Crow Brother

It never expected that flock of crows to come help this human.

A powerful sense of danger struck again.

Seeing things were going badly, the big rat decided this was no place to linger. It wanted to make a quick escape, rising to jump into the sewer.

But fierce winds rose around it as several crows swooped down and trapped it in the middle. One of them slammed heavily into its body, sending it flying dozens of meters away.

Lin Dong glanced over and felt that his chance had come.

"Crow Brother's a real one. When something happens, he actually steps up..."

He leaped into the air and expanded his domain to its limit. The rats caught within it exploded one after another.

The Rat King grew anxious and got up to flee.

But it suddenly felt an immense pressure descending upon it.

Its body stiffened.

It could no longer move at all.

Looking up, it saw a tall figure standing before it. His gaze was cold and stern, brimming with killing intent.

Covered by the domain, the big rat no longer had any trace of its former arrogance.

Its body trembled violently.

Its eyes even revealed a pleading look, making it seem somewhat pitiful.

With a thought from Lin Dong, the pressure of the domain condensed into a single point. With a bang, the big rat's body exploded directly.

A Crystal Core flew out from within, and Lin Dong caught it in his palm.

The instant the big rat died, the vicious rat tide lost its command center and immediately fell into disarray. The rats shrieked and began fleeing in every direction.

The densely packed rats receded like a tide once more.

Before long,

they had all vanished.

The streets were now even more of a mess, littered everywhere with rat corpses and chunks of flesh. The stench of blood was pungent.

A flock of large crows pecked at the ground, feeding.

"Good person, goodbye..."

The first large crow circled Lin Dong a few times before flapping away with the flock.

At last, the entire street fell silent again.

Lin Dong watched the crows fly away and felt that this was what it meant for good deeds to be rewarded. From now on, he should feed small animals more often and be a "good person."

He looked around. Although the Rat King on this street had been eliminated,

there had to be something else in the surrounding area. After all, the Rat King was not the true overlord. The real ruler here should have been a Zombie King.

Lin Dong had no intention of continuing his exploration. The two Crystal Cores he had obtained were enough to absorb for quite some time, so he should return to his own territory and lie low.

His figure vanished in a flash as he activated his concealment ability and returned to his territory.

Not long after Lin Dong left,

several zombies appeared on the street filled with mangled corpses. The lead Zombie King had dark-red skin and bulging black veins. It was the Red-Faced Zombie King from the park.

Around its neck was a furry, pitch-black thing. It lifted its head, revealing a human face covered in black fur.

"Skree—skreee—"

The Human-Faced Rat jumped down from its neck and came to a rat corpse reduced to a pile of flesh, letting out mournful cries of boundless grief.

"Wife... how did you die? Who did this? I'll definitely avenge you!"

The Human-Faced Rat continuously rubbed its eerie face against the bloody flesh.

Before long,

it was covered in blood.

"Scarf, don't be too sad. Whoever dared invade my territory, I'll definitely kill them!"

The Red-Faced Zombie King's voice was hoarse, like grinding stones.

Behind it stood several capable subordinates. Their level of evolution was quite high, comparable to Tank and Little Eight, and they had already developed intelligence.

"Boss... I asked my subordinates. The zombie from that building did this."

"Oh?"

Killing intent flashed in the Red-Faced Zombie King's eyes. It had originally planned to kill him and expand its territory, but it had not expected him to provoke it first.

"How many zombies... does he have?"

"After investigating for this period of time, we've figured it out. There are around two thousand," the Zombie King behind it said.

"Only two thousand?"

The Red-Faced Zombie King tilted its head, finding it somewhat unbelievable.

It had thought he was much stronger...

After all, it had already gathered a zombie tide of twenty thousand under its command.

Twenty thousand against two thousand—wouldn't that be effortless?

"Scarf, get ready. I'll avenge you right away!"

Meanwhile, Lin Dong knew nothing of this.

He had already returned home.

As usual, he took a hot bath, changed into clean clothes, and began absorbing the Crystal Core's energy.

The Rat King's Crystal Core was actually jet-black, like a ripe cherry, and even sweeter.

The energy within was extremely pure and greatly enhanced him.

Perhaps it was because the Rat King's mental field was somewhat similar to his Corpse Domain.

Over the next few days,

Lin Dong lay low at home as usual.

Ever since killing the Rat King, no more rats or zombies came to bother him.

Only an occasional crow circled overhead.

During this time, Lin Dong used his phone to gather information about the outside world.

Tech Company's official website was especially lively now.

Because the incident at the mall had been made public: the Awakened had been killed, and supplies worth over a hundred million had vanished.

Many survivors left comments.

"More than a dozen Awakened were brutally killed overnight. What kind of monster did this?"

"Yeah, what level of Zombie King would that take?"

"Too terrifying. The key is that more than two hundred survivors and supplies worth over a hundred million were also cleared out."

"Tech Company isn't so impressive after all. They were just talking about the 'King Hunt Operation,' but they got hunted by zombies first..."

"Is it possible that it wasn't zombies, but another human organization?"

"Emmm... that's possible. I heard there are some Awakened outside who commit all kinds of evil. They formed their own organizations and have even robbed supplies from our official shelters..."

"..."

The mall incident was shrouded in mystery, and everyone was curious about what had truly happened that night.

But there were no living people left to tell them the answer.

It was practically becoming the apocalypse's greatest unsolved mystery.

However, Tech Company had not given up. The supplies worth over a hundred million were simply too valuable. They were unwilling to let them disappear without explanation.

So it immediately released a statement.

"Our company will definitely investigate the mall incident thoroughly, to console the spirits of Li Nan and the others. The 'King Hunt Operation' will begin immediately. We will hunt down every Zombie King and recover the supplies!"

"These people are getting restless again."

Lin Dong muttered.

Meanwhile, Tech Company was deploying its battle plan. A group of Awakened sat in a conference room.

The large screen at the front displayed a map of Jiangbei City.

"After a month of drone surveillance, we have grasped the basic distribution of the zombies. There are roughly ten Zombie King territories in the area around the mall. Based on their differing danger levels, we have classified them from one star to five stars."

"Five stars are the most dangerous, while one star is relatively safe, such as the area near this building."

A middle-aged man explained as he drew a circle on the map.

"There are around two thousand zombies here. This is considered the smallest of the Zombie King territories. Hunting the Zombie King here has been designated a one-star difficulty mission!"

The Awakened below exchanged glances, feeling as though they were running a dungeon in a game.

But this one-star mission was clearly a good opportunity.

So they all raised their hands to compete for it.

"This place is great! I'll go! I'll go!"