Reinforcement

Standing on unfamiliar ground, Arthur lowered his head slightly, looking at the three desiccated corpses lying on the ground.

"At least three or four years dead," he murmured to himself.

The Chip in his mind was rapidly processing, analyzing the time of death for these dried corpses and the exact cause of death.

After a moment, he shook his head, picked up a black-and-white photograph from the ground, wiped it clean, and tucked it away on his person.

"At least someone can still remember what you looked like."

He spoke these words softly, then left the spot and began walking slowly toward the street ahead.

This city was eerie.

All around the city, a dead silence reigned, not a single sound breaking through.

This situation was rare.

Under normal circumstances, even if every person in the city had died, there should still be scattered traces of small life forms nearby—not utter silence.

A silence as unnatural as this often signaled greater danger.

Arthur was aware of this, so he kept his footsteps light, walking along the street almost without making a sound.

Before he knew it, he arrived outside a tall building.

It was a grand structure, clearly built with splendor in its time, with a few characters written on its facade.

These were the script of this world. Arthur didn't recognize them, but he could vaguely guess that this place was a public facility.

Because at the entrance of the building, a large number of skeletal remains were scattered.

Many humanoid corpses lay there, most of their flesh gone, leaving only terrifying skeletons.

It was evident that at some point in the past, a sudden incident had occurred, causing these people to flee from the inside out—hence all the remains facing outward.

But judging by their fate, they had clearly encountered something, and all had fallen at the doorway, unable to escape.

Arthur's gaze swept to the side.

Centered around this building, there were many more corpses scattered everywhere along the way.

Sss!

A faint sound suddenly came from the distance, catching Arthur's attention.

He looked in that direction, his sharp eyesight allowing him to see what was happening there.

In the distance, there was a corpse that, relatively speaking, looked fresh—it hadn't been dead long.

It was a female corpse, the body mangled, torn into pieces, with only scraps of flesh and bones remaining.

On the bits of flesh still clinging to the corpse, something was writhing, making faint sounds.

Standing still for a moment to think, Arthur stepped forward and walked slowly toward that corpse.

Before long, he reached it and witnessed a disgusting scene.

The scraps of flesh were riddled with tiny holes, and green worms were wriggling inside them, a revolting sight.

"Detected: target organism contains potent toxins! Avoid contact with its bodily fluids!"

The mechanical voice of the Chip sounded in his mind, issuing a warning.

This was a pre-set program—whenever something that could threaten Arthur appeared, the Chip would alert him to prevent accidental contact.

The face of the corpse before him was no longer visible; flesh and skull clung together in a bloody mess. Only the long hair on the ground and a few features of the remaining flesh allowed a rough guess at the corpse's gender.

Arthur watched this scene quietly, his eyes showing neither sorrow nor joy, then turned and walked aside.

He headed back toward the building with the many corpses, hoping to find something inside.

This world seemed very strange. He wondered what it had gone through to become like this.

At this moment, Arthur hoped to find a survivor nearby to learn about the situation in this world.

Carefully stepping into the building, Arthur's eyes scanned the surroundings.

All around were dead bodies, all wearing the same shabby uniforms, quite a number of them—likely employees of this place.

Walking quietly forward, he saw dozens of rooms, each with a sign hanging on the door.

Cautiously approaching one room on the side, Arthur's right hand slowly moved to his waist, gripping the hilt of his sword before pushing the door open.

Click!

A soft sound rang out as the door swung open.

The unexpected scenario he had imagined did not occur. The room was empty, not even a single corpse, and aside from some dust, it looked quite clean.

Arthur walked quietly forward, his light footsteps echoing in the enclosed room, slowly reverberating.

Squeak!

At a certain moment, a rat's cry and the sound of a sword being drawn rang out simultaneously, and then a large object flew directly from behind Arthur, crashing into the wall.

At some point, Arthur had already drawn his sword.

He turned to look behind him at the object he had just sent flying.

It was a rat-like creature, as large as a human head, with a pair of red eyes. At that moment, half of its body was nearly sliced open, its internal organs and intestines spilling out.

Even so, it was still alive, struggling fiercely, and seemed to possess considerable strength.

"Such strong vitality."

Watching the creature before him still writhing with life, Arthur frowned slightly and unhesitatingly stepped forward to deliver another strike.

The creature in front of him was cut into several pieces before it finally fell still.

Just as Arthur was about to leave, a mechanical voice suddenly rang out in his mind.

"An unknown force has acted upon the subject. The subject's physical constitution has improved."

He checked his physical attributes and found that they had indeed increased compared to before.

However, the improvement was very slight. Without the Chip constantly monitoring his body's condition, Arthur would never have noticed it.

"Could it be...?"

He couldn't help but frown, looking down at the dead creature on the ground, a guess forming in his mind.

After standing there and thinking for a moment, he looked into the distance.

While the creature on the ground had been struggling, other lifeforms in this room had also been awakened and were now rapidly approaching Arthur.

Their speed was fast; in an instant, one reached Arthur, lunging fiercely from the wall beside him, its mouth full of fangs wide open.

Arthur didn't even move. With his right hand, he swung his sword straight down, cleaving the creature in two.

Considering their terrifying vitality, Arthur stepped forward and delivered a few more strikes, cutting it into several pieces before he was satisfied.

Once it had completely lost its life force, the familiar prompt from the Chip sounded in his mind again.

"So that's how it is." Thinking about the prompt in his mind, Arthur mused.

For some unknown reason, after the lifeforms in this world were killed, they granted Arthur a trace of unknown power, improving his physical constitution.

This improvement was extremely small, imperceptible to ordinary people. According to the Chip's detection, to raise even 0.1 of his physical constitution, he would likely need to kill thousands of these creatures—but it was genuinely there.

With this in mind, Arthur gave an order to the Chip in his mind: "Chip, can you analyze the principle behind this?"

"Insufficient data. Unable to perform analysis!" In an instant, the Chip gave a negative answer.

Arthur was not surprised by this response.

Although the Chip's analytical capabilities were powerful, they were not omnipotent. To obtain sufficient results, it still required a certain amount of data and information support; it could not accomplish this out of thin air.