Chapter 128: The Luo Family Ancestor Manifests

At this stage, safe zones were still trying to come up with meaningful names for themselves—names like Fortunefall, Everguard, Double Joy, Rebirth, and so on.
But to zombies, the name of a safe zone meant nothing. In the previous life, dozens of safe zones were wiped out one after another by corpse tides, human disasters, and other factors. In the end, no one even bothered naming them anymore. Since it was useless, they simply called them Zone One, Zone Two.

In Fortunefall Zone, at a small tavern, the dim lights flickered, and countless drinkers vented their emotions here, loudly bragging about their adventure stories.

“Did you hear? Luo Ying has broken through,” a shifty-eyed man with two thin mustaches downed a shot of cheap baijiu and began talking about Luo Ying.

“Spill it, what happened?” Someone’s curiosity was piqued. As soon as the name Luo Ying was mentioned, the whole bar gathered around, eager to hear the rest.

Nowadays, Luo Ying was the most famous figure in the apocalypse—the founder of the Enhancer system, the one who established the tiers for zombies and Enhancers, making humanity aware of the massive gap between current technology and Tier-4 zombies.

If not for him creating the Enhancer system and proposing a unified currency system—with Contribution Points as the new currency—no one knew how long it would’ve taken to form proper safe zones.

People spent their days risking their lives scavenging ruins for supplies, and at night, they loved to gossip. Luo Ying’s gossip was, naturally, the most talked about.

However, Luo Ying often roamed the ruins of various cities, slaying zombies, collecting brain cores, and rescuing survivors. He rarely came to safe zones for supplies. As a result, people knew little about him—most of the information came from the mouths of rescued survivors.

It baffled everyone. How could someone survive without coming to a safe zone to restock? Forget anything else, even water was a major issue. Safe zones had purification systems and reliable water supplies. If Luo Ying didn’t come here, how the h**l was he getting clean water? Could he conjure it out of thin air?

The mustached man smiled without answering. The patrons instantly got the hint and shouted, “Boss! This brother’s drinks are on me!”
“Bring this brother a bottle of purified water, a plate of compressed biscuits, and some spiced beans!”

These days, information didn’t come for free.

Only then did the man nod and continue his story.

“Today our squad went to clean up Qiyu City. We split up to search for electronic parts. And what do you know? I ran into Luo Ying and Luo Zhu, those two legends—with that ancient-looking ghost floating behind them.”

“Qiyu City?! Isn’t that place crawling with several Tier-2 zombies? You’ve got guts going there!”

The man peeled the skin off a spiced bean, popped it in his mouth, took a sip of baijiu, and gave a bitter smile. “That place has the richest supplies. High risk, high reward.”

“The two legends are exactly as the rumors say—they’ve got eyes like scanners. No zombie hiding in the dark can escape their blades.”

“I saw two Tier-2 zombies lying in ambush from a high spot. By all logic, the two of them shouldn’t have seen them. I was about to shout a warning, but they just darted forward and killed both zombies like they saw them coming a mile away.”

Someone gasped, “Those were Tier-2 zombies! Weren’t Luo Ying and Luo Zhu just Tier-1?”

It had been nearly three months since the Enhancer system emerged, and no human had broken through to Tier-2.
After absorbing one brain core, the human body needed a cooldown period to fully process and adapt. Only after that could they absorb another.

Luo Ying had repeatedly warned Enhancers not to skip the cooldown. Still, some arrogant fools thought his success was just dumb luck and ignored his advice—only to explode from energy overload.

Humans had to absorb energy with their bodies. Zombies absorbed energy directly through their brain cores and didn’t need cooldowns. That’s why Tier-2 zombies already existed, while Tier-2 Enhancers had yet to appear.

Thankfully, Tier-2 zombies still couldn’t break through safe zone defenses.

“Exactly why he’s a legend. Wasn’t it just days ago a squad of eight Enhancers ran into a single Tier-2 zombie? Only two came back alive—the rest were either eaten or zombified.”

“But those two legends took out two Tier-2 zombies with ease.”

“They’re not Tier-1 anymore,” the mustached man pointed to his detector. “I saw them absorb the two Tier-2 brain cores and ascend to Tier-2 Enhancers.”

Detectors could roughly identify the tier of both zombies and Enhancers and were standard gear for rescue squads.

Everyone sighed in awe. The difference in combat power was massive—as if the Luo siblings’ Tier-1 status wasn’t even on the same scale as the general public’s understanding of Tier-1 Enhancers.

Although Enhancers were scattered and rarely compared directly, Luo Ying and Luo Zhu were widely accepted as humanity’s No. 1 and No. 2. The only debate was who ranked first.

Now that the siblings had become the first-ever Tier-2 Enhancers, the gap was even wider.

Based on current sentiment, more people supported Luo Ying as the top fighter. His reputation was just too vast. Since becoming the first Enhancer three months ago and helping create the first batch of Enhancers, countless others had benefited from his guidance. If he wanted to, he could rally support with a single call and replace the leadership of any safe zone.

Maybe because Luo Ying’s light shone too bright, Luo Zhu always seemed overshadowed. To most people, she was just the cute girl who followed him around.
They assumed she only got strong from her brother’s long-term guidance—that she probably wasn’t as capable.

“By the way, what exactly is that ghost floating behind the Luo siblings? I heard it’s been following them since before the apocalypse.”

The zombie virus and the Enhancer system could be explained scientifically. But Jiang Li’s existence? That was straight-up supernatural. No safe zone had been able to make sense of him.

“I saw that ghost carrying a pagoda, dressed in ancient robes. Maybe it’s the Luo family ancestor’s spirit.”

“Sounds legit.”

Since it couldn’t be explained with current knowledge, everyone just rolled with that bizarre theory.

…

Qiyu City—completely unaware that he’d been promoted to the Luo family’s ancestral spirit—Jiang Li was praising Luo Zhu.

“Not bad. You’ve reached the Foundation Establishment Stage.”

Luo Zhu sat quietly on a pile of rubble, dagger resting on her thigh as she gently wiped off the blood. Under the moonlight, her skin seemed to glow like a dream—a rare sight of beauty in the apocalypse.

She smiled faintly and didn’t speak.

Nearby, the Brahma Tower consoled Luo Ying, “Don’t feel too down. You’ve reached Qi Refining Ninth Layer in just three months—that’s impressive.”

Luo Ying thought, I’m not even upset, who the h**l are you trying to comfort?

Right now, Luo Ying possessed two cultivation systems. He was a Tier-2 Enhancer and also a Ninth-Layer Qi Refining cultivator.
Luo Zhu was the same, only stronger—she was a Tier-2 Enhancer and a Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator.

Together, the siblings could even take on Tier-3 zombies.
But they still had a long way to go before they could defeat hordes of Tier-4 whale zombies.