Blood Wasteland (Part 1)

A hair-raising roar came from far away, carrying a few wisps of desolation and darkness. Diya strained his eyes wide, staring in the direction the sound had come from.

Before long, within that stretch of gloom, a figure could be seen swaying. It lurched and staggered as it drew steadily closer to Diya and the others. Vaguely, it looked like a human silhouette, but because the light was far too dim, its exact features could not be seen at all.

Keeping his breathing steady, Diya was facing a monster of Hell for the first time, yet he appeared very calm. Even without a weapon in hand, the strength in his body was not just for show. Besides, Flavia was beside him. Though he did not know just how strong Flavia truly was, most importantly, Diablo was here too. The monsters of the Blood Moor should be very simple for Diablo to deal with.

Flavia raised her wooden bow, her whole body like a statue, utterly motionless. Her arrow was aimed at that figure as she waited for it to approach.

At last, the figure continued to expand within Diya's field of vision. It had faint, earthen-yellow skin, and on its bald head, pits and hollows were densely packed everywhere. Occasionally, tiny insects could even be seen crawling in and out of the rotten flesh inside those pits and hollows. As for its upper body, that lifeless torso was covered in one dark-red, festering bloody hole after another.

Then there was the red-and-white spine exposed at its waist. The flesh around its waist looked as if something had gnawed it away, leaving only a few strands of red, rotten meat hanging there. Below the lumbar spine was the lower half of its body wrapped in a piece of torn cloth. Aside from being a sheet of deathly gray, it was not as severely rotten as the upper half.

At this moment, the thing's pair of pale eyeballs were fixed on Diya. Its hands stretched straight out in front of it, and its legs dragged forward one lame step at a time, leaving a faint trace across the grass. Strange roars kept coming from its mouth, and in this quiet, dim place, mixed with that faint desolation and the smell of blood, they truly seemed able to seize a person's soul.

When the Zombie drew close, about thirty meters away from Diya, Flavia made her move.

Twang.

The bowstring snapped forward, and the arrow shot from the bow, tearing through the sky as it streaked toward the Zombie like a flowing ray of light. At the same time, the Zombie gave a great roar.

Pfft.

The arrow swiftly passed between the Zombie's swinging arms and struck its upper body. Only a small portion of the arrowhead sank in before it quickly fell to the ground again. The Zombie seemed completely unaffected and continued advancing toward Diya, the place where the arrow had hit leaving only a tiny mark.

"Compared to the game, she really is much weaker. In the original game, Flavia could easily kill a Zombie with one arrow," Diya muttered to himself. His voice was extremely low; aside from Diablo, Flavia did not hear it at all.

The Zombie kept approaching. Seeing that her arrow had failed to cause the Zombie any real harm, Flavia once again drew an arrow from the quiver on her back, nocked it, and drew the bow. The arrow aimed at the Zombie once more. Suddenly, a slight fluctuation of power emerged from Flavia's body, as if some mysterious force was radiating from within her and gathering toward the arrow.

Then, a streak of red light flashed over the arrow's tip, gradually growing denser. At the same time, a scorching sensation spread out. The Zombie seemed to sense this power taking shape. It stopped in its tracks, its body turning slightly until it faced Flavia completely head-on.

Twang.

Flavia released the fingers that hooked the arrow and drew the bowstring. The arrow shot out. During its flight, flames suddenly sprang up along it, completely enveloping the entire arrow and turning it into a Fire Arrow.

With a roar, the Zombie shifted its steps, seemingly trying to avoid the Fire Arrow's shot, but unfortunately, its speed was far too slow. Its body had only just moved when the Fire Arrow had already struck its head, stabbing into one eye. A shrill howl instantly came from the Zombie's mouth. The flames on the arrow did not go out just because they had hit the Zombie's eyeball. Instead, they let out waves of sizzle, sizzle burning sounds, and a stench of charred filth drifted over from the Zombie's body.

The Zombie's hands trembled continuously. From the look of it, it very much wanted to pull the arrow out, but unfortunately, its fingers seemed unable to bend enough to grip the arrow. It could only allow the arrow's flames to keep burning it, while it trembled in its wails. Finally, it fell to the ground with a bang, sending several blades of grass flying. Abruptly, a faint wisp of white smoke drifted out from the Zombie's body, and before Diya could see it clearly, it quickly floated into Flavia's body.

At this moment, Flavia's face was a little pale, as if she were someone who had overexerted herself.

"How are you?" Diya could not help asking. He was truly very curious what that wisp of smoke just now had been. Could it be experience points?

"Master, I'm fine. It's just that using Fire Arrow consumed too much energy," Flavia hurriedly replied.

"Diablo, what was that just now?"

"Source Power. This is the rule of this world, different from the Brahma Continent. Here, people do not need to cultivate. As long as they can kill monsters, they can obtain a small portion of Source Power from the monsters' bodies. When Source Power accumulates to a certain extent, it will begin to strengthen the absorber, thereby achieving the purpose of increasing their strength."

"Then it's no different from experience points."

"You can think of it that way too."

"Right, then can Flavia cultivate Battle Qi?" Diya suddenly remembered. If she could cultivate Battle Qi, it would increase her combat power quite a bit. Attaching Battle Qi to arrows would greatly raise the impact and piercing power formed.

"No. Battle Qi belongs to the cultivation methods of the Brahma Continent. The rules are different. Flavia belongs to the world of Hell. It is not the same, so she cannot cultivate Battle Qi."

"Oh." Although he was a little disappointed, there was nothing that could be done about it. At the very least, Flavia could obtain a small portion of Source Power by killing monsters and thus increase her strength.

"Flavia, how many Fire Arrows can you shoot now?" Diya pondered briefly.

"Master, I can still shoot one more Fire Arrow," Flavia answered without hesitation, her complexion having improved a little.

"If any monsters appear later, none of you make a move. Let me see just how strong the monsters here are," Diya nodded and said. Although he had already formed a certain idea from watching the battle between Flavia and the Zombie just now, he still needed to verify it himself before he could arrive at a more accurate result.

From a dried-up tree, Diya broke off a branch roughly as thick as a forearm and about one meter long. He held it in his hand and began searching for monsters. Before long, he had already seen a Zombie slowly stumbling along, dragging its body as it moved.

Without another word, Diya quickened his pace. In a few steps, he rushed to the Zombie's side and brought the stick down viciously toward its head. With a bang, the Zombie's body shuddered, and bits of shredded flesh splattered out. Diya quickly jumped back to dodge them, feeling a wave of nausea.

It was said that a Zombie's weakness was its head, and only by destroying the head could one truly kill a Zombie. Relying on his speed, Diya quickly circled behind the Zombie and smashed another vicious blow into the back of its head. At once, a sunken mark was bashed into the Zombie.

Amid angry roars, the Zombie slowly turned around, but Diya did not clash head-on with it. He always circled to the side or behind it and struck a sneaky blow, displaying his own advantages to the fullest. Flavia, however, kept her arrow aimed at the Zombie. As soon as anything unexpected happened to Diya, she would shoot.

As he battered the Zombie, Diya was extremely surprised. If this were a human, even a human who cultivated, after being hit on the head by these few blows from him, even if their brains had not burst out, their skull should have been cracked open and they should have been dead. But this Zombie merely had a few dents appear. That was enough to show how amazing this thing's ability to take a beating was. No wonder even Flavia's metal arrowhead had only sunk slightly into the Zombie's flesh.