Chapter 389 – The Outside World is Dangerous

The yellow-haired zombie was embarrassingly weak, much to Ling Mo’s surprise. When he leaped onto the machine tool, his plan was to fend off the creature momentarily and then make a run for it, using the height difference and the zombie’s sluggish movements to his advantage.

However, it was unexpectedly easy to strike the zombie… Strike while the enemy is sick, Ling Mo immediately switched tactics to a ruthless assault.

The first hit with the machinery parts could be chalked up to a surprise attack, but the second blow with the iron rod was purely due to the Yellow-haired’s lack of strength.

Still, judging by the struggle, this yellow-haired zombie had the strength of at least a leader-level zombie, with decent skin and bone defense.

But its combat experience was streets behind that of the old lady zombie’s. Ling Mo was baffled as to how the ferocious old lady came to conclude that their strengths were “similar”…

“I know a zombie’s idea of ‘similar’ is unreliable, but this is just ridiculous… Hey, Mediterranean, are you an eccentric professor?” Ling Mo pressed with the iron rod, inquiring.

His mental power was depleting rapidly, but the thought of the half bottle of Spider Queen potion left in his bag made him fearless.

“Low-level… despicable… detestable… despicable…” the Yellow-haired kept cursing Ling Mo with its limited vocabulary.

“Your range of words is just pitiful…”

After stabbing the Yellow-haired’s abdomen over a dozen times, the zombie finally ceased its cursing.

“Even as a zombie, you can’t lose your bluster… I’m starting to believe you must have been some kind of expert in your past life,” Ling Mo commented. “I think now we can have a proper conversation, right?”

“Before, I had never realized humans could be this terrifying…” Ban Yue said softly, staring blankly at the unfolding scene.

Yellow-haired’s look towards Ling Mo finally changed, showing a sliver of something different. As a zombie, he didn’t fear death, but as a high-level zombie, he had his own dignity.

Looking down on humans, despising lower-level kin… naturally, he couldn’t accept being tormented by food to this extent…

Imagine the feeling of being beaten up by a domestic cat…

After being watched by Ling Mo for a long while, Yellow-haired finally spoke: “When I was a low-level human, indeed… but it was just an honorary title. I never really taught, mostly appeared on shows… You might have seen me on TV before.”

“Pfft!”

Ling Mo suddenly had a bad feeling: “Just to be safe, let me ask, you’re not one of those people who fake their credentials as a Ph.D. graduate from some foreign university and then scam people on shows and in books, are you?”

“Ah? No… I am a legitimate zombie…” Yellow-haired squinted his swollen eyes, somewhat proudly, “You know those wildlife programs, right? Going into the wild to capture interesting footage of various creatures, and then I’d provide professional commentary…”

“So complicatedly put, isn’t it just a children’s program!”

Ling Mo interrupted, asking somewhat frustratedly: “After your awakening, what have you been researching?”

The yellow-haired zombie squinted even more, a serious expression suddenly appearing on his blood-streaked face: “When I first awoke, I couldn’t accept that I used to be a human, so I did some verification. You can’t imagine what it feels like, being a superior creature and then one day discovering that you have such a dark past…”

“I went to some places in my memory, especially those that left a deep impression. The TV station, home, my lover’s place, the home of a certain TV host… and then I discovered that I really used to be a human! The reason I became a superior being is because of a virus! I feel that if I completely master this virus, I can totally discard my weak body… So, I started researching.”

The yellow-haired zombie spoke with some excitement, making it apparent that his human life wasn’t as glorious as he claimed, or else he wouldn’t have needed to earn money on children’s programs.

People like him, who seemed unscrupulous and perhaps even thought they were unrecognized talents, often harbored dark thoughts inside.

After awakening his memory, the yellow-haired zombie, now a zombie, felt such disgust for his former human identity, indicating that those memories were not pleasant.

Ling Mo thought for a moment and asked, “What level were you at that time?”

“Level? You mean which tier of creature I belonged to?” The yellow-haired zombie looked past Ling Mo, towards Ye Lian and the others standing more than ten meters away, and finally pointed at Ye Lian, “About the same as her.”

Advanced stage… It seems the yellow-haired zombie belonged to the type with many recovered memories.

Before Ling Mo could ask, the yellow-haired zombie voluntarily began to describe his research process.

He first wandered around, conducting various studies on a bunch of zombies…

The process was rather bloody, and the conclusion he arrived at was consistent with Ling Mo’s findings: consuming Virus Gel directly was more efficient than eating flesh.

However, the yellow-haired zombie was still not satisfied. He found a shortcut in his research, a reckless path.

“I originally had my thighs.”

The yellow-haired zombie, with unusually long arms, touched the cross section of his thigh and said reflectively, “Relying on my already hardened knees, I could run very fast, but my evolution pace was noticeably slowing down. If this continued, I would eventually be eliminated. So, I ate my own redundant legs, then used the friction between my forelimbs and the ground to keep myself in a constant state of excitement without realizing it. But this was just a supplementary method; the most important thing was the direct stimulation of the virus symbiote.”

Speaking, he eerily turned his head away, exposing the back of his skull, and lifted his sparse hair.

A darkened broken needle clearly appeared in front of Ling Mo. It was imaginable that the other end of the needle was inserted into his Virus Nest.

“But all these were actually detours I took. I am much inferior to my peers at the same level, even experiencing mutations in my incomplete limbs. I came here to create this…”

Yellow-haired looked down and said, “I used to be a resident of this mountain ravine. At sixteen, I took over my father’s job as a blacksmith. This factory was built right on the foundation of my old home. That’s why I have such a vivid memory of this place. Plus, there aren’t any powerful peers around here, so I can hide and slowly improve myself. That old zombie made me realize how dangerous the outside world is.”

“You know, viruses are actually the most primitive life forms, and they evolve very quickly.”

At this point, Yellow-haired’s expression suddenly took on a sinister cast: “Nowadays, zombies are far more perfect than humans. Ordinary zombies are just rudimentary forms of growth; they contain a certain amount of the virus, which gradually spreads throughout their body as they grow, beginning to transform their bodies, step by step making their strength formidable, enhancing the defensive power of their skin. Eventually, they begin to develop a rudimentary consciousness.”

“The second stage is really a transitional period, and it’s also when the highest rate of attrition happens. During this time, they’re mostly acting on instinct. Whether or not they can evolve depends on individual differences and luck. After breaking through this period, they develop more consciousness, mainly recovering some vague human memories. Zombies at this stage can be considered semi-finished products, like her…”

He pointed to Ye Lian, then moved his hand towards Xia Na: “Only at this stage do they really become zombies. From this moment on, the virus that invaded the human body becomes a life form coexisting with the host. This is the true beginning.”

“The simplest way is actually to use a higher-level virus fusion to stimulate them. When they feel a lethal threat, the virus inside will naturally speed up its evolution, faster than under any other circumstances. But because it is a threat, ordinary zombies usually won’t actively touch the virus fusion inside a high-level zombie… Who would have thought evolution could be such a simple matter… Huh?”

Yellow-haired struggled to widen his eyes and laughed: “Hahahaha… Humans will be destroyed sooner or later. There will be no more unwritten rules, no pressure, no disdain…”

Ling Mo’s pupils shrank, and his mental Tentacles pierced directly into Yellow-haired’s mouth, then shredded his quite fragile internal organs: “As disgusting as this attack is, it’s necessary to stop your adolescent fantasies…”

He pulled out the stick, looking down at the eccentric professor who had collapsed on the ground: “Even the weak dare to babble about the extinction of humanity.”