Deep within the drainage ditch, darkness was like thick ink.
Ling Chen slowly rose from the damp mud, his movements fluid and steady, showing no trace of his previous "weakness."
Now that he was free from those guys, he could finally hunt and plan freely. The probes had arrived, the vanguard had arrived, so the main force would be here soon, likely by noon or afternoon.
Before that, he had to quickly accumulate strength and find a suitable subordinate.
He wiped the mud from his face, his eyes under the hood gleaming with cold, bloody light.
With a slight thought, three dark purple bats, like loyal hounds, silently landed on his shoulders. One of them held a small piece of torn flesh, faintly smelling of blood—it was fresh blood he had "accidentally" scraped from a cut on his own arm with his fingernail when he "fell" earlier.
He tossed the torn flesh into the air. The bats caught it precisely, then, like arrows released from a bow, flew rapidly in three different directions!
They would carry this "blood bait," imbued with Ling Chen's aura, to attract and provoke the most powerful mutated beasts in this area.
And he himself, like a ghost merging with the darkness, stealthily moved towards the direction of the Rat King, which the bats had sensed and lured away, a cold radian curving at the corner of his mouth.
The hunt… had begun.
A cold will flowed silently in the darkness.
Ling Chen's footsteps passed over damp mud and decaying branches, making almost imperceptible sounds. His mental perception, like an invisible spiderweb, covered a radius of several hundred meters. Every mutated beast stirred by the bat's blood bait, every fluctuation of energy, was within his control.
He felt the surging power within him, five crimson blood patterns at the corner of his eyes faintly heating up. The energy gained from devouring Zheng Xiyun's flesh and blood was being rapidly refined, propelling him slowly towards the barrier of the sixth blood pattern.
But this was not enough! Far from enough!
In the early stages of the apocalypse, the crystal cores of low-level Corpse Ghouls and mutated beasts contained sparse energy, and their flesh and blood essence were limited. To advance quickly, he needed stronger prey, or… a more efficient method of plunder.
Mutated beasts were the best choice! At the same rank, the quality of mutated beast flesh and blood far surpassed that of humans. (The next few paragraphs are setting introductions and supplements. Readers who are not particularly focused on world-building can skip them.)
If calculated by ordinary flesh and blood, a Corpse Ghoul needs to consume 30 units of ordinary flesh and blood equivalent to its own unit. If it eats humans, that's 30 people.
Each rank up requires 10 times the flesh and blood of the previous rank. It's fine in the early stages, but in the later stages, it becomes an astronomical figure. Not to mention whether you can collect that much flesh and blood in the world, even if you do, can you really eat it all?
There are nine ranks of Corpse Ghouls in total. If they all eat ordinary flesh and blood, they would need 3,333,333,330 units of flesh and blood. A Corpse Ghoul's stomach is extraordinary; it can probably eat about 500 kilograms of meat a day. Assuming this Corpse Ghoul's body weight is 70 kilograms, then on average it can eat about seven units of meat a day.
And 3,333,333,330 units… well, that's about 476,000,000 days, which is 1,304,000 years. Even if this Corpse Ghoul eats and drinks tirelessly day and night, assuming it can eat 60 kilograms of meat per hour, which is 1 kilogram per minute (this should be considered a very exaggerated figure, equivalent to finishing a large bowl of braised pork in one minute).
Even then, at most, it would be around 1,500 kilograms a day.
It would still take about 434,700 years. After 434,700 years… it's debatable whether humanity will still exist, let alone Blue Star itself…
Strengthening his power and then infiltrating the military—this was his core strategy set from the beginning of his rebirth.
Why infiltrate the military instead of working alone, which would be more flexible, convenient, and free? Ling Chen must have a greater scheme!
The reason he chose to hide his strength and infiltrate the military was not merely to use the military's power to survive the initial chaos, nor just to obtain more advanced weapons and intelligence. He had a more secretive, more insane goal—a forbidden item capable of reversing life and death, slaying gods and demons!
It's just… it's a bit life-consuming.
The reverse scale pendant!
In the depths of his consciousness, a scene steeped in blood and smoke emerged.
That was in his previous life, three months after the Blood Moon Cataclysm erupted.
Like a stray dog, he crawled out of the incinerator pipe of that secret research institute, his body charred and on his last breath.
Relying on the tenacious vitality of his Soul Jade Physique, he escaped that living hell, only to fall into a broader, more brutal hunting ground of death.
He wandered, struggled, like a rat in a gutter, searching for scraps among ruins and corpses.
Until that day, he accidentally stumbled into the depths of the Qinling Mountains and was hunted by a well-equipped, mysteriously acting military special forces team.
They seemed not to be after him personally, but rather exploring something.
Chased and fleeing all the way, he eventually, in his desperation, fell into a hidden fissure torn open by an earthquake on the northern foot of Mount Li—one of the divine secret treasures later known as "Dragon Abyss," which was the eastern burial pit of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum.
Deep within the mausoleum, traps were abundant, and mercury permeated the air.
Relying on the Corpse Ghoul's resistance to toxins and the Soul Jade Physique's keen perception of energy, he narrowly escaped death, stumbling into an undiscovered burial chamber.
It was there, among mountains of bronze vessels and decaying silk fragments, that he saw a skeleton wearing an ancient black robe with a Xuan Niao pattern.
On the skeleton's chest hung a palm-sized jade pendant, shaped like a dragon scale, entirely black, but with dark golden light flowing along its edges!
The moment he touched the jade pendant, the special forces team chasing him burst in! The red dot of a laser sight instantly locked onto his brow! Lethal energy condensed at the muzzles of their guns!
Life and death hung by a thread! In despair! He instinctively, almost subconsciously, poured all his remaining violent Corpse Ghoul vitality madly into that cold jade pendant!
Buzz—!
The jade pendant instantly became scorching hot! The dark golden aura flowed like burning lava! An indescribable, soul-tearing terrifying power instantly backfired!
He felt his life force being frantically drained like a floodgate opening! His skin instantly shriveled! His hair turned gray! The new blood patterns at the corner of his eyes instantly dimmed! As if he had aged a hundred years in an instant!
But corresponding to that! A world-destroying, time-shattering terrifying energy condensed in front of the jade pendant! It had no form! No light! Only a pure, ultimate will of "destruction"!
He raised his hand, pointing at the horrified special soldiers.
"Die."
A cold word was uttered, a mere phrase, but the negligible energy and temperature it contained were amplified a hundredfold by the reverse scale pendant, instantly becoming violent!
That seven-person special forces team, equipped with the most advanced single-soldier exoskeleton armor and energy weapons, along with the heavy bronze tomb door behind them, instantly… vaporized! Vanished! Like wax figures thrown into a furnace, not even a speck of ash remained! Only a bottomless, mirror-smooth terrifying pit was left in their place!
One strike! Utter annihilation!
And he, too, collapsed to the ground like a broken sack, on the verge of death, his life force instantly drained. If not for the powerful vitality of a mutated being, which began to slowly repair itself after the jade pendant stopped draining, he would have long turned into a withered corpse.
That jade pendant was the reverse scale pendant! A forbidden divine artifact that used a century of life as fuel, burning a fleeting moment of glory, in exchange for a hundredfold power! Overbearing and ruthless! Simple and brutal! Like a raging dragon whose reverse scale had been touched, it unleashed a destructive fury!
In his previous life, he relied on this jade pendant to turn the tables against powerful enemies in countless desperate situations, ultimately ascending to the peak of evolvers, becoming one of the Asuras. But due to excessive use on one occasion, his life force was severely overdrawn, leaving behind irreparable hidden injuries.
In this life, he was reborn. The reverse scale pendant, he was determined to obtain it! And, to obtain it earlier! To obtain it when his vitality was most vigorous and his potential greatest! To avoid the self-destructive usage of his previous life!
And the whereabouts of the reverse scale pendant… were deep within the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum! The location of that burial pit was only recorded in the military's most core archaeological and top-secret archives! Although he knew the specific route, the journey was bound to be fraught with danger. In his previous life, he had stumbled in by accident.
Therefore, he had to infiltrate the military! Obtain intelligence! Seize the initiative! And even… use the military's power to open the path to Dragon Abyss for him!
For this, he could endure, he could disguise, he could pay any price!
In the darkness, Ling Chen's eyes burned with a cold flame. He licked the corner of his mouth, as if tasting the cold dragon scale of the future.
Soon. As long as he devoured those mutated beasts and advanced to the Bone Eater Realm, his power would reach a new level. His chances of seizing the reverse scale pendant would increase, and more importantly, he would be able to escape the military's wrath after they discovered he was a traitor!
He stopped. Ahead, a depression covered by the roots of a giant mutated banyan tree.
A Rat King, lured by his bats, was agitatedly tearing at the tree roots, its crimson eyes scanning around, searching for the "blood bait" that had provoked it.
Ling Chen slowly raised his hand. At his fingertips, a wisp of dark purple electric arc silently flickered.
Hunting time.