Tonight Was Far From Ordinary

The blood snake was weak, pitiful, and helpless.

Under the wolves' constant trampling, the soil became even more compacted.

Although the blood snake still had a chance to burrow out of the ground, the wolf pack ran too quickly. Every time it managed to poke out a little, it was trampled back down.

Several dozen minutes later, after the wolves had gone far away, the blood snake slowly seeped out of the soil.

Under the moonlight, its tiny little lump of blood looked especially desolate.

Inside the safe house, Zhang Ping opened his eyes and felt utterly despairing.

He could not split his attention. He either had to control the blood snake wholeheartedly or shift his focus back to his main body.

However, even when his attention was focused on his main body, he could still sense the distant blood snake. It was like an external organ.

At that moment, he felt a vibration. It was extremely faint. At first, he was stunned, then he realized the sensation had not come from his main body, but from the blood snake.

He quickly closed his eyes and switched his attention to the blood snake. Then he saw a huge number of Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbits racing toward it.

"Didn't a whole bunch of them just die a few days ago? They reproduce way too fast."

At a glance, there were at least a thousand Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbits. The densely packed rabbits charged forward, their red eyes especially bright in the darkness.

Zhang Ping quickly made the blood snake lie flat, pretending to be a harmless puddle of liquid.

When a Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit leaped past the blood snake, he immediately controlled the blood snake to seep into the rabbit's body.

The Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit was startled and leaped high into the air. But when it landed, it realized it was uninjured. After one second of confusion, it simply gave up thinking and followed its instincts, continuing to run forward.

It had no idea that an extra mass of blood had appeared inside its body.

When the blood snake merged with the rabbit's blood, Zhang Ping instantly heard the wind in the distance, the sounds made by the rabbits, birds flying in the sky, distant wolf howls, and strange, terrifying roars from behind.

He could even understand what the rabbits were saying.

The feeling was extremely strange. It was not that he understood the rabbits' language, but that he understood what they meant.

However, the rabbits communicated in a very peculiar way, and they themselves were quite ignorant. So their messages went back and forth with only a few meanings: danger behind them, run, run faster.

Zhang Ping could even feel the rabbits' fear. They were afraid of the danger behind them.

"What's behind them?" Zhang Ping muttered inwardly.

Unexpectedly, the rabbit parasitized by the blood snake was startled again. Its eyes kept darting around as if searching for the owner of the voice.

"You can hear me?" Zhang Ping asked curiously when he saw this.

The poor Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit sprang up again. After landing, it became even more suspicious and nervous.

It was also obvious that it had not understood Zhang Ping's question.

Zhang Ping thought for a moment. This time, instead of using words, he continuously transmitted his thoughts into the blood.

His mind was filled with one thought: Run, run faster, run even faster!

Sure enough, the Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit became more and more focused and gradually accelerated. It had originally been near the front of the rabbit herd, but now it rushed straight to the lead and slowly pulled away from the others.

"So I really can influence its behavior. It's just that the influence isn't strong. The main reason is that it wants to run."

Zhang Ping tried to make the Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit turn around and run back. Its speed slowed, but it showed no intention of turning around.

Half an hour later, he saw Mingzhu City, as well as the densely scattered Corpses of wild wolves.

On Mingzhu City's walls, many adventurers were cleaning up the wild wolves from above. Clearly, the wolf pack was not much of a threat to Mingzhu City.

In fact, the adventurers had long noticed that something was wrong with the situation within Mingzhu City.

Especially after all members of the Patrol Team had been summoned to the City Lord's Manor by the city lord a few days ago and had yet to emerge, people could not help but think too much.

Several adventurers had tried probing for answers, hoping to figure out the reason, but they had all been fobbed off with inexplicable excuses. Many veteran adventurers had grown suspicious of both the City Lord's Manor and the Patrol Team.

Since the Patrol Team was doing nothing, the adventurers had voluntarily kept watch at night to protect the city and defend their homes.

The adventurers assigned to night watch saw the wolf pack and immediately notified the others. Thus, the adventurers quickly organized a defense. Aside from a few wild wolves that circled around the walls and escaped, most were killed on the spot by the adventurers.

"Is that... a Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit?"

On the city wall, a young adventurer holding a longbow saw a small white thing running in the distance. He narrowed his eyes and spoke uncertainly.

A bearded man nodded. "It really is a Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit. That little thing tastes especially delicious when roasted over a fire. Heh heh, watch this."

As he spoke, he drew his bow and took aim. The instant the Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit leaped, he fired.

"Watch out!"

When Zhang Ping saw the arrow coming, he immediately warned it.

Perhaps because it could sense Zhang Ping's emotions, the Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit actually reacted. Just as the arrow was about to hit it, its fur stood on end and its ears sprayed out a large amount of corrosive water.

The corrosive water directly dissolved the arrow. Then it landed and ran swiftly, escaping beside the wolf Corpses in the blink of an eye and using them as cover.

"Missed."

The bearded adventurer said regretfully.

He had thought he could have a midnight snack tonight.

Below the city wall, the Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit carefully twitched its ears. Its hearing was incredibly sharp, and Zhang Ping could hear many sounds through it.

For example, the bearded man muttering to himself, the other adventurers' discussions, and sounds from within the city.

Perhaps because he was constantly harassed by Wind Whisperers, Zhang Ping's ability to process sound had also steadily improved. He could easily pick out the sounds he wanted to hear amid countless chaotic noises.

"Your Highness, should we kill all the humans on the city wall?" The hoarse voice belonged, unsurprisingly, to a Heavenly Fox.

Prince Yue said coldly, "No... keep watching."

Within the City Lord's Manor, Prince Yue caught a trace of an unusual scent. His tail monitored the entire city while also watching the distant lands beyond it. Vaguely, he felt a sense of dread.

Within the Heavenly Fox Clan, aside from him and the Moon King, the other members were not actually very strong in combat. Though they could use their abilities to infiltrate other races and hunt, other beasts possessed far keener animal instincts than humans. Even if their disguises were flawless, even if they distorted the beasts' common sense, they would still be attacked for no apparent reason.

There was simply no logic to it.

That was why the Moon King had decided to invade the human world, because humans were the hardest to deceive with their disguises.

But after losing several dozen Heavenly Foxes in succession recently, Prince Yue could not help wondering whether this choice had been correct. Especially when facing Chen Juntaing, he did not know why, but the guilt and regret in his heart grew with every passing day.

Because of Chen Juntaing, he had even begun to loathe eating her kind.

He had not eaten for an entire day.

About half an hour later, the densely packed Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbits appeared.

On the city wall, the bearded man saw so many Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbits and happily said, "Oh ho, we're in luck tonight. These little things taste damn good, but don't waste weapons like bows and arrows. Use elemental attacks whenever possible!"

Zhang Ping felt this was an opportunity and immediately urged the Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit to run. Using the wolf Corpses as cover, it ran east.

Perhaps sensing his goodwill, the Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit immediately began running. The problem was that it did not know which direction was east, so it instantly exposed itself to the adventurers' view. Then an icicle struck its hind leg, and it rolled behind a wolf Corpse. It struggled several times but could not get back up.

"Don't worry, little guy. I'll heal you."

Zhang Ping quickly soothed it, afraid it would struggle and tear the wound open further.

He controlled the blood to gather around the wound. The bleeding stopped in an instant. Then, through the blood snake, he continuously repaired the injury. The originally gruesome bloody hole slowly turned into pink skin, and fur quickly grew back over it.

The Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit realized its hind leg was healed, so it got back up.

This time, Zhang Ping's command was much clearer. It cautiously ran out from behind the wolf Corpse and raced east.

In truth, Zhang Ping was already extremely exhausted.

Too much had happened tonight.

During the first half of the night,

he had first learned the Phoenix Claw Form at the Beast King Fist Hall, then sparred with Wang Jieming.

After that, he had conveniently dealt with a flower thief, then endured Prince Yue's attack and forcibly killed a Heavenly Fox.

During the latter half of the night,

he had withdrawn from Mingzhu City and, after obtaining the Pure Blood Body, treated Liu Tiefeng.

All of this had consumed a great deal of his physical strength and Mental Strength. That was why he had not even noticed the wolf pack's arrival beforehand. Liu Sishan had needed to remind him before he reacted.

Now, remotely controlling the blood snake and coordinating with the Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit consumed even more of his focus.

Although his primary attributes were physical strength and Mental Strength, allowing his stamina and energy to recover relatively quickly, he could not avoid feeling overwhelmed.

It was simply because he was too worried about Qiu Qiang's safety.

Compared to this bit of exhaustion, Qiu Qiang's life and death mattered far more. That was why he gritted his teeth and held on.

At that moment, a Fireball suddenly exploded not far from the Corrosive Water Bullet Rabbit. The blast wave sent it flying, and amid the violent jostling, he immediately lost contact with the blood snake.

Inside the safe house, he opened his eyes and instantly felt a wave of dizziness.

Just as he was about to fall backward, Liu Sishan caught him. He had just wanted to speak when he saw her make a silencing gesture and point outside.

The safe house door had been opened a crack.

Under the ghastly pale moonlight, densely packed black shadows swayed as they advanced toward Mingzhu City.

Thanks to the Nightwalker talent, Zhang Ping could see clearly that some of those shadows were human Corpses in tattered clothes with rotting bodies, while many others were animal Corpses missing their forelegs, tails, or ears.

Human Corpses and animal Corpses walked together in eerie harmony. Their eyes shone with ghostly green light, making them utterly terrifying.

Fortunately, their senses were not particularly sharp, and they had not discovered the safe house fifty meters away. Otherwise, if so many Corpses swarmed over, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

A light sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead. He quickly controlled Nether Mist and injected it into the Wraith Lantern, which had gone out and retained only a faint ember.

The Wraith Lantern had already burned through the Nether Mist he had injected earlier while he was fully focused on controlling the blood snake. Only a weak ember remained in its wick.

Now that Nether Mist was poured into it, the lantern once again burned with gray flames. Under its light, the entire safe house turned black and white.

"Sis Sishan, what the hell are those things?" He looked at Liu Sishan and could not help asking.

Liu Sishan crouched behind him and shook her head. "I don't know. It's my first time seeing them too."

First came the wolf pack, then the rabbit herd, and now even a horde of Living Corpses had appeared.

Tonight was far from ordinary.