Chapter 225: Walking Corpse
Meng Chao plummeted.
He flung his arms all over the place, but there was nothing he could grab onto.
He did not know what was waiting for him at the bottom of the dark underground, but fortunately, he still had one more chain saber.
He threw his Surging Lightning into a wall more than ten meters away from him.
He yanked at the chains viciously, and they turned into straight lines at the same time. Surging Lightning left behind a series of sparks on the wall, but Meng Chao slowed down.
Qin Hu was still bound by b.l.o.o.d.y Flame, and he fell even further away from the wall. He could not grab onto it.
“b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I won’t let you go even if I turn into a ghost!” Qin Hu howled in the dark.
But his scream soon faded away in the thick subsurface plasma.
Bang!
Meng Chao crashed against the ground and coughed up blood. He felt as if all his bones had shattered.
He did not hesitate. He immediately cheated.
[Used 1,755 contribution points in exchange for one Initial Stage Healing Skill. Healing progress: 97%]
As Kindling burned, Meng Chao heard faint, cracking sounds within his body. It was as if his bones, tendons, and flesh were rapidly growing, squirming, and healing.
One Initial Stage Healing Skill could push his healing progress up between 8% and 10%. If he used it one more time, it would be a waste.
But this was not the time for him to fuss over this. Meng Chao did not even bat his eyelid and used another 1,767 contribution points to push his health to 100%. When there was no way he could push it any further, he sighed in relief.
The price for rapid healing was a large amount of energy burnt. Meng Chao immediately felt hungry. It felt as if his stomach and intestines were about to be burned through by acid.
Fortunately, he had the backpack Lin Chuan gave him.
He opened it and found a lot of high-calorie compressed food inside, along with mine exploration and survival tools. All of them were packed neatly and fixed in place in a unique method to make sure that no matter how a person tumbled or crawled around, it would not turn into a mess and be squashed out of shape.
Meng Chao felt a stab in his heart once more.
But his face remained expressionless. He tore open a few of the compressed food packages and forced himself to eat them.
Right when he felt the discomfort in his stomach and intestines ease up, he heard the shrill howl that reminded him of an injured monster.
“b.a.s.t.a.r.d, come out! Fight me to the death!
“b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you’re shameless and despicable! You have the guts to provoke me, but you don’t have the guts to come out and die?!
“Come out! Get your a.s.s out here! I’ll rip you to shreds!”
Meng Chao clicked his tongue.
‘Did this idiot use up all the spirit energy for his brain on his muscles? His tenacity is really great. How can he jump around in such a lively manner when he just fell off a cliff that is at least 150 meters?’
Meng Chao looked over.
But he could not see more than ten meters because of the surging subsurface plasma. He could not see the situation on the cliff, and he could not hear a single sound coming from it.
The area on the cliff and below it were two different worlds. The cliff was h.e.l.l filled with slaughter and bloodshed, but this place was a silent h.e.l.l.
And thank goodness, because the subsurface plasma was really thick. It absorbed all soundwaves and light, so Qin Hu was unable to discover his whereabouts immediately.
Suddenly, the chain wrapped around Meng Chao’s left arm trembled.
He was struck with surprise and fear, and it was only at that moment that he remembered that b.l.o.o.d.y Flame was still wrapped around Qin Hu’s ankle.
If that guy followed the chain, he would naturally arrive in front of him.
Meng Chao quickly yanked the chain and withdrew his chain saber.
But it was already too late.
A saber glare that was ten times more vicious than before shot forward.
Boom!
It caused the stones beside him to fly, and air surged forward like waves.
Meng Chao’s cheek was cut by the saber glare.
Qin Hu was close to him.
But he did not scream nor counterattack. Instead, he stopped breathing and calmed his heartbeat. With the cover provided by the subsurface plasma, he bent his back and retreated bit by bit until he was next to the wall.
Even if Qin Hu was an elite at the peak of Earth Realm, his senses were still affected. He had fallen off a cliff that was nearly 200 meters off the ground and thrown off kilter. He was also affected by the crystal mine, and now, he was even in a really thick subsurface plasma. He would not be able to locate Meng Chao immediately.
Qin Hu was so angry that he started causing a ruckus. He swung his saber madly in an attempt to frighten Meng Chao and force him to come out.
There were a few times where the saber glare grazed Meng Chao’s body and even cut a few strands of his hair.
But Meng Chao gritted his teeth and did not make a single sound. He intended to carry out his strategy and lie in wait until the end.
The shock from the threat of death caused a familiar stab in the depths of his mind.
A few of the memory fragments from his previous life shone, and like shards of gla.s.s, they scratched his cerebral cortex.
‘This is...’
Meng Chao widened his eyes. He did not expect that he would remember something from his previous life at such a crucial moment.
In his daze, he saw the black skull instructor who had pretended to slit his throat in the past.
This time, they were in a dark cla.s.sroom.
Precise human nervous system diagrams and spirit energy circulation diagrams were drawn on the board. The 108 main meridians and 1,024 branch meridians could all be seen. There were also dozens of other more mysterious and complicated spirit energy meridians.
Meng Chao heard the black skull instructor say darkly, “The army’s strategy is sc.r.a.p metal now. To h.e.l.l with their steel army and using heavy artillery to get rid of all enemies. It’s all just a bunch of bull.
“During the battle at b.l.o.o.d.y Eagle Valley, the enemy just sent a few Seven-ring Magicians to summon a destructive Fire Meteor Shower, and they got rid of our fully-armored armor masters!
“We don’t have that many fully-armored armor masters in Dragon City to go through this sort of torment.
“We’re too small. Even if we have great technology and a lot of skills, the Other World’s civilization also has a lot of unfathomable abilities. If we face them head-on, we will definitely end up dead.
“But there are conflicts that have lasted for thousands of years between the different factions of power of the Other World’s civilization. We can make them split up and stir up their conflicts to the maximum degree. Then, there’ll be a war between the races of the Other World. After that, Earthlings can use our status as outsiders to become offsh.o.r.e balancers. We can take advantage of the chaos and win!
“Hmph, the Red Dragon Army is filled with foolishly brave warriors who only think about how to fight with airplanes and artillery. They will naturally not be able to do this. If we want to save Dragon City, we’ll have to rely on ourselves, the Ghost Tribe.
“Remember this. We are not soldiers. In fact, we don’t exist. We don’t need to obey any of the rules or limits set by the soldiers. We can ambush, poison, lurk, disguise ourselves, cause conflict, and do whatever it is to create chaos. As long as it’s to weaken the Other World’s civilization, you’re encouraged to use whatever methods are necessary.
“And the basis of all these methods are the Walking Corpse and Bizarre Stab. Today, we will talk about Walking Corpse.
“Walking Corpse is a lurking technique created by the zombie research center. It’s a combination of the specialities of how zombies move, how the Ultimate Style controls muscles fibers and the hair on our bodies, the a.s.sa.s.sination technique from Blood Elves, and the lurking technique from Dark Shadow Casters.
“Just like the name suggests, after you practice all your breathing techniques, meditation techniques, body movements, and ways to control your organs, Walking Corpse will minimize your breathing, heartbeat, the heat released by your pores, the brainwaves released by your brain, and even the movement of your organs. This is to lower the possibility of enemies discovering you.
“In the most extreme situations, Walking Corpse can cut off your vital signs completely, turning you into a cold corpse, but you will retain your thoughts and your ability to fight. You can move as fast as zombies, act as fiercely as Blood Elves, use the mysteriousness of Dark Shadow Casters, and quietly kill your target.
“This is the initial construction model of the spirit energy magnetic field you will form when you cast Walking Corpse. Later on, it will change in more than one hundred ways. You need to examine it and familiarize yourself with it.
“Remember this. When you carry out your missions in the future, Walking Corpse will become a very practical skill. It can lower your metabolism and the activity of your organs as well reduce all the unnecessary energy consumption.
“It will help you escape the pursuit of a powerful enemy and repress your emotions so that you can stop thinking of unnecessary things. You will then become a stable and reliable killing machine which will lay out a b.l.o.o.d.y road for the future of Dragon City and Earth’s civilization!
“Next, I will talk about the secrets of Walking Corpse in detail...”
Meng Chao was about to suffocate
When the nightmarish memories from his previous life finally became dark and the black skull instructor vanished once more, Kindling branded a new skill into his cerebral cortex.
[Walking Corpse: Normal Level.
[Skillfulness: 9%]
‘Is it because I’m at the border of life and death and am facing the threat of death that I remembered some of the ways to protect my life?’
Meng Chao did not have the time to think about it. He immediately threw thousands of contribution points to increase Walking Corpse’s Skillfulness.
But he could not increase his Skillfulness with Walking Corpse as quickly as he could with Basic Gun Technique or One Hundred Saber Techniques. Even after he threw thousands of contribution points into it, it did not increase significantly.
Meng Chao gritted his teeth and threw around fifteen thousand contribution points into it. Finally, Walking Corpse rose to Specialist Level.
But even if he threw his life into it, he might not be able to push it from Specialist Level to Master Level.
This proved his guess.
Walking Corpse was a relatively high-grade skill, and it was not something that he should master now.
On his normal cultivation path, he would not have activated this particular memory from his past life.
It was only released to him beforehand because he was facing the threat of death and wanted to live.
‘So, if I want to increase my power at the fastest speed possible, I have to constantly wander at the line between life and death so that I can remember more things?’
He would think about it slowly later.
When he sensed Qin Hu’s raging flames getting closer to him, Meng Chao activated Walking Corpse.
In an instant, all color drained from his face, and his skin turned pale and ashen.
His breathing and heartbeat slowed, and even the speed at which his blood flowed and his spirit energy circulated slowed down.
He was just like a cold corpse that fused together with the cold wall.
Qin Hu walked eight meters past him with his saber in hand, but it was as if he could not see Meng Chao. Instead, he shouted into the depths of the subsurface plasma. “Come out, b.a.s.t.a.r.d! I saw you! Come out and die! I’ll give you an easy death!”
Meng Chao narrowed his eyes and quickly calculated his chances of winning if he used b.l.o.o.d.y Flame to ambush Qin Hu from the back.
Unfortunately, Walking Corpse was just a lurking skill. He had to add it together with the a.s.sa.s.sination skill Bizarre Stab to use it to the fullest.
And the memories he had just activated did not provide him with the details of the spirit energy magnetic field and principles for Bizarre Stab.
Just as he was wondering whether he should attack, Qin Hu suddenly shouted excitedly and slashed at a spot in the depths of the subsurface plasma. “Die!”
He cut into a soft object.
But the thing that gushed out of his target was not blood. Instead, it was a highly corrosive acid.
Numerous huge black shadows started squirming in the subsurface plasma.