Lam Pham had seen many scenes in the apocalypse.
The terrifying atmosphere before him could rank number one.
The crimson ground was split with fissures, tentacles grew from the earth, writhing in all directions. Trapped in the encirclement, Lam Pham was utterly alone. To leave, he would have to pass through a ring of countless tentacles.
"A scene this shocking needs to be shared."
He picked up the camera hanging from his chest and aimed the lens. The picture wasn't perfect; the tentacles were too dense, obscuring each other and affecting the photographic composition. Thinking of a better way, he bent his knees slightly, gathered his strength, and launched himself like a rocket into the sky.
"Absolutely stunning."
Lam Pham couldn't help but exclaim in awe. The range covered by the Creator's tentacles was simply too vast, yet it was orderly, chaotic but not messy.
He eagerly aimed his camera at the scene below.
Click!
Click!
The crisp sound of the shutter.
The image before him was forever preserved.
Landing on the ground, he quickly reviewed the photos. The more he looked, the more shocked he became. This was definitely the most shocking image he had ever seen. No other Creator could compare.
Just as he was thinking about these things, the situation changed abruptly. The tentacles had obviously discovered Lam Pham's existence. With a howling sound that tore through the air, they viciously descended upon him.
The tentacles were fast, but Lam Pham's reaction was even faster. He shifted his steps, leaning his body to dodge. With a thud, a tentacle slammed violently into the ground. Such a heavy impact made the ground explode, sending dirt and debris flying. Lam Pham's eyes widened, witnessing it all. The force was indeed powerful.
Boom!
Boom!
In an instant, Lam Pham's dodging figure turned into an afterimage, shifting left and right. Countless flesh-and-blood tentacles crisscrossed, descending like a torrential storm. They seemed to have sealed off all his paths, yet Lam Pham could always calmly find a space to move within such a concentrated assault.
"The destructive power is really strong, but the speed is a bit slow."
Lam Pham dodged with unhurried ease, wondering just how large the creature's main body was. He should pull it out for a good look. Thinking of this, he stopped dodging. Facing an oncoming tentacle, he grabbed a handful of them without a second thought and then, with a mighty heave, pulled outwards.
He could feel an incredibly enormous creature hiding underground.
Boom!
Boom!
The ground continuously exploded. The Creator hidden underground had absolutely nowhere to hide.
"Ah, it actually broke."
The tentacles he had grabbed snapped directly. It wasn't that they couldn't withstand the force, but the Creator hidden underground knew what Lam Pham was trying to do and deliberately sacrificed its limbs to protect itself.
"So sticky. You've gotten my hands all dirty." Lam Pham looked down at his hands, then swung his arms at high speed. In an instant, a blur of afterimages appeared. With a whooshing sound, his originally sticky hands were instantly clean.
The tentacles extending from the ground continuously retreated back into the earth. The once dense forest of tentacles had thinned to just a few in a flash, and after another moment's pause, even those few had vanished without a trace.
"I've already seen you. You're only thinking of running now? Do you really take me, Lam Pham, for a blind man? I'm not blind at all."
Lam Pham felt the vibrations in the ground. Although it seemed fine on the surface, the waves underground were transmitted to his feet, and from his feet to his body.
"You're here. Don't even think about running."
Lam Pham, holding Frostmourne, leaped up, raised the sword high, and fiercely chopped down at the ground. The blade made contact with the earth, and with a deafening roar, a powerful blade aura burst forth. The originally pristine ground instantly cracked, the fissure continuously extending into the distance, forming a wide, abyssal trench.
"ROAR..."
A mournful cry from the monster echoed from deep within the earth.
It shook the entire area.
This was the voice of a Creator, but what puzzled Lam Pham was that Creators were also zombies and felt no pain. Why would this Creator let out such a miserable scream?
"Creator, come on out. I know you're right here. Hiding is useless. Don't worry, I'm a very friendly person, and I love to communicate. Can you come out and have a chat with me?"
Lam Pham's tone was very gentle. He hoped his sincere attitude could move the Creator's cold heart, hoping it would obediently come out on its own. Hiding and sneaking around was unnecessary.
The Creator buried deep underground naturally heard Lam Pham's words.
It was furious.
Friendly?
Friendly my foot!
Who, in a friendly situation, would directly split the ground open, causing a grievous injury to its back? It even felt like its back was about to be torn in two.
If its head hadn't been spared, that single strike just now might have really killed it.
"I'm being so friendly, and it's still not coming out?"
After landing, Lam Pham still couldn't see the Creator's figure, but the large amount of blood splashing out from the trench was a clear indication that the Creator hiding underground had been injured by his last strike.
"Injuring you just now was not my intention. I'm sorry. You really don't need to be nervous."
Lam Pham continued to persuade it.
He hoped the Creator would understand that all matters could be communicated through words. As for whether the communication could continue smoothly afterwards, that was a matter for later.
Seeing that it still had no intention of coming out.
Lam Pham, carrying his sword, leaped up and sped forward, cutting across the Creator's escape path. He swung horizontally, and a blade aura manifested, descending with the motion. With a continuous rumbling sound, the ground ahead was directly split open, cutting off the Creator's path.
Boom!
The Creator moving underground crashed through the last layer of earth. Seeing the abyss before it, the startled Creator let out a roar, changed direction, and moved towards another spot.
"Still don't want to come out?"
Lam Pham could clearly feel the direction of the Creator's movement underground. He followed suit, moving to the other side, and once again slashed horizontally, severing the connecting ground.
The power of this single sword strike had long surpassed normal human prediction.
In the entire apocalyptic environment, only Lam Pham could create such a situation. Even Awakeners and Mutants like Lau Chung and Thoi Tieu Phi could only demolish a building with one punch. If they punched the ground, at most they would create a deep pit. To achieve an effect like Lam Pham's was simply impossible.
"Still running?"
Lam Pham admired the Creator's persistent spirit. It still wanted to run. Thus, he severed the last two paths in the same manner.
"Now let's see where you can run."
Lam Pham landed, waiting quietly.
Since the beginning of the apocalypse, the Creator beneath his feet was full of all sorts of wonders.
For the Creator trying to escape, it was at a dead end. It had never thought it would encounter such a situation. Where on earth did this human come from?
He had completely cornered it.
"Come on out. Don't run. I'm different from other humans. They might fear you, but I don't. In fact, I'm very eager to meet you."
He never lied, even to a Creator.
Rumble.
The ground shook, and a huge hole cracked open in the earth. To his surprise, the Creator was emerging from underground. Its body was truly enormous. The visible part of the Creator's body was just the tip of the iceberg.
Lam Pham watched in shock, his head slowly tilting upwards. The emerged Creator was already the size of a small mountain, and it wasn't over yet. More of it was buried deep underground.
But just the portion that had emerged was enough to deeply shake one's soul.
A colossal body formed from all sorts of grotesque flesh, its surface irregularly covered with sharp-toothed, gaping maws. Many large, lantern-like eyes were constantly rolling.
A monster. This was a true monster.
On its surface were zombies that had fused with its body, with only their upper halves visible, struggling and screaming ferociously.
Lam Pham picked up his camera, waiting for the true appearance of the Creator before him.
He wondered whether he should take a picture. While other grotesque Creators were still tolerable to look at, the one before him was not. It could easily leave a psychological scar. But then he thought, why bother with such things?
The apocalypse was like this. Who among those who had survived to this day was not strong-willed? Disgusting was disgusting, but it wouldn't leave a scar.
Click!
Click!
He rapidly pressed the shutter, capturing the image before him. As he photographed, the Creator completely emerged from underground. A large amount of soil fell from its surface. Looking closely at its abdomen, it was connected to countless fleshy tubes, through which a liquid continuously flowed into the Creator's body.
"You're very different from the Creators I've seen before," Lam Pham said.
The Creator let out a low, muffled roar. It didn't speak, but the flesh-and-blood tentacles on its body thrashed about randomly, appearing agitated and anxious.
Lam Pham really felt that there was something wrong with the Creator before him.
It was just that he couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong for the time being.
The Creator before him was destroying all zombies and humans that appeared in its domain. As long as they stepped into its domain, they would be entangled by its tentacles and become its nutrients.
"Can't you speak? Having evolved to your level, if you can't speak, it's truly beyond my expectations. To say you're a flawed evolution, I wouldn't agree. Your strength, the aura you exude, is stronger than the perfect Creator I've met."
"So, my previous thinking was wrong."
The Creator from the universe nation was very perfect, scoring 200 points. Its name was its title. This was something he had never experienced. And now, the aura exuded by the Creator before him was even stronger than Han Hach Vu's.
This was also incredibly unbelievable.
But at this moment.
A strange, heavy sound came from within the Creator's body.
A large amount of viscous liquid flowed out from its slender, toothed mouths, dripping from the flesh onto the ground. Immediately after, a large number of basketball-sized monstrous creatures appeared. These creatures had tiny claws growing on their abdomens and swarmed towards Lam Pham.
"You know you have no way out, so you want to kill me? You're just like the other Creators. Even knowing you're no match, you're still so violent."
"No matter what level you evolve to, your violent and cruel nature is forever ingrained."
Lam Pham, holding Frostmourne, touched the tip of the blade to the ground. In an instant, frost spread out. The swarming, unknown creatures were instantly frozen solid. Even the Creator felt the terror of this frost and struggled uneasily.
Its escape routes were sealed, with nowhere to run. The frost spread at an extremely fast speed, starting from the tentacles on its abdomen, continuously spreading upwards, and finally completely sealing the Creator's massive body.
Lam Pham's figure flickered, appearing in front of the frozen Creator.
One sword strike down.
Squelch!
The blade passed through the Creator's body. He could feel the crystal shattering. A vast amount of energy was completely absorbed by Frostmourne.
Crack!
The ice sculpture shattered. A gust of wind blew, and the broken ice fragments drifted away into the distance with the wind.
Lam Pham looked at Frostmourne in his hand. After absorbing this crystal, the blade of Frostmourne underwent a change.
"This is..."
The originally silver-white blade now had a streak of red light. And this red light was not fleeting; instead, it gradually began to spread across the entire blade, dyeing the silver-white blade completely red.
"It's... agitated."
Lam Pham was shocked. Since obtaining Frostmourne and carrying it in pursuit of positive energy, it had always been incredibly stable. Even though Frostmourne's origin was evil, he had always believed that with him, Lam Pham, in control, Frostmourne would undergo a world-shaking transformation, forever symbolizing positive energy.
The Frostmourne in his hand was trembling.
The red light flourished.
Immediately after, a shocking scene occurred. Frostmourne seemed to come alive, emitting a suction force. The blood from the flesh-and-blood covering the surrounding ground rushed towards it at high speed.
The blood clung to the tip of the sword, then spread, covering the blade and merging into it.
This situation was beyond Lam Pham's imagination.
"Impossible. Did it change like this just because I used Frostmourne on that crystal?"
The scene at this moment was beyond his comprehension. At least, he had never encountered anything like it before. In an instant, the flesh-and-blood covering the surrounding ground completely withered, and all the blood completely dissipated.
Visible to the naked eye, Frostmourne exuded a blood mist. The blood mist swirled, condensed, and did not dissipate, even wanting to wrap around Lam Pham's arm.
"Stop this nonsense. I don't like this. You follow me to hunt zombies; we pursue positive energy. What you're doing now, I find very repulsive."
Lam Pham swung the sword, and a red light surged out. Wherever it passed, the air exploded, was torn apart. The airflow reversed, forming a strange worldly phenomenon.
If the "Into Science" program crew saw this, they would have to make it into a series.
[Killed Flesh Spirit.]
[Points +1000.]
Lam Pham: ???
Hearing this notification.
Lam Pham was immediately a little stunned, his mind filled with question marks.
Good grief.
The points went up to a thousand. Was this a joke? It completely leaped beyond conventional understanding.
Looking at Frostmourne again, he found that the blade had returned to normal. It was as if Frostmourne itself had realized that it had strayed from the path of positive energy and had promptly corrected itself, continuing to follow Lam Pham towards a bright future.
"I might have missed some kind of mysterious thing."
Lam Pham thought about how this Creator's name was actually 'Flesh Spirit'. It felt a bit unusual. He didn't think too much about it, left directly, and headed into the distance. There should still be zombies that hadn't been cleared.
But what he didn't know was...
The ice fragments that had been blown away by the wind landed on the ground. These ice fragments contained the flesh and blood of the Flesh Spirit. After making contact with the ground, the ice fragments melted. The ground absorbed the energy from the Flesh Spirit's flesh and blood. Visible to the naked eye, green shoots grew from the ground. Green grass covered the once barren wilderness, bringing life to the desolate land.
It plundered life force, and in the end, returned it to nature.
Nighttime.
Lam Pham wrote down everything he saw today. Thinking about the subsequent situation, he felt it was unbelievable. Apart from encountering the Flesh Spirit, in such a large area, he didn't even see a single zombie.
Logically, he should be happy.
An area without zombies had finally returned to tranquility. But were the vanished zombies all absorbed by the Flesh Spirit?
What was the answer?
He didn't know for the time being.
He looked at Frostmourne, which was propped against the corner of the wall. It exuded a faint silver light. He didn't know if it was an illusion or real, but within the silver light, there seemed to be a pulsating red glow.
Lam Pham shook his head. He believed that Frostmourne's pursuit was the same as his.
There would be no changes.
He pasted the photo of the Flesh Spirit into the Zombie Pictorial.
Then he wrote an introduction about the Flesh Spirit.
It seemed very detailed.
But some content was not written in, such as what level its strength had reached. There was no need to write it. In short, there was only one. A second one probably wouldn't appear.
After a while.
Lam Pham went to the balcony. A gentle breeze blew. He looked up at the moon hanging high in the sky and was lost in thought for a long time.
"How I wish none of this had ever happened. How wonderful it would be if it were all just a dream."
His mood was gloomy.
There was a lot he wanted to say, but in the end, he didn't say it out loud.
. . .
"Chung Hong's book... seems to be quite interesting."
When Thoi Tieu Phi had nothing to do, he actually flipped through the Love the World that Chung Hong had given him. The words inside seemed to have a magical power that cleansed a person's heart.
It could truly calm one's soul.
Thinking of the students he had brought out, he was more attentive than ever. Whenever he had free time, he would watch them, hoping they wouldn't be swayed by their power.
Otherwise, he would really regret bringing them out.
Some had already died.
He didn't want anyone else to die.
"The principal must be very disappointed in me, he must hate me."
Thoi Tieu Phi looked at the same full moon as Lam Pham and muttered to himself.
"I don't know if he hates you, but I'm very interested in you."
A voice broke the silence.
On a rock not far away stood a figure. The moonlight shone down on him, outlining his silhouette at this moment. A cold and handsome face, with two wings spread on his back.
"Are you one of the newest perfect Mutants cultivated by the headquarters recently?"
Thoi Tieu Phi asked calmly.
He knew about the headquarters' affairs. After the initial perfect Mutants suffered countless casualties, the headquarters finally couldn't bear such a situation and cultivated the newest perfect Mutants.
Now, their group of surviving perfect Mutants were jokingly called the 'first generation.'
And the new ones were called the 'second generation.'
A very direct name.
'The first generation is not as good as the second generation' seemed to have become a recognized fact at headquarters.
"That's right. Your nickname is Red Devil, and I have the same wings as you. But my title is Black Devil. You should change your name. Only I can be called the Great Wings," the Black Devil said provocatively.
Thoi Tieu Phi smiled, a hint of helplessness in his smile.
Where on earth did the headquarters find this group of strange guys? Why was their fighting spirit so strong?
The Mutant organization was not the strongest in the apocalypse.
They were just pitiful people hiding in the dark.
"What are you smiling at?" The Black Devil was immediately very displeased when he saw Thoi Tieu Phi's smile. To him, that smile was more like a provocation, a disdainful humiliation.
"Nothing. Little friend, you should just leave. I don't have time to waste with you. I still want to go to the bookstore to find some books. No matter how arrogant you are, it has nothing to do with me. I don't want to get involved in your affairs."
Thoi Tieu Phi shook his head. His goal was not to compete with the person before him to see who was the strongest.
He just wanted to be a good guide to his students.
And to live well in this apocalypse.
"Little friend? Hahaha... Do you think you're still the most perfect Mutant in the organization? Don't look down on people. Today, I'll let you know that a second-generation perfect Mutant is not something an old guy like you can compare to."
"Feel the pressure I bring."
The Black Devil roared, his face fierce. His wings spread, and with a whoosh, he vanished into the night. Only the vibrating sounds around indicated that the Black Devil was moving at high speed, wanting to use this to bring immense pressure on Thoi Tieu Phi.
A moment later.
"Ugh... ugh..."
A pained groan was heard.
"Little friend, power indeed gives people confidence, but confidence is not meant for challenging someone who has already climbed to the top of the mountain. Do you understand?"
Thoi Tieu Phi's five fingers gripped the other's face. He aimed him at the full moon and lifted him high. The blood flowing from him dripped from his fingers onto the ground.
His gloomy and domineering tone made the other tremble uncontrollably.
The difference in strength was starkly displayed.
The second-generation perfect Mutant, Black Devil, had never thought he would be so weak. While moving at high speed, he had a playful mood, wanting to bring Thoi Tieu Phi an unforgettable scene.
Who would have thought that the one who would truly have an unforgettable experience would be him?
He could never forget, as he approached Thoi Tieu Phi, how Thoi Tieu Phi calmly turned his head. Those indifferent eyes made him tremble in fear. Before he could react, the other had already reached out, grabbed his head, and slammed it violently into the ground.
"Ugh... ugh..."
Hearing his pained groans.
Thoi Tieu Phi tossed him away like garbage.
Thud!
Thud!
The Black Devil tumbled on the ground and finally steadied himself. But he didn't dare to stand up. He looked, trembling, at Thoi Tieu Phi standing under the moonlight.
Thoi Tieu Phi took a step and walked in front of the Black Devil.
He looked down at him.
"Why did you become a Mutant?"
The Black Devil didn't dare to answer.
"Answer me."
Thoi Tieu Phi's eyes flickered with a dark light. At least for now, he had become a nightmare in the other's heart, one that could not be shaken off for a long time.
"I... I wanted to gain power," the Black Devil stammered. The newly debuted second-generation perfect Mutant had challenged Thoi Tieu Phi and suffered a devastating psychological blow on the spot.
This kind of suppression was cruel.
The other's heart seemed strong on the outside, but it was just a disguise for a weak heart.
"Haha, power."
Thoi Tieu Phi shook his head, didn't bother with him anymore, and turned to walk away into the distance.
That's right.
Everyone who wanted to become a Mutant, in the beginning, it was truly for power. But the existence of power often brought many unimaginable worries.
The headquarters had cultivated new perfect Mutants.
This proved that they were existences that could be replaced at any time.
How long would the headquarters keep him around?