The off-road vehicle heads towards the direction of the town at high-speed, before turning into a smaller dirt road covered in wild grass and out-of-control weeds. On both sides of the road, ditches were dug, and beyond those ditches lay open paddy fields. Except the ground of said fields are so dry that not a single drop of water can be spotted. Yellow and withered crops can be seen carelessly scattered all over that dry, cracked ground.
After crossing that small dirt road, they finally enter the town. This entire place is located on filled-in ground, where mud and soil were taken from other places and dumped here, allowing it to rise above sea-level and become fit to establish a town on. When one walks through the village, a few random patches of dead rice crop can be seen planted here and there.
Driving through the entrance, the car stops outside the first house they come across. The party of four exits the vehicle and three zombies immediately amble forward, attracted by the noise.
Grasping a steel knife, Long Zhanye's arm shoots forward, accurately piercing through the head of the nearest zombie. Qin Jun immediately follows up by beheading the next one with his own sword, and the last fell to Li Qing, its head split neatly in two down the middle. This is his first time personally dealing a killing blow to a zombie, and Li Qing's body dare not relax until the undead topples, making him take a step back to avoid the dripping blood.
"They are already not humans anymore. You are killing zombies. Monsters. Huo Zaiyuan offers him a small smile, patting his shoulder in comfort.
"I know" Li Qing whispers, biting his lower lip. Reaching down to pull out the knife buried in the zombie's head, he frowns as he looks at the sticky red and yellow substance on the blade. He will become much stronger so as to stop dragging the others down!
Due to the sky quickly becoming black, none of them plans to wander around this town, instead deciding to stay the night in the first house they come across. Because they are still unsure if more zombies are lingering within the building, Long Zhanye volunteers to enter first and search while Huo Zaiyuan begins to set a barrier array down outside. As they have confirmed there are zombies in the area, Qin Jun and Li Qing stay outside with Huo Zaiyuan, protecting him in case an undead decides to attack when he is busy laying arrays.
The house they are staying the night in is a common building one will always come across in villages and small towns. Straw and wood roof, mud bricks and patchwork curtains. As soon as Long Zhanye enters, he treads carefully and silently, searching the entire place from top to bottom. He discovers a small zombie in one of the ground floor rooms, a kid around six years old with a chunk missing from its shoulder. Cleanly cutting it down, he heads directly up to the second floor and finds another three zombies. A male and two females. One of the male and female there should be the parents, with scratches and bites along their bodies. The other female is approximately eighteen or above, bearing no visible wounds. From the small vertical lines of the scratches on the male, he supposes it was caused by the small zombie. By the looks of things, when zombies invaded the town, the parents hid in the second floor, but was bitten by the daughter who was the first to turn.
Clearing out all the undead, Long Zhanye sweeps the entire house one more time to ensure it truly is safe. Not a moment too soon, the other three outside comes in. Directing Huo Zaiyuan to the corpses, he watches as the golden flames consume every corpse until even the ashes are gone. What is left behind makes Huo Zaiyuan feels delighted. For amongst the four corpses, two yielded crystals, which was something he wasn't expecting.
Only, it is rather strange that these two crystals are quite different compared to the ones he has gotten familiar with. Instead of being shaped like a sesame seed, these ones are spherical.
Is the change in crystal shapes connected in some way to the zombie's increasing intelligence?