Chapter 80: Half Zombie
Each and every building in the Eastern District had a high possibility to have zombies hidden inside. Before he entered the building, Yun Tu pressed his ear to the wall and carefully listened to the sounds as to make a pre-judgement on the degree of safety, and then entered it carefully. But if the zombies weren"t moving and he was also asleep, he wouldn"t necessarily able to detect it.
According to his past procedures, if he decided to rest overnight before, he would check the whole floor from the bottom up and then would pick the middle floor to rest.
But, something was amiss!
The building he picked was a five-storied building. When Yun Tu checked all the way through the fourth floor, he smelled a tinge of dangerous breath. Although the dangerous feeling wasn"t intense, however, it was neither fabricated nor came from his imagination. This kind of feeling wasn"t coming from the sounds he could hear, but came from his sense of smell.
Human beings were the opposite of zombies or animals as their sense of smell could be said as the weakest. Scientists had researched and found that the sense of smell of canines was hundreds of times sharper than humans". While the zombies, on the other hand, were able to move freely at night, not only was it due to their keen hearing ability, but also by virtue of their olfactory system that gave them a sharp chemoreception ability.
After breaking through to the Second Level, Yun Tu"s Chemoreception stat was as high as 22 points, but it was relative to the limitation of humans. By now, his Chemoreception ability was slightly below ordinary puppies". It was several folds higher compared to an ordinary person"s, and just begun to slowly play its role.
At least now when he was on the fourth floor, he could smell the very unpleasant smell of a corpse from the fifth floor—which was different compared to the human body smell.
Since it was a zombie, he might as well kill it!
Yun Tu"s physical strength was rapidly weakening. If he were to exit from the building now, he wasn"t sure if he would be able to walk normally if he didn"t have a Second Order Blood Crystal to supplement his strength.
Since that thing wasn"t moving, Yun Tu could only sense its smell. He had climbed the stairs, and even though he was careful and cautious, he could tell that the zombie also could feel his arrival.
Under normal circ.u.mstances, when ordinary zombies faced strong opponents, they didn"t know about the concept of fear if they hadn"t had serious injuries. But Yun Tu could feel that this zombie was able to sense him quietly approaching and it actually drew back to the corner instinctively.
The sky had gone dark, but it was not too dark to distinguish all the details of the objects. With his 22 points of Vision stat, Yun Tu was still able to see the other"s figure, albeit quite vaguely. It turned out to be a severely wounded zombie?
Upon seeing that Yun Tu came in quietly, a look of despair was cast on the zombie"s face. Obviously, it could tell from the aura alone that the opponent was much stronger than itself.
Yun Tu was also quite startled upon seeing the obvious sad and desperate expression from its distorted look.
It"s a zombified human, a Half Zombie!
The opposite party was not a zombie, it was unexpectedly a young female that had gone through a mutation and turned into a Half Zombie!
It was caused by the infection of the Apocalypse"s Rose Virus. However, it could only happen under the condition that the virus didn"t flare up in the incubation period. And if the person contracted with the virus took a First Order Blood Crystal, they had a small chance to become a Half Zombie.
Such Half Zombie had the same body as the dead-zombies, albeit that they still had their conscious in them. Strictly speaking, this person turned into a zombie while still retaining her own conscious, thus, she was not one of those of dead-zombies.
In a sense, a Half Zombie definitely could be said as a new kind of formidable living creature. They still retained their human wisdom, albeit their bodies had turned into a zombie with its equally powerful body trait.
With the combination of strength and intelligence, they were absolutely stronger than ordinary zombies.
Not only that, since Half Zombies had a special body structure, it made it not only possible for them to attack and prey on humans and constantly become stronger by drinking up their blood, they were also able to constantly become stronger by swallowing the zombies" Blood Crystals. From this point alone, this was a definite superior advantage.
However, as was always the case, the coin has two sides to it. These Half Zombies still had the smell of humans on their bodies, and this made so the high-level zombies could accurately identify them as different ent.i.ties from ordinary zombies, which in the end, would attack them as they would humans. While on the other hand, humanity also treated them as zombies and were h.e.l.l-bent on exterminating them. Therefore, the circ.u.mstances with the Half Zombies were much more complex and complicated as they had to face very dangerous situations from both the human race or their zombie counterpart.
At present, the current level of this female Half Zombie was about the same with the Black Zombie. But she possibly had just gone through the besieging of zombies, as it could be seen how seriously injured she was seeing the red and white blood traces on her body. She seemed to have the same intention as Yun Tu, that was, to hide in this building, resting and healing herself, and then coming out again.
However, it looked like her luck was quite bad!
Usually, those who had the same misfortune sympathized with each other! However, Yun Tu didn"t have the intention to let her go. Although she didn"t lose her human conscious, and also still felt sadness and fear, however, she was no longer and would never become human again. Moreover, she could end up as the nemesis of humankind.
As though a lion that would still use its full strength to attack a rabbit, despite his exhausted body and the opponent also being severely injured and unable to fight back, Yun Tu didn"t want to underestimate the opponent. He took a deep breath, he took out his dagger instead of his gun, as to avoid creating too much sound.
“Don"t… Don"t…”
Upon seeing that Yun Tu was about to attack her, the female Half Zombie knew that under such severe injuries, she didn"t have the ability to fight back and immediately pleaded.
Yun Tu was quite astonished since this Half Zombie was still able to speak. This was beyond his imagination. The Half Zombies were very scarce, to begin with. Even with his many years of experience surviving the Apocalypse in his past incarnation, he only heard the rumors of the powerful creatures called Half Zombies. He never had really dealt with them, so his knowledge about them was very limited.
However, all of these aspects were not important. Regardless if it could speak any logical stuff as though human, Yun Tu still would take its life!
"Don"t… don"t hurt my… … son!"
This female Half Zombie unexpectedly didn"t plea for herself. When she struggled to move against the corner, she turned out to have a small arched container on her back as Yun Tu immediately could see a pair of baby legs exposed behind this female Half Zombie"s back.
And perhaps because of instinct, the baby was trying to climb on the mother"s back.
The Half Zombies didn"t lose their human trait, while at the same time, they also had a powerful zombie"s body. This finally became their biggest weakness. Those who mutated into Half Zombies had the appearance of a zombie but they also usually didn"t want to hurt their family members. So, mostly half of the Half Zombie died in their loved ones" hands after they began to mutate.
At present, this female Half Zombie actually had a few months-old baby. It was no wonder that she was injured by the ordinary zombies.
"I… am …a zombie… but… son… normal… human… please… I … beg you… beg you…"
Upon seeing that Yun Tu didn"t rush to immediately attack, despite having difficulty to speak, the female Half Zombie pleaded again. It was obvious that she had lost most of her speaking ability and couldn"t express her mind freely. However, Yun Tu could understand the meaning of her words.
If he killed this female Half Zombie, even though he didn"t hurt her son, but still, the baby wouldn"t be able to live. But letting this Half Zombie go was also not an option. A cold glint immediately flashed in Yun Tu"s eyes as he firmly and heavily shook his head.
"…L-Let… me… feed… him!"
With the wisdom still retained within, this Half Zombie could read the struggling expression on Yun Tu"s face. She knew that she was facing death. With great difficulty, she moved half of her body as she took her baby that was hidden behind her back. She put him into her bosom and then lifted her clothes, revealing blackened t.i.ts on her chest as she begun to breastfeed the baby.
It turned out that she just wanted to breastfeed her baby once again before dying.
Seven or eight months-old babies were able to sit and climb a little. And this baby boy wasn"t yet able to stand. So it was estimated that this baby boy was only seven or eight months old. However, would this baby boy able to become a normal human later after he ate his Half Zombie mother"s milk?
Whilst seeing the hungry, naked baby crawling and burying himself in his mother"s arms so earnestly and innocently, even after he was rebirthed, Yun Tu didn"t know the answer for this complex question.
He might have seen countless brutal and cruel scenes after the advent of the Apocalypse. On the evening of the second day of the Apocalypse, a large number of patients suddenly rose and became zombies. He witnessed how a mother killed her own son who had just turned into a zombie. He was present when a wife killed her own husband-turned-zombie, but to a mother who nursed her baby and breastfed it, Yun Tu couldn"t convince himself to kill her, regardless if the mother was still human or Half Zombie.
“T-Thank… T-Thank you…”
After breastfeeding her son, she gently put him to her side gently. Yun Tu thought that he would have the final fight soon. But much to his surprise, the Half Zombie mother who was aware that she was at the point of death, suddenly used her sharp claws and fiercely pierced her own chest.
For the Half Zombies, perhaps they felt that no one was able to understand the pain inside their very souls. Even if they had families, they couldn"t go home as their loved ones would even want to quickly exterminate them once they saw their ugly half-corpse and half-human appearance after the mutation. Even though with their powerful physical strength they could choose to resist and kill them, but their conscious and wisdom was still there, and this very conscience was precisely what made them extremely fragile. No one knew as to how this female Half Zombie was able to survive with her son until now. Perhaps she was able to do that because of her son, but everything was over for her now, also due to her own son.
Perhaps… this was the best outcome!
Upon seeing the female Half Zombie committing suicide, Yun Tu suddenly felt greatly relieved and relaxed. If he were to ruthlessly kill the mother when she was embracing her son a moment ago, the end result might seem no different with now, but the shadow in his heart would be completely different.