Leaving the vicinity of Wuming City again, Lu Heng did not return to the city. There was nothing in the city that required his attention, so he chose to continue south.
Jinjiang River.
A river that runs east-west across the country, spanning over a dozen provinces and cities, with a total length of over five thousand kilometers and hundreds of tributaries, benefiting many riverside cities by irrigating the north and south.
This river, the largest in the country before the apocalypse, had now become a nightmare for the people along its banks.
The water quality in the river had been polluted, but what people feared more were the aquatic creatures from within the river.
Ordinary fish were fine. As long as humans did not approach the riverbank, those mutated fish would not attack them.
However, the crocodiles that originally lived in the middle and lower reaches had also undergone severe mutations.
These amphibious animals could come ashore. After becoming mutated animals, they killed all the edible animals in the river. Some fish, sensing danger, changed their living habits and waters, heading towards other areas to avoid the crocodiles' main habitats.
Lacking a source of food in the water, the hungry crocodiles chose to come ashore. After their mutation, their already tough outer skin became even more indestructible.
Even a Level 2 ability user could not deal with the newly mutated crocodiles.
This made the mutated crocodiles almost unrivaled for a time, becoming overlords of the riverside.
Lu Heng was aware of this. These mutated crocodiles also had crystals in their brains. With no opponents, their evolution was not slow. Therefore, Lu Heng came to see what level the crocodiles here were at now.
Soon, in an area along the river, Lu Heng discovered many crocodiles. They seemed to have just finished eating and were basking in the sun along the bank or swimming leisurely along the bank within the river.
Lu Heng observed from high in the sky for a while. The crocodiles here were all basically Level 5 or above, with many being Level 6 or 7.
It would be a shame not to harvest such a large wave of leeks.
Finding a place where crocodiles were most concentrated, Lu Heng moved his mind, mobilized the energy within his body, and gathered dense metal spikes in mid-air.
This time, to deal with these animals with hard scales below, Lu Heng decided to use the metal ability, as its penetration power was stronger.
Instantly, the sky was covered with metal. With a wave of Lu Heng's hand, the spikes, reflecting a sharp cold light under the sunlight, flew towards the crocodiles on the ground or in the water.
Before the crocodiles could react, the spikes quickly pierced their proud hard scales. Their force did not diminish after piercing the crocodiles, penetrating their bodies and reaching the ground. Instantly, a patch of red quickly spread on the ground. The crocodiles nailed to the ground twitched for a few seconds before finally lying still.
The crocodiles in the water were not much better off. Although those crocodiles were moving, when Lu Heng targeted them, they were at most moving targets. The moment the metal pierced their heads was too fast. Soon, many crocodile corpses floated on the river surface.
The large amount of blood attracted more crocodiles. Those crocodiles that were still lurking in the water and had not yet surfaced were attracted by the sudden blood. They all surfaced, wanting to find the source of the bloody smell.
However, the crocodiles that had just surfaced were ambushed again by Lu Heng in mid-air, and a new batch of crocodiles died again.
Ten minutes later, the entire river area was filled with crocodile corpses. Crocodile corpses piled up in the waterway. Due to their heavy bodies, after mutation, not only did their scales become hard, but their weight also increased.
Lu Heng pressed down on the sabertooth, signaling it to fly lower. As he flew over the crocodile corpses, he collected all the crocodile crystals.
Finally, he counted them. The number of these crystals was indeed not small. This wave of harvested crystals was more than all he had collected before.
These would likely help meet some of the conditions for opening those entrances, but Lu Heng knew that it was still not enough.
Originally, crocodile meat was edible, but the meat of these mutated crocodiles had also changed. Their meat tasted worse. Besides being slightly nutritious, it was not as valuable as the meat of the magical beasts in the other world.
Therefore, a large number of crocodile corpses were placed on the riverbank and in the water. Lu Heng only slightly cleared the waterway, allowing the crocodiles to flow downstream.
Crocodiles were not only found in this stretch of water. The river had crocodiles for a very long section, and these crocodiles had become a disaster after mutation.
In this regard, these crocodiles were much better than the zombies that had lost their living prey, only wandered around hungry, and grew too slowly.
With their innate hunting characteristics, these crocodiles, already at the top of the animal kingdom, became even more unrestrained. They preyed on surrounding mutated fish and other animals. As long as they could catch them, they would eat almost anything, which was why their levels increased so quickly in a short period.
It seemed he could not focus solely on zombies. Zombies needed to be eliminated, but his space also needed to be explored.
Starting from the wave of mutated crocodiles he had just eliminated, Lu Heng headed directly downstream.
Some crocodile corpses had already drifted downstream. The mutated aquatic creatures gathered below would definitely discover these, which would be food for them.
Following the main stream of the Jinjiang River all the way down to the estuary, Lu Heng truly collected a lot of high-level crystals, but he also killed all the mutated crocodiles along the way.
However, there would certainly be crocodiles in the tributaries, and they were far from being completely wiped out.
After collecting these, Lu Heng first returned to his space. He no longer felt the initial headache when absorbing these crystals, so he was unsure how the channels would change with the amount absorbed.
Sitting in his space, Lu Heng placed the mutated crocodile crystals on the small table in front of him. He then found a comfortable sofa and began to absorb them one by one.
After an unknown amount of time, all the Level 5 crystals were absorbed. Lu Heng looked at the Holy Spirit Fruit next to the ancient well.
That Holy Spirit Fruit had borne fruit once. Lu Heng had picked the ripe fruits and placed them in the room. This fruit tree seemed to be about to blossom and bear fruit again.
However, Lu Heng was not looking at it because it was about to blossom again, but because Lu Heng needed to use a stick to test the few exits not far away.
Controlling a branch of the Holy Spirit Fruit to grow and extend rapidly, the other end of the branch soon touched those exits.
Sensing that the branch's extension had not stopped, Lu Heng suddenly stood up from the sofa.
The branches penetrated one of the exits, which meant that exit could also be entered.