The group waiting outside saw the space shudder violently, and then one hundred thousand zombies and Fu Erdie appeared out of thin air.
The zombie king’s corpse was piled together with the other zombie corpses. At first glance, it was impossible to tell them apart.
Only when the value on the instrument panel that had been tracking the zombie king instantly disappeared did everyone confirm one thing.
The zombie king was dead.
This time, it had vanished completely, silently and without fanfare.
There had been no earth-shaking battle worthy of a fourth-rank zombie. Only a curtain falling in silence, marking the end of a fierce and menacing zombie tide.
Fu Erdie stood in the pile of corpses, kicked aside several bodies on top, fished out the zombie king, violently cracked open its skull, took out the space crystal core, and handed it to Cen Xiyang to absorb.
Cen Xiyang accepted it.
Same-attribute crystal cores absorbed quickly. She took it and fully absorbed it in two minutes. Her ability level broke through from second rank to a point close to fourth rank, but she was still just a little short.
Fu Erdie handed her the backpack filled with crystal cores. “Absorb these when you’re free and see if you can reach fourth rank. After you reach fourth rank, split the rest: half for Han Zhi and half for Sang Sang.”
After receiving news that the zombie king had been dealt with, the base’s people cheered and decided to hold a high-standard banquet to entertain Fu Erdie’s group.
The ingredients used were all freshly produced by plant-type ability users on short notice, the best and freshest food the base could offer.
Besides vegetables, the base also brought out a sheep.
Although it was an old mountain goat, in this time of meat shortage, cooking it was enough to satisfy everyone’s craving and make both host and guests happy.
At the dining table, everyone enjoyed the rare food and the relaxation after the zombie tide. No one spoiled the mood by bringing up later cooperation arrangements. Both sides tacitly waited until everyone had settled down for the night, had time to think, and could formally discuss things tomorrow.
Fu Erdie ate amid the lively atmosphere while silently assessing the base’s strength.
D City Base was now in a complete mess. After losing several hundred ability users, its defensive strength had weakened greatly. If it did not solve its military needs, the base would remain in turmoil.
However, from the limited contact and understanding she had, D City Base’s infrastructure should have been mostly completed during this first year of the apocalypse. Whether it was electrical facilities or personnel training for each stage of infrastructure work, they already had a systematic process. That was why those ability users had been unwilling to abandon the base and had wanted to wait until it collapsed before occupying it.
Now that the base had sufficient infrastructure, if it had stable armed protection and a sufficient food source, it could basically live a life with hope.
And whether it was food or military force, Fu Erdie could provide what the base lacked.
Of course, she could not do it all at once and hand them enough ordinary mutated plants to support thirty thousand people. But slowly, it would definitely be possible for everyone to have a few ordinary mutated plants.
Fu Erdie had collected the “deposit” of two million zombies that afternoon. This deal definitely had to be made.
And later, Fu Erdie’s need was to keep growing stronger, maintain her lead, and continuously refine herself.
She was not yet sure how strong she needed to become. But while the situation remained unclear, she would do everything possible to level up. That way, whether she encountered fifth-rank, sixth-rank, seventh-rank, eighth-rank, or whatever-rank zombies in the future, she would have the ability to protect herself and her family and friends.
The base had many people. A base of thirty thousand people was a target that attracted zombie tides and even zombie kings. Its solid infrastructure might also attract ability users with bad intentions.
These zombies and ability users would become nourishment for Fu Erdie’s team. Their bodies would feed the plants, and their crystal cores would feed the ability users and the house.
Under this premise, Fu Erdie could level up more easily, instead of searching every corner for scattered mutated zombies by herself, or starting from scratch somewhere else and waiting for zombie tides.
As long as D City had a zombie tide, Fu Erdie could go and handle it.
When there was no zombie tide, Fu Erdie could “travel for work,” choosing the centres of large cities where zombies were concentrated and killing zombies to level up.
But this created one problem.
She could not be stationed at D City Base long-term. Even when she was not travelling, she lived at Senyu Residential Complex in C City. So without her, or if a powerful enemy appeared and she could not reach D City Base in time, who would fill the base’s military gap?
If she ignored D City and allowed powerful ability zombies or ability users to occupy the base and drive away the thirty thousand ordinary people, where would she find a new target capable of attracting zombie tides? Other large bases?
Better the familiar than the unfamiliar. Fu Erdie leaned toward preserving this base.
While eating, Fu Erdie looked out the dining hall window.
The wild dandelions, averaging second-rank, gathered in clusters outside the city.
The survivors outside the city who had not been accepted by the base but were still barely alive tried to grab the dandelions and eat them, but the dandelions dodged one by one.
The dandelions did not counterattack. They simply moved elsewhere and drifted in the wind.
She had observed the relationship between the dandelions and the survivors outside the city. If someone outside died, they would land on that person, corrode and absorb the body, or carry it away to absorb elsewhere.
To the dead person’s family, the dandelions were like corpse-eating crows flying around. But to more survivors, the dandelions could promptly deal with corpses and also handle their waste. When in a good mood, they would even clean some dirt from people’s bodies. This made the refugee settlement cleaner, so the benefits outweighed the harm.
Overall, the dandelions and these people coexisted fairly harmoniously.
Fu Erdie’s eyes moved slightly.
There were so many intelligent mutated plants. It was not only the dandelions that wanted independence; other plants had the same wish.
She had plant babies who wanted to be independent but had not yet found a place to settle, while the base needed more armed strength. Then she could let the plants settle here.
When they grew tired of staying, new intelligent mutated plants could replace and supplement them. There would be more and more plant babies, and more and more plants wanting to live independently outside.
She could set a rule. For example, the babies who came out had to stay at the base for a certain period. If they wanted to leave, they had to cultivate new intelligent mutated plants and raise successors before going out to roam, ensuring the base always had this many intelligent mutated plants.
While thinking about the rules for the plant babies settling down and playing, she continued eating.
Late at night, after Fu Erdie and the base’s people finished the lavish meal, they arrived at the large villa specially cleaned out by the base.
This had been the villa where a third-rank ability user’s team and relatives had lived. Now that group had been driven away, the villa was left for Fu Erdie’s group.
D City leader Rong Le’an promised that whether or not they lived in D City Base long-term, this villa would be reserved for Fu Erdie and for the people from Butterfly Garden.
Fu Erdie accepted gladly.
However, to avoid being controlled by others, she dismantled the heavy electrically controlled gate and courtyard wall, replacing them with an ordinary fence to distinguish inside from outside. The villa’s view became much more open because of this.
After touring the villa, washing up, and settling down, the group sat around the hall at ten that night, fresh and clean, to divide the crystal cores.
Cen Xiyang absorbed fifty crystal cores, broke through the energy limit of third-rank ability, and reached fourth-rank. Her ability reserves instantly multiplied tenfold.
She discovered with surprise that she could see her own energy space, and she now possessed the same ability as the zombie king: the ability to control space.
Although she could only place dead objects into the space, and only into a small box inside it, with the larger area still unusable, everyone was still very happy.
After all, this was an additional evolved ability. Even if it could not compare to the zombie king, whose original ability was space-type, it was still a free advantage. Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao had not gained any such new abilities when they levelled up.
After Cen Xiyang’s excitement passed, she began observing her energy space.
Her space was not wilderness, nor was it pitch-black. Instead, it resembled a city-centre commercial street filled with tall buildings. There were business towers, office buildings, and various high-end luxury-brand clothing stores.
She excitedly waved at Fu Erdie. “Can you enter my space?”
Fu Erdie’s heart stirred. Thinking of the transformation between human form and energy body in the zombie king’s space, she immediately began trying.
She input her ability into Cen Xiyang’s body, then controlled the ability to form a human shape.
One second passed.
Two seconds passed.
In the villa hall, everyone and Fu Erdie stared at each other. Nothing changed. Fu Erdie still stood where she was.
After pondering for a moment, she withdrew her ability, released Cen Xiyang’s hand, closed her eyes, and sensed the circulation of ability inside her body.
That afternoon, when the zombie king had pulled her body into its space, there had actually been an instantaneous transformation process: turning her into special particles, then recombining her into a physical form inside the energy field.
This was the zombie king’s ability instinct and was not entirely under its control. Otherwise, it could have completely scattered Fu Erdie into particles and absorbed her directly, giving her no chance to reform.
If Fu Erdie wanted to switch between physical body and energy body the way she had inside the space, she needed to complete that transformation in reality.
She calmed her mind and recalled that mysterious feeling. Her ability circulated faster, filling her internal organs, bones, blood, and skin. After ensuring her whole body was filled with ability and every cell was wrapped in it—
With a soft whoosh,
like a sand sculpture scattering into grains of sand, she turned into countless tiny points of light. Fu Erdie changed from human form into a colourful, sand-like energy form, then drifted slowly toward Cen Xiyang.
Cen Xiyang’s heart tightened. Afraid that a gust of wind would scatter the lights on the ground, she immediately crouched carefully and reached out to cradle them.
The lights flowed into Cen Xiyang’s palm. In the next instant, they became a tiny person inside her energy space.
It was Fu Erdie!
But at this moment, her face was pale, and she sat weakly on the street inside the space.
Cen Xiyang panicked a little. “Fu Erdie, how are you? What’s going on now?”
Fu Erdie took a deep breath. After resting inside the energy space for quite a while, she finally managed to speak. “It seems transforming inside an energy space is easy, but transforming in reality consumes a lot of mental strength and ability. One transformation drained all my ability. For now, I don’t have the strength to go out.”
Cen Xiyang: “…”
Looking at the tiny person inside her ability space, Cen Xiyang somehow became very excited. “Are you sleeping here tonight?”
Fu Erdie observed the surrounding environment.
Cen Xiyang’s space was a modern business district full of high-rises, quite in line with Cen Xiyang’s image as an urban professional beauty. It did seem rather comfortable to stay in.
So she nodded. “This is a good chance to test whether this can train my ability.”
Cen Xiyang was happy.
She had only just gained a space ability and was seeing the inside of her own energy space for the first time. The novelty had not yet worn off, so she immediately took the initiative to handle Fu Erdie’s clothing and accommodation. She chose an extremely luxurious-looking hotel, and with a thought, an invisible force carried Fu Erdie to a high floor. Inside, rows of gorgeous clothes were displayed in the hall, waiting for Fu Erdie to choose.
Fu Erdie: “…”
Her best friend was too bored and was treating her like a dress-up game doll.
But she cooperated, curiously changing into different outfits and even making suggestions for what style of dress Cen Xiyang should create.
Cen Xiyang did not really understand how to change the spatial structure or the existing things inside. She only knew how to move things around.
Fu Erdie understood and continued trying on the existing clothes.
The two chatted back and forth, their conversation taking place inside the space. Sang Wenhao and the others could not see or hear Fu Erdie’s movements. They only saw Cen Xiyang standing there with rich expressions, saying things on her own, and roughly guessed the situation inside.
Finally, Cen Xiyang happily announced that Fu Erdie would spend the night inside her ability space.
And so, for the first time in nearly half a year, Sang Wenhao slept alone at night.
Sang Wenhao: “…”
Although it was not good to think this way, he hoped his girlfriend’s current form would not achieve automatic cultivation. Otherwise, in order to help everyone’s ability levels rise, wouldn’t she have to split half her sleeping time — no, most of her sleeping time — between Cen Xiyang and the plants?
He rejected this very much in his heart.
He had already grown used to holding the person he liked while sleeping at night. Whether she wanted to do something or nothing at all, he was happy and at ease.
But now, his girlfriend had run off with someone else.
Sang Wenhao: (x_x)
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