Rotting Corpse Processing Assembly Line

A remarkable scene unfolded amid the city ruins: a man was being chased by a Rotting Corpse as he ran toward a white building.

"No, the Rotting Corpse is way too fast. I can't outrun it. Next time, I'll have Little White do it."

Bai Yi ran for his life, his lungs feeling as though they were about to catch fire, while the distance between him and the Rotting Corpse continued to shrink.

Fortunately, the shelter was close.

From afar, the rotating eyes on the shelter spotted Bai Yi. A gap swiftly opened in the wall of bones, which had been as hard as steel.

Bai Yi plunged inside without the slightest surprise, and the gap rapidly grew shut.

The Rotting Corpse arrived a step too late and could only keep scratching at the wall outside.

"Crush it!"

At Bai Yi's command, dense, sharp bone spikes erupted from the smooth wall at incredible speed.

Caught completely unprepared, the Rotting Corpse was skewered like a hedgehog and died on the spot.

Yet Bai Yi felt no joy at the sight. He looked painfully at the shelter panel.

[Flesh: 1039/5000][Bones: 960/1000]

That attack alone had consumed 50 points of Bones, while one Rotting Corpse only provided 5 points!

Bai Yi's heart ached. "It looks like having the shelter attack directly isn't a good idea until I have enough flesh and bones."

"What if I don't kill the Rotting Corpse, just trap it, and kill it myself?"

He acted as soon as the thought occurred to him, intending to test it out.

He walked over to the wall and gave an order:

"Bind me. Don't let me move."

At once, countless tiny holes appeared in the bone wall, and innumerable flesh tentacles poured out from within.

Bai Yi struggled to break free, but stopped the next second and allowed the tentacles to do as they pleased.

The reason was simple: Bai Yi discovered that when he struggled, his Flesh value began dropping at a visible rate, but when he stopped resisting, the consumption became exceptionally slow.

[Flesh: 1031/5000][Bones: 960/1000]

"Looks like relying on the shelter to kill monsters isn't realistic! Maybe I need to level it up a few more times."

Bai Yi waved his hand and watched as the tentacles slowly withdrew and the holes closed.

Then, inspiration struck him!

Bai Yi immediately ran deeper into the shelter. "Open two small holes here, at eye level."

The wall split open in response. Through those two small holes, Bai Yi could see what was happening outside.

He took out the Tang Dao and pressed its blade against the wall. Obediently, the wall opened a slit wide enough for the Tang Dao to slash through.

"It'll work!" Bai Yi concluded after swinging the blade a few times.

The next step was the most important one: lure over another Rotting Corpse. After that, he would not need to do anything else.

Because of the Rotting Corpses' tendency to gather in groups, the Rotting Corpse he lured over would continuously attract other Rotting Corpses. As long as Bai Yi kept one Rotting Corpse outside the shelter, he could process them on an assembly line.

With the plan fully settled, Little White was tasked with luring Rotting Corpses using its own body.

It was not that Bai Yi did not want to go himself. After being chased for so long earlier, he still had not recovered.

Thus, the familiar scene played out once more. Only this time, it was not Bai Yi being chased, but a one-eyed white wolf.

Little White fled in silence. It wanted to let out a howl, but Bai Yi had instructed it not to make any noise, or it might attract even more Rotting Corpses.

"Two legs really can't outrun four."

Watching Little White emerge from the mist, Bai Yi sighed.

There was not much else to say. It was the same process as before, except this time Bai Yi ignored the Rotting Corpse outside.

After the shelter reached Level 6, the Rotting Corpses' attacks could no longer damage it at all. Bai Yi stood inside the wall, observing the outside through the small holes.

The Rotting Corpses' traits truly were troublesome. One Rotting Corpse after another emerged from the mist and came to the shelter wall.

Whenever a new Rotting Corpse arrived, Bai Yi would kill the one that had been scratching at the wall through the slit.

Then he would draw the new Rotting Corpse's aggro and make it come over to keep scratching at the wall.

It was not that Bai Yi did not want to keep more Rotting Corpses around to increase production. He simply feared that too many Rotting Corpses might cause an unexpected change, so he chose the less efficient but safer method.

Time passed amid Bai Yi's tireless work, and before he knew it, the sky had darkened.

Bai Yi killed the Rotting Corpse outside the wall and brought today's assembly line to a stop.

From one-thirty in the afternoon until five-thirty, four full hours of assembly-line work had brought Bai Yi a total of 237 Rotting Corpses.

Bai Yi's arm had gone sore from all the chopping.

But he could not quite feel happy, because the Rotting Corpses did not respawn at a fixed rate. Their respawn times were getting shorter and shorter.

At first, it took seven or eight minutes to lure over a Rotting Corpse. Later, they came faster and faster, until in the end, one would be drawn over every few dozen seconds.

"There are more and more Rotting Corpses. This is going to be hard to handle!"

Bai Yi stared solemnly into the fog. For an instant, it seemed as though he saw through it and witnessed a surging tide—a corpse tide made up of rotting corpses!

"Soldiers come, generals block them; water comes, earth dams it. Better focus on improving ourselves while we still have time!"

Bai Yi stopped dwelling on it. He called Little White over and entered the modification room with it. He was going to fit Little White with a new eye.

[Flesh: 3409/5000][Bones: 2181/1000]

Under Bai Yi's urging, Little White reluctantly climbed onto the operating table. The scene of Bai Yi treating its wounds last time was still vivid in its mind!

"Awoo—"

Little White tilted its head at Bai Yi, looking utterly pitiful.

Without even looking at it, Bai Yi gave the order. "Begin."

[This modification consumes 240 Flesh]

As the anesthetic was injected, Little White drifted off to sleep.

Then, tentacles and bone blades extended from beneath the operating table, each carrying out its task with clear division of labor.

On one side, they pried open Little White's eye socket, removed the necrotic eyeball, and cleaned the hollow socket. On the other, they extracted genetic material from the eyeball and injected it into a culture medium resembling a can beside it.

As the genes were injected, a tiny lump of flesh soaking in liquid within the culture medium rapidly divided and differentiated.

In just a few minutes, a dark golden eyeball identical to the original quickly took shape.

"So beautiful!" Watching the golden pupil emit a faint glow in the dim surroundings, Bai Yi felt the urge to replace his own eyes with a pair as well.

As if sensing Bai Yi's thoughts, text appeared on the screen beside him:

[Iris genes capable of expressing color have been recorded. They can be perfectly integrated with any biological eyeball.]

"Hahahaha, I knew I was right about you."

Bai Yi rubbed his hands excitedly, planning to give himself dark golden pupils during his own modification later.

What remained were the usual steps: transplanting the eyeball, stitching together the optic nerves, and then waking Little White.

Little White turned its head back and forth in delight, looking everywhere with its new eye. Then it ran over to Bai Yi and circled around him repeatedly, occasionally climbing onto him to lick his face.

At that moment, the log trembled. Little White's attributes had appeared on the third page of the personal information section!