It was truly a living hell. The two headless corpses had not even made it into the cooking pot before Su Muxu casually tossed them aside. Bloodstains and white bones littered the ground, a foul stench filled the cave, and… some of the survivors were in a daze, barely aware of their surroundings.
Fortunately, Dawn Base’s team had been the last group to be captured, so the psychological torment and shock they had suffered were relatively minor compared with the others. Thus, when they saw Xiao Ziran and his group appear, they could not help showing expressions of excitement.
The other people still alive inside the cave, by contrast, wore expressions of numbness and indifference.
However, Chu Tian and Quan Xiaoyu unexpectedly spotted someone they knew. At the same time, they immediately understood why Xie Mingxuan had rushed here without regard for anything else.
The zombie girl, Nizi, was actually here!
Chu Tian also saw another familiar face: the village chief who had once protected Nizi. He sat slumped against the ground, trembling, his eyes vacant and his entire body radiating despair.
Nizi was kneeling in front of him, wailing in grief. Strictly speaking, zombies had no tears and could not truly sob. Yet as everyone watched Nizi howl in anguish, they could not help feeling that she was crying her heart out.
Xiao Ziran and Pei Qianxing had never met Nizi before. However, seeing Xie Mingxuan standing beside her with such a sorrowful expression, they felt that she was probably not an enemy.
“Nizi…” Chu Tian sent her a message through their brainwave connection.
Nizi turned around. Her pupils, reduced to nothing more than tiny dots, fixed on Chu Tian.
“If only I’d known, we should have left with you back then. It’s all my fault. I got everyone killed!”
At the same time, a flood of memories rushed into Chu Tian’s mind. They belonged to Nizi.
After Chu Tian and the others had left, everyone continued living according to their usual routine. But perhaps because the monster in the factory had been eliminated and the threat was gone, the monsters and zombies in that area, which had originally been relatively scarce, began appearing more and more frequently.
The resources nearby had already been exhausted, so everyone finally made up their minds to leave. It was on their way out that they encountered the strange demonic vines.
They had not even encountered anything close to the enormous swarm that Chu Tian and the others had seen. When dealing with ordinary people, just a tiny number of vines had been enough.
Apart from possessing the same intelligence as an ordinary human, Nizi was simply a level-four zombie. Under those circumstances, she had been unable to protect everyone and had been captured herself.
That was when the nightmare began.
When Nizi regained consciousness, she discovered that a piece of liver was hanging from her mouth. In front of her lay a corpse whose abdomen had been ripped open—and the dead person was someone she knew!
There were no words to describe the shock, revulsion, and agony she had felt at that moment.
She discovered that six other zombies of her kind were in the same situation. They were all doing the same thing: devouring human flesh!
Behind them stood another zombie, one whose face was missing half of its flesh. He looked so powerful that Nizi could not help trembling instinctively.
That powerful zombie was looking at her with undisguised malice.
“Well? How does human offal taste? Delicious, isn’t it? Don’t you feel satisfied? Isn’t it a wonderful, blissful feeling?”
Nizi flew into a rage. She wanted to pounce on him, but discovered that no matter how hard she tried, she could not make herself attack him.
She felt sick and wanted to vomit. But vomiting was a reaction belonging to humans, and she was no longer human!
More than anything else, however, she was afraid.
That fear did not come from the powerful zombie of her own kind. It came from within herself!
He was right.
Although she was unwilling to admit it, she really had experienced the long-forgotten sensation of being completely full. It was as though the emptiness inside her body had finally been filled. That long-lost feeling of happiness, one that seemed to belong exclusively to humans, had returned to her under these circumstances.
The sensation was unfamiliar, terrifying, and disgusting. Yet there was nothing she could do about it!
Even more horrifying were the villagers’ expressions when they looked at her.
The friendliness, protectiveness, affection, and kindness they had once shown her had all turned into shock, fear, anger, and revulsion!
Their eyes were so unfamiliar to her, so utterly despairing, that she felt as though she could no longer go on. For a moment, she even wanted to cease to exist.
However, the powerful zombie would not allow it. He seemed fascinated by Nizi, who possessed human intelligence.
Whenever she was on the verge of despair, he would take control of her mind. Then, after she had eaten her fill, he would grant her a brief moment of clarity.
He tormented her over and over again, driving her almost to madness.
Every time she regained consciousness, she discovered that the people she had eaten were the very villagers she had once been closest to. Meanwhile, their gazes grew increasingly numb, until they looked at her no differently from any other zombie.
Each time she regained consciousness, there were fewer villagers left.
Until today.
When she awoke once more, she saw Xie Mingxuan—and then the village chief, the only person left.
Chu Tian could feel her despair. After enduring such prolonged torment, this once-kind girl had reached her absolute limit.
Nizi clung to the unresponsive village chief and wailed for a while. Then, as though she had finally made up her mind, she straightened up. Her right hand suddenly thrust forward, piercing the village chief’s heart.
The sudden turn of events put everyone on edge. Xiao Ziran and Pei Qianxing almost launched an attack, but Chu Tian stopped them.
At present, Chu Tian was the only person who could hear Nizi speaking inside his mind.
“There’s no point anymore. Everyone is dead. We have no reason to keep living.”
She slowly rose to her feet and walked toward Chu Tian.
Quan Xiaoyu grew nervous at the sight. Although he knew Nizi, he could not hear the conversation between her and Chu Tian. All he had witnessed was Nizi suddenly lashing out just moments earlier.
So he quickly stepped in front of Chu Tian to shield him.
Chu Tian, however, wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him aside before shaking his head to indicate that everything was fine.
After walking a short distance closer, Nizi stopped. She, too, could sense the hostility of the people around her.
Xie Mingxuan seemed to have sensed something as well. He anxiously circled around her.
Nizi reached out and patted his head. The gesture was just like an older sister soothing her mischievous younger brother.
“He never ate me. He probably wanted to save my crystal core to help him advance to the next level. I wasn’t conscious very often, but after all this time, I’ve figured out a few things. Zombies of our kind can evolve by consuming humans or the crystal cores of other zombies. For example, me…”
She forced a smile that looked even more painful than crying.
“After eating human flesh for so long, I’ve actually leveled up, haven’t I?”
Chu Tian could feel her heart weeping.
“When I die, give my crystal core to him. If he can develop intelligence, he’ll become even more powerful, won’t he? If possible, please ask him to avenge us.”
She knew very well that she stood almost no chance against that man. And the person she had become now disgusted her. She no longer had any reason—or the courage—to keep living.
“You can leave with us,” Chu Tian urged her. “You can stay with him.”
Yet he could still feel the depth of her despair, the feeling that there was nothing left to live for.
“No. I’ve eaten so many people who were like family to me. I can never live among humans the way I did before. Just let me stay here and keep my loved ones company!”
Nizi smiled as she spoke.
Chu Tian fell silent. He knew she was right.
Besides Chu Tian, Xie Mingxuan could also sense her resolute despair. Although he did not fully understand what despair meant, he could tell that something was terribly wrong. He grabbed her arm and made distressed, whimpering noises.
Nizi did not transmit her memories to Xie Mingxuan. There was no need to leave him with such a horrifying, dark experience.
Then she gently pushed him away. With a swift slash of her sharp claws, she severed her own head.
As her head rolled away like a ball, Xie Mingxuan rushed toward her body, howling and jumping around in a complete frenzy. He had lost all control of himself.
Everyone else watched as though they were witnessing a silent play. They did not really understand what had happened, yet they were inexplicably infected by the sadness and remained silent.
“Xiaoyu, take Xie Mingxuan away.”
Chu Tian reached up and rubbed the space between his eyebrows. He was beginning to wonder whether this particular ability of his was a blessing or a curse.
Without even realizing it, he seemed to have absorbed the dark memories of so many people—people like Yu Ning and Nizi.
This feeling was truly awful!
Chu Tian sighed.
“Doctor, go collect the crystal cores from those zombies. They’re all level five. As for hers…” Chu Tian glanced at Nizi’s corpse. “Leave it to me.”
By the time they had finished taking stock of the situation and everyone had left the cave, half an hour had passed.
Although Xie Mingxuan’s emotions had eventually been brought under control, he had become unusually dejected. Moreover, his desire to protect Quan Xiaoyu had inexplicably intensified. He suddenly refused to let anyone approach Quan Xiaoyu.
Not even Chu Tian.
Although Chu Tian was annoyed, he considered that Xie Mingxuan had just lost a little companion he cared about, so he decided to tolerate it for the time being.
After taking stock, they discovered that Dawn Base’s investigation team had lost two ability users. Everyone else had been held captive for such a short time that they had not been forced to eat human flesh or suffered any other physical harm. Their overall condition was fairly good.
Still, the psychological shock and trauma they had endured would probably take some time to heal.
Ten ordinary people remained. They had almost completely lost the ability to move, primarily because of their mental state, and had to be carried out of the cave.
Judging from what the person from Tianze Base had described earlier, these people had probably all eaten human flesh. Whether they would still have the courage to go on living was anyone’s guess.
There were also two surviving ability users. They were not among the people from the Restart Base. They revealed that they came from a small survivor base called “Ark,” which had no dealings with Dawn Base.
Xiao Ziran examined their bodies. The demonic vines that had been lurking inside them seemed to have disappeared after Ji Yan’s actual death.
Even if they hadn’t disappeared, there was no need to worry. The group had “concentrated solution” with them. Once they returned, they could make everyone down a whole bottle. That should take care of any remaining problems.
As for the others, Xiao Ziran felt that simply rescuing them was already more than enough.
So when the two Ark Base ability users, who were still in reasonably good condition, asked what they should do next, Xiao Ziran merely replied indifferently, “If you can, follow us. Beyond that, there’s nothing we can do.”
Especially not for those ten ordinary people who were practically living corpses.
Aside from the monster Su Muxu, who knew whether there were any other monsters lurking in these mountains? They could not possibly risk their lives to bring along people who were neither friends nor relatives and who had already lost the ability to move.
Perhaps they had also been through their own cruel ordeal. The two exchanged a glance but said nothing more. They did not self-righteously ask what would happen to the ten ordinary people, either. After Xiao Ziran and the others left, they simply followed behind them in silence.