Bai Zemin had consumed 40 Mana points to activate Lightning Movement and apart from that, he had consumed about 6 more points to change the blood from its natural liquid state to a solid-state powerful enough to pierce through the bodies of zombies below level 20 without any problems.
Thanks to the factor that the Blood Manipulation skill did not consume blood to manipulate blood that existed outside an organism and only consumed blood to change the physical state of the element or to enhance the power of the modified blood, Bai Zemin had consumed only 46 Mana points in total during the entire battle that had passed.
Therefore, when he converted 200 Stamina points into 200 Mana points, his Mana stat now looked like this when he checked it:
[Mana: 905 / 951 (+65)]
The Mana stat of Bai Zemin in his normal state was 751 points without adding the stat points obtained thanks to external treasures. So, when he converted 200 Stamina points into Mana, not only did his Mana stat increase 200 points but even with the consumption of 46 points above, the total Mana of Bai Zemin still exceeded his base Mana by a wide margin without the 200 Stamina points added.
"Blood Spears!" Bai Zemin shouted out loud as he beheaded two level 15 zombies.
Three slightly blackish-colored spears formed from the blood of the slain zombies and under his careful control flew in different directions; one flew to his left, the other flew to his right, and the last one flew to the area behind him.
The three lightning clones were unintelligent beings but Bai Zemin could control them as long as he wanted to and as long as he was willing to take his attention off the battlefield for a brief moment. Then, as the three black spears flew towards them, the three clones extended their arms forward in unison and caught the weapons in mid-flight.
Kill!
Receiving the order from the main body, the three now armed clones turned into ferocious tigers. With the skill Special Forces Soldier being one of the skills attached to the soul of Bai Zemin and with the clones also being linked to his soul, these three clones now in possession of weapons began to slaughter zombies with even more tenacity than before.
Bai Zemin was no different from his clones; in fact, he was much more ferocious. Under his golden spear and the blades of wind generated by each swing of his weapon that cut through everything in its path, the zombies promptly began to fall.
Five seconds passed in the blink of an eye and just as the faint golden light covering Bai Zemin's body faded away, he quickly rechecked his Mana stat:
[Mana: 751 (+65)]
"Hahahahahaha!"
Bai Zemin laughed out loud as he controlled the blood bullets to pierce the brains of a hundred zombies with precision and at the same time swung his spear behind him to help the rear clone who was overwhelmed, Bai Zemin's arrogance and pride naturally shot through the roof once his experiment proved to be a massive success.
By converting Mana into Stamina in large amounts and then doing the same in the opposite direction, Bai Zemin was able to overcome the 50 Stamina consumption that the second activation 'Overlap Regeneration' needed to be activated, and at the same time, he would be able to overcome the Stamina consumption of his three clones!
Bai Zemin was now even able to activate his skills with complete freedom!
"Die!" Bai Zemin roared as he continued controlling Overlap Regeneration internally and alternated between Mana and Stamina once every 5 seconds.
Bang!
A ferocious burst of mana erupted from the body of Bai Zemin and under the impulse of over 900 Magic points, his magic power went berserk as the rune of the skill Blood Manipulation lit up brightly.
Consuming 300 Mana points directly, Bai Zemin controlled and empowered the blood around him to shape over 2000 black spears. The black spears soared into the sky before plummeting over the bridge.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!….
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!…
…
The bodies of the zombies exploded after being struck by the powerful spears charged with magical power. However, even more striking than the fact that a large patch of previously occupied land suddenly became uninhabited was the fact that the blackish spears did not damage the bridge at all as after killing the zombies the spears changed into liquid once again.
A second later, however, the same spears came out again from the huge pool of rotten blood and proceeded to slaughter more zombies.
Thirty minutes passed and Bai Zemin's Mana and Stamina were oscillating fiercely. Every 5 seconds, one of his stats would drop powerfully only to recover completely 5 seconds later and swap places between each other.
However, during those 30 minutes, neither Bai Zemin's Mana nor Stamina stats had actually decreased. Although one of the two was always dropping, 5 seconds later it would immediately return to its maximum.
Bai Zemin had turned into a truly terrifying war machine. He had no compunction about consuming large amounts of Mana to conjure weapons and annihilate his enemies while being careful not to damage the bridge.
He had even consumed 500 Mana points in one go to spread a black blood fog over 5 kilometers and annihilate 70% of the zombies within that area.
During those 30 minutes, the number of zombies that Bai Zemin and his three clones had slaughtered exceeded 1,000,000…
More than 1,000,000 zombies in half an hour. What kind of concept was this? At this rate, he could even annihilate the 20,000,000 zombies during the course of the morning and by the afternoon at the most, the task that had previously seemed impossible would be finished!
Armies? So what if hundreds of thousands or even millions of enemies were to come? In front of me, the numbers are nothing but insignificant pieces of paper! In front of me, Bai Zemin, the only choice is to submit or perish!
Bai Zemin's arrogance soared beyond the stratosphere and it really reached the heavens when he looked at his stats and realized that as long as he didn't cast a magic spell that overcame his Stamina, he would always be able to return his Mana to its peak condition.
The second activation 'God of War's Partial Possession' was truly terrifying. When the fighting instinct of Bai Zemin was triggered, his confidence would grow to the point of blindness. In fact, in his current state were it not for the fact that the title Brilliant Mind was suppressing the effects by 10%, Bai Zemin might have lost the most important point of his personality.
What was the most crucial point in Bai Zemin's personality? What was the most important characteristic and the main reason why he had survived to this day despite the seemingly impossible difficulties that had come his way? It was not his tenacity, nor was it his cruelty to himself…. It was his caution.
After having advanced approximately 20 kilometers of the 100 kilometers that the Eastern Dragon's Back bridge extended over in the span of an hour and having slaughtered over 2,500,000 zombies, Bai Zemin suddenly realized that something was wrong.
His vision began to blur, his movement speed dropped even though there were no enemies able to stop his footsteps, his attack speed and swinging speed also dropped, his spear movements were no longer as lethal as before, his head began to ache, and even something deep inside him began to show signs of hurting.
All these were extremely subtle changes and so small that by themselves Bai Zemin might not have noticed them under the effect of the God of War's Partial Possession. However, all these negative effects attacking his system at the same time could not bypass the ever-cautious heart of Bai Zemin.
What is going on? Bai Zemin's heart clenched and alarms began to sound powerfully inside his head.
However, with his self-confidence and the arrogance in his heart so high, it was difficult to think clearly. Therefore, even though Bai Zemin had willingly slowed down the speed at which he slaughtered zombies, it was not easy to find the point in question.
Controlling his own spear, controlling his clones partially or giving orders remotely, controlling the blood spears while keeping the Blood Manipulation skill active at all times, activating Regeneration and Overlap Regeneration every 5 seconds, converting Stamina to Mana and Mana to Stamina, staying away from the zombies' claws or bites, studying the surroundings, thinking about his next move, being alert to avoid ambush by a powerful enemy, and so on. The number of simultaneous tasks Bai Zemin was performing without a break was simply too numerous at this point.
Were it not for his especially powerful soul thanks to his having nurtured it with tremendously pure Soul Power, Bai Zemin would have collapsed long ago. In fact, any other soul evolver could not have done what he had been doing for more than 2 hours at a stretch.
However, everything had limits in this world. Even the seemingly all-powerful Higher Existences could not do as they pleased, let alone a First Order Lower Existence.
Regardless of how strong the soul of Bai Zemin was, it had limits to what it could handle. If he was a Second Order existence and all the Soul Power he had been accumulating all this time had been attached and strengthened to his soul, then perhaps there would be no problems. However, the current him was overtaxing himself too much.
An hour later, Bai Zemin's death count had broken 3,000,000 zombies.
Approximately 500,000 enemies in 60 minutes was undoubtedly an impressive feat considering the fact that among those 500,000 there were even around 10 that were within the same Order of power than Bai Zemin was. However, compared to killing over 1,000,000 zombies in the same amount of time over the past two hours, having killed 500,000 zombies was no longer as impressive as it should be.
His body slowly began to stiffen and his face was covered in sweat. Moreover, even though all his stats were actually at their peak almost all the time, Bai Zemin's face was getting more and more sickly pale.
Cough!
Suddenly, Bai Zemin's movements stopped and he could do nothing to avoid coughing up a mouthful of fresh blood.
Bai Zemin's eyes twitched as he saw globules of blood among the blood that had just flowed out of his body on its own and it was then that the alarm within him overcame his natural arrogance.
"Damn it! It's this damn thing!" Bai Zemin cursed under his breath as his face contracted in pain.
How could he not realize what the problem was when his soul seemed to writhe inside his body and one of the most excruciating pains he had experienced so far assaulted him for a brief split second.
Bai Zemin's soul was currently something similar to a gas that was all over every part of his body. However, he realized that this gas was now less potent than before similar to when viruses attacked the immune system and weakened the body by awakening illnesses.
By using Overlap Regeneration without caution for so long, Bai Zemin finally realized that while this new skill was powerful, it was not as if he could do whatever he wanted with it.
What were stats? It was the power of the soul of an existence represented in numbers and since the soul also affected the fleshly body, if the soul suffered the fleshly body would naturally experience suffering.
By using Overlap Regeneration without prejudice and constantly subtracting and adding large numbers from one stat to another, what Bai Zemin had overlooked was that in order to subtract X amount of stat to another stat, what he was doing was actually modifying his own soul!
By adding more weight to some parts of his soul than what it should naturally have, his soul slowly began to get injured. His own body tried to warn him of this by heightening his senses and hindering his battle power, but as Bai Zemin still did not understand where the problem lay, he simply continued fighting.
Now, he finally realized that at this rate he could find himself in tremendously severe trouble…. In fact, his current soul had been injured by 5% and Bai Zemin was not able to use his full strength anymore!
This had been the cost of him trying to rush things too much while trying not to use his full strength. Bai Zemin had done his best to restrain himself from damaging the bridge but had consequently made use of a new power which he was not yet clearly aware of in an unrestrained manner.
Bai Zemin decided that the morning was enough and that it would be better to rest for an hour or two to calm down. After resting for a while, even if his soul was slightly damaged it was no problem since with his current strength he still didn't need to fear anything.
However, Bai Zemin had barely retreated 100 meters after disconnecting the three clones to avoid losing Stamina when his body suddenly stopped.
Swoosh!
A bubble of air suddenly appeared around him and covered him completely. Then, under Bai Zemin's disbelieving eyes, his body began to slowly rise into the sky.
He looked down and noticed that, at some point, a female zombie had appeared behind him, looking at him with cold and indifferent red eyes.
This female zombie, despite looking terrifying, did not look too bad when compared to the other zombies Bai Zemin had seen throughout the morning. However, what was more disturbing was that unlike the Unclassified zombies or the First Order zombies, this female zombie not only looked much more powerful but also seemed to have some degree of intelligence.
In addition, Bai Zemin also noticed a male zombie blocking the path through which he planned to retreat even though a second ago there was no one in the area!
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