Two Corpses

The area beyond the bridge had originally been submerged, but because of the gravitational tides, the ebb and flow had exposed everything that had once lain beneath the water.

"Didn't you say the Mutant Corpsefolk were active around here? This place used to be underwater, so how could they have moved around?" Meng Xuanxuan asked in confusion as she looked at the seaweed carpeting the ground.

At Meng Xuanxuan's question, Tang Yu shook his head and pointed at a cluster of dilapidated buildings ahead that had not yet collapsed. "Although this place was once flooded, there are also elevated areas for these mutant creatures to live in. Besides, Mutant Corpsefolk can swim. It wouldn't be wrong to call them amphibious species. Isn't it normal for them to survive here?"

Meng Xuanxuan nodded after hearing Tang Yu's explanation, finally understanding.

"Didn't you look up any information before coming here?" Tang Yu was speechless. She was the one who had wanted to capture Mutant Corpsefolk, not him. Hadn't she done any proper preparations beforehand?

"Hey! You only said we were coming today. I just forgot to prepare!" Meng Xuanxuan was a little embarrassed by his question, but she still forcibly came up with an excuse.

Tang Yu inwardly grumbled at that. Then what the hell had you been doing before this?

"By the way, will your miniature laser gun work on Mutant Corpsefolk? High-explosive armor-piercing rounds are expensive. I don't want to waste them on these things." Although Tang Yu had brought a sniper rifle, ordinary bullets were useless against Mutant Corpsefolk. Only high-explosive armor-piercing rounds could inflict sufficient damage, but those rounds were precious. A single round cost over a thousand Federation Credits, and Tang Yu had no intention of wasting them.

"You cheapskate. Relax, I won't use your armor-piercing rounds. Here, catch!" As she spoke, Meng Xuanxuan took a box from a storage compartment in her mech and tossed it to Tang Yu. He had no idea what material the box was made from, but it was clearly no ordinary item.

"What is this?" Tang Yu curiously opened it and found that it contained nothing but ordinary bullets. There seemed to be nothing special about them, but upon closer inspection, he noticed a difference. Every bullet had a tiny hole in its tip, so small that it would go unnoticed without careful examination. Meng Xuanxuan had sealed the holes with a wax-like substance, apparently to prevent whatever was inside from spilling out.

"Don't touch them!" Tang Yu's movement gave Meng Xuanxuan a fright. The thing she had developed was comparable to the Corpse-Melting Water from ancient martial arts novels. Just a little of it was enough to melt a living person into a puddle of sludge. Even an expert with a gene count over 200 would have to sever the affected limb to survive after coming into contact with it. She had specifically developed it to deal with Mutant Corpsefolk. Though Tang Yu's hands were protected by his mech, Meng Xuanxuan did not want him blaming her if he damaged it because she had failed to warn him.

"It's that powerful?" Tang Yu was startled as well and hurriedly stopped what he was doing. He had been about to take one out and tear it open to see what was inside.

"Did you think this lady became a pharmacist for nothing?" The shock on Tang Yu's face might have been somewhat exaggerated, but it was still enough to satisfy Meng Xuanxuan's vanity.

After replacing every round in the magazine with Meng Xuanxuan's custom bullets, Tang Yu was about to move forward when he suddenly frowned. He quickly lowered his helmet visor and gestured for Meng Xuanxuan to remain silent.

"Rustle! Rustle! Rustle!"

The sound resembled a scorpion burrowing through sand in the desert. Although low tide had lasted for some time on this side of the broken bridge, the ground was still damp. There was nowhere dry enough to make such a sound, unless someone was causing it!

"Tang Yu!" Meng Xuanxuan suddenly screamed. The sound alone startled Tang Yu. Through his helmet, he could see the terror in her eyes, as if she had witnessed something horrifying. Tang Yu followed her gaze and could not help frowning as well.

About three hundred meters away stood two humanoid creatures, one large and one small, each carrying something in their hands. There was no need to ask what they were. They were Mutant Corpsefolk.

A closer look revealed that the larger Mutant Corpsefolk was carrying a corpse, a human corpse. Mutant Corpsefolk rarely wore clothes, while the smaller one was holding another human corpse. No, to be precise, it was only half a corpse. Its head and everything below its legs were gone.

The two remained silent and exchanged a glance. Meng Xuanxuan could already imagine why that corpse was incomplete.

"Do those Mutant Corpsefolk... eat people?" Meng Xuanxuan's voice trembled as she asked.

"What do you think?" Tang Yu did not answer her directly, instead responding with a question.

For some reason, the sight gave Tang Yu a vague sense of foreboding. Even the black crystal hidden deep within his brow pulsed from time to time, as though warning him that something unexpected was about to happen.

Meng Xuanxuan's scream had also alerted the larger and smaller Mutant Corpsefolk. Within only a few breaths, they vanished from the two's sight.

"Are we still going forward?" To be honest, Tang Yu felt that something was wrong. The journey here had been far too quiet, so quiet that it was eerie. His instincts and the disturbance from the black crystal both suggested that something bad might happen next.

However, to Meng Xuanxuan, Tang Yu's words sounded like mockery, as if he were ridiculing her for screaming in fear over something so minor.

"Fine, let's go! Who's afraid of who?"

Bang! Bang! The moment Meng Xuanxuan finished speaking, two gunshots rang out, making Tang Yu's heart tighten.

"Let's take a look!" Without hesitation, Tang Yu slowly approached the source of the gunfire, then concealed himself behind a collapsed building.

"I thought the place was haunted. Turns out these things were causing it!" A wild, burly bearded man stood bare-chested, wearing only leather pants around his waist. He held a Dragon Slayer cannon over a meter long, and with two shots, he killed the two Mutant Corpsefolk Tang Yu had just seen.

The Dragon Slayer was an extremely powerful individual combat weapon. Its caliber was already close to that of an artillery barrel, but it had one fatal drawback: it was extremely inconvenient to carry.

However, Tang Yu was not focused on that. His gaze was fixed on the corpses clutched in the Mutant Corpsefolk's hands. One was A-Qiang, a student of Wang Meng, a coach at the Force Martial Arts Gym in Suhang City. The other, with only half a body left, was A-Long. The two had originally cultivated faster than Tang Yu and had entered the ranks of martial artists ahead of him. Yet now they had died for no apparent reason, even becoming food for the Mutant Corpsefolk.

"Alright, burn both corpses. Damn it, they were troublemakers when alive, and now they're still scaring people after death. Pah!" At that moment, a skinny man beside the bearded man holding the Dragon Slayer spoke. Calling him skinny was no exaggeration. He was over 1.9 meters tall, but his body was like a bamboo pole, as though a strong gust could blow him away. Yet Tang Yu knew this man was definitely no weakling. His gene count was certainly over 200, and unlike awakened martial artists from universities such as Yuan Chengwu, he was a true expert who had been tempered through countless life-and-death battles.

From the conversation between the two, A-Long and A-Qiang's deaths clearly had something to do with them. At that thought, Tang Yu's eyes narrowed involuntarily.

Before long, A-Long and A-Qiang's corpses had been reduced to ashes. The bamboo-pole man impatiently said to the bearded man, "Fatty, let's go. If anything happens to the young master, we're finished!" With that, the two left the area.

"What a lucky break! Just when we needed pillows, someone delivered them to us! We got two Mutant Corpsefolk corpses without lifting a finger!" Meng Xuanxuan did not know what Tang Yu was thinking. She was merely extremely interested in the two Mutant Corpsefolk corpses and wanted to take samples from them back for research. The thought of developing genes that would allow humans to heal themselves excited her so much that she had no mind to spare for Tang Yu.

Ignoring Meng Xuanxuan, Tang Yu walked straight to the ashes that had been burned clean. Using his clawed hands, he dug a pit in the ground and buried the ashes inside.

"What are you doing?" After collecting her samples, Meng Xuanxuan looked up and saw Tang Yu burying the ashes of the two corpses. It made her curious. Tang Yu was not a bad person, but he did not seem like someone who meddled in other people's affairs either.

"They were my brothers." Tang Yu stood and gave Meng Xuanxuan a cold glance. His gaze was frighteningly icy. Meng Xuanxuan had never seen him like this before.

During his three years of high school, Tang Yu had not had many friends. He had simply spent much of his time at the Force Martial Arts Gym, gradually becoming good friends with A-Long and A-Qiang. The two were slightly stronger than Tang Yu, and the three often sparred when they had nothing else to do. In fact, A-Long and A-Qiang had brought Tang Yu to Ruins City for the first time. Later, after the two broke through into the martial artist realm, they often left for ten days or even half a month at a time, so Tang Yu had not been able to meet with them recently. He had never expected that he would now have to bury them with his own hands. At that thought, it felt as though a fire were burning in his heart.

"You go back first. I still have something to do." Tang Yu tried hard to calm himself. Then he turned around and said those words to Meng Xuanxuan in a flat voice.

Meng Xuanxuan was clever by nature, so she naturally guessed what Tang Yu intended to do. "Those two were so strong. The young master they mentioned definitely isn't an ordinary person either. You won't be a match for them. Going after them would be suicide. Your two friends are living examples!" No matter what, Meng Xuanxuan could not stand by and watch Tang Yu throw his life away.