Chapter 784: The Revenant’s Revenge

“How did this happen?”

“Where have we fallen to?”

“Are these really zombies? Why do they feel so strong?”

Even though many of the exploration team members were used to big storms, they still felt their scalps go numb in the face of such a terrifying scene.

It should be known that ordinary zombies had rotten muscles, loose tendons, and weak joints. Their movements were slow and distorted. Even without touching them, their limbs would fall off by themselves. In short, they were very weak.

In a zombie crisis, even if ordinary citizens were to wave their lawnmowers, they would be able to kill the zombies and charge through their ranks seven times[1].

If it was a super zombie created by the monster civilization, its mobility and infection rate would be doubled. Plus, it could spray flames or acid. While it could cause serious damage to ordinary citizens, it could not do anything to superhumans who were above average.

Superhumans created a spirit magnetic field. If one were to use an ultimate skill and not be able to kill seventy to eighty zombies, it would all be because he had bad eyesight and poor aim.

However, the zombies in front of him were different.

Their flesh and blood were merely atrophied instead of rotting.

No, not atrophied but “compressed.’ Their flesh was compressed to the limit, becoming a substance that was as hard as steel.

Their tendons had only turned grayish-white, but they were not broken. They also had strengthened ductility and flexibility.

Strands of blood-patterned mycelium drilled out of their skin. At first glance, they looked like they were covered with a layer of short red hair.

From Meng Chao’s previous experience of provoking undead creatures, this layer of red hair could not only evenly disperse external attacks, but also make it difficult for external forces to focus on a single point and break through the defenses of the undead creatures.

It could also stimulate the cells of the undead creatures to accelerate the division and abnormal proliferation, increasing their ability to survive on the battlefield.

Crystal-like substances grew around their joints, which could strengthen the joints and protect them from the enemy’s attacks like armor.

Of course, they didn’t have eyeballs.

However, the phosphorescence in the bottom of their eyes formed countless complicated geometric patterns as if they were flickering with evil intelligence that was completely different from human beings.

Even the undead creatures that were surrounded by blood stripes were subtly obeying the commands of these zombies, forming a battle formation that was orderly in offense and defense, and commanded and prohibited.

Such human-shaped undead creatures, of course, could not be compared to the traditional, weak zombies. Instead, they were ‘zombies’ that could self-cultivate and level up.

They were even somewhat similar to the undead creature commander from the Netherworld, ‘lich’, in Meng Chao’s memory fragment from his previous life.

But why were some zombies wearing Earth-era clothing?

Could it be that they were all citizens of Peach Blossom Town?

Before everyone could figure this out, countless zombies had already commanded the stitched-up-monster-like undead creatures to surround the hundreds of exploration team members.

The rotten smell on their bodies and the deep flames in their eyes combined to form an invisible swamp, causing the exploration team members to sink deep into it and almost suffocate.

“I’m sorry, Meng Chao. I did lie to you all. Peach Blossom Town is not a perfect paradise. It’s just an illusion that I created. This place in front of us is filled with gusts of cold wind, ghostly aura, undead creatures, and red-haired zombies. It’s the real Peach Blossom Town.”

A faint sigh sounded behind Meng Chao.

It seemed to contain great regret, grievance, and anger.

Everyone was shocked. They turned around and looked at the Tree of Wisdom that was formed from the snake-like vines and the bones of the monster. It also had scarlet mycelium, dark green moss, and rotten mucus.

The trunk of the wisdom tree cracked again. Countless mycelium wrapped the moss and condensed into the appearance of a young girl resembling Jin Qianxi.

However, at this moment, the young girl was covered in pustules, tumors, and wounds that would never heal. Her facial features and limbs were twisted, and poisonous spores were spurting out of her seven orifices, making her look like a ‘goddess of pestilence.’

She was completely different from the young girl that Meng Chao had seen in the illusion. Her body was surrounded by golden rays, and she was as flawless as a gemstone and as crystal clear as crystal!

“Are you disappointed? In me like this, and in Peach Blossom Town like this?”

The goddess of pestilence stepped on the corpse flowers that blossomed from the snake vines and slowly walked toward Meng Chao and the others. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to deceive you. The truth is too cruel and ugly, and I can’t say it out loud.

“That’s right. Peach Blossom Town wasn’t saved. It was destroyed decades ago by the humans themselves.

“That was after I fished out Jin Qianxi’s body from the Red Dragon River and tried to fuse her soul.

“Unlike what I said before, the fusion was not that smooth. Jin Qianxi was one of the strongest existences among the transmigrators on Earth, and I was one of the strangest carbon-based intelligent life forms born in this foreign land. How could the fusion of two powerful life forms that were so different be smooth?

“In the beginning, Jin Qianxi could not understand my wisdom and civilization form at all.

“I was also scared out of my wits by the horrifying scenes that originated from the ancient relics in the depths of her memory.

“The two of us engaged in a soul-stirring ‘war’ on the soul level. Neither of us was willing to give in. We wanted to seize the control of the new souls after the fusion.

“Our souls were broken into pieces during the war, and both of us suffered heavy losses.

“Even if we managed to combine them, it would still be a great loss for us. It would take a long period of adjustment.

“For several years, I lost the ability to manipulate the spirit beasts through the neural network. My entire body was paralyzed. I could only observe the nearby Peach Blossom Town quietly, but I was unable to extend a single vine to interfere with every move of the town.

“Therefore, I couldn’t stop everything.

“I couldn’t stop the leader and the experts under him from slaughtering the people in Peach Blossom Town wantonly. The sabers that were broken because too many bones were chopped off were simply broken in the end instead of the innocent townspeople’s necks.

“I couldn’t stop the demons who were waving their sabers from catching up with the poor girl, Gu Ling and killing her in the cruelest way.

“I failed to stop the leader and the experts under him from killing most of the innocent townspeople. As a result, the industry and technology of the town could not be maintained at all. The leader and the experts under him had no choice but to gradually give up all the tools of civilization from Earth and cultivate even harder, hoping to gather thousands of magnificent forces into one body and survive in the jungle by themselves.

“It was like drinking poison to quench thirst, a vicious cycle.

“The more crazily they trained, the more they had to plunder all the resources of the town.

“The more resources they plundered, the more the industry and technology of the town declined, and the civilization was gradually unable to be maintained.

“Without the civilization’s protection, they could only train crazily, turning into savages wreathed in spirit flames.

“However, without industry, technology, and a perfect research and education system, even if they had a lot of crystals, the flesh of monsters, and heavenly materials and earthly treasures, how could they have discovered the correct training method of spirit energy without being mentally deranged?

“Gradually, the leader and the experts under him were corroded by the unparalleled spirit energy and their brains were corrupted. Their emotions and desires were magnified infinitely, and they were driven more and more by instinct rather than reason.

“In the training terms of your dragon city, they became ‘lost people’, pitiful creatures who were lost in the mysterious and boundless world of spirit energy.

“They turned Peach Blossom Town into a literal hell on Earth.

“The last innocent people fell in pools of blood.

“The funny thing was that the leaders and the experts who boasted that they had all the power in the world did not realize how insignificant their power was compared to the vast world beyond the forests.

“The townspeople are all dead. No one is mining for them, forging weapons and armor for them, collecting and cooking food for them, acting as cannon fodder for them, and consuming the combat ability of the monsters. All of this must be dealt with by them personally.

“I’m still unable to move.

“However, the monsters who have long awakened their wisdom and replicated the desires and hatred of human beings can not wait to devour the entire Peach Blossom Town.

“The leader and the experts under him were indeed ten times stronger than before.

“However, without the resistance of the townspeople, the number of monsters that appeared in front of them was hundreds of times more than before.

“The leader and the experts under him fell into the ocean of monsters that were haunted by the vengeful souls of human beings. At this moment, they finally woke up and regretted their actions.

“However, Peach Blossom Town was not destroyed by the monsters.

“There were all kinds of viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites in the Hidden Mist Domain, and all kinds of undead creatures often appeared.

“After years of fighting, Peach Blossom Town became the best petri dish for the spores of the blood stripe virus and the zombie virus.

“After countless coincidences, collisions, fusion, mutation, screening, and evolution, a new form of the super zombie virus appeared.

“No. This thing that has fused the genetic fragments of the blood stripe virus, archaic bacteria, and various parasitic organisms can no longer be described as a ‘virus.’

“It is a hundred times more dangerous than ordinary zombie viruses.

“Other than being highly infectious, it has been dead for many years, buried deep underground, and nourished by the crystal veins for many years. Not only is it not rotting, but it even appears to be ‘crystallized.’

“Moreover, it was very difficult for them to be destroyed by the human body’s immune system and the spirit magnetic field. Even the superhuman ones had a certain chance of being infected by it.

“Just like that, the leader, who was covered in wounds, and the experts under his command were shocked to discover that, after they managed to repel the monster’s attack with great difficulty, it was no longer the familiar monster that was making a comeback, but the vengeful spirits of the dead.

“In the past few years, they killed the citizens of Peach Blossom Town. Other than throwing them into the Red Dragon River and the Raging Tiger River, they also threw them into the depths of the forest.

“They thought that the bodies of all the innocent people would gradually sink, rot, and disappear in the dark jungle just like their sins.

“However, they didn’t expect that the few ‘lucky’ victims, stimulated by the injustice, anger, hatred, and the super zombie virus, would crawl back to the human world from the deepest part of hell and reappear before their eyes.”

[1] Reference to scene in Romance of the Three Kingdoms in which Zhao Yun charges seven times through the ranks of Cao Cao’s armies. https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E4%B8%83%E8%BF%9B%E4%B8%83%E5%87%BA