The Land of Damp Cold

"Captain, care to place another bet? Let's see how many of those drifters make it back alive from this wave."

At the heavily fortified gate of Komodo Fortress, the sentries were fiddling with their firearms in a state of listless boredom; the long, tedious hours of guard duty were becoming unbearable.

Only members of such large corporations had the luxury of feeling bored; the drifters out in the wasteland were mostly scrambling just to fill their stomachs and fighting tooth and nail against wild beasts.

At this point, they were practically praying for a long-overdue monster siege, their heavy anti-materiel sniper rifles already itching for action.

In their utter ennui, these guards decided to bet on the number of survivors from the drifter team that had accepted the mission to hunt living corpses.

The stakes were the alcohol rations allocated to them by the company.

In truth, several groups of drifters had already gone to the Street of the Living Dead to hunt living corpses before this.

But they had almost all returned in crushing defeat, or had been wiped out entirely.

Only a few exceptional Baptized Ones had managed to return safely with gray crystals, and these capable individuals naturally earned the right to enter the fortress.

"There are two Baptized Ones in this current team, aren't there? As long as they don't have internal conflicts, they should be the only two to return. Still, I'm betting on that scrawny young man to make it back."

The burly captain of the guard leaned against the wall, a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he spoke lazily, casually tossing two more cigarettes from his pocket to his subordinates as his wager.

The guards' eyes lit up the moment they saw the cigarettes; in the apocalypse, tobacco was even more precious than alcohol, and only those at the cadre level were issued cigarettes by the company—ordinary people never had the chance to smoke them.

"Captain, you're really betting on that pale guy? He doesn't look like a Baptized One at all, does he?"

One guard asked, clearly puzzled.

"Hmph, idiots. Is that all you see—just the Baptized Ones? And do you really think true powerhouses are so easily seen through? Those two who came in bragging about being an Apocalypse Warrior and an Apocalypse Hunter? Their potential has already hit its ceiling."

The captain, a Tier 3 strength-type Apocalypse Warrior, lectured his men with disdain before falling silent. Thinking back to the way that young man's eyes looked—indifferent to everything, as if life and death meant nothing—he felt certain the youth was no simple character.

He just couldn't figure out why the boy was hiding his strength, which only fueled the captain's intense curiosity.

Even a Tier 3 Baptized One could only hold the position of security captain within the fortress; it showed just how high the power ceiling was within the major mercenary corporations!

Just as the group's mood was growing increasingly irritable in the sweltering heat, it happened!

Suddenly, in the center of the road ahead, where the scorching sun made the air shimmer and distort, the first figure appeared!

The figure was Xia Leng, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, his expression blank, his footsteps steady as he walked toward the fortress gate!

The guards watched in astonishment as this youth they had looked down upon seemed completely unscathed. Could it be that he was so afraid that he hadn't followed the team to hunt zombies at all, but had turned back halfway?

"Hey, how come you're the only one back? Where are the others? And what happened to the two Baptized Ones in the team?"

One of the guards watched him approach and asked with a malicious grin, preparing to mock the cowardly fellow.

In response, Xia Leng simply tossed over a dark gray crystal.

The guard instinctively caught the gray crystal and looked at it. Wasn't this the very crystal found only in the skulls of mutated living corpse monsters?!

He stared at it in disbelief, turning it over under the sun, nearly biting it with his teeth to test it. The color and texture were unmistakable—it was definitely the real deal!

"No need to stare. If it were a fake, do you think it could fool the sharp eyes of your big company? As for the others, they're probably turning into feces in the bellies of those living corpses by now."

Xia Leng replied flatly.

"Aren't you just a wasteland merchant? How could you complete this mission when even two Baptized Ones couldn't make it back?" The guard persisted, still curious, though regardless of the answer, the man had brought back the crystal and had to be allowed into the fortress.

"Hmph, what? Do you think I'd dare to trade in the wasteland alone if I didn't have some skill? As a Tier 2 Apocalypse Hunter, I could easily take down a dozen of you ordinary people."

Xia Leng sneered with contempt. If he claimed to be an ordinary person, it would likely only invite more suspicion; it was better to simply pass himself off as a Baptized One.

A Tier 2 Baptized One was in an awkward middle-ground within the fortress company, but even so, it remained an insurmountable gap in the eyes of ordinary people.

Upon hearing that the man was a Tier 2 Baptized One, and realizing it actually made sense, the guard immediately stopped pestering him.

After all, once the man entered the fortress, if he wanted work, his status as a Tier 2 Baptized One would easily land him a decent mercenary job or a cadre position within the company.

And for someone so young to have already become a Tier 2 Baptized One, his future potential was limitless—he might even become his superior one day.

Consequently, the guards' attitude toward Xia Leng did a complete 180-degree turn; they immediately greeted him with smiles and cleared the way, signaling that the fortress was now open to him.

At the same time, however, their hearts ached, because only the captain had won the bet...

His eye for talent had always been that sharp.

Throughout all this, the captain had not come over to speak to Xia Leng, merely watching him with a smile, as if the youth's success had been within his expectations all along.

"Friend, congratulations on becoming a member of our Komodo Fortress. I didn't expect someone so young to be a Tier 2 Baptized One. Your future is limitless."

As Xia Leng passed by the captain, the captain finally spoke to him with a smile.

"Thanks. By the way, I'd like to ask you about a certain place, if you don't mind."

Xia Leng replied with a smile of his own, though inside, his heart was churning; he could barely suppress the urge to devour this Baptized One right in front of him...

"Go ahead. If I know it, I'd be more than happy to tell you."

The captain walked over and pulled another cigarette from his pocket, tossing it to him.

Xia Leng didn't refuse. He clamped the precious "resource" between his lips, lit it skillfully with a windproof lighter he'd carried for years, took a deep drag, felt the long-missed smoke swirling in his lungs, and exhaled.

"Do you know of a place called the Land of Corpse Cold?"