After making his way forward for a dozen kilometers or so, Lin Fan stopped and looked up at a warning sign: County 0201.
He'd arrived.
From here on, he was entering the real Wilderness Zone.
He'd gone only a few hundred meters deeper into County 0201 when Lin Fan heard a strange sound.
He went to a nearby window on the second floor of an abandoned building and looked toward the noise.
Not far away stood an abandoned gas station, its roof half-collapsed.
Beside one of the toppled pumps, three dark shapes crouched on the ground with their heads bowed low, making a teeth-grinding "crunch, crunch" sound as they chewed.
"Are those... Shadow Cats?"
They might have been called cats, but these creatures were as big as calves. Their muscular bodies were faintly visible beneath their fur, and they looked ready to explode into action.
Lin Fan narrowed his eyes. When he saw what they were eating, his pupils shrank.
It was a corpse.
The corpse wore a tattered protective suit that clearly didn't fit. Even its bracers had been improvised from tire rubber.
It was obvious: this was some unlucky bastard who, like him, had come to try his luck in the Wilderness Zone, only to end up losing his miserable life.
"..."
Lin Fan watched in silence, momentarily at a loss for words.
In both his lives, this was the first time he'd seen a living monster with his own eyes.
It was also the first time he'd seen the corpse of one of his own kind in such a gruesome state, from so close.
Honestly, his legs were a little weak.
The primal fear of a living creature had his not-so-strong heart pounding wildly against his chest.
After all, just yesterday he'd been an ordinary student who'd never even killed a chicken.
"Phew..."
Lin Fan forced himself to take a deep breath, fighting back the sourness rising in his stomach.
Was he scared?
Yes.
But what the hell good would being scared do?
Sure, just yesterday he'd been an ordinary student who'd never even killed a chicken. But today, he was a transmigrator with a system.
He'd also awakened Spiritual Force, and his physical abilities had improved tremendously.
So...
"Damn it, if I keep cowering like this, when am I ever going to get ahead? Let's do this!"
After giving himself a thorough pep talk, Lin Fan flipped his hand over.
The dark, fearsome Calamity appeared in his palm out of nowhere, its shape like the Grim Reaper's smile.
The moment Calamity appeared in his palm, the already badly weathered concrete beneath Lin Fan's feet cracked with a sharp snap.
The noise instantly drew the attention of the three Shadow Cats. They jerked their heads up and stared toward him, their mouths covered in blood.
One of them had even crouched to spring.
But it was too late.
"Die, you bastards!"
Without hesitation, Lin Fan unleashed his Spiritual Force. It surged out like an invisible hand, holding Calamity firmly in place.
Then he leaped from the second-floor window.
With his Spiritual Force driving him forward at full force, he and the giant scythe shot down like a black meteor, carrying terrifying momentum as they slammed precisely into the nearest Shadow Cat.
BOOM!!!
The impact shook the air. Dust billowed and rubble flew.
The instant Lin Fan landed, the Shadow Cat didn't even have time to scream.
It was like a tomato crushed beneath a hydraulic press.
Splat!
It was reduced to a mound of mush!
Red and white matter burst across the ground.
This wasn't a fight.
It was just pure, damn weight crushing everything in its path!
But the noise had thoroughly enraged the two remaining Shadow Cats.
"Meowww!"
With shrill cries, two gray blurs rushed at Lin Fan from either side, moving like lightning and trailing the stench of blood.
Too fast!
And they were too close!
Lin Fan's feet were buried in the cracked concrete. Forget dodging—just pulling them free would be difficult.
If he tried to take the hit with his body, he'd be torn to pieces the next second.
"Get lost!!"
The crazed look in Lin Fan's eyes intensified. His Spiritual Force surged wildly, and his brain throbbed with sharp pain from the strain.
He didn't try to lift his scythe to block.
As if he could raise something that heavy to defend himself—that'd be asking to die.
Following through with his landing, he gripped the handle with both hands and drove his waist muscles into action!
Like a spinning top, he used the lingering momentum of his fall to swing the unbearably heavy scythe in a low, sweeping arc!
Whoosh!!!
The heavy blade tore through the air with a shriek like a massive truck blowing a tire at high speed.
What kind of elegant swordplay was this?
This was a damn dump truck drifting!
The Shadow Cat lunging from the left was still in midair, with nowhere to push off from. The black blade swept straight into its waist.
Splurt!
There was no resistance at all.
It was like a high-speed propeller blade hitting a sparrow.
Its upper half flew toward Lin Fan, still carried by its momentum, claws and teeth bared as it tried to tear into him.
But its lower half had already become a shower of blood, spraying across the abandoned gas pump beside it.
And that wasn't the end of it.
The Shadow Cat on his right was already reaching for his eyeball. Lin Fan's gaze hardened, and riding the terrifying centrifugal force of his swing, he let go with his right hand.
He held on only with his left hand, while his Spiritual Force guided the weapon.
"Get the hell out of here!"
The crescent-shaped head of the giant scythe kept swinging wildly on its momentum, like a massive meteor hammer, and slammed into the Shadow Cat's head.
Thud!
It landed with a dull impact.
It was like a watermelon full of water being struck head-on by an iron hammer.
The Shadow Cat's head exploded. The headless corpse was hurled more than a dozen meters by the force, then slapped against a gas station pillar like a lump of mud.
The fight was over.
It had taken three seconds.
Clang!
Calamity, which Lin Fan had thrown away, slammed heavily into the ground, gouging an even deeper hole in the already shattered surface.
"Phew... phew... holy crap..."
Sweat poured from every pore, soaking his cheap camouflage uniform.
His chest heaved, the muscles in his arms trembled uncontrollably, and his temples throbbed as if they were about to burst.
"That was... damn exhausting."
Lin Fan gritted his teeth and wiped the sweat from his eyes with a trembling hand.
Calamity was too heavy.
Fighting at such high intensity while controlling something so heavy was like strapping a race-car engine onto a tractor that was about to fall apart.
It hadn't gone far, and he already felt like the whole thing might shake to pieces at any moment.
"My strength... still isn't enough."
Lin Fan dragged his heavy steps over to the Shadow Cat he'd crushed and looked at the mess on the ground.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
"The first one's done for. The fur's ruined, and it's turned into dumpling filling."
"The second one's broken at the waist, and its fur's no good either."
"At least the third one's salvageable..."
Lin Fan's face was full of regret.
A Shadow Cat's three sets of claws and teeth could fetch a decent price, and its meat was probably worth something too. But now they'd all been reduced to mush. What was he supposed to sell?
"The blood's bound to attract something even more troublesome."
"I'd better put them away and deal with them after I get back."
Lin Fan endured the throbbing pain in his head and waved his hand, collecting all three corpses along with the scattered bits of flesh into his Space Ring.
Only after that did he turn around.
His bloodshot eyes locked onto the half-buried heavy fuel tanker beside the gas station.
Looking at the enormous vehicle, Lin Fan couldn't help swallowing.
Compared to the materials worth a few thousand yuan, this high-quality industrial steel weighing dozens of tons was the resource he wanted—and needed—most right now.
"I need to eat my fill if I'm going to have the strength to run."
Lin Fan took a deep breath and dragged his scythe forward, shuffling one step at a time.
"Mealtime!"
He pressed the dark blade against the tanker's enormous metal body.
Zzzt!
That familiar sound rang out again.
As Lin Fan watched in anticipation, the huge tanker began to soften and collapse at a visible pace.
A torrent of gray metal essence flowed into the scythe.
At the same time, a warm current traveled up the handle and poured back into Lin Fan's body without holding anything back.
"Now that's refreshing!"
It was like a drought-stricken riverbed welcoming a downpour.
The current quickly flowed through his entire body. The arm muscles that had cramped from overexertion soon relaxed, and even the needle-sharp pain deep in his brain faded away.
[Devoured heavy alloy steel] [Calamity growth progress: +0.12%]
Lin Fan let out a long breath, savoring the wonderful feeling of strength filling his body once more.
"As long as I have iron to eat, I'm practically a perpetual-motion machine!"
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