Crazy Mutation

Crazy Mutation

Gurgle, gurgle!

The beast blood in several large wooden barrels had long since gone cold, yet under the effects of the discarded pills, it now began boiling for no apparent reason!

After hesitating for a moment, Xiao Liang decided that some risks still had to be taken.

He immediately hoisted a barrel of blood and poured it over the chunks of demonic beast meat.

During the process, a drop of dark red beast blood trickled down the steel frame and happened to strike the face of a small-framed zombie.

The drop of beast blood was like concentrated sulfuric acid, rapidly melting away half its face and making it let out a painful howl.

Yet moments later, an astonishing change occurred!

Not only was the blood-stained face melting; its entire body was dissolving like a candle about to burn out.

The melted substance wrapped around the zombie like a bloody cocoon. Then it went completely still, as if it had died.

Xiao Liang noticed the bizarre scene, but he keenly sensed an unusual vibration within the blood cocoon. It grew from weak to strong, eventually becoming as powerful as the beating of a drum.

"This zombie seems resistant to Pill Poison. Incredible... that sounds like a heartbeat coming from inside the blood cocoon!"

Xiao Liang stared blankly. Could a zombie that had been dead for so long have come back to life?

A pair of sharp claws soon tore open the blood cocoon from within. Xiao Liang narrowed his eyes, curious about what exactly would crawl out.

As those claws tore away at the cocoon, the frenzied creature inside reappeared before Xiao Liang's eyes.

It was a... monster whose general form resembled that of a Western girl. Compared to before it cocooned itself, its body had shrunk by nearly half.

From afar, it even possessed devilishly curvaceous lines, and some of its sexual characteristics could vaguely be made out.

But Xiao Liang could guarantee that no one would have any inappropriate thoughts because of that.

Its hands had mutated into mantis-like claws, while its knees had transformed into reverse joints like those of a goat, perhaps granting it tremendous leaping ability.

Even harder to describe was its head. Aside from a pair of holes like black voids, it had no facial features whatsoever.

It was horrifying enough that one glance would make you have nightmares that night.

"Impressive, but so ugly!"

Even Xiao Liang could not help frowning as he tried to erase that image from his mind. Still, he now knew that the specially prepared beast blood he had concocted was remarkably effective.

"Come join this grand carnival of mutation. Let me see your potential!"

Xiao Liang muttered, kicking out several times in succession and sending nearly a thousand pounds of demonic beast meat flying in four directions.

Most of the more than one hundred thousand zombies had originally remained utterly motionless.

Now, the intensely stimulating scent of blood swept through the entire stadium like a bomb.

It instantly awakened the bloodthirsty instincts of these infected zombies. In an instant, they surged like locusts toward where the flesh had fallen.

"Roar!!!"

A tall zombie wearing tattered football gear possessed tremendous strength. It shoved aside its companions, seized a chunk of flesh, and stuffed it into its throat.

Moments later, instead of mutating as expected, it exploded with a bang into a mass of rotten blood, its bones also decaying and melting away.

And such firework-like scenes appeared one after another throughout the vast stadium, making Xiao Liang somewhat anxious.

"Looks like only a small number can mutate after all. Most zombies are no different from ordinary corpse materials. Even with the adaptability granted by the biochemical virus, they still cannot endure such complex and violent changes!"

However, the zombies that exploded into fragments did not seem entirely useless.

The Baleful Qi and Pill Poison within the demonic beast flesh were filtered for purity through their consumption and explosions.

Xiao Liang noticed that a strange black-red Baleful Qi was slowly rising from the ground covered in filthy blood.

The zombies that came into contact with it acted as if they had been injected with stimulants. While their bodies were corroded, they also underwent sudden mutations too subtle to be seen with the naked eye.

The stadium had been divided into four zones—east, south, west, and north—according to the four directions in which Xiao Liang had thrown the demonic beast meat.

The zombie that had cocooned and mutated ahead of the others was in the eastern zone, making it Xiao Liang's main focus.

Sure enough, just as expected, it displayed exceptional ferocity while fighting for the flesh.

Its claws were incomparably sharp. Any zombies standing in its way were sliced in half at the waist, and its speed and explosive power had completely surpassed those of its kind.

Xiao Liang even saw that once it picked up speed, it could run along the walls for a short time, bypassing the mass of corpses blocking its way just to seize flesh by the shortest route and devour it.

That already fell within the realm of strategy!

Ordinary zombies would only be drawn forward in a dazed, mindless manner. They simply tried to move ahead and never cared whether there were obstacles in front of them.

Yet among a full hundred thousand zombies, the Clawed Zombie was far from the only unusual individual.

Standing atop the steel frame, Xiao Liang looked around and spotted roughly twenty or thirty zombies that cocooned after swallowing demonic beast flesh.

And the mutated zombies that emerged from those cocoons did not all take the same form as the Clawed Zombie.

"Boom!"

A massive blood cocoon born in the eastern zone was blown apart by a violent gust. Crawling out was a short, fat, headless zombie with a gaping maw split open across its abdomen.

When a few zombies approached, the headless zombie's abdomen swelled as if inflated. Then an Air Cannon suddenly blasted from the great mouth in its belly!

The densely packed zombies nearby had no time to react before the Air Cannon cleared them away, hurling them more than ten meters and breaking their arms and legs when they hit the ground.

"Air Cannon? Interesting."

Xiao Liang raised a brow. Before he could examine it closely, a blood cocoon in the southern zone shattered.

A mutant zombie with no recognizable human form appeared. It had four arms and four legs, sprawled across the ground like a spider when fully extended, and was as large as a compact car.

It nimbly climbed the wall, seemingly with barbs growing from its limbs to keep it from falling. Wherever it passed, it left a trail of savage claw marks on the wall.

However, it did not remain arrogant for long. Xiao Liang saw that the spider zombie and the Clawed Zombie had set their sights on the same chunk of flesh. When they fought over it, the former quickly lost.

Its four arms and four legs were severed one after another by the Clawed Zombie, leaving only its torso writhing like a lump of meat. Finally, the Clawed Zombie dug an irregularly shaped blood core out of the spider zombie's body and swallowed it whole.

The spider zombie immediately lost all vitality and became completely still.

In contrast, moments later, the Clawed Zombie's aura surged. Scales emerged across its body, reflecting a metallic sheen. Its defense was undoubtedly formidable.

"What is that? The core of a mutant zombie, something like a demonic beast's inner core? That is not impossible."

Xiao Liang stroked his chin and decided to keep observing.

More blood cocoons split open in succession, and some of the mutant zombies inside had fairly similar mutation paths.

For example, some could spit out long tongues or fire bone needles from their palms. Their power was unremarkable; although they outperformed ordinary zombies, the difference was limited.

There were also mutants that especially caught Xiao Liang's attention and filled him with amazement.

For instance, in the North District was a strange Flesh Flower that rooted itself in the stadium like plant roots. Its main body could not move at all, but like a Venus flytrap, it emitted an unusual fragrance and frantically devoured the surrounding zombie kin drawn toward it.

There was also an exceptionally massive mutant in the western zone, standing two or three zhang tall. It resembled a giant from legend, with rough, pale skin like marble. It pursued the flesh, and nothing could stop it!

But as time passed bit by bit,

facing the overwhelming number of zombies, the mere thousand-odd pounds of demonic beast meat mixed with specially prepared beast blood were completely devoured.

Yet the zombies in the stadium did not return to their dormant state as usual.

Perhaps it was the stimulation of Baleful Qi and spiritual energy, but this time the zombies' ferocity erupted with extreme thoroughness.

They soon began devouring one another, and even the victors among them started cocooning.

(End of Chapter)