Down.
A little bird was singing in Si Ming's heart.
It was as though he'd returned to that familiar otherworld, to the place where enemies surrounded him on all sides, and even the flowers and grass underfoot could suddenly spew venom potent enough to melt flesh and blood in an instant. The air reeked of decay and rust, and the howls of monsters could always be heard in the distance.
Terrifying monsters. Powerful monsters.
There were giant centipedes charging out of fetid swamps, and bloodthirsty birds as large as cars.
How did I even survive back then?
He couldn't remember.
It didn't matter much, either.
Carrying the bait, still twitching and dripping blood, Si Ming stepped into the underground level beneath the supermarket. The light grew dimmer toward the bottom of the escalator, and many monsters were already howling in low voices within the deep darkness.
"Come and eat."
He tossed the bait into an open area.
Although he had long since mastered night vision, the Nano-Biochemical Suit also helped him observe his surroundings at that moment. As soon as the heavy body hit the ground, he already had another gun raised in his hands.
The AK12, an assault rifle. An improved replacement for the AK74m, it used 5.45-millimeter ammunition to inflict lethal wounds on unarmored targets.
A series of flashes erupted in the darkness.
The Night Demon that charged fastest fell to the ground—its skin was smooth and hairless, its reactions quick, and it had no new natural armor.
"Unable to withstand rifle fire. The heart remains a vital organ. Different from zombies in the conventional sense."
He continued firing, and the second one behind it fell as well.
"Destroying the brain still results in death."
More Night Demons charged. They weren't intimidated by the light weaponry Si Ming had shown. Over the past three years, the Night Demons had destroyed all of human civilization. Of course, airborne transmission of the KV Virus had been responsible for more than 99.99 percent of that.
He switched hands and raised the Glock.
A .22LR round splashed a wide spray of blood across a Night Demon, but didn't kill it. Si Ming moved in and swung the rifle's stock. The sturdy butt of the AK12 slammed hard into another Night Demon's shoulder blade.
The sound of cracking bone rang out, and the impact gave him useful feedback. A flash grenade had somehow landed on the ground. Then a powerful burst of light flared out.
"Their skin offers some protection, with toughness comparable to animal hide. Their muscles have been reinforced, with overall strength approaching that of a cheetah—correction, somewhat below that."
The glare had worked.
Even though Night Demons were nocturnal and ultraviolet light could severely burn them, their vision remained intact. Si Ming had deliberately used a flash grenade instead of a stun grenade this time to test that. When the bright light burst forth, dozens of Night Demons in the lobby at the foot of the escalator covered their eyes and howled.
Interesting creatures.
Their vision hadn't degenerated, despite being nocturnal.
According to the original novel, Night Demons were actually a derivative species from vampire fiction. So even though the 2007 film adaptation had long since diverged from the original novel, these traits inherited from their vampire origins had still been preserved.
"Highly bloodthirsty."
He changed weapons and continued firing measured shots with the AK12. Several Night Demons were soon hit in the head and fell. But many others, wounded outside the brain and heart, could still move and struggle. They provided him with plenty of valuable data.
"Instantaneous burst speed: close to ten meters per second. Comparable to a first-class sprinter."
"Their reactions are sharp, too. They can spot muzzle flashes from ten meters away and make small evasive movements."
He turned his gaze aside. Behind him, a muffled sound rang out, hidden beneath the fierce exchange of fire. He immediately put away the Glock and switched to a heavy-duty alloy machete.
"They know how to use tactics. Their intelligence is indeed considerable."
Another Night Demon fell.
Suddenly, the Main God's announcement sounded beside Si Ming's ear.
--[Killed 10 Night Demons. Obtained 50 reward points.]
He paused slightly. The amount was lower than he'd expected.
At that very moment, the lurking Night Demon hidden in the shadows behind him sprang into action. It moved faster and struck harder than the others, pouncing straight at the back of Si Ming's neck!
It crashed futilely into his raised arm. The Nano-Biochemical Suit effectively blocked and absorbed the full force of the attack. It was like being hit by a charging bull. At the same moment, the machete in Si Ming's hand stabbed viciously toward its heart!
"Hmm?"
The resistance felt unusual.
The force that should have been enough to pierce a Night Demon clean through met considerable resistance the instant the blade sank in.
He didn't hesitate. He unleashed three times the force he'd used before. The machete met no further resistance. It easily cut through the tough hide, flesh, sinew, and bone, and smashed apart the special Night Demon's chest.
It let out a piercing shriek as it died.
--[Killed 1 Higher Night Demon. Obtained 100 reward points.]
The corpse hit the ground.
Si Ming's gaze swept over it.
Its tough hide was a pitch-black shade unlike that of ordinary Night Demons. Its strength and resilience had increased greatly, too.
It had gone from animal hide to a plate-carrier vest, from a grunt's leather armor to an elite soldier's chain mail. Its speed and strength had also increased by roughly fifty percent. By the standards of ordinary biology, this was a leap in power that had crossed the boundary between species.
"A level that newcomers can only handle through force and terrain. Its overall abilities are already on par with the Night Demon leader at the end of the movie, the one that could smash through tempered glass with its bare hands. Hmm... its ability to command others is the same, too."
Si Ming turned his gaze back.
The bait, still bleeding, remained on the ground. Yet the Night Demons, whose numbers should have been close to a hundred, had all fled after leaving behind a dozen or so corpses.
They had obeyed their leader's orders—orders powerful enough to make them overcome their craving for flesh and blood. Based on the information he'd gathered so far, their behavior was almost entirely consistent with the 2007 film. That was completely different from the specially tailored third-generation version, where even the fully equipped North Ice Continent Team had been forced into a hard fight.
"So this is a level I can clear by myself." Si Ming sighed. He'd read too many Infinite Flow fanfics and had braced himself for the awful possibility that the enemies would scale up in strength and his reward points would all go toward the monsters. But it seemed the place he'd ended up was different from those versions that insisted on making things difficult.
After all, even now, he hadn't used a tenth of his full strength.
"Rise!" he said.
The Night Demons had been confirmed to be living creatures, and their corpses lay scattered across the ground.
The next moment, large quantities of flesh crumbled from the remains, dissolved, and seeped into their bones, forming new shapes. Ten Skeleton Soldiers came into being under his Raise Dead spell!
"Go." He issued the command. The Necrotic Aura, bolstered by Divinity Particles, could increase the basic intelligence of these undead. "Kill every Night Demon on this floor. Don't leave a single one alive."
The skeletons' jaws immediately split open, as if they were laughing—or perhaps answering him. The newly born Skeleton Soldiers then charged into every corner of the darkness, carrying bone swords and shields.
Piercing shrieks rang out again.
The monsters' howls now carried an unmistakable note of terror. They did have intelligence, and they did have feelings. And for that very reason, they feared the death rushing toward them!
Bang! A gunshot rang out.
Among the Night Demons that had fled back into the darkness, one panicked and charged toward Si Ming. Waiting for it was the shotgun he'd switched back to. At close range, one blast of buckshot blew its head apart.
The points kept tallying up, one after another.
Occasionally, one or two Skeleton Soldiers would lose contact with Si Ming, evidently falling into a terrain trap set by the Night Demons or being overwhelmed by a group of them. But such desperate struggles weren't even enough to make him smile.
The scattered Necrotic Aura quickly flowed back.
Under Si Ming's will, new Skeleton Soldiers were soon forged again. They charged into the deep, dark gloom one after another, until the traces of death filled every corner of the underground mall.
"I hope you'll learn to dig tunnels in your next life—though you won't get a next life."
The sounds of hacking and slashing continued for quite a while.
The Night Demons in the underground mall were finite, but the Skeleton Soldiers under Si Ming's command were endless. He walked over to the dying bait. After all the commotion, the bait's body temperature had dropped from blood loss, and its heartbeat and breathing had grown weak. Si Ming took a Rapid Healing Spray from his Dimensional Ring and treated the wounds on the lump of flesh.
"I told you that anyone willing to come down here with me would be safe. I wouldn't let a Night Demon bite them. I've kept my word."
The healing spray cost one hundred reward points, and worked much like the equivalent product from the Resident Evil games. The severed limbs it was sprayed on quickly healed before his eyes. As the bleeding stopped, the faint heartbeat and breathing gradually steadied.
He might still wake up.
But the stage of "taking risks" was already over.
After the last Night Demon, hidden in a restroom, was dragged out and killed by the Skeleton Soldiers, the final spoils from the operation appeared in Si Ming's eyes.
1350 reward points.
Including the leader, there had been more than two hundred and fifty Night Demons in the underground mall. They had all been reduced to corpses, now piled up alongside the human remains they'd devoured down to the bones, all heaped in the same place.
"Then this is where we part ways."
He left the young man with dark circles under his eyes in a pool of blood in the combat zone. Night Demon blood, full of the KV Virus, was everywhere. It had even turned the air throughout the area into a faintly red mist.
Si Ming then left and headed deeper into the mall. He would collect some new supplies there. Even if he had no use for them himself, they could still come in handy for other purposes.
Before you continue