Thuong Sinh leaned against the fractured wall, his breathing heavy, each inhale dragging a stinging pain across his chest. The recent breakthrough had not brought the relief he imagined; instead, his body felt as though it had been put through a meat grinder.
He frowned slightly, and with a thought, the familiar interface appeared. He scanned the pill section, this time without hesitating for long.
[ Pill · Recovery Pill ]
[ Grade ]: Mortal Rank - Middle Grade
[ Effect ]: Nourishes meridians, promotes wound recovery, replenishes True Essence.
[ Price ]: 30 Accumulated Points / pill
Thuong Sinh bought one immediately. He swallowed the pill; its medicinal power dispersed in his mouth and flowed down his throat like a warm stream. In that instant, a gentle heat spread through his meridians, enveloping the tears and aches, slowly soothing them.
He closed his eyes and circulated his technique.
This time, the True Essence was no longer chaotic but flowed much more steadily than right after the breakthrough. The pain in his chest subsided, and the suffocating feeling in his lungs gradually dissolved. It took nearly half an hour for his breathing to return to a regular rhythm.
Thuong Sinh opened his eyes. His body was still weary, but the feeling of helplessness was gone. Though the True Essence in his Dantian had not fully recovered, it had at least replenished significantly.
He looked down at the thin, dark green armor on his body. The Green Snake Skin Armor remained intact, showing only a few faint scratches and a small indentation. This seemingly insignificant layer had absorbed most of the force from the earlier blow.
If not for this... Thuong Sinh's gaze darkened.
The first strike from that mid-tier zombie was enough to shatter an ordinary person's spine. Had he been unprotected, he might never have stood up again, let alone achieved a breakthrough.
He stood straight, took a deep breath, and looked at his system points—as expected, they were at zero. He adjusted the sword on his back, tightened the Green Snake Skin Armor, and turned back toward the alley.
Less than an hour had passed, but the scene had completely changed. The mangled zombie corpses from before were gone, leaving only smeared bloodstains on the ground. Bones had been gnawed to dust, flesh dragged away in long streaks, and even the spots where the red crystals had shimmered were empty, leaving not a single fragment behind.
They had been eaten clean.
Thuong Sinh squatted down slowly, touching a deep claw mark embedded in the concrete wall. This mark was different from the ones made during his fight; the force was greater and deeper, carrying the frantic signs of a struggle for food.
He stood up and lingered no longer, heading southwest. The city's shadow stretched endlessly like a maze. He walked with no hesitation; with no bottleneck blocking his path, he had stepped through the first threshold of his journey.
As he continued southwest, the road ahead was not as quiet as it appeared. After passing only two rows of buildings, swaying figures began to emerge from narrow side streets and half-collapsed doorways.
Low-level zombies. They were slow, their movements stiff, their eyes glazed and soulless. Thuong Sinh did not stop.
His sword was drawn, and he cut each one down cleanly. Against these common ones, he did not even need to use True Essence. No matter how many surrounded him, he felt a surge of confidence—a cold certainty that he could slaughter them all. This was the newfound power brought by his breakthrough into Essence Gathering.
Black blood soaked into the cracked road. After walking a bit further, the atmosphere began to change.
From a street corner, two tall shadows stepped out. Their skin was much darker gray, their muscles were bulging, and the veins around their bodies were more swollen and red than ever. Their footsteps pounded the ground with dull thuds.
Mid-tier zombies.
They looked like the others, but Thuong Sinh was different now; he was no longer in the Body Tempering stage.
His gaze darkened, and the True Essence in his body moved like a violent, howling gale. He lunged forward, unwrapping his sword from its cloth bandages.
"Phantom Steps"
His figure tore through the wind, and a flash of sword light flickered in an instant. One zombie was decapitated before it could even roar in reaction. The other swung its arm but missed, and was immediately pierced through the eye socket by the sword tip, its body collapsing to the ground.
There were no wasted movements; he was adapting to the new surge of power in his body, beat by beat.
And so it went from morning until afternoon.
The path was covered in the marks of battle. In some places, a few low-level corpses lay scattered; in others, the wreckage indicated the appearance of things far stronger than ordinary zombies.
The sun gradually tilted toward the west.
As the sunset stained the shattered glass window frames red, Thuong Sinh finally stopped at a roadside building. It was a two-story house with a rotten wooden door; the interior was dark but lacked the heavy stench of rotting flesh.
He checked the perimeter, confirmed it was safe, and entered. The interior was more intact than he expected. A wooden table lay tilted, and a few dusty cans of food were in the kitchen cabinet. There was an unopened bottle of mineral water; the expiration date on the label had faded but was still readable.
No signs of being looted.
"Lucky."
Thuong Sinh closed the door, created a simple barricade at the entrance, and sat down against the wall.
The first day ended, and the night passed in a rare silence. There were no shrieks, no heavy footsteps. Only the night wind whistled through the door cracks, carrying dust and ash.
The second day.
Thuong Sinh opened his eyes.
Pale light from the window shone into the dust-covered room. He stood up, feeling his body; his injuries had stabilized, and his True Essence circulated more smoothly than the day before.
He glanced at the cans and the water bottle beside him. No one had set foot here yet, which meant one thing: further southwest, there were still many unexplored areas.
The second day began much like the first. Thuong Sinh left the abandoned house before the sun had fully risen, likely out of habit from his time in the safe zone.
He walked outside slowly—not out of exhaustion, but to observe his surroundings. This city was like a dead organism; every building felt like it could collapse at any moment.
Less than half an hour later, the familiar dragging sounds began to echo.
Three low-level zombies stumbled out of a convenience store. Sensing a living human, they opened their mouths, emitting hoarse, moaning groans.
Thuong Sinh did not speed up. He swung his sword with a cold, rhythmic precision. There was no longer the strained feeling from before. His body reacted before he even thought, automatically choosing the angle to strike and evading incoming swings.
Corpses fell, and he moved on, deeper and deeper, as the density of zombies increased.
Sometimes a few stray ones stood motionless in the middle of an intersection; other times, a group of five or six huddled together, devouring something. When Thuong Sinh appeared, they turned their heads in unison, their eyes glazed but carrying a spark of predatory ferocity.
Mid-tier zombies—strong enough that an ordinary Ability user couldn't handle them.
Thuong Sinh paused for a beat and changed his approach. He no longer lunged into the center of a crowd as he did yesterday. Instead, he drew them out one by one, using the surrounding terrain and the narrow corners of alleys to face them individually.
"Phantom Steps" was used only when necessary. "Blade Wind" was not overused either.
He was learning how to fight with endurance, not flair.
By midday, his Green Snake Skin Armor had gained several new scratches. They weren't deep, but they proved he had been struck multiple times. If not for that thin layer absorbing the force, his ribs would have suffered far worse.
Thuong Sinh wiped the black blood from his sword and rested briefly against a ruined wall. His breathing was steady, his heart rate stable. The feeling of fear was gone, replaced by a cold, sharp alertness.
In the afternoon, he met something different from yesterday.
A zombie stood in the middle of a small square, surrounded by several torn-apart corpses. When Thuong Sinh appeared, it didn't charge immediately. It lowered its head, sniffing the air.
The moment its dark red eyes locked onto him, Thuong Sinh knew this one was more dangerous than the rest. He didn't rush to strike. They faced each other for a few short heartbeats before he took the initiative to step forward.
The battle was short but intense. The sword intent didn't explode brilliantly, but each strike carried more weight than the day before. When the zombie collapsed, his chest heaved slightly, but his eyes were brighter than ever.
He could feel it—not a breakthrough, but a total adaptation to his new realm.
The sun set.
The second day closed as Thuong Sinh entered another building, further and deeper into the city than yesterday. Here, human traces were almost non-existent. Windows were shattered, wild plants grew through the floor tiles, and furniture was buried under thick dust.
He chose a room on the second floor, locked the door, and set up simple obstacles. Outside, the city grew dark. The silence was so profound he could hear the wind whistling through the collapsed hallways.
Thuong Sinh sat cross-legged but did not cultivate immediately. He closed his eyes and recalled each battle of the day—the rhythm of his breathing, each life-or-death decision. This was what he needed—not points, not pills, but the relentless tempering within the boundary of life and death.
The third day began with an unusual silence. There were no familiar moans or shadows of zombies when Thuong Sinh left his shelter. The entire block seemed drained of life, leaving only the wind whistling through broken window frames.
It was too quiet. His survival instinct caused him to subconsciously tighten his grip on his sword hilt.
The southwest direction felt completely different today. It wasn't an obvious danger, but a vague pressure, as if an eye were watching his every move.
He crossed three streets without encountering a single zombie.
As he stepped into a small square surrounded by ruined high-rises, that feeling suddenly intensified. Cold sweat broke out along his spine, his skin crawled, and his intuition screamed a warning.
Thuong Sinh stopped. The wind died down.
In the next instant, a shadow plummeted from above.
Boom—!
The ground cracked into a spiderweb pattern. Thuong Sinh retreated half a step by instinct, his gaze locking onto the figure that had just appeared.
Its body was over half a head taller than an average human, and it stood perfectly straight. Its muscles weren't abnormally bloated but were unusually lean and firm. Its skin was a deep dark gray.
From its back, a pair of black-gray wings unfurled. They weren't large, but they were enough.
Enough to make Thuong Sinh's heart sink.
The monster tilted its head, its dark red eyes staring straight at him. There was no unconscious madness like the others. In that gaze, there existed something very clear: Evaluation.
Then, it smiled.
Its torn mouth curled up, revealing pitch-black teeth.
[ Special organism detected ]
[ Temporary classification: Mutated Mid-tier Zombie ]
[ Threat level: High ]