Oddities

Xu Le was silent at first, then anger took over and he exploded.

"Motherfucker! What the fuck is this shit? It just never ends!"

As soon as that classic profanity left his mouth, the flame before him began to writhe, its eerie fire forming a ring of text.

A string of words that made Xu Le look like a complete clown.

[You are angry. Anger is bait for all fierce species and will attract them.]

"Phew!"

Xu Le immediately shut his mouth, took a deep breath, and quickly adjusted his mental state.

Then he forced a smile uglier than a sob.

"Angry? Not a chance. I never get angry. Seriously!"

The longer Xu Le spoke, the quieter his voice became, until even he could barely hear himself.

This wasn't cowardice. This was rational restraint.

Yes, rationality and restraint!

As his breathing gradually steadied, Xu Le calmed down and continued thinking.

The house was dilapidated, and he had ten minutes left.

With what he had on hand, repairing the house under such tight time constraints and conditions was absolutely impossible.

Outside the house lay endless darkness.

Darkness itself meant danger, so running outside was even less of an option.

What he would inevitably have to face, then, were the two level 1 oddities: one in ten minutes, and another at midnight.

Which raised the question: when faced with an oddity...

How should he handle it?

Or rather... how could he survive?

That question left Xu Le silent again.

Given his current physical condition, if the oddity was stronger than a sixty-kilogram wolf and hostile toward him, he was almost certainly doomed.

He didn't know how he had been transferred here from the ICU, but he didn't want to die here so soon.

At least now he had a reasonably normal body, apart from the wound on his chest.

Since he didn't want to sit around waiting to die, he would have to make a few calculated moves.

To that end, as a writer accustomed to drafting outlines, Xu Le hastily put together a battle plan.

First, he quickly cleared out the house, tossing all the useless clutter outside to give himself enough room to move.

He checked the weapons available to him.

Fire, a dagger, and a gun.

The dagger and firearm, in particular, were crucial.

He had no information on oddities, so he had no concrete benchmark for their strength.

Ideally, if a so-called level 1 oddity was about as strong as an ordinary adult man, or slightly stronger...

Then, with a good enough shot, the firearm could kill it instantly with a bullet to the head.

If that failed, he could still make one last desperate attempt with the dagger.

Of course, that was the optimistic scenario.

If the oddity's strength far exceeded that level, with the physical power of the lions and tigers of his previous life, or bizarre abilities like some supernatural entity...

Then...

"Well, it's actually not that bad. Overthinking some things only gives you more worries. Besides, even if it's as strong as a lion or tiger, maybe I can kill it with a sliding tackle. Everyone online is so confident. Surely I can't be worse than those keyboard warriors?"

Xu Le nodded, regulated his breathing, and recovered his strength.

Then another thought occurred to him: if the corpse on the floor would mutate into an oddity...

Would dismembering it now and throwing it outside stop the oddity from appearing?

The moment that thought surfaced, his mind grew unsettled.

Xu Le didn't know whether he qualified as ruthless, but he could make the decision to do something brutal for his own safety.

Standing before the corpse again, Xu Le tightened his grip on the short sword.

As he looked at the corpse, his breathing grew a little heavier.

At that moment, the wind and cicadas outside seemed to grow louder in his ears, like the roars of some wild beast.

Looking at the corpse before him, Xu Le suddenly felt the world spin.

An intense ringing filled his ears, and his vision twisted into a spiraling rainbow, making him vomit violently.

At the same time, something in Xu Le's brain seemed to be reconnecting.

Some guilt and memories surfaced, but he couldn't remember exactly why he felt guilty.

Fortunately, he had gained some knowledge about oddities.

He also learned that the man on the floor was called Old Zhou.

"A dagger can't dismember a body. Dealing with mutation requires temperatures of fifteen hundred degrees. Firewood won't burn hot enough. Kerosene... where's the kerosene? Fuck! What idiot spilled it?"

The kerosene bottle had shattered, and the oil had seeped into the gaps between the floorboards. Xu Le poked at them a few times with his dagger, but it was too exhausting. That wouldn't work.

"There's no time. Don't panic. I can kill him."

He needed to use what little time he had left to prepare.

Xu Le checked the gun and dagger again and rearranged his surroundings.

Looking at the writhing flame before him, he knew it was nearly time.

[There is a corpse within the safe zone. It has been dead for over 4 hours. The corpse will become a level 1 oddity in 1 minute.]

Xu Le glanced at Old Zhou's corpse and sighed, feeling somewhat conflicted.

"One minute left. Hopefully what I've prepared will help."

Among the memories that had suddenly appeared was some knowledge about mutation.

If a human corpse wasn't cremated in time and was exposed to an environment without sufficient light, it would mutate after four hours.

With sufficient light, that period would be extended to seventy-two hours.

One must not approach an oddity during its mutation, or one would be contaminated by ancient yin duo energy. Once contaminated, even anyone who made it back would be killed by the guards.

More than eighty percent of oddities formed from mutated human corpses were living corpses.

Living corpses were probably something like zombies, but under the influence of ancient yin duo power, they were stronger and faster.

There was no benchmark for exactly how fast or strong they were, and Xu Le had never seen one.

All he knew from his memories was that ordinary humans had a hard time resisting living corpses barehanded.

But he had fire, a blade, a gun, and twenty-two bullets.

With proper preparation, he should have a chance!

He hadn't pushed the corpse outside. Watching the other man mutate and facing him prepared was at least far better than being ambushed in the dark.

Xu Le took a deep breath. He had surrounded the corpse with fires. He didn't know whether this would hinder the other man's movements even slightly, but he had done it anyway.

Yet before the oddity appeared, whispers sounded in Xu Le's ear again.

This time, Xu Le heard them clearly. The speaker had a strange accent, something like a regional dialect.

[Croak. Are you still looking for me? But you don't have any offerings. How am I supposed to help you?]

Xu Le froze for a moment, then quickly reacted.

"What counts as an offering?"

No one responded, but Xu Le didn't lose heart and kept asking.

"Hey! Mr. Needs Offerings, are you still there?"

Still no answer. He didn't dare turn around, either, because the corpse nearby seemed to have moved.

Yes, it really had moved!

Back in his previous life, this would have been a corpse literally rising from the dead, wouldn't it?

His fingers trembling slightly, Xu Le immediately rubbed them in the charcoal ash beside the bed.

It was dirty, but it would dry his fingers a little, keeping his sweaty hands from interfering when he worked the bolt.

The flames surrounding the corpse began to dance.

[All oddities savor fear. Your fear will attract them.]

Motherfucker... the monster's about to spawn right in my face. Could you give me something a little less cursed?

Crack!

Old Zhou's corpse had risen from the floor in a bizarre posture, his back toward Xu Le.

His posture was so unnatural that Xu Le even heard several bones snap.

Xu Le's heart nearly leaped into his throat.

Old Zhou's corpse abruptly twisted around. A turn of one hundred and eighty degrees like that would inevitably snap his neck and cervical spine, killing him. But what if he was already dead?

Old Zhou's eyes were now completely white, and his almost reflective nails served as a warning to Xu Le.

One swipe from those, and he would probably be done for.

Old Zhou opened his mouth. Amid the sharp cracks of breaking bones, pointed teeth emerged.

Xu Le felt that this guy... might be a little stronger than a zombie.

All right, was he really only a little stronger?

Hrr!

Old Zhou, now a living corpse, let out a low growl at Xu Le, and the smell of decay began to fill the room.

Fortunately, Xu Le was reasonably strong-minded. Now that he was prepared, along with the fear came a certain extreme excitement.

His shoulders trembled slightly. This time it wasn't fear, but his adrenaline surging.

It was his body's signal to him, telling him it was ready to fight.

Just as Xu Le thought the living corpse would charge through the flames at him, he stayed where he was and twisted his arm.

Then, amid the sounds of snapping bones and tearing skin, his arm actually stretched toward Xu Le like a tentacle.

Xu Le stared, dumbfounded.

"Fuck, normal zombies can't do that."

There was no time to be shocked. Xu Le grabbed the dagger beside him and dodged the corpse's claw.

With a wet thud, Xu Le pinned the claw to the wooden bed with his dagger.

The living corpse was immensely strong. This restraint wouldn't hold for more than a few seconds.

And he was already charging over!

Xu Le planted a foot on the dagger's hilt, pinning the living corpse's arm down. This would not only restrain his attack, but also limit the path of his movements.

Seizing the opportunity, Xu Le raised his firearm.

The safety was already off, and the bolt had been worked.

All he had to do now was shove the muzzle into the other man's face.

As the living corpse charged straight at him, Xu Le let go with his hand, kicked him in the chest, narrowed his eyes, and thrust the muzzle forward.

Bang!

Flame flashed from the muzzle, and the bullet sank into the other man's forehead without resistance.

The living corpse's head burst like a watermelon, splattering red and white matter across the floor.

The firearm's power was certainly satisfying.

After letting his emotions settle, Xu Le's expression gradually grew serious, and he slowly spoke.

"That's it?"