaoyong screamed in terror, scrambling to his feet, his backside clamped by a set of yellowed teeth—ripped from the mouth of the zombie in the struggle.

"I'm infected! I've got the zombie virus! I'm going to die..."

Tears and snot streaming, Zhu Xiaoyong sobbed as Li Zang'ai's eyes flashed with irritation. "Stop screaming!"

"Everyone, be careful. There are likely more zombies still alive," Chu Qingfeng and Xu Han warned as they jumped into the pit as well.

The embalmer used a shovel to lift a zombie that had lost its mobility. His pupils contracted sharply; beneath the zombie's neck was a long red vein, twisted like blood vessels, a disgusting dark crimson. One end was embedded in the zombie, the other stretched deep into the flesh layer.

"This must be the core—a straw siphoning nutrients from the zombies."

Chu Qingfeng mused, "If this goes on longer, these zombies will all be sucked dry. With so many zombies, what kind of monster could be created from their collective nutrients? Is the core Dr. Smith? Gathering the sustenance of thousands upon thousands of zombies..."

He couldn't help but shudder.

Guide Mu Bai faded into the air, ethereal—this environment was indeed a severe trial for the newcomers. But after digging pits and fighting inside the corpse sphere, their psychological resilience would be much stronger when entering other supernatural worlds.

The flesh layer was different from the bone layer.

The bone layer was all human skin wrapped around skeletons; the flesh layer was packed with zombies pressed together. Digging from the top of the corpse sphere toward the center, the ground beneath their feet was nothing but zombies. The flesh layer was over five meters thick!

"Dig!"

Tang Tianjie chose a particularly ugly zombie to excavate—a fat one. He thrust his shovel into the belly of a Caucasian fat zombie, slicing through swathes of fat as if carving beef tallow. Yellow-white fat mixed with pus oozed from the wound.

He stomped the shovel down, digging deep, then heaved the fat zombie aside. The fatty, rich with grease, lay motionless with closed eyes, but after being tossed, it opened its eyes and sat up.

"Groan..."

A guttural growl rumbled from its throat as the fat zombie crawled toward Tang Tianjie. Dirty innards and intestines spilled from its ruptured belly, trailing as it moved—a stench so foul it made one want to die.

Tang Tianjie was seized by the zombie at his feet, his scalp tingling with horror. Face twisted, nearly deranged, he stabbed the zombie with the shovel, viciously, again and again—more than ten times, until he split the fat zombie in two.

"Ooooh..."

A pitiful moan escaped the zombie's lips. Tang Tianjie flung the halves several meters away; still not dead, it dragged itself across the ground, pulling its upper body with one arm, intestines trailing between the bisected halves, leaving a slick of blood and grease in its wake.

"Damn it, I'll blow you away!"

Tang Tianjie's handsome face was contorted with rage. He drew his Colt M1911, emptied seven rounds of 11.43mm bullets into the fat zombie, swapped magazines, and fired again, blasting its head and shredding the half-corpse to pieces.

"Damn!"

Li Zang'ai, the Kawaii punk, hacked at a zombie with his shovel, but couldn't stand it anymore. He threw the shovel aside, drew his dogleg knife, and, eyes bloodshot, slashed madly. Pus and filthy blood splattered, fueling his fury.

"I can't hold back!"

This youth's most striking feature was unmistakably his Statue of Liberty hairstyle—seven spikes colored red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, each a different hue! He had intended to keep his trump card hidden until the crucial moment, but now, surrounded by the blood and flesh of zombies in the corpse sphere, the repulsive environment drove him past endurance.

"Destiny talent!"

On Li Zang'ai's head, seven spikes began to elongate, gleaming with metallic luster—like the "Secret Technique: Needle Jizo" from Naruto. The hair, originally just over a foot long, grew to one, then one and a half meters!

Eventually, the spikes extended over two meters, draping down and enveloping Li Zang'ai's entire body.

Under conscious control, the metallic, needle-like hair wrapped around him, forming the shape of a drill.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet!

Seven colors—massive, the human body and long hair condensed into a super drill!

The ethereal Guide Mu Bai watched in astonishment as the punk transformed into a gigantic drill. Such destiny talent—while the others watched in awe, he, as an elder, discerned the true nature of the ability: it displayed three fundamental traits.

Metallic transformation, growth, and conscious control!

Newcomers possessed only level-one destiny talents. If this were to evolve, what would it become? Could it achieve true mimicry? If he could control each strand of hair as flexibly as an arm, wouldn't that be like having countless hands?

Moreover, if the hair hardened like metal, and each strand became a needle, gathered together to form swords, wouldn't his head bristle with blades? If upgraded to conscious control, and the hair could be broken off and fired...

Mu Bai drew a sharp breath.

The Ten Thousand Sword Technique?