Chapter 112: Friend

Jiang Li no longer cared whether the Brahma Tower would discover him. If he didn’t act, people would continue to suffer and die every single moment.

Besides, Jiang Li didn’t believe the Brahma Tower was in Zone 3.

The Brahma Tower was an Immortal Artifact, also a Buddhist Treasure. If it saw something like this, it would definitely intervene.

“Stop! Who are you!”

Jiang Li dispelled the spell. He was no longer visible only to the Ye siblings—now everyone could see him. The two Enhancers guarding the entrance to the corporation immediately noticed his presence.

It was hard not to. Jiang Li’s clothing, appearance, and aura were far too striking, completely out of place in the apocalypse.

“Just an ordinary person,” Jiang Li said coldly.

This particular corporation primarily dealt in arms. Naturally, the two Enhancers at the door carried firearms—large-caliber pistols, a single bullet capable of blowing half a person’s body apart.

The two of them immediately pulled the triggers.

Bang bang—both men maintained their shooting stance, but the bullets jammed at the muzzle and didn’t fire. Their heads burst like watermelons.

“B-Boss, the corporation’s backed by Lord Long Tu,” Ye Du stammered, reminding Jiang Li.

Jiang Li said nothing and walked into the building.

Ye Wu kicked her clueless brother. Idiot. He just said he’s stronger than a fifth-tier Enhancer, and you think it’s smart to remind him?

Few dared provoke the corporations like this. After all, more than half of the third-tier Enhancers belonged to them. Who in their right mind would cause trouble here?

The noise downstairs alerted everyone, but most people just chuckled. Someone once, thinking they were highly skilled, tried to rob the place. They were quickly subdued by high-level Enhancers, had their eyes gouged out, arms cut off, and were tossed into a ruined city to be hunted by zombies—while the corporation’s bosses laughed heartily.

As for whether zombies evolved after eating him, that wasn’t something the corporations concerned themselves with.

Jiang Li swept the building with his Divine Sense. All sorts of documents, experiments, and work records appeared before him. Who deserved to die, who didn’t—he could tell at a glance.

Kill everyone, and surely some innocents would die. Kill every other person, and some would slip through the cracks.

The smiles on the people upstairs lasted quite a while. They were all still smiling when they died.

“Who are you! Who sent you to kill me!” The arms tycoon was terrified seeing the murderous Jiang Li approach, his teeth chattering. Who knew how many third-tier Enhancers had already died at his hands?

Jiang Li didn’t answer. He walked steadily toward the arms tycoon.

The tycoon gave a sinister smile and pressed a button. White mist sprayed from above Jiang Li and from beneath his feet.

Boom—

The top floor of the building exploded violently.

“That’s not just mist—it’s micro-bombs. They’ll enter your body and detonate in a chain reaction,” the tycoon clicked his tongue twice. “With a blast like that, there won’t be a single scrap of flesh left…”

The tycoon’s words stopped abruptly. Jiang Li had him by the throat, his face flushing red.

Two fourth-tier Enhancers hidden on either side saw things going south and tried to ambush Jiang Li. With a single thought, Jiang Li beheaded them both.

“F-Fifth tier…” The tycoon looked at Jiang Li in disbelief. There were only five known fifth-tier powerhouses in the world. Where had this sixth one come from?

No— even fifth-tier couldn’t kill two fourth-tiers with just a thought…

The tycoon didn’t finish the thought before Jiang Li snapped his neck.

Even though he’d expected this, seeing such a once unreachable big shot thrown aside like a rag doll by Jiang Li still gave Ye Du a sense of unreality.

That day, Jiang Li wiped out several corporations in a row. Eventually, he stood beneath the pharmaceutical corporation’s skyscraper.

The strengthening agent the Ye siblings had taken came from this corporation, though theirs had been the lowest-grade version.

“I-Is that a zombie?”

Inside one of the labs, Ye Du stood dumbfounded. In glass tanks were zombies of bizarre shapes—some looked like bears but had octopus tentacles for feet, some had two heads—one human, one pig—with a turtle shell on their back. Some had no heads at all, crawling on all fours, their limbs covered in mouths.

Both humans and animals could become zombies, but Ye Wu couldn’t even tell what these had been in life.

“N-No, these are people, and they’re still alive.”

“People?!” Not just Ye Du—even Ye Wu stared in horror at the scene before her.

The most crucial thing was that the liquid in the glass tanks looked awfully familiar, just like…

“You’re not mistaken. That’s the strengthening agent you took,” Jiang Li said. “The corporation uses humans as filters to cleanse the zombie virus from the air, extracting pure spiritual energy. To stop them from turning into zombies, they’re injected with a bunch of drugs. Their bodies are altered from the inside out.”

“B-But I heard the strengthening agent was made by diluting power from brain cores,” Ye Du’s worldview was falling apart.

Jiang Li had seen with his Divine Sense that this place did use brain cores to make the agents, but even more often, they used human bodies as filters.

“Because it’s cheaper.”

Ye Du couldn’t believe that answer. How could anyone do something so horrible just to save money?

Jiang Li softly chanted a Buddhist mantra—majestic, ancient, and solemn. Ye Wu felt like the sound contained infinite truth and power, and her head was about to explode from it.

But the mantra was a force of compassion and didn’t kill. Ye Wu only felt dizzy for a while.

As the chant left his lips, the glass tanks shattered. The twisted, mutated people inside were enveloped in golden light. Ye Wu could vaguely see that they were slowly returning to their original forms.

Though Jiang Li couldn’t resurrect the dead, turning these people back was no problem.

Ye Wu followed Jiang Li to the top floor. There, a burly man was sitting on a plush sofa.

A fifth-tier Enhancer—Long Tu.

Ye Wu had thought Long Tu was just the corporations’ backer, but hadn’t expected that he was the biggest one of them all!

“Friend, welcome to Zone 3,” Long Tu laughed heartily, enthusiastically greeting Jiang Li.

Long Tu assumed Jiang Li was also a fifth-tier Enhancer, and thus worthy of being called a friend.

As for his background—it didn’t matter. He was likely some nameless powerhouse from outside the five major zones, or a lucky third-tier who found a fifth-tier brain core.

“I heard you were angry because the corporations were wantonly exploiting the commoners. Friend, calm down. Since we’re both fifth-tiers, why get angry over something so trivial?”

In Long Tu’s eyes, Jiang Li was probably one of those weak Enhancers who suddenly gained power. Though he’d grown stronger, his mindset remained weak, and so he sympathized with the weak.

As a fellow fifth-tier, Long Tu saw it as his duty to be a guide—to teach him what a true strongman should be like.

“Did we become strong to kill zombies, restore the old society, and follow all those rules and laws? Hahaha, of course not. Didn’t we become strong to enjoy life?”

“Before the apocalypse, I was an underground fighter, someone who couldn’t show his face. But here, I am the sky, I am the king—who dares defy me?”

“Do you think you’re strong?”

“What…”

Before Long Tu could react, he was sent flying by a massive force, spewing blood.

“Something like a dog, and you dare call yourself my friend.”

Jiang Li didn’t judge friends by cultivation level—no one was stronger than him anyway.

He judged by heart and character.