Light flooded in from above, accompanied by the pungent smell of gunpowder smoke mixed with a trace of something foul.
Zeke instinctively narrowed his eyes and looked up at the sky.
A vortex, so massive it defied description, dominated the entire sky. Inside it, purple light churned and rotated slowly, as if threatening to suck in anyone who gazed upon it.
That was the Eye of Terror, Cadia's most famous landmark.
Zeke didn't dwell on the Eye of Terror. He patted the dirt off his sleeves, braced his hands on the edge, and vaulted out of the hole.
Looking around, he saw nothing but ruins. There were traces of artillery strikes, and stray sparks still burned here and there.
In the center of this wreckage, a massive object lay silently.
Relying on his memory of sci-fi movies, Zeke was certain it was a small starship.
Its current state could only be described as shattered. The hull was riddled with scorched holes, half-buried in the ground.
The massive tremor he had felt underground earlier had been caused by this ship crashing.
Zeke locked his gaze on the deformed entrance of the cabin. He saw a viscous green liquid oozing out from under the door gap.
No wonder he had been smelling that faint, lingering stench.
Zeke switched the block in his hand for the Stone Sword, staying alert to his surroundings.
[First time stepping on surface. Mod: Minimap, Loaded.]
A line of text popped up in the bottom-left chat box, breaking the heavy atmosphere.
A small circular map appeared in the bottom-right corner of Zeke's vision.
Zeke scanned the Minimap. It displayed the terrain and creatures within a 20-meter radius, with Zeke at the center.
To the north—the location of the ship—there were two red dots (Hostile Mobs) surrounding a green dot (Friendly Mob).
Zeke looked in that direction and saw a figure leaning against the hull.
His head hung low, hands drooping weakly at his sides. A strangely shaped rifle lay near his hand.
It looked like a Cadian Whiteshield.
If that was the green dot, where were the red dots? Zeke crouched low and approached the soldier.
"Cough... cough..."
Hearing footsteps, the Whiteshield lifted his head.
The moment Zeke saw the man's face, his scalp tingled. He instinctively took a few sharp steps back, holding his stone sword across his chest.
Half of the Whiteshield's face was split open, as if corroded by strong acid. It was ulcerated and bloated—a truly disgusting sight.
Even worse, the rot was spreading to the rest of his face.
"Cough, cough, watch your feet..."
The Whiteshield looked at Zeke, his lips trembling as he murmured the warning.
Almost simultaneously, the two stationary red dots on the minimap surged toward him with alarming speed.
Squelch.
The rubble beneath Zeke's feet exploded. Four rotting arms burst from the earth, grabbing at Zeke's ankles.
Superhuman reflexes allowed Zeke to react the moment he heard the strange noise below him.
He immediately kicked off the ground and jumped up, narrowly grazing the rotting arms and dodging the attack.
In mid-air, Zeke twisted his head to look at the ground. Two creatures—one fat, one thin—were struggling to crawl out of the earth.
They looked strikingly similar to the Zombies in MC: the same rotting skin, the same bloated eyes.
Judging by the tattered uniforms fused to their flesh, they had likely been human once, but were now infected by something and transformed into walking dead.
Can't let them touch me. The thought flashed through his mind. Zeke gripped his stone sword tight and twisted his body in mid-air.
Using the momentum of his fall, he slashed the stone sword downwards, cutting through the air.
A screech rang out as a line of blood bloomed on the thin zombie's head.
Critical Hit!
Unique particle effects burst from the zombie's body.
Zeke's stone sword embedded itself into the thin zombie's scalp without resistance, only stopping when it hit hard bone.
Clearly, the jump-crit mechanic from MC worked in the Warhammer world too.
-7.5. Zeke mentally calculated the thin zombie's health. With a flick of his wrist, he pulled the stone sword from the wound, drawing out a stream of thick, yellow-green pus.
As his feet touched the ground, Zeke pressed the attack.
While the thin zombie was knocked back, he gripped the hilt with both hands, engaged his core to rotate his entire body, and delivered a sweeping strike.
The attack cooldown bar below his vision had just refilled.
The stone sword slashed into the thin zombie's head again. The already damaged skull couldn't withstand the blow and shattered.
So weak. Its health was visually below 20, even weaker than a standard MC zombie. Zeke made a quick judgment.
He immediately raised his foot and kicked the zombie in the chest, sending the twitching corpse flying and ending it for good.
The battle flowed like water. The zombie's corpse rolled on the ground a few times before vanishing into thin air.
Colorful Experience Orbs and two pieces of Rotten Flesh popped out, floating toward Zeke.
Rotten Flesh? These things look like zombies, and they even drop the same loot as MC zombies?
[First mob killed. Mod: Jade, Loaded.]
Jade—an incredibly useful utility mod. It had many functions, including but not limited to displaying mob health and basic info, or the name and mining level of the block you were looking at...
Zeke shook the blood off his sword and turned to look at the fat zombie nearby.
Perhaps due to its obesity, the fat zombie moved sluggishly, lagging a beat behind when crawling out of the ground.
This gave Zeke the chance to finish off the thin zombie quickly.
The fat zombie had a health bar of 25 HP above its head. The name displayed was: [Soldier Infected with Zombie Plague].
Zombie Plague. Zeke knew what this was. It was a virus.
In the novels, Typhus's Plague Fleet had served as the vanguard for a Black Crusade, conquering and spreading viruses extensively across the Segmentum Obscurus—including the Zombie Plague.
The fat zombie roared in anger, its massive, greasy belly emitting a gurgling, squelching sound.
A wave of intense stench, born of fermented corpses and filth, rushed toward Zeke first.
Following close behind was a stream of turbid, green, unidentified liquid.
Zeke's stone sword struck first, chopping toward the enemy's head, while his body dodged to the right, narrowly avoiding the stream of mystery liquid.
But the intense stench emitted by the liquid still drilled into Zeke's nose.
Just one whiff made Zeke's head spin with dizziness.
His buff bar lit up: Nausea (10s), Weakness I (30s), and Hunger (60s).
His Hunger Bar, already depleted by mining and with only six units left, began to shake—it was in critical danger.
The fat zombie didn't dodge. It used its massive belly to meet the stone sword.
Under the effect of Weakness, the stone sword struggled to cut through the skin, blocked by the thick layer of fat, unable to penetrate deeper.
Zeke stumbled back, blowing his nose as a violent urge to vomit seized him.
His vision began to wobble, expanding and contracting as if he were drunk on bad moonshine.
With the Level 1 Weakness debuff, Zeke's stone sword had only dealt 1 point of damage. The fat zombie still had 24 HP left.
What a pain in the ass, Zeke cursed silently, trying his best to steady his body and not collapse from the nausea.
If only I had a bucket of [Milk]...