Chapter 2: Rebirth
“It hurts! It’s killing me!” In that moment, Jiang Yi could almost “see” inside his own body, the meridians connecting all his organs were being torn apart, then reassembled by this terrifying energy!
Jiang Yi didn’t plan to die, but he truly had no other choice! In the past week, everyone injured by zombie attacks had died and turned into zombies without exception. If he didn’t do something, his injury would inevitably lead to the same fate.
The only idea he could think of was a theory proposed earlier by a biology professor. The professor suggested that the reason ordinary people couldn’t consume zombie cores was that they hadn’t been exposed to the acid rain, unlike the ability users.
Both ability users and zombies shared the commonality of having been exposed to that rain. So, perhaps this was why their genes were similar, even identical. Could it be if an ordinary person first contracted the zombie virus and then consumed a core, it might neutralize the virus and even grant them an ability? This was merely a hypothesis. Its feasibility remained untested due to the scarcity of precious zombie cores.
However, this professor’s unconventional theory had still caused quite a stir. Just yesterday, while out searching for supplies, that biology professor unfortunately died, never making it back to the cafeteria!
It was precisely for this reason that Jiang Yi, possessing a core and facing certain death, swallowed the hidden core without much further thought about the consequences!
But even though he was prepared for zombification, he never expected the process to be this agonizing! His painful screams drove the zombies outside the dorm into a greater frenzy. The flimsy dorm door began to shake visibly.
Jiang Yi could no longer worry about whether the zombies would break down the wooden door. His consciousness wavered between clarity and delirium. His injured left arm particularly felt as if branded by red-hot iron! The pain was so intense he wished he could tear the arm off.
“Ahhh!” When the pain reached its peak, veins bulged across Jiang Yi’s body, the traces of blood rushing through them clearly visible. With one final and desperate scream, Jiang Yi completely exhausted his strength. Yet the next moment, he laughed—a terrifying, grim laugh as he lay drenched in sweat!
But Jiang Yi, feeling the relief of surviving a mortal ordeal, couldn’t help but collapse onto the floor, laughing hysterically. “Haha, I succeeded! I didn’t die! And I didn’t turn into a zombie!”
Now, Jiang Yi could feel a strange energy flowing through his reborn body. His depleted strength was gradually returning to his weakened form.
Amid the frantic pounding of the zombies, Jiang Yi struggled to his feet. It wasn’t time to celebrate yet. If he couldn’t resolve the immediate crisis outside, even successfully becoming an ability user wouldn’t save him from being torn apart by zombies.
However, Jiang Yi wasn’t too worried now. After enduring the extreme pain of evolution, his mind clearly held the memory and knowledge of how to use his ability!
“So this is what it’s like to be an ability user? It’s incredible!” Jiang Yi clenched his fist tightly. At this moment, he felt stronger than ever before! Though still somewhat fatigued, he felt as if he had returned to the peak of his health…
But Jiang Yi knew this was just a false appearance. His body hadn’t been truly enhanced! It was even significantly different from the ability users he’d seen in the cafeteria earlier.
Frowning in confusion, he wondered, “Were they all hiding the true nature of their abilities?”
He shook his head, finding it hard to believe. Even if others might conceal the truth, his girlfriend wouldn’t have hidden it from him. So, was his ability just different?
Thinking this, Jiang Yi hesitantly pressed his left hand against the white wall in front of him. With a thought, a ten-inch light screen appeared on the wall’s surface, remarkably clear…
“It actually appeared?” Even though the knowledge of how to use his ability was in his mind, Jiang Yi couldn’t help but be stunned by the sci-fi-like scene before him…
On the wall, the ten-inch screen clearly displayed:
“Constitution: 5 points
Spirit: 8 points
Strength: 4 points
Speed: 5 points
Defense: 3 points
Note: Maximum standard for survivors is 10 points!”
Swallowing hard, Jiang Yi knew these five attributes undoubtedly referred to him. Apart from Spirit being slightly higher, the others were somewhat embarrassing—but accurate. Despite his 180cm tall, sunny, and handsome appearance, Jiang Yi had always been thin and weak. Since childhood, he was the envy of others for being able to eat anything without gaining weight. But who knew that the handsome Jiang Yi had never passed a single physical education test from elementary school through university? Annual sports events had nothing to do with him. He’d never won a single arm-wrestling match, even against kids five or six years younger!
His only forte was his intelligence. Since childhood, he was the “model child” neighbors talked about. He tested into Longcheng University of Technology as the city’s top scorer in the college entrance exams, with a full scholarship.
So, Jiang Yi didn’t doubt the data’s accuracy at all! Keeping his left hand on the wall, he tapped the screen with his right hand.
The text changed:
“Consume own attributes to materialize a soul weapon?
Note: This choice is unique and irreversible!”
Jiang Yi was taken aback but didn’t hesitate long before tapping “Yes.” Although he didn’t fully understand the text, trapped in an ordinary girls’ dormitory unarmed, he had no other choice.
As he made his choice, a sharp pain shot through his temples. Then, a black light appeared in front of him out of thin air! As the pulling sensation inside his body grew stronger, the light before him slowly solidified from illusion into a physical object…
“Ah! It hurts!” This pain was different from before, like having his fibers pulled out strand by strand. It wasn’t unbearable, but it carried an undeniable sense of powerlessness!
This feeling quickly spread throughout his body. To his alarm, as the black light solidified, his recently recovered strength and spirit rapidly drained away! Enduring the headache, he glanced at the light screen on the wall. Horrified, he saw his Constitution, Spirit, and Strength points dropping second by second!
A sense of powerless imbalance overwhelmed him. He didn’t even have the strength to sit up, slumping against the wall as the fully solidified, elongated object fell onto him…
He smiled bitterly, truly regretting his decision now. If he had known it would be like this, he definitely wouldn’t have so rashly chosen ‘Yes’! He never expected that materializing a weapon would actually consume his original attributes!
At that moment, Jiang Yi felt as if trapped by sleep paralysis, desperate to move but utterly unable to control his body… Leaning weakly against the wall, he gritted his teeth and picked up the weapon that had nearly cost him his life!
It turned out to be a blade! A pitch-black Tang sword! The scabbard was made of dark wood. The guard was dull silver. The hilt was intricately wrapped in unknown leather, exquisitely woven around the entire grip.
What puzzled Jiang Yi most was that the leather strap wrapping the hilt didn’t end there. It continued, braiding into a meter-long cord hanging from the hilt’s end. A metal skull hand in the size of a baby’s palm, dangled from the cord’s end.
“CRASH!”Before Jiang Yi could examine the strange sword further, the wooden door beside him suddenly splintered. The thin wooden panel embedded in the door finally gave way under the zombies’ assault, a hole smashed through the middle. A rotting arm thrust inside, clawing frantically in the air!
Jiang Yi was shocked. Acting on instinct, he mustered all his remaining strength and drew the black sword…
Since he was holding the scabbard with his right hand, the moment his left hand gripped the hilt, an unprecedented sense of connection flowed from the sword into his body! The black sword drawn, Jiang Yi put all his remaining strength into a slash aimed at the arm!
His severely depleted stamina forced him to fight desperately. But as he drew the sword, his heart sank. He clearly felt that despite putting all his strength into the slash, it lacked real power!
“THUD!” Foul, dark blood splattered on the floor. The gleaming black blade bit into the arm. Sure enough, despite the sword’s sharpness, without sufficient force behind it, the blade got stuck in the bone!
Attacked, the arm’s owner tried to retract it. But the sword, wedged in the door, prevented withdrawal. After a few frantic struggles, to Jiang Yi’s horror, the arm was brutally twisted and torn off, falling to the floor with the sword still lodged in it. Jiang Yi, ignoring his weakness, snatched back the black sword and scrambled backward, putting some distance between himself and the door…
“GROAN!” As Jiang Yi moved away from the hole, an ugly, rotting head frantically forced its way through the expanding breach. Once-long black hair was now a muddy, balding mess, its scalp scraped off by the broken wood. Pale eyes were streaked with dark blood vessels.
The zombie, its head inside, seemed to see Jiang Yi, snapping its blackened, sharp teeth together violently, an extremely terrifying scene! But Jiang Yi was no rookie seeing zombies for the first time. Though startled, he wasn’t paralyzed with fear. To him, a zombie stuck in a door was like a gift-wrapped target.
Summoning all his strength, he raised the black sword, braced the hilt against his body, and lunged forward! The sharp blade thrust directly into the female zombie’s eye! His weakened state almost sent him crashing into the foul-smelling creature for intimate contact.
Just as he was about to collide with it, a sliver of strength surged within him. His blurry vision seemed to clear slightly. Without a second thought, he used this sudden burst of energy to throw himself sideways, barely preserving his ‘purity’!
Join the Discussion