Bai Zemin was not being a coward, far from it, in trying to offer an alliance to the Seventh Princess. On the contrary, he was being extremely careful with this matter and trying to handle it with his head as level-headed as possible.
Bai Zemin was a proud person even before the apocalypse broke out in the world with the arrival of the Soul Record on Earth. He did not know the reason why he was always proud and even slightly arrogant, after all, Bai Zemin was only the son of a truck driver and an elementary school teacher and even though his grades were always excellent he was aware that his pride seemed to come from deep inside him for unknown reasons.
However, the pride of Bai Zemin grew explosively when the mana of the world flowed into his body.
With the attainment of skills such as God of War's Will and under the constant praise of a not only beautiful but tremendously powerful woman like Lilith, Bai Zemin slowly grew into an existence that would not allow anyone to try to step on him and if anyone ever tried to take advantage of him, he would definitely make them pay a thousand times the price.
Until now, the only reason he could keep his calm in most situations was due to his passive skill Stone Heart.
In this situation, Stone Heart helped Bai Zemin once again as it was a skill that apart from suppressing his emotions to others also helped him to keep his mind somewhat cooler than usual when the situation warranted it.
The current situation was far from ideal and Bai Zemin was perfectly aware of this fact.
His Stamina stat had fallen below half, his soul was wounded causing his battle power to drop by 10%, his mind was exhausted which clouded his senses, his slightly numb body due to having done nothing but fight for so many hours on the run was causing his reaction speed to plummet, and many more.
Bai Zemin was confident that even with his current situation he could defeat the zombie leader and the beast leader. However, if to these two Third Order beings was added a mermaid princess which despite being only a peak Second Order existence for some reason gave him a slight feeling of danger, then Bai Zemin could no longer guarantee his victory 100%.
If the mermaid princess joined the zombie leader and the beast leader, unless Bai Zemin was willing to destroy the bridge and risk his life, his best option would be making a run for it. After all, activating Crimson Blood Judgment in the middle of the sea would destroy the bridge and he would lose his foothold; which would eventually lead to him being surrounded by countless sea beasts.
All of this was even without taking into account the fact that Shangguan Bing Xue was there. While she was undoubtedly a powerful and proficient warrior and mage, she probably wouldn't be able to fight the mermaid princess long enough for Bai Zemin to finish off at least one of his enemies.
Therefore, he needed to prevent the mermaid princess from joining hands with the zombie leader and the beast leader at all costs. Only then would Bai Zemin be able to prevent the destruction of the bridge; but more than anything else, only in this way could Bai Zemin prevent his life from being plunged into danger at the same time as he would end up preventing Shangguan Bing Xue from probably dying.
Now that Bai Zemin knew that for unknown reasons the mermaid princess needed food for her subordinates, then he would take advantage of this fact. Delivering several million zombie corpses was not a loss to him and the only thing that hurt him was the loss of the possible tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Soul Stones that could be found in their heads.
But since Bai Zemin was not an all-powerful being capable of moving through the heavens and earth freely, he had to be prepared to sacrifice some things for the greater good. At least, until the moment he had the power to control all destiny in his hands, Bai Zemin would have to be willing to give up some things to gain others; that was life, when we chose one path we often gave up another.
In fact, that was how the Soul Record worked as well.
Indeed, when he mentioned the corpse of a Third Order existence, the mermaid princess was immediately tempted.
The zombie leader and the little ape naturally noticed the strange glint in the mermaid princess's gaze when she looked at them; it was as if she was looking at two shiny gold coins waiting to be collected.
"Sea princess! Are you going to break your word?! Is this how your sea race does business?!" The little ape took a step forward and shouted noisily in panic.
Things were already very tight and no one knew who could win. If the mermaid princess joined forces with a monster like Bai Zemin, then these two leaders would probably have no hope of getting out of here alive!
However, the little ape did not know that his words were all it took for Xian Mei'er to make her decision.
"Break my word?" Said the mermaid princess in a low voice. She looked at both the little ape and the zombie leader with disdain and sneered, "The ones who broke their word were you yet you dare to besmirch the name of my race? I really must be blind for forming an alliance with an ape and a strange creature like you two!"
Bang!
The mana burst out of the mermaid princess' body and in response, the sea 5 kilometers around responded with what seemed to be a ferocious bestial roar.
"Human leader! I accept your offer! We'll discuss the details later, for now, let's get this over with once and for all!"
Under the stupefied eyes of Bai Zemin and Shangguan Bing Xue, as well as the furious and disbelieving gaze of the zombie leader and the little ape, the mermaid princess waved her staff and her voice traveled several kilometers into the deep sea:
"Attack!"
Maybe, it was because of the glowing blue pearl embedded in the mermaid princess' forehead, but this time, everyone understood what she said.
In return, thousands of waves of different sizes rose up with noisy bangs. The night sky seemed to be covered by several layers of water for a brief moment and as these layers of water began to descend, the moonlight illuminated the terror approaching the bridge.
At least a few hundred thousand sea creatures leaped out of the waters in the direction of the bridge. There were fish, there were lobsters, there were crabs, there were seaweeds, sea lice, etc. At very least thirty different species of sea creatures planted their feet firmly on the bridge creating a noisy boom.
Bai Zemin and Shangguan Bing Xue were amazed when the sea creatures did not take long at all to show up as once they arrived on the bridge they immediately got to work.
Following the mermaid princess's orders to the very letter, the creatures from the sea charged like an angry wave towards the army of the zombie-beast alliance.
The numbers between the two armies were disproportional in great magnitude. One side had over 6,000,000 while the other side had just over 500,000; moreover, the side that had numerical superiority was also fighting on solid ground which gave them even more of a natural advantage over the army whose total was more than ten times smaller in comparison.
However, despite being outnumbered and despite the fact that the place in which they were fighting was not advantageous in any way, the sea creatures proved to be terrifying to the point that even Bai Zemin wished that mankind would not have to face them in the near future and if possible never.
The fish over a meter tall that were Unclassified existences were barely over level 10 but their teeth were so powerful that even a level 15 defense-focused beast would be split in half.
The Unclassified crabs and Unclassified lobsters with their powerful pincers had the ability to break the defense of any First Order zombie that was not careful and fell into their clutches.
But the most terrifying were the sea lice. These ugly creatures numbered over 200,000 and were nothing more than level 5 Unclassified existences, but their special characteristic was that they always followed the leading organism which was level 15. The leading sea lice would attack and like magnets with opposite poles attracting each other they would immediately attack the same target; in a matter of a few seconds, most of their enemies were turned into a pile of bones.
These previously small sea lice had grown to over 20 cm each while some of them were over 30 cm long, the leader being a creature over 50 cm long. While such sizes were insignificant when compared to any of the other living creatures on the bridge, the fact that they all attacked together was simply horrifying.
The same shark man from before also seemed to be called by the mermaid princess as Bai Zemin heard him yelling something in a language he could not understand. The shark man charged towards the Zombie Commander with decisiveness and immediately both existences created their own battlefield where they became entangled in a deadly battle.
Only a couple of seconds passed but the top of the bridge became a slaughterhouse filled with bestial roars and shrieks. Although the sea race was temporarily at a disadvantage, it seemed that given enough time they would be able to turn the tide with their own efforts and sheer tenacity.
"You bastard bitch!" The lead zombie roared in anger and suddenly made a move that left Bai Zemin a little at a loss for words.
The creature tore off half of his single tentacle and brought the severed half to the leg that Bai Zemin had cut off with his spear just before the mermaid princess make her appearance. Then, something breathtaking happened.
"So that's how that monster managed to recover…" Bai Zemin muttered as he watched the severed tentacle join the severed flesh of the leg of the zombie leader.
A strange purple light glowed above the tentacle, disintegrating it in a second. Then, that light entered the flesh of the severed leg and a moment later a completely healthy new leg was born.
Bai Zemin had always wondered how it was possible for the zombie leader to recover from the deadly wound he had inflicted. After all, unlike any kind of regenerative skill, the only wound that had healed on the body of the zombie leader was the mortal wound of the torso that had been almost completely torn off and the internal organs destroyed.
Now, the doubt had finally been cleared.
However, Bai Zemin now had a new doubt and it was… how would the zombie leader fight now that he had lost his two upper limbs? Soon, this doubt was cleared up as well as the other.
"Sacrifice!" The zombie leader roared towards the sky and activated a skill.
Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash!….
Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash!….
Blackish purple lights illuminated the bodies of over 2,000,000 zombies. Moments later, a large part of the bridge was suddenly vacated as those zombies that were being surrounded by the blackish purple light disappeared without a trace.
This caused the pressure on the sea creatures to be greatly relieved and at the same time, the zombies and beasts felt the terror of the sea creatures even more strongly.
All that blackish purple light flew to the places where the tentacles of the zombie leader should be, giving shape to something that was soon revealed.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
The corner of Bai Zemin's mouth twitched a couple of times as he saw two new shiny black tentacles bleating on the leading zombie's body.
'A Third Order existence really is too difficult to deal with.' He sighed in his heart.
The eyes of the zombie leader flashed with a hint of exhaustion after activating his skill Sacrifice. However, the weariness was being fought by the anger he felt so he pointed at the mermaid princess and roared, "I'll take care of catching you and by the time that happens I'll eat your body piece by piece while leaving your consciousness intact!"
"Hmph." Xian Mei'er didn't look convinced. Despite being a Second Order existence, this mermaid princess was actually brave and with a swing of her magic staff, the mana inside her body began to tremble in response to her magic power.
"Come, zombie leader." She said in a cold voice.
"I will finish you before the sun rises. From tonight onwards, zombies from all over this district will be left without a permanent leader!"
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