A Ling's heart pounded like a drum, her lips trembling slightly, as she said fiercely but inwardly weak:
"Don't be too pleased with yourself. You're already at the end of your rope, and I don't believe you can keep going."
Look at how scared you are now; do you even believe what you just said? Mu Bei scoffed in his heart.
Actually, two hours ago, Mu Bei had already discovered A Ling hiding in the Zombie horde because the density of the Zombie horde had decreased significantly.
Mu Bei could have killed her directly and cut her down with his axe long ago, but he didn't.
Because without A Ling's command to gather the Zombies, the Zombies in the city were like scattered sand, which was even more troublesome for Mu Bei.
If he wanted to kill all the Zombies in the city, it would take him extra time.
A Ling also knew that Mu Bei had already discovered her, right after she tried to escape but couldn't, no matter how hard she tried.
No matter where she fled, Mu Bei would follow, maintaining a certain distance from her, neither far nor near.
Once or twice, A Ling thought it was a coincidence, but after three times, A Ling was convinced that Mu Bei had locked onto her location long ago.
Mu Bei's actions made A Ling feel that her dignity was being trampled upon.
Thinking of Mu Bei trampling on her dignity, a surge of anger rose in A Ling's heart, an anger named incompetence.
She was a Zombie Lord, a higher being; how could she be reduced to a tool for Humans to collect virus crystals?
Thus, the furiously incompetent A Ling stopped thinking about escaping and instead overdrawn herself, forcibly extending her Lord's aura;
At the same time, she more strenuously summoned Zombies within a few kilometers to send World Power to Mu Bei.
Until...
All the Zombies in the city, except for A Ling herself, were killed by Mu Bei.
"Ah—"
A Ling screamed, charging towards Mu Bei with bared fangs and claws, while constantly cheering herself on in her heart:
He must be faking it now! He's actually almost exhausted... It must be like this, it must be...
Because Mu Bei's actions had caused A Ling immense mental pressure, A Ling could only hope that she would be the last straw to break the camel's back; otherwise, she wouldn't even have the courage to charge at Mu Bei.
That feeling of watching the scales of victory slowly tilt towards the opponent, that feeling of the hope for survival slowly disappearing, truly made her feel despair.
However, in despair, A Ling chose to go mad in the end and face her despair head-on.
From this perspective, she was quite courageous.
But in Mu Bei's eyes, the current A Ling, whose movements were chaotic, full of flaws, and who looked like she was on the verge of a mental breakdown, was like a clown.
Swinging his axe, after two clanging sounds, A Ling and Mu Bei's figures crossed paths.
The former fell to the ground and didn't get up, while the latter turned around and stepped on the former's back, pressing her down firmly.
Mu Bei effortlessly chopped off A Ling's legs, but rather than chopping them off, it was more like smashing them off.
Because the axe had long been blunted from chopping, hitting A Ling was like cutting meat with a dull knife, causing her immense pain.
Mu Bei placed the bloodstained axe against A Ling's neck and softly said to A Ling:
"Do you still want to live?"
"I, don't, don't... want to... die..."
A Ling initially wanted to die with dignity, but after a moment of hesitation, she found that she couldn't.
"Please, spare my life."
"Alright, I'll spare your life."
Mu Bei agreed readily, which made A Ling somewhat disbelieving, but his subsequent words made A Ling's slightly relieved heart hang in the air again:
"But this is temporary. I don't trust you, and I don't need to trust you. You just need to complete my orders."
"To ensure that you can execute my orders as perfectly as possible, next, I will personally remove the virus crystal from your body."
"During this process, I suggest you don't move around, as this is my first time performing brain surgery, and there will inevitably be some errors."
"However, speaking of which, should your newly grown crystal be inside your skull?"
"..."
A Ling was frightened by Mu Bei's words and was only focused on being scared, not answering Mu Bei's question immediately.
"I'm asking you a question, answer me!"
Mu Bei's foot on A Ling's back stomped down slightly, and the A Ling below immediately had three ribs broken, spitting out a large mouthful of blood on the spot.
"Yes, cough cough, it is."
The broken bones pierced her lungs, causing A Ling to cough uncontrollably when answering.
"Okay, I understand."
Mu Bei threw away the axe in his hand, whose durability was almost gone. The axe clanged as it fell to the ground not far away, and then he took out a dagger from his storage space.
This dagger was the reward he had opened from the blue treasure chest before.
Since it hadn't been used many times, its durability hadn't dropped much, and it was still sharp, perfect for the upcoming surgical knife.
The surgery began.
Mu Bei first shaved off all of A Ling's hair to avoid it getting in the way later.
But besides the hair, large patches of scalp were also shaved off by Mu Bei.
This was less like shaving hair and more like peeling skin.
Feeling Mu Bei's extremely rough shaving technique, the pain in her scalp was no longer a big deal for A Ling, but her heart inevitably felt half cold.
The cold dagger was then placed against A Ling's bloody head, making the latter feel her scalp tingle.
Then, the dagger immediately pierced the skin, muscles, and then cut through the skull.
Blood immediately flowed down, dripping onto the ground.
With Mu Bei's current Strength, cutting through A Ling's scalp was similar to an ordinary person cutting through soft tofu, and cutting through the skull was not much different from an ordinary person cutting through firm tofu.
A Ling endured the fear in her heart, the intense pain from her lungs, head, and legs, and the strong urge to cough, trying hard to keep her body still.
Even though her face was covered in blood, and her lips had long been bitten through.
After the dagger traced a circle along the skull, with a popping sound, A Ling saw her own skull cap.
The Zombie Lord's brain was exposed to the air, appearing unusually complex and precise.
Its surface was covered with fine blood vessels, with clear veins, like a precise circuit diagram.
Embedded in the center of the brain was a slightly shimmering black virus crystal, emitting a soft light, as if it were a symbol of successful evolution.
The crystal was integrated with the surrounding brain tissue, appearing harmonious and natural.
Although the entire brain emitted a slight smell of blood, it revealed a unique vitality and the Power of evolution.
After lifting the skull cap, Mu Bei immediately discovered the virus crystal embedded in A Ling's cerebral cortex. With a gentle flick of the dagger, the crystal came out.
"Ah..." The moment the crystal was picked out, A Ling felt a heartbreaking pain. Besides the pain, there was a more obvious sense of loss.
She could clearly feel that she was no longer a complete Zombie, incomplete in a physical sense.
After putting away the crystal, Mu Bei placed A Ling's skull cap back on.
Then he took out a roll of wide transparent tape from his storage space, tore off a section with a ripping sound, and used it to fix her skull cap.
The surgery was completed.
...
In the following days, the completely intimidated A Ling was completely obedient to Mu Bei, diligently luring monsters on the city wall every day.
Mu Bei continued his daily high-intensity slaughter to obtain as much world source as possible, but the method of slaughter became much more varied compared to before.
Mu Bei had A Ling command the Zombies to find the arsenal in Jinzhou City. After smashing open the gate, they found a large pile of bullets, grenades, and other military supplies.
There were also many delicious military ration cans, as well as bottled purified water.
Thank goodness, Mu Bei's food was almost gone, so he wouldn't have to eat that disgusting Zombie meat to fill his stomach.
Mu Bei's favorite thing to do every day was to have A Ling attract large numbers of Zombies to the bottom of the city wall, and then use the usable city defense machine guns on the city wall to strafe the Zombie horde below with a rat-a-tat-tat.
The rate of fire of 1500 rounds per minute was much more efficient than Mu Bei killing Zombies in close combat himself.
Awesome!
While strafing the Zombies, Mu Bei also discovered an interesting phenomenon, which was:
After performing nearly ten thousand more acts of slaughter, he didn't receive a prompt that his Charm attribute had decreased.
Was it because these nearly ten thousand acts of slaughter were performed remotely with a gun?
Wanting to figure this out, Mu Bei shot and killed nearly ten thousand more Zombies with the machine gun before receiving the prompt that his Charm attribute had decreased.
This was quite reasonable.
Anyone who has killed knows that the feeling of killing with a gun is very different from killing with a knife!
This difference is reflected in the reduction of the Charm attribute; killing with a gun has a much less significant effect on reducing the Charm attribute than killing with a knife.
Mu Bei's second favorite thing to do was to throw cluster grenades into the piles of Zombies. The feeling of a boom followed by a large influx of World Power intoxicated him.
Anyway, these supplies had not been notarized by the Paradise, and Mu Bei would have to spend his own paradise coins if he wanted to take them out. It was a waste not to use them now.
Besides the Zombies lured by A Ling, some Humans also came to Jinzhou City.
Due to A Ling's limited mana, there wasn't always a Zombie horde below the city wall.
Taking advantage of this gap, a few daring Humans would try to enter Jinzhou City.
Some Humans were scavengers, some were seeking refuge in Jinzhou City, some were here to occupy Jinzhou City, and some were those who were out on missions when Jinzhou City was massacred and were now back for revenge.
Without exception, Mu Bei unceremoniously accepted these World Power and several blue quality treasure chests that were delivered to his doorstep.
But speaking of treasure chests, it made him angry.
Currently, all the treasure chests he had obtained were blue quality, except for one purple quality one.
High emotional intelligence: The quality of the treasure chests Mu Bei obtained was very high.
Low emotional intelligence: His bad luck was so bad that he couldn't even get low-quality treasure chests.
He had slaughtered more than a hundred thousand beings, yet he didn't even get a white or green one.
However, anger is anger, but if this was the price of becoming stronger, then Mu Bei could at least accept it for now.
Although Mu Bei obtained high-quality treasure chests, the return from opening them was not ideal.
During his rest, Mu Bei opened 10 blue quality chests.
Besides the guaranteed 1000×10=10,000 paradise coins, Mu Bei also obtained a total of 108 paradise coins, and that was it.
That's right, 10 blue quality treasure chests, besides the guarantee, the rest added up to only 108 paradise coins.
No equipment, no potions, no skill scrolls...
Nothing but paradise coins.
This was the Power of the -5 luck attribute.
How to solve the problem of low treasure chest returns?
Seeing that A Ling had a luck attribute that was a full 6 points higher than his, Mu Bei thought of a solution.
A Ling was his permanent summon, possessing a portion of Contractor authority.
And these authorities included the ability to see and open treasure chests, and the returns from opening chests by the permanent summon belonged to its Contractor.
Thus, Mu Bei gave A Ling 1 blue treasure chest and let her try it out.
After A Ling opened the treasure chest in her hand, a dazzling white light emitted from inside the chest, something Mu Bei had never seen when opening chests himself.
The treasure chest flashed!
