Zombies (PK Round—Please Follow)

"Knocking?"

When they turned to the next page, the writing below had been cut off, leaving Zhou Gu and the other three utterly confused.

They could not tell anything from the notebook alone.

"Take a close look at his patrol records," Lin Nan suddenly said.

Patrol records...

The four of them quickly skimmed through it again.

"From the notebook, it seemed that the patrol disciples went missing at first. But when it was the author's turn to patrol, it was the senior brother who disappeared instead. Could it be that this evil thing killed people at random?"

Wang Luoxuan pondered for a moment, her face full of confusion.

"No!" Lin Nan's tone suddenly sharpened.

"There is another possibility. The author did not die when someone knocked on his door on the final night. He was killed by the evil thing during his very first patrol and turned into an inhuman monster...

"...But he never realized anything was wrong, so he kept going out on patrol every night. In reality, the one who killed the senior brother was him!"

"Damn it, that gave me goosebumps."

Zhou Gu and the others felt a chill in their hearts. In such a bizarre environment, even Skin-and-Flesh Realm martial artists had little sense of security.

Lin Nan picked up the notebook and flipped through it casually.

A woman crying in the middle of the night... the disappearance of the Cold Mountain Goddess... patrol disciples going missing...

Clue after clue linked together in his mind, and he began to form a vague guess about what had happened at Cold Mountain Goddess Temple.

"This notebook alone makes the trip worthwhile. If we take it out, plenty of people from the inner city will probably be interested. This stuff is too thrilling."

As Zhou Gu spoke, he moved to put the notebook into his leather pouch.

"Wait!"

Lin Nan suddenly flipped to the final page, and his expression immediately turned grim.

"...To warn those who come after, I have hidden this book in the right side hall. May future visitors take heed."

"The side hall? This isn't the main hall?!"

Lin Nan's pupils contracted sharply. He finally understood where that strange feeling had come from.

Unlike the others, he possessed the Creation Furnace. Ordinary evil things found it difficult to affect his mind.

Earlier, when he had used the map to identify their position, he had felt that something was off. It turned out that when they had encountered the ghost wall, they had already been led into the right courtyard!

The instant Lin Nan figured it out—

Whoosh!

A gust of night wind swept in, violently throwing open the broken window of the side hall and instantly stirring up dust across the floor.

A series of dull, steady knocks abruptly sounded from outside the hall doors.

The blood talismans pasted on the doors began to burn on their own, casting rings of crimson firelight.

Something outside had come looking for them!

"Damn it! Something affected us!"

At the sight of this—

Zhou Gu drew the sword at his waist with a dark expression, while the other four also revealed their weapons.

Boom!

Under the knocking of countless evil things, the blood talismans could no longer hold. The battered doors suddenly shattered.

Pale human-shaped figures were revealed beyond them.

Corpse Ghosts!

"Damn it, so many Corpse Ghosts?!"

"Wonderful, so many Corpse Ghosts!"

Unlike the other four, who were panicking, Lin Nan's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

They were all precious Yin Energy Points!

"Damn it, we'll fight our way out!"

"Lin Nan, hide behind me—" Before Jie Ling could finish speaking, Lin Nan was already holding his steel saber and stepping forward.

His steel saber surged with roiling qi and blood as it cleanly sliced apart the Corpse Ghost at the very front.

Yin Energy Point acquired +1

"Don't panic, everyone. I'll clear the way!"

The corners of Jie Ling and the others' mouths twitched.

You're the weakest one here...

"Charge!"

The four also knew this was no time for jokes. They immediately gripped their blood talismans, circulated their qi and blood, and charged at the Corpse Ghosts.

"Thirty-Six Forms of Gale Wind Sword!"

"Red Lion Saber Art!"

"Azure Rock Palm!"

"White Snake Fist, Serpent Flow Force!"

The four truly were peak third-layer Skin-and-Flesh Realm martial artists. Once they entered the fray, they became like spinning meat grinders, cutting down swathes of Corpse Ghosts in the darkness.

Lin Nan watched with his eyes practically splitting.

"Slow down, bosses! Leave some for me..."

Yin Energy Point acquired +1

+1, +1, +1...

"Hunting evil things affects our condition. Don't get drawn into a fight. Hurry back to the front courtyard!"

Feeling threads of chilling cold seep into her body, Jie Ling's movements involuntarily slowed. Her heart sank.

The group rushed out from the side hall and sped along the blue-brick path until they quickly arrived before the main hall.

At last, they saw the long-awaited temple gate.

The four were overjoyed. Ignoring the damage to their condition from hunting evil things, they quickened their pace.

Zhou Gu in particular swung his longsword like a peacock spreading its tail, forcibly carving out a path at the front.

"Get out!"

Zhou Gu charged forward without hesitation. The temple gate was only thirty meters away.

Thirty meters... twenty meters... ten meters...

A sharp, ear-piercing cry violently rang out at the temple gate.

Bang!

In an instant, a blue-black figure descended from nowhere and suddenly slammed toward Zhou Gu at the front.

"What kind of evil thing is that?"

Zhou Gu was startled, but his blade did not slow in the slightest. Wrapped in powerful qi and blood, he reversed his grip on the sword and swiftly slashed at the blue-black figure's neck.

Clang!

Sparks burst as the blade struck the blue-black figure. Zhou Gu felt as though he had struck a massive boulder. His sword hummed violently, and before the reverberation even faded, his weapon nearly flew from his hand.

In the instant he froze—

The blue-black figure raised a dark, sharp hand and viciously thrust it toward his shoulder.

"Ah!"

Zhou Gu let out a scream as his shoulder was instantly pierced through by its nails, spraying blood.

Before the blue-black figure, the bronze skin of a Skin-and-Flesh Realm martial artist was as flimsy as paper!

Still, he reacted quickly. He stomped hard and rapidly retreated.

By the weak light of the firestarter, the five of them finally saw the blue-black figure clearly.

It was a body clad in tattered clothes, with a sunken face and rotting blue-black flesh covering its entire body.

Its mouth muttered without pause, "Patrol... patrol..."

"Patrol... patrol..."

"It's a zombie!" Jie Ling cried out.

At those words, everyone's faces turned deathly pale.

"Fall back into the main hall!"

Lin Nan seemed to have thought of something and hurriedly shouted.

The four woke as if from a dream. Zhang Chengchang hoisted Zhou Gu onto his shoulder, and the five did not dare pause for even a step as they quickly retreated into the main hall.

Bang!

The instant the main hall doors shut, the sounds of the Corpse Ghosts and the zombie outside abruptly vanished, plunging the hall into silence.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

Inside the main hall, Zhou Gu lay on the ground with a pale face. His right shoulder was a bloody mess, continuously oozing dark red blood, while blue-black lines spread across his entire right arm.

It was the sign of corpse poison entering his body!

Jie Ling, Zhang Chengchang, and Wang Luoxuan sat trembling on the ground, gasping for breath.

It was clear that hunting the evil things had allowed Yin evil energy to enter their bodies, greatly weakening their condition.

Lin Nan was still in fairly good shape, but the fierce fighting had also consumed much of the qi and blood within him.

"Good thing you warned us. Otherwise, we would have been finished this time."

Jie Ling swallowed a Blood-Qi Pill. The contempt in her eyes when she looked at Lin Nan had vanished completely.

"According to the information we gathered before coming here, the main hall is the only safe place. We actually overlooked such a crucial piece of information just now." Zhang Chengchang's face was full of regret.

"A zombie... There is actually a second-tier monster here." Wang Luoxuan's face was also filled with despair.

Zombies belonged to the second tier of monsters. They were Corpse Wraiths driven by Yin energy, evolving over countless years until their bodies became copper-skinned and iron-boned, difficult to harm with blades or swords.

Zhang Chengchang's expression was as bitter as if he had swallowed bitter herbs.

"Zombies are impervious to blades and spears. Their physical strength rivals that of a third-layer Sinews-and-Bones Realm martial artist. With it guarding the entrance, we can't leave through the front gate."

Wang Luoxuan turned pale with fright. "Then aren't we trapped on a dead-end path?"