Mutation

The Chu Yun Empire's environment was indeed far harsher than the Jia Ma Empire's. Along the way, Xiao Yan had already fought over a hundred battles against people who saw his young age and tried to kill him for his valuables. He had disposed of most of them without much trouble. Only once, when he had the misfortune to encounter a Dou Wang expert, had he chosen to flee.

He had spent nearly half a year exploring two of the three dangerous regions. During that time, he had faced quite a few life-and-death crises, but had ultimately overcome them all. That tempering on the edge of death had also strengthened him.

Just a few days earlier, he had made another breakthrough, successfully reaching the realm of a Nine-Star Great Dou Master. With a little more secluded cultivation, his advance to Dou Ling would come as naturally as water flowing into a channel. Unfortunately, Xiao Yan had no time to enter seclusion now.

Neither location had shown any trace of Heavenly Flames, though places like those did contain plenty of strange medicinal herbs. There were also many corpses of treasure hunters who had entered and died there, and Xiao Yan had taken the opportunity to strip them of all their belongings. His haul had therefore been considerable, but compared with Heavenly Flames, those things were clearly insignificant.

"Only the Heavenly Poison Swamp is left..." Looking at the final marker on the map, Xiao Yan sighed softly. According to the information he had gathered earlier, the Heavenly Poison Swamp was the most dangerous of the three places. Even Dou Wangs who entered never came out, which was why he had left it for last.

Now, however, it seemed he still had to make a trip to the Heavenly Poison Swamp. If even that place held no Netherworld Poison Flame, it would mean someone had beaten him to it-or that the Chu Yun Empire had never contained any Heavenly Flames in the first place. If that really was the case, his half year in the Chu Yun Empire would have been a waste of time.

"I hope you don't disappoint me." Xiao Yan put away the map, rose, and resumed walking toward the Heavenly Poison Swamp. Although that place was a forbidden zone for life in the Chu Yun Empire, he was not afraid. However dangerous it was, surely it held nothing worse than poisonous creatures. It wasn't as though zombies could jump out at him.

Unlike the other two forbidden lands, whose surroundings were deserted, the Heavenly Poison Swamp had a small village near its entrance. It also lay on the only route into the swamp, so its residents should have known more about the place than outsiders did. Xiao Yan therefore planned to gather information there first and prepare before entering.

Following the route drawn on the map, Xiao Yan walked for another two hours before the village's outline came into view. Yet as he gazed at the village now close at hand, no joy appeared on his face. For some reason, he kept feeling that something about it was wrong.

"Be careful. The auras inside are a little strange." Yao Lao's warning also sounded in Xiao Yan's mind. Xiao Yan nodded and was about to use his Purple Cloud Wings to fly overhead and inspect the situation when an odd noise suddenly came from the nearby hill. Turning toward it, he saw a figure in ragged clothes tumble down the slope and land right in front of him.

Looking at the motionless figure, Xiao Yan suddenly realized something was amiss. He stamped his foot and immediately used Burst Step to retreat. The next instant, the body that had lain on the ground like a dead dog sprang up, lunging and snapping at where Xiao Yan had just stood. Because he had dodged in time, its attack caught nothing but air.

Xiao Yan immediately drew the Xuan Heavy Ruler and looked toward the figure, only to discover that an utterly terrifying sight lay hidden beneath its tattered clothes.

Although it still retained a human shape, it could no longer be described as "human." Its skin was deathly pale and covered in corpse blotches. Its exposed body parts had already begun rotting and gave off a foul stench. Its face, in particular, had decayed beyond recognition, and thin trails of blood trickled from its eye sockets, making it look profoundly eerie.

"Fuck! Is this thing... a zombie?" At the sight of the figure before him, Xiao Yan could not help swearing. He instinctively recalled some horror movies he had watched before transmigrating from Earth. The zombies in those movies looked exactly like this thing, but how could something like it appear on the Dou Qi Continent?

"This fellow must have been afflicted with some potent poison-or rather, a poisonous gu-and turned into something like a puppet." Yao Lao's voice was also somewhat grave. Apparently, this was his first time seeing anything resembling a zombie.

"That checks out. A virus is a kind of poison too." Xiao Yan nodded in wholehearted agreement. Having watched zombie movies since childhood, he certainly would not give this thing another chance to get close. Before it could lunge again, he summoned the Nine Nether Flame and burned the zombie-like creature before him directly to ashes. Whatever had caused its mutation, as long as he burned it until not even a scrap remained, it posed no threat.

"Little fellow, don't act so quickly!" Only after Xiao Yan withdrew the Nine Nether Flame did Yao Lao speak with some urgency. He had not expected Xiao Yan to be so decisive either, blasting the creature to ashes the moment they met.

"What's wrong?"

"You should have captured it alive and studied it properly. We might have been able to develop an antidote to deal with it that way," Yao Lao said with a sigh.

"I'd rather not. What if I kept it around and got infected too?" Xiao Yan shook his head. He vaguely remembered plots in zombie movies he had watched where the protagonists courted death by capturing a zombie alive, only for the entire group to mutate as a result. He was not about to give this thing any chance to hurt him.

"What are you afraid of? That black flame of yours may not be a Heavenly Flame, but it isn't much weaker than one. With it around, never mind a mere corpse poison-even poison administered by someone with the woeful poison body couldn't harm you, much less this," Yao Lao said helplessly.

"You have a point, Teacher... But if that's the case, why would I need to research an antidote?"

"..." Yao Lao was left rather helpless by Xiao Yan's attitude, yet could find nothing to refute him with. Although this sort of puppet looked frightening, judging by its performance just now, it was at most equivalent to a Dou Zhe. With Xiao Yan's current strength, even a few hundred more would be easy to handle. After all, the power of his Nine Nether Flame was truly terrifying.

"More than that, I'm worried about what's happened to the village." Xiao Yan slowly raised his head and looked toward the village at the Heavenly Poison Swamp's entrance. Based on his experience watching movies, the appearance of a zombie like this meant there had to be a source of infection. With the village so close, could everyone there have mutated?

Naturally, he was not concerned about whether the villagers lived or died. Never mind that this was the Chu Yun Empire-even if it had been the Jia Ma Empire, their complete annihilation would have had nothing to do with him. What concerned him was that if the village really had fallen, his earlier plan to gather information about the Heavenly Poison Swamp there would come to nothing.

Moreover, this also meant that these zombie-like things were present on the road to the Heavenly Poison Swamp, and perhaps even inside the swamp itself. Still, Xiao Yan felt that something was not quite right. How could such things possibly appear on the Dou Qi Continent?