Even the largest Goldenfur Monstrous Rat King was panicked. It rammed the closest zombie down to the floor, forcing it to release the latter to release the rat that it was chomping on.
Without any hesitation, the rat king bit down on the zombie’s bone with a loud cracking sound. Before long, the zombie had already lost several of its fingers.
The zombie tried to climb to its feet, but crushed under the weight of the rat king, its attempts were futile.
“Jip jip jip!” The rat king squeaked furiously at the zombie, possibly trying to brag or utter words of justice for its deceased comrades.
Its squeaks were reciprocated by a resounding thwack on its head.
Bam!
Another zombie swung a wooden bat in its hand, sending the Goldenfur Monstrous Rat King flying for several meters before finally crashing back down on the ground.
“Jip!”
The infuriated rat king arched its back and directed the golden fur behind its head right at the zombie.
“Holy shit!” Juviel was alarmed. The rat king was clearly far stronger than its companions—its thorns were a meter long, and every single one of them was shining with a golden lustre. They looked just like javelins.
Shoosh shoosh shoosh!
The thorns shot out a speed far faster than a slow zombie could dodge. It was struck squarely by the thorns, and the sheer impact pinned it onto a cliff face.
“Jip jip!”
The Goldenfur Monstrous Rat King squeaked in glee. It had returned the favor for the earlier bat to its head.
Fu Hua remarked with a bit of surprise, “If those thorns were to strike us, it would be difficult to deal with them!”
Juviel nodded in agreement. He wasn’t too familiar with the power level classification of ferocious beasts in this world, but the Goldenfur Monstrous Rat King seemed to be around the strength of one of those ape-like Honkai minions.
He wasn’t confident of defeating the rat king in a direct battle without relying on his cheats such as Poisonous Prick or Fu Hua's abilities.
“Juviel, something strange is going on over there!” exclaimed Fu Hua. Her voice was a bit unsteady as she pointed her finger in a certain direction.
Juviel quickly looked over, only to see the zombie that had been pinned to the cliff face had started moving. It lowered its head to glance at its chest, causing its eyeballs to pop out a little from its face. It felt almost like a literal expression of horror.
Then, it stretched its hand forth and began plucking the thorns out of its body. There was no splattering of blood; there was just a mysterious dense fluid flowing out a little.
Juviel's lips twitched. It was fortunate that he didn’t eat too much earlier, or else he might have just retched at this sight.
As for Fu Hua, she had already closed her eyes, not wanting to look any longer. However, her senses were superhuman to begin with, so she could still hear the audio with spectacular quality. She could only meditate..
The zombie plucked off all of the thorns before charging toward the Goldenfur Monstrous Rat King once more with the bat in its hand.
“Jip~”
The fur on the rat king pricked up, but it was not out of aggression but fear. It had already resorted to its strongest move, but its enemy remained completely fine despite being struck by it squarely. How could it possibly fight against an opponent like this?!
So, it turned tail and fled. It might still feel compelled as a king to protect its own people, but it realized that the current circumstances were so dire that it would be a blessing if it could escape with its life.
Watching the scene from above, Juviel couldn’t help but frown. The defensive prowess had shocked him. He didn’t think that they would be able to remain unfazed even after suffering such a heavy blow. He couldn’t even fathom just how much it would take in order to kill one of them.
“Hua, are there any records about zombies?” asked Juviel.
Fu Hua shook her head in response. “I have never heard any records of zombies in any world before. There’s nothing on that in the archive, and my comrades have never mentioned it to me before.”
Juviel felt a little unnerved. He recalled the sudden appearance of this world and all sorts of occurrences that weren't supposed to occur.. The Salvation System had reminded him that there was something amiss about this place too.
Is something happening right now because I’m here? Hell! Isn’t that special treatment accorded only to novel protagonists?
While making internal retorts, Juviel's mind was still whirring to process the situation. “Are there light elemental spells or something in this world? How in the world are we supposed to kill off such monsters?”
“Light elemental spells?” Fu Hua frowned. “I don’t know much about spells, but there have been weapons with evil-warding effects before, just that they are incredibly rare. I don’t think that there are any such weapons in the current era. As for dealing with the zombies, there are some records relating to that, but only Honkai Related. It seems like they would stop moving once you sever off their heads. Aside from that, there are rumors that they are vulnerable to fire...”
“Fire element?” Juviel frowned. .
Will ordinary fire work against them? But again, it seems almost impossible to light up a fire in this windy mountain valley.
He swiftly ran through all of the skills he had learned, but none of them seemed to be useful against these zombies. Even his prided SS skillset didn’t seem too useful against these incredibly high defense zombies. He could totally imagine his dagger striking down on a zombie’s neck, only to rebound off.
In the end, only a third of the Goldenfur Monstrous Rats managed to make their escape. Most of them were picked up by a zombie and chomped down on like a sandwich. It was unfortunate that they were land creatures, and a huge number of zombies happened to be lurking underground.
In fact, the only reason why a third of them could escape was because there weren’t too many zombies who awakened at the start. However, as the scent of blood began to fill the mountain valley, more and more decrepit zombies climbed out of the land in seek of prey.
“Wait! Aren't you a fire element wielder?” said Juviel with a bit of excitement.
It felt like they had just fallen deeper into danger. It was just Goldenfur Monstrous Rats lurking beneath them earlier, but now it had been replaced by the even stronger zombies. There was no chance for them to escape at all even if they wanted to. Their only hope right now was for them not to be discovered.
“I indeed am.” Fu Hua's eyes glowed for a bit, as if a fire had started burning deep within them.
Juviel finally heaved a sigh of relief, taking note of her eyes.
“I recall you telling me that you could have dealt with the rats? Can you deal with these things too?” Looking at the zombies lurking under him, Juviel felt his heart growing heavier and heavier.
According to the movies, zombies usually shied away from light. It was still daytime at the moment, but natural sunlight was blocked off by the surrounding mountains in this valley, dimming the surroundings. To make things worse, the sun appeared to be setting at the moment.
Are these corpses going to roam for the entire night?
Juviel found himself wondering how these worlds came to be. The concepts of day and night applied in here, and there was a sun during daytime too. He wondered if the moon would rise when night fell later.
Meanwhile, the zombies were happily feasting heartily on their prey. Flesh and blood seemed to be utmost delicacies in their eyes, but the same couldn’t be said about the humans present.
As the stench of blood grew thicker and thicker, Juviel felt his stomach churning, but he forced it down and looked towards Fu Hua for an answer. He could feel that the zombies had started coming towards them!
“I can.”
Fu Hua nodded and got into a battle stance, her eyes glowed as her fists started radiating an intense fiery light.
Juviel felt a wave of intense pressure from her, and it only continued to get heavier. She kept on glowing until eventually he couldn't afford to look at her anymore. He turned back to the zombies and saw them getting agitated, they had noticed the couple of people and were especially afraid of the light emitted by Fu Hua.
He was about to remind Fu Hua about this, but she had finished with her preparations as she opened her mouth and lightly yelled,
“Edge Of Taixuan, Eminence: Spirit Of Cinder!”
With a sound akin to a cry of a phoenix, a ginormous flaming bird with the wingspan of 30m formed from herself and immediately flapped it's wings before it plunged into the ground below.
The zombies couldn't even defend themselves, they couldn't even scream in misery. Afterall, they were instantaneously turned to ashes! The whole ground was covered in flames as the earth was cooked, almost looking as if it were about to shift to magma.
Juviel looked on in pure shock, mouth slightly open. Bloody hell, that indeed solved this problem with one hit! The heat is getting to me! Holy sh*t! This is only 20% of her powers!?
All of the running from before had pushed him beyond his limits to begin with, and now that the zombies have been dealt with, he felt his legs give in. He quickly tried to grab onto the tree, but he failed and fell.
Thankfully, he was caught by Fu Hua. She smiled as she looked at the exhausted Juviel, so he could be like this too?
At the start she only thought he was a mysterious person who could do anything he wanted, but now, she understood that he was also just a human. It made her feel a bit closer to him, as she had previously thought of him as an anomaly rather than a fellow human.
“The situation has been dealt with, however, I can sense some strong auras approaching.. They seem to be coming from the deeper parts of this valley.. Huh? Why are you getting up?”
She looked on with shock as the previously exhausted dude got up, she noticed his body shaking.
“I can protect myself. I don't want to burden you with the task of protecting me. Let's go, we will deal with them..”
Feeling a bit touched, Fu Hua pondered for a bit and decided to take him as well. With her ridiculous recovery speed, her stamina and Honkai Energy had already been restored. How did Honkai Energy recover? This world was abundant with intermittent energies, she managed to take advantage of that fact to easily convert it into Honkai Energy.
This place was also lurking with unknown dangers, so it was a fair trade of benefits.. That was exactly why she dared not leave him here as it would go against her conscience to see him get hurt due to her lack of care. Even worse, death.
Furthermore, despite how easily she had dealt with the zombies, she couldn't get rid of the feeling of danger that had appeared ever since they had stepped into this valley. It was as if one wrong step would lead to hell.
“Alright.. Let's go.”