Crow Brother

It had never imagined that the crows would come to help this human.

A powerful sense of danger struck again.

Seeing that things were going badly, the big rat knew it could not stay here any longer. It hurriedly tried to flee, rising to leap into the sewer.

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

Lin Dong narrowed his eyes, sensing that his chance had come.

"This Crow Brother is reliable. When something happens, he really steps up..."

He leaped forward and expanded his domain to its limit. The rats caught within it burst apart one after another.

The Rat King grew anxious and immediately tried to run.

But it suddenly felt an immense pressure bearing down on it.

Its body stiffened.

It could no longer move at all.

Looking up, it saw a tall, slender figure standing before it. His gaze was cold, and his killing intent was overwhelming.

Covered by the domain, the big rat had lost all its former arrogance.

Its body trembled uncontrollably.

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

With a thought from Lin Dong, the domain's pressure focused on a single point. With a bang, the big rat's body exploded.

A Crystal Core flew from the wreckage, and Lin Dong caught it in his palm.

The instant the big rat died, the ferocious rat horde lost its leader and immediately fell into disarray. They screeched as they began scattering in every direction.

The densely packed rats receded like a tide.

Before long,

they had all vanished.

The street was even more of a mess now, littered with rat corpses and chunks of flesh. The stench of blood was overwhelming.

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

"Goodbye, good person..."

The first large crow circled Lin Dong several times, then flapped away with the flock.

At last, the entire street became quiet again.

Watching the crows fly away, Lin Dong felt that this was proof that good deeds were 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 here. The real ruler should be a Zombie King.

Lin Dong did not intend to continue exploring. He had obtained two Crystal Cores, enough for him to absorb for a while. It was time to return to his own territory and lie low.

His figure abruptly vanished as he activated his concealment ability and returned to his territory.

Not long after Lin Dong left,

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

Something furry and pitch-black was wrapped around its neck. When it lifted its head, it revealed a human face covered in black fur.

"Squeak—squeaksqueak—"

The Human-Faced Rat jumped down from its neck and came before a rat corpse reduced to a pile of flesh. It let out a mournful cry, filled with grief.

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

The Human-Faced Rat continuously rubbed its bizarre face against the chunks of 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 evolutionary levels were quite high, comparable to Tank and Little Eight. They had already developed intelligence.

"Boss... I asked the underlings. 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 the past several days, 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 rather unbelievable.

It had thought he was much stronger...

After all, it had already gathered a Myriad Zombie Horde of twenty thousand under its command.

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

"Scarf, make preparations. 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 improved him.

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

Over the next few days,

Lin Dong lay low at home as usual.

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

Only an occasional crow circled in the sky.

During that time, Lin Dong used his phone to gather information from the outside world.

The Tech Company's official website was especially lively now.

The incident at the mall had been made public. The awakened ones had been killed, and supplies worth over a hundred million had vanished.

Many survivors left comments.

"More than ten awakened ones were all brutally killed overnight. What kind of monster did this?"

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

"This is too terrifying. The key is that more than two hundred survivors and supplies worth over a hundred million were taken too."

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

"Could it be that it wasn't zombies, but another human organization?"

"Emmm... that's possible. I heard there are some awakened ones outside who commit every kind of evil. They formed their own organizations and even robbed supplies from our Official Shelter..."

"..."

The mall incident was shrouded in mystery. Everyone was curious about what had happened that night.

But no living person remained 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 could not accept losing them without knowing what had happened.

So they immediately issued a statement.

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

"These people are getting restless again."

Lin Dong muttered.

At that moment, Tech Company was laying out its battle plan. A group of awakened ones sat in a conference room.

A map of Jiangbei City was displayed on the large screen at the front.

"After a month of drone surveillance, we have grasped the zombies' basic distribution. 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. For example, the area around this building."

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

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

The awakened ones below looked at one another, feeling as though this was being run like a game dungeon.

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

They immediately raised their hands to compete for it.

"This place is great. I'm going! I'm going!"