Pattern

Lu Chengchuan felt his hand gripping the wood, using a lot of force but unable to break it. Lu Chengchuan gritted his teeth and unleashed his Inner Energy. Invisible Inner Energy attached to his fingernails, and with force, he finally tore through the zombie's skin and flesh with his nails.

Its neck injured, the zombie instinctively retreated.

But its strength was weaker than Lu Chengchuan's. Lu Chengchuan grabbed the zombie with one hand, preventing it from escaping. The hand gripping the zombie's neck continued to exert force until most of his fingers were inserted, and Lu Chengchuan tore open the zombie's throat.

With its throat torn open, Tainted Qi poured out of its neck like crazy. The zombie struggled even more violently, one hand covering its throat, trying to block the leaking Tainted Qi.

But the Tainted Qi continued to leak out. Lu Chengchuan raised his foot and kicked the zombie hard, easily knocking it down.

The fallen zombie continued to struggle violently. Every time it tried to stand up, Lu Chengchuan would kick it, preventing it from getting up.

After two minutes of releasing Tainted Qi, the black zombie finally died completely.

This was the way to deal with zombies, otherwise, fighting it until dark would be useless.

[Killed Ironclad Zombie, gained 5 years of life.]

The System's voice sounded, indicating that the zombie was completely dead. This thing was an Ironclad Zombie, more powerful than those low-level zombies and Zombies, and it gave more life.

One Ironclad Zombie gave five years of life, and now he had fifty-five years of life.

Seeing the zombie no longer struggling, Zhou Yaning and the others slowly walked over. They looked at the zombie on the ground and then at Lu Chengchuan, who had killed the zombie.

How powerful was he?

Everyone present, whether they knew him or not, was thinking about this question.

Lu Chengchuan turned his head to look at them. Forty-odd people had come in, and now there were only seventeen left. They looked very bad. Lu Chengchuan glanced at them and swallowed the words 'Are you okay?' back into his heart.

So many people had died, and saying that would be insensitive and impolite.

"Why would they stay here?" Lu Chengchuan asked another question.

Previously, the monsters had disappeared with the fog, so why would these zombies stay in reality?

Zhou Yaning shook her head, speechless. She couldn't figure out why either, but that's how it was. Whether it was good or bad, all she could do was accept the facts.

Fortunately, things had both good and bad sides. Twenty-odd people had died, but the monster had also been eliminated, at least not letting these brave warriors sacrifice in vain.

With the monster eliminated, the soldiers waiting outside ran over to bandage their comrades' wounds.

The remaining survivors were not in mortal danger. After treating the wounds, Zhou Yaning prepared to enter the village to investigate.

She only called Lu Chengchuan and a few others to enter the village with her, leaving the rest to wait for them to come out.

In the center of Little Stone Village's square, there were no living people except for Lu Chengchuan and the others. Zhou Yaning walked to the pile of corpses and observed the piled-up bodies.

The corpses stank to high heaven. They had to wear gas masks to get close.

"That's... a military uniform, it's the soldiers who came to investigate before."

After looking for a while, Zhou Yaning found several corpses wearing military uniforms in the pile of corpses. The military uniforms were contaminated with blood, almost turning black. If it weren't for Zhou Yaning's sharp eyes, the others present wouldn't have recognized them.

"What is this thing, who drew it?"

Zhou Yaning squatted on the ground. She found some strange patterns under the pile of corpses, as if someone had drawn something on the ground in advance and then put the corpses on top.

Lu Chengchuan and the others stepped forward and found that there were indeed strange patterns.

"Move the corpses away!" Zhou Yaning looked for a while and decided to move the corpses on top away.

She stood up and used her telekinesis to move the corpses to the other side. Several people went up to move the corpses away. Soon, the corpses were moved to the other side, and the patterns on the ground were completely revealed to everyone.

A circular pattern, with many complex lines drawn inside the circle, looked puzzling.

This pattern couldn't have formed naturally, it was definitely man-made. But who would create this pattern in the black fog? Could it be the zombies who drew it?

That's impossible, that zombie didn't look like a painter...

"Something's wrong, something's very wrong." Zhou Yaning took out her camera and took a picture of the complete pattern.

After taking a dozen photos, Zhou Yaning got up and continued to look for clues.

"Come and take a look, these people, they were killed with knives and swords, not by monsters."

Lu Chengchuan found that many corpses were not right. Their wounds were not the bites and scratches that zombies would inflict, but rather as if someone had killed them with weapons.

Upon hearing this, Zhou Yaning quickly came up to check and found that the victims' wounds were as Lu Chengchuan had said. They were not killed by zombies, but someone had deliberately killed them.

"Who killed them?"

Zhou Yaning couldn't believe it. There were not only monsters here. She didn't believe that zombies would use knives and swords to kill people.

Lu Chengchuan didn't know. Things were not as simple as they seemed on the surface, but it was difficult to pursue the truth.

"Let's go back first, report this matter to the director first..." Zhou Yaning understood that things were not simple. It was getting late, and there were no clues in the village. She wanted to go back and report as soon as possible.

Before leaving, they destroyed the patterns on the ground and burned the villagers' corpses to avoid anything strange happening again.

With doubts, they returned to the car camp. The injured soldiers were settled, and the remaining people were moving their comrades' bodies. They couldn't leave the bodies in this ghostly place.

After they put the bodies in the car, Zhou Yaning immediately ordered to return to Anyang City.

The group left in a hurry. A few minutes after the cars left, several strange figures appeared in the small village.

"Divine Envoy, the Ironclad Zombie and those zombies are all dead, what should we do?"

"Who is that person? Even the Ironclad Zombie was no match. Is he an Esper?"

Huddled in the shadows, a small group chattered amongst themselves. The leader, cloaked in black robes and a hood, raised an arm to silence them.

"Patience. The Divine Envoy does not lie. They will grant us power..."

The man lifted his arm, veins bulging, muscles slowly rippling. He was feeling the power, a power beyond the reach of ordinary people.

The others around him fell silent, their eyes fixed on his arm, a burning desire almost palpable.

"This place is worthless now. On to the next."

The shadowy figures crept out of the village, leaving it once again in deathly silence.

As evening approached, they returned to Anyang City before nightfall. Lu Chengchuan followed them back to the armory, where he cleaned himself up, changed clothes, and left.

He wasn't involved in the aftermath, nor did the Investigation Bureau want him involved in these sensitive matters.

Lu Chengchuan left the armory and took the subway home.

As he walked from the subway towards his apartment, he heard sounds of things being smashed and people yelling upstairs. Lu Chengchuan listened carefully and realized the noise seemed to be coming from his floor.

A sense of foreboding washed over Lu Chengchuan. He quickly opened the door and ran upstairs, reaching his apartment to find the door wide open and three unfamiliar people inside.

"Who are you!"