During the day, Bai Zemin returned to the bridge after having rested until a little after 1 pm.
Although his soul was still wounded due to all the heavy modifications he was making over and over again without giving his soul time to rest, the irony of life also did not give Bai Zemin time for him to rest and relax a little while the deep wound in his very essence could heal. After all, Bai Zemin needed to eliminate the zombies in the Eastern Dragon's Back as soon as possible for the sake of opening a firm and direct path to the next district.
In this kind of circumstance, resting was not allowed even for the wounded, and if one wanted to make progress, one needed to get out of bed even if one had no legs to stand up. The reality of the past was cruel not to mention this new reality that humanity was pushed into and forced to live in.
Without using Overlap Regeneration at all to give his soul time to recover, the speed at which Bai Zemin slaughtered the zombies naturally was in no way comparable to the past. Forget about killing 1.5 million zombies or 1 million zombies in an hour, the most he could do was kill a little over 300,000 for every hour that passed.
Still, 300,000 zombies per hour was not bad at all.
As for how Bai Zemin managed to kill so many zombies in such a short time even though he could no longer count on the second activation of the skill Lightning Movement to form three clones of himself? The answer was simple, dangerous, and naturally; Bai Zemin was once again being cruel to himself.
Maybe and just maybe, this last factor was the most crucial point why Bai Zemin became so popular and appreciated by so many talented and powerful people in such a short time.
* * *
Eastern Dragon's Back, 40 kilometers deep and 200 meters above sea level.
23:27 PM.
The night was almost completely dark, there were no stars in the sky and only the faint silver shine of the moon dimly illuminated the surroundings.
Growl….
The bestial growls of the zombies, capable of sending shivers down the spine of even the bravest one echoed together creating a beast-like roar and completely breaking the natural sound of the wind blowing from all four directions.
In the midst of that chilling darkness crowded with terrifying creatures, a golden shadow continuously flashed through the small gaps that its attacks created amidst the seemingly endless army of zombies.
Bai Zemin swung his spear completely ignoring the strong winds blowing from the sea and swept all the zombies 5 meters in front of him.
The zombies that were cut in half and survived crawled without any concern at all as they stretched out their hands in an attempt to catch him, however, by the time those zombies tried to enclose him, Bai Zemin had long since left his previous position.
He would sometimes move to the right and after causing chaos in that area he would hastily move to the left in order to slaughter the zombies that tried to close his path of retreat. No matter how hard the zombies tried, not even one of them managed to take a step beyond the perimeter that Bai Zemin had established.
He was just pressing down on an army of millions of zombies while preventing any of them from crossing beyond even though the width of the bridge was over 200 meters!
No, Bai Zemin was not only preventing the zombies from going any further but he was even pushing the entire horde slowly backward!
Even though every step forward was tremendously tedious, Bai Zemin had managed to push the entire horde back 30 kilometers after an afternoon of killing! Even if at some point he was forced to retreat for superior reasons and the zombies reoccupied the position he had regained for mankind, Bai Zemin would simply have to continue pushing until there were no zombies present!
Putting aside the more than 3,000,000 zombies he had slaughtered earlier while fully exploiting the potential of Overlap Regeneration, which had damaged his soul, in these little more than ten hours Bai Zemin had managed to wipe out another 3,000,000 zombies.
Compared to killing 3,000,000 in a span of two and a half hours to killing the same amount in over ten hours was perhaps a bit too pitiful. However, there was nothing Bai Zemin could do about it and in fact, he was already pushing himself to achieve this result.
"Blood Spears!"
The voice of Bai Zemin was carried away by the strong sea winds and as his hair danced wildly under the radiance of the moon and his body stood firm against the bone freezing cold of the night, the dark blood of the enemies he had just defeated floated up into the sky creating a beautiful but at the same time frightening sight.
Spending 100 Mana points and proving that his control over his own skill had increased tremendously compared to two weeks ago, 5000 blood spears of 3 meters each slowly descended until they were all only between one and two meters high from the bridge.
"Die!"
Bai Zemin roared like an enraged lion and at the same time as his golden spear beheaded another dozen zombies, the silver moonlight rays illuminated for an instant the steadfast black blood spears that at lightning speed flew out in a straight line one after another towards the zombie army.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!….
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!….
…
The black-blooded spears became harvesters, claiming the lives of hundreds and hundreds of zombies in just a matter of a second and soon breaking that number to four figures. However, the power of the Blood Manipulation skill was much more than that.
"Hah!!!" Bai Zemin, tired after fighting for so many hours without even a mere second of rest and exploiting his Agility almost to the limit on several occasions, shouted in a hoarse voice as he thrust the black spears as deep as he could into the endless sea of zombies at the sight.
The bodies of the zombies exploded like tomatoes being thrown against a concrete wall. Blood and pieces of broken organs flew everywhere along with bone fragments, falling to the ground and creating an extremely unpleasant paint job or falling into the sea and becoming food for the Unclassified creatures that dwelled beneath the deep, unknown waters.
The green messages continued flashing one after another without stopping in Bai Zemin's retina. These messages not only indicated the successful killing of a new zombie but also showed that his probabilities of inflicting critical hits were not there just for show.
More than 150,000 zombies were killed in just 10 seconds. A large patch that was previously filled by zombies and their staggering bodies had now opened up, leaving a straight path leading to even more and more zombies.
Bai Zemin's chest rose and fell as beads of sweat trickled down his face despite the extremely cold temperature of the environment. Even someone like him who had seen many things over the past two months could not help but feel a tinge of despair as in a matter of seconds that large straight path that had been opened at the cost of an eighth of his total Mana was sealed off and occupied by more zombies.
Soon, however, that feeling of being overwhelmed was swept away by the strong winds whipping through his body and drowned by the sea just below his feet.
"Six million zombies on my first day of hunting and counting." Bai Zemin tightened his grip on the spear in his right hand and a steadfast sparkle flashed in his night-black eyes, "If I continue fighting nonstop throughout the night, by dawn I'll be able to eliminate another three and a half million zombies more. That would be almost half of the total."
It wasn't easy to get to this point. If he could unleash all his real strength and didn't have to restrain his skills, Bai Zemin could simply cast two or three Crimson Blood Judgment and wipe out all the zombies or he could simply use the fierce shockwaves caused by the explosions of his greatsword to slaughter thousands with each swing. But in this kind of situation, it really hadn't been easy to get this far.
Six million and counting. But Bai Zemin did not stop and continued to fight.
He had already launched large-scale attacks like the previous one three times so his available Mana currently stood at just over 500 points. Although he still had more than half of his total Mana, Bai Zemin did not dare to casually spend all of his Mana. After all, if a powerful enemy appeared and he had no Mana to activate his skills, then he would be forced to use Overlap Regeneration again which could worsen the wound of his soul even more.
Two hours later, when midnight had passed, the war drums continued resonating as the battlefield became bloodier and more fierce with each second that passed.
The face of Bai Zemin could no longer be described as handsome at this point and instead, his appearance was not unlike that of a demon such as parents used to scare misbehaving children.
His black eyes were bloodshot after having fought and slaughtered so much while his body began to move by instinct instead of waiting for the command from the brain. Annihilation of the Falling Sky turned into a weapon completely destined for slaughter in hands of Bai Zemin and every swing of this beautiful spear, as well as every stab, took care of claiming the lives of several enemies.
Flashes of golden light glinted one after another in the middle of the night as black blood mingled amidst the beautiful faint but clear light in the midst of such darkness.
At the rear of the horde, hidden by the sea of zombies, the two true leaders of this entire area watched in surprise as events unfolded.
"How the hell does he not get tired! Does he have unlimited Stamina like my soldiers?!" The zombie with two tentacles instead of arms bellowed in anger and confusion.
His red eyes were about to spit flames due to the rage he felt as he watched his troops being slaughtered and quickly crushed by a mere human. Even he was no longer enjoying the privilege of possessing endless Stamina now that he had regained the ability to think!
Along with evolution, there were many benefits but for benefits to appear, there were often disadvantages that had to appear first and in exchange for gaining the ability to think and reason instead of continuing being a creature without a mind of his own, this zombie who led the zombie sea had to give up certain privileges that those without the ability to think or who were extremely slow enjoyed in return.
After all, the Soul Record was a seemingly fair existence and when it took something it gave something else in return but the same applied in the opposite case.
"Impressive."
The small ape ignored the rage of the zombie with two tentacles and as it watched Bai Zemin slaughtering zombies left and right, this creature that had been watching him and waiting for the moment to attack couldn't help but praise one of the humans it usually despised due to their clear weaknesses.
But in fact, what neither of these two existences knew was that even for Bai Zemin it would not be possible to fight so many battles for a whole day without even taking a single second to rest. The only reason he was able to continue, apart from his own tenacity, was because he possessed skills that increased his overall power and thus also his ability to resist on the battlefield. Otherwise he would have collapsed by now or would have been forced to retreat to rest.
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