Chapter 131: Growth of the Siblings
This wasn’t Luo Ying’s first time facing the white elephant zombie. That white elephant had escaped from a zoo in some country, and its massive size gave it a huge advantage during the early stage of zombie evolution. After zombifying, whales rampaged through the seas, hunting at will—nothing could stand against them—so they were the first to reach Tier 4.
The white elephant was no different. It was the largest land creature, and after zombification, its size expanded even more. One swing of its trunk, one chomp of its jaws, and a person was gone.
In the previous life, the white elephant was the first land zombie to reach Tier 3. Human zombification couldn’t match its evolution speed.
Tier-3 zombies had overwhelming influence over other zombies. They could gather zombie armies and crush human forces.
This was the first corpse tide humanity ever faced—The White Elephant Corpse Tide.
Back then, Fortunefall Zone faced the first corpse tide and became the first safe zone to fall. Luo Ying was one of the rare survivors of that disaster.
Later, Luo Ying went to other safe zones. The second safe zone was torn apart by political struggles among the upper ranks. Zombies were used as a threat, but the plan failed and they actually got into the city. That zone turned into a zombie nest, and Luo Ying escaped again.
He moved to the next one. The third safe zone was plagued by infighting among arms dealers. Firearms didn’t do much against zombies, but they were very effective against humans. The internal conflict cost many lives, and the smell of fresh blood drew zombies to siege the city. That safe zone fell too.
The fourth one…
The fifth one…
…
By the time the fifth safe zone collapsed, Luo Ying felt like the heavens were targeting him. Wherever he went, disaster followed. So he decided to build a safe zone of his own and see if it would fall too. He kept the name simple—Zone 1.
…
“Kill!”
Luo Ying fought the white elephant zombie with practiced ease. In his past life, after becoming the Shadow King, he had personally slain this same zombie—by then already Tier 5.
The white elephant raised its trunk and let out a roar, stomping its feet and cracking the ground in fury. The army it had painstakingly assembled was wiped out by these two glowing humans with some unknown method!
And completely annihilated at that!
Luo Ying and Luo Zhu didn’t dare take a Tier-3 zombie lightly. They activated the Immovable Vajra Mantra to protect their bodies. The elephant’s trunk was even more flexible than a human hand. Luo Ying barely dodged, but Luo Zhu took a direct hit.
Luo Zhu’s combat experience was still a bit lower than Luo Ying’s.
Thankfully, the Foundation Establishment Stage’s Immovable Vajra Mantra was powerful. Luo Zhu also formed an ice armor over her body, which allowed her to tank the blow. But a few more hits like that and things could get dicey.
Her combat experience grew rapidly. Her graceful form moved like a ghost, unpredictable and swift. The elephant’s trunk couldn’t land a hit on her again.
Jiang Li was certain—if Luo Zhu hadn’t died on day one in their past life, her accomplishments would’ve far surpassed Luo Ying’s!
Luo Zhu seized an opening and plunged her dagger into the elephant’s eye, blinding it on one side. She tried to pull it out but found it stuck tight—she couldn’t get it free.
Although the white elephant felt no pain, it was still enraged. Its trunk slammed down toward Luo Zhu, who was perched on its head. Luo Ying couldn’t get there in time to help.
At that moment, Luo Zhu’s palm turned cold. Out of place in the blazing summer heat, ice crystals appeared, condensing into a sword made entirely of frost!
Luo Zhu drew the sword and blocked the elephant’s trunk.
With a graceful lift of her hand, the sharp blade sliced through the trunk.
She had switched to a new cultivation technique: Frozen Dominion. Jiang Li had spent over ten days developing it. If sold to the system, it would be worth millions of Source Points. When mastered, it could freeze every molecule within a thought’s reach—freezing motion itself, effectively halting time.
It could also work in reverse—accelerating molecular motion, increasing temperature, pushing matter close to the physical limit of the world—light speed.
Most people knew that ice-root cultivators excelled at ice-based techniques. What they didn’t know was that the true nature of the ice root was temperature manipulation—in other words, the ability to change the speed of microscopic particles.
Of course, Jiang Li figured some ancient cultivator must’ve figured this out long ago. He guessed they never renamed the ice root because “temperature root” just didn’t sound cool.
Luo Zhu still had a long way to go before mastering the technique. She wouldn’t reach mastery by the Tribulation Stage—she’d have to ascend to immortality first.
Even so, she had already begun to show the technique’s power—altering her body temperature, forging ice from nothing.
She kept up the pressure, slicing off a chunk of the elephant’s trunk. The beast reared up, ready to crush her.
Luo Zhu calmly formed a hand seal and used the Corpse-Driving Technique, freezing the elephant in place for a moment.
Luo Ying seized the opportunity. He activated Vajra Physique, charging forward like a golden juggernaut, slamming into the elephant with a blinding glow.
The elephant had only its two hind legs on the ground and was briefly stunned. Luo Ying’s collision sent it toppling to the ground.
Luo Ying’s cultivation technique was the Scripture of the Vajra King. Jiang Li and Brahma Tower had discovered that Luo Ying had freakish talent in Buddhist arts—he picked them up in an instant. So they decided to let him focus on Buddhist cultivation.
Enhancing the Immovable Vajra Mantra was just a small part of the Vajra King Scripture—a top-tier technique leading straight to immortality.
The white elephant flipped over, crashing through several walls. Luo Ying met it head-on, stepping through an Eight Trigrams stance. He grabbed the tusk, used the elephant’s own weight and strength against it, and leveraged his Tier-2 Enhancer body to throw down a Tier-3 zombie—forcing it to snap its own tusk.
This was one of the starter gifts Jiang Li had received: Four Ounces to Move a Thousand Pounds. He passed the technique to the siblings—a blend of Daoist method and martial art, ideal for defeating stronger foes with weaker strength.
Luo Ying used the tusk to pin the elephant’s trunk to the ground. The beast flailed its limbs, unable to rise.
Luo Zhu activated her technique again—her ice sword grew even sharper. She tried to decapitate the elephant, but its thick skin and bones were too tough. Seeing the beast trying to get back up, she instead thrust the ice sword into its ear canal, piercing the brain core. With a gentle twist, she severed the flesh threads connecting the brain core to the body. The white elephant died instantly.
Zombies were connected to their brain cores by several strands of flesh. Cut those, and the core loses all connection to the body—the zombie dies.
Thankfully, as the elephant grew in size, its ear canal widened too—otherwise, the ice sword wouldn’t have fit.
Even after its death, the elephant’s skin and skull were so hard the siblings had to go all out with every weapon they had just to crack it open and extract the Tier-3 brain core.
“With this Tier-3 core, we’ll have a better shot at killing the whale swarm,” Jiang Li nodded in satisfaction.
Right now, the city was littered with a million zombie heads. If they had to crack them all open one by one to find brain cores, it would take a week. Luckily, under Jiang Li’s divine sense, he could see clearly which skulls held Tier-1 or Tier-2 cores.
“There are twelve thousand Tier-1 brain cores.”
Luo Ying frowned. “I know there’ll be more corpse tides, but I don’t know the exact time or place. It’s hard to use the same method again. We could buy some from the safe zone, but probably not enough. Might not gather them all within a month.”
In the apocalypse, information was hard to come by. Luo Ying couldn’t possibly know all the corpse tide details from his previous life.
Jiang Li shook his head. “I’ve already seen a few zombies that are about to evolve into Tier 3. They’re probably the sources of the next corpse tides. I can estimate their movement paths and targets.”
Luo Ying lit up. “Then we’re good.”
This victory gave Luo Ying a huge boost in confidence. The wonders of formations were things he’d never even imagined in his past life—Nine Provinces truly was a world of miracles.