Riding the griffon, Lu Heng set out again. This time it would be a long trip. He hadn't intervened in the affairs of Nameless City for a long time. For the research on the zombie virus, he had left Lin Xue's blood and tissue samples for Chen Dong to study.
Lu Heng believed that by the time he returned, Chen Dong would have a satisfactory result for him.
For this outing, Lu Heng chose to push inland from the country's border regions.
In fact, in places where Lu Heng did not appear, many things developed as they did in his previous life. People were still at a disadvantage in dealing with zombies, completely suppressed by them.
After all, facing zombies that seemed to have no weaknesses, humans were too fragile. Diseases and the zombie virus would claim some lives. Moreover, in the absence of order in the apocalypse, some people's minds had changed. The evil factors within them had overcome their humanity. They sometimes acted like another zombie virus, eroding human hearts and inflicting more cruel harm on ordinary humans.
For example, the Fallen City before, such cities and people existed everywhere.
Traveling at high speed in the sky, in half a day, Lu Heng had already arrived at a border city in the north.
The temperature here was much lower than in Nameless City. Nameless City's geographical location was actually very good, situated at a latitude with a suitable temperature for all four seasons. Therefore, its original population was larger than in the north, and the number of zombies was also immense after the apocalypse.
These remote areas were sparsely populated, so the number of zombies was not large. Lu Heng used his chosen strategy: he had Lin Xue command the zombies to gather, and then he would lead the animals to attack, wiping out the gathered zombies on the ground. Wherever he passed, the zombies were annihilated, even their nests.
The most time-consuming part each time was the time it took for the zombies to gather. These zombies were only asked to gather, and without the attraction of human scent, their movements were often slow.
Some towns or villages had very few zombies. Some villages occasionally had only a few hundred zombies. In such cases, after Lin Xue gathered them, she would cover an area with icy rain, and soon there would be many more zombies on the ground. 138 Reading Network
However, in these sparsely populated cities, the zombies' levels were generally not high, so most of the collected crystals were below level four.
After visiting more than ten towns, Lu Heng finally saw living survivors in a larger settlement.
"Are you the hero here to save us?" a middle-aged man looked at Lu Heng in the sky, his eyes filled with reverence.
"No, I'm just here to kill zombies. Are there many survivors here?" Lu Heng landed the griffon after killing all the zombies.
"Not many. All the survivors from the nearby towns are here." At the middle-aged man's call, dozens more people emerged from an underground passage.
"Why are there so few ability users here? Why aren't these people evolving?"
Lu Heng pointed at the people behind him. Lu Heng could see that among these dozens of people, half were still ordinary survivors. And these people were not those who did not meet the standards for evolution. Many of them could level up as long as they had crystals.
"These people, alas, are timid..."
"Heh, that's truly rare. To still have non-ability users at this time and survive until now, it seems you ability users are quite tired."
Indeed, after so long, half the people were still not ability users, and the reason they couldn't become ability users was their timidity, which made Lu Heng speechless.
"This, alas!" The middle-aged man sighed. The truth was indeed so. They not only had to guard against zombie attacks every day but also go out to find food. For so long, the food they could find nearby had become very scarce. Sometimes they had to walk a long distance to find a little food, and there was too much waste here.
Originally, he thought that these people couldn't last much longer before being found by the increasing number of zombies nearby and becoming food for them.
Unexpectedly, today, as soon as he walked out of the shelter, he saw a scene he would never forget.
The zombies seemed to be attracted by something and were gathering in one place. Then, a high-pitched bird cry sounded from the sky, and the zombies were killed by a volley of ice cones that suddenly fell from the sky.
If he hadn't been hiding from those zombies, lying under a low stone platform, his head would probably have been pierced by now.
"Have you ever thought about shedding these burdens and finding hope for survival on your own?"
With so many burdens dragging them down, Lu Heng knew it was too difficult for these people to survive.
"No. Actually, my sister is also one of these ordinary people. She was weak as a child, so I never dared to give her crystals."
After speaking, the middle-aged man beckoned to a group of people behind him, and a woman of considerable age walked out.
"Brother." The woman cowered behind the man, her eyes fixed on Lu Heng descending from the sky.
"These useless people will drag all of you down," Lu Heng said, looking at the ability users in this group.
"Although I have cleared these zombies for you, the supplies here are likely not much. You will always have to go out to find the resources to sustain yourselves. How will you survive bringing so many ordinary people?"
The people opposite fell into silence. Some were tied down by family members, some were still trying to support themselves for the sake of brotherhood, but more people just wanted to stick together, believing that only with a larger number could they have a slight hope of survival.
But they had overlooked a problem: the burden among these people was too heavy. Nearly half of the ordinary people, besides increasing the human scent and attracting zombies, were useless.
"I can give you free upgrades, but the prerequisite for upgrading is that you dare to kill zombies. Otherwise, what awaits you is ultimately extinction."
After a brief silence, a young man's voice from the opposite side sounded, "I am willing."
"Xiao Qiang!" a middle-aged woman's voice sounded, slightly anxious.
"Those who are willing, step forward. I will give you one last chance at life. As you have seen, I can kill many zombies. This is achieved through constant killing of zombies. This apocalypse does not support the weak."
The ability users all stepped forward. They themselves had obtained crystals by killing zombies, which they used to change their bodies and become ability users with various powers, enabling them to deal with more zombies.
These people were even more eager to become stronger, not only to protect those around them but also to increase their chances of survival in the apocalypse.
As for those ordinary humans who had been afraid or had missed the earliest opportunity to become ability users, although they still felt fear when they saw zombies, a portion of them wanted to become warriors who could fight against zombies, just like those who could fight zombies.