It must be said that the phrase "The area outside the city is filled with danger, with corpses scattered everywhere" was indeed apt. Chu Xun had barely left Chucheng and traveled less than 500 meters along the road when he came across several bloodied corpses by the roadside.
To be precise, they were not corpses, but skeletons!
From the broken medicine baskets near the bones, it was clear they were medicine gatherers from Chuzhen.
The risks of gathering medicine were far smaller than hunting zombies or mutated beasts, but that was only relative. For civilians who lacked power and decent weapons, the wilderness was a hell on earth.
In the wild, they were at the bottom of the food chain, with countless creatures lurking in the dark, waiting to tear them apart and devour them if they were careless.
Among all these predators, the most terrifying ones were not the zombies or mutated beasts, because while they were powerful, they lacked intelligence. As long as one was cautious, even an ordinary civilian could escape from a group of zombies.
Outside the city, the truly dangerous and terrifying predators were humans themselves.
Or rather, those who could no longer be called human. They had completely lost their humanity, becoming worse than animals.
At least animals wouldn't eat their own kind, nor would they take pleasure in it!
These people were collectively referred to as "wild people."
And it was these wild people who had killed the medicine gatherers. Only the wild people would strip every last piece of flesh from their prey, leaving no waste, and only they would leave the complete skeletons behind as a form of demonstration to the people of Chucheng.
"Damn bastards..." Looking at the blood-soaked skeletons on the ground, Chu Xun gripped his battle knife tightly, and a cold killing intent flickered in his eyes.
Although he had killed before, and not just one, he could never accept the behavior of these wild people who fed on humans. If he could, he would want to eliminate every single one of them!
It was at this moment that Chu Xun truly understood the mission he carried. Perhaps, it was time for someone to emerge and put an end to this damned apocalypse, to bring an end to all this filth.
Thinking of this, Chu Xun's eyes became even more determined. He took a deep breath, gripped his weapon, and continued forward.
He did not consider collecting the bones of the fallen. As the saying goes, "Once a person is dead, nothing else matters." Instead of wasting time here, he preferred to find a suitable insect gene to devour. Besides, the outside of the city was indeed fraught with danger. Every minute spent here meant one more minute of risk.
However, Chu Xun was still too inexperienced. If an old hunter had been here, he would have told him never to linger in a place soaked in blood.
Because the scent of blood often attracted terrifying creatures that fed on flesh!
"Hungry..."
Just as Chu Xun turned around, a hoarse roar suddenly came from the grass beside the road. Then, a ragged figure stumbled out of the woods, blocking his path.
A zombie!
It was a female zombie, about 1.6 meters tall, with a slender figure. Her face had been torn to shreds by bites, so it was impossible to tell her age. Her clothes were tattered, exposing her already decaying body. One of her breasts had been bitten off, and the other was bloody and mutilated, with several large maggots wriggling in the exposed flesh—utterly disgusting.
"Damn, this zombie smells a lot worse than the one Qing turned into!" As soon as the zombie appeared, a strong, foul stench filled the air. It smelled as if a dozen rats had died together and rotted away. Even Chu Xun, usually calm, felt his stomach churn and almost threw up.
"Hungry..." This zombie had clearly been attracted by the scent of blood. Upon seeing Chu Xun, it let out an excited roar, then hastened its pace and limped toward him.
"Die!" Seeing the zombie charge toward him, Chu Xun's eyes turned cold. He shouted and swung his battle knife at the zombie.
After the incident with Qing, he was no longer hesitant in battle!
Thud!
However, as this was his first fight with a zombie, his lack of combat experience became apparent. When he swung his knife, he failed to predict the zombie's movements. Since the zombie was limping, he missed the head and ended up slashing at its shoulder instead.
Fortunately, his strength was enough, and the zombie's virus-corroded body was too fragile to withstand the sharp steel blade. With a dull thud, his knife easily severed the zombie's left shoulder and part of its torso as though cutting through butter.
Along with the body part, the zombie's left ear and some of its facial flesh also fell off.
A large chunk of rotten flesh and a severed arm fell to the ground, and black zombie blood sprayed out, staining Chu Xun's white shirt.
Such a heavy injury would have been fatal to a human, but to a zombie, it was not enough to kill it. The zombie seemed unaffected, continuing its charge toward Chu Xun with the intent to tear him apart.
Bang!
However, Chu Xun wasn't foolish. As the zombie closed in, he raised his right foot and kicked it hard in the abdomen. With a dull thud, the zombie flew backward as if struck by a car, crashing into a tree and knocking several leaves down.
Perhaps the violent impact shattered the zombie's spine, or maybe Chu Xun's earlier strike had caused it to lose its balance. Either way, after sliding down the tree, the zombie could only struggle like a worm but was unable to stand up again.
With his strength exceeding that of an average person by 10 to 15 times, this was not a small matter!
"Getting so messy just to kill a low-level zombie, what a disgrace..." Looking at the zombie struggling in the distance, Chu Xun couldn't help but feel a little speechless.
He had thought that killing a zombie with his far superior strength would be easier than crushing an ant, but now he realized how naive he had been. As a rookie, he still had a lot to learn, or else even with great strength, he wouldn't be able to fully utilize it.
Shaking his head slightly, Chu Xun tightened his grip on his battle knife and walked toward the struggling zombie.
Since he had already struck, he might as well finish the job and put the zombie out of its misery.
As Chu Xun approached, the zombie seemed to be attracted to his presence once again, growing more frantic and letting out another series of hoarse roars. But the roars quickly stopped, as Chu Xun's battle knife had already pierced through the zombie's skull.
"Really disgusting..." When Chu Xun pulled the blade from the zombie's skull, a dark, foul-smelling brain fluid, almost like spoiled tofu, spilled out. Looking at the brain matter and the mixture of blood, Chu Xun almost vomited again.
However, after getting used to it, he found the smell a little easier to tolerate. Still, he knew that unless necessary, he would avoid fighting zombies in the future.
After all, he wasn't a psychopath, and killing zombies that resembled humans didn't give him any twisted pleasure.
But just as he finished killing the zombie, an icy voice suddenly echoed in his mind.
"Host has triggered the Title Mission—Zombie Slayer!"
"Mission Background: Zombies are one of the main causes of the earth's apocalypse. Only by eliminating all zombies can humanity finally become the true rulers of Earth's civilization."
"Mission Objective: Slay ten ordinary zombies!"
"Mission Reward: A random summon card."
"Mission Deadline: 24 hours. Failure to complete within the time limit will result in mission failure."
Title Mission? Random summon card?
The system's notification made Chu Xun's spirit stir.
He hadn't expected that besides the main storyline tasks, there were also these "Title Missions." While the reward was a bit vague—what exactly was a random summon card—the difficulty was much lower than the main tasks.
And more importantly, there was no penalty for this mission!
"It looks like the system isn't so bad after all..." Although he didn't know what the random summon card was, Chu Xun wasn't about to pass up any opportunity to become stronger. Besides, killing ten ordinary zombies was hardly a challenge given his current strength.
It seemed that these unpleasant days were going to continue for a while...
Looking at the now motionless zombie, Chu Xun shrugged slightly, then tightened his grip on his battle knife and continued forward.
However, what he didn't know was that not far behind him, in the grass, a pair of cold eyes were watching him, filled with greed and desire!