Chapter 518 - Eastern Dragon's Back: On The Eve Of Attack
The forests in China were already large to begin with and many brave explorers had been lost in the deep mountains only to never hear of them again; even to this day, it was unknown whether they had died with the passage of time or had been eaten by some feral animal.
However, the arrival of the Soul Record on Earth changed everything and the already vast forests of China turned into their own worlds.
Trees that rose into the sky with the intention of caressing the clouds with their leaves, mutant plants that camouflaged themselves and pretended to be only inanimate objects with the intention of catching their prey unawares, fantasy creatures that could easily become the protagonists of a horror movie or a mythological story, and who knows how many more mysteries they hid in their depths.
But one of the most terrifying things was that even the cities were slowly turning into forests; forests which at some point could be occupied by more beasts or any other vicious race.
There was no doubt that mankind was losing in this battle for survival.
The human body was weak and the fact that they were emotional beings did not help much in this kind of circumstances either; compared to the beasts that possessed extremely tenacious bodies or compared to the goblins that were war machines from the moment they were born, mankind was like a baby that was just learning to walk.
The howling wind brought with it the freezing cold of the slow but sure fall of dusk.
The pure smell of nature devoid of much of the past pollution in company with the beautiful sunset that was beginning to rise on the distant horizon created an extremely beautiful place similar to a vivid painting.
Normally, at this time of day, the beasts would begin to roar as the descent of night was when they became especially more active. Strangely, however, there was no sound from within the woods.
Swoosh!
Suddenly, a particularly powerful gale blew in and from the distance brought with it a strange iron smell; the characteristic smell of blood.
A black-clad silhouette slowly approached from the northern forest. His footsteps were extremely soft, so much so that they produced practically no sound at all when the battle boots came into contact with the solid earth covered with dead leaves.
In the right hand of the silhouette was a golden spear of exquisite appearance and his appearance was simply the very description of the word charm. But the most striking thing would probably be the four-meter tall deer that the man was dragging behind him.
Of course, this person was none other than Bai Zemin, who had left the base to head for the only relatively close place through which he and his faction could cross to continue their route in a southerly direction.
Bang!
Bai Zemin dropped the body of the deer heavily on the ground and looked up at the sky with narrowed eyes.
"... It really isn't easy. If it weren't for my strength, trying to cross so many kilometers of roads covered by thick grass and surrounded by all sorts of creatures would be no different from committing suicide." Bai Zemin sighed as he recalled his journey to reach the bridge known as Eastern Dragon's Back due to its extensive length.
Bai Zemin had only covered approximately 200 to 300 kilometers, which was not too much in reality and even less so considering his movement speed. However, the amount of work he had to do along the route kept him busy for more than six whole hours.
After not being used for so long and with the forests constantly expanding, the roads heading south were in a state that could only be called deplorable.
The roots of countless trees had begun to spread underground as they grew larger and larger after being fed by the mana of the world which inadvertently ended up causing the road to break down, huge trees that had been felled probably by some giant creature blocking the road, Bai Zemin even found a nest of mutant snakes that were over ten meters long each directly five meters away from the main road.
To make the most of the time and to avoid wasting time waiting for others, Bai Zemin set to work by himself; to begin with, he was used to doing hard work anyway so it was no big deal since Bai Zemin had never been a spoiled young man considering his past economic position.
Since Bai Zemin could not afford to have too much manpower right now as most of his forces were focusing on capturing firm control over Baiquan Camp or on the large-scale move from the north to the south, so it was better to get to work on his own rather than wait for days to pass stupidly.
Although it was a bit tedious, after about five hours of work he managed to craft a road wide enough and relatively safe through which a convoy of several sizable vehicles could pass.
The number of beasts he faced and killed was several thousand, honestly, Bai Zemin stopped counting when the numbers exceeded three figures. He took only two corpses with him; one of them was the deer lying on the ground and the other was inside his storage ring.
Since the bodies of the evolved beasts were generally too large, Bai Zemin did not want to take up too much space of his spatial storage ring. So, he simply took all the Soul Stones he could take and stored the blood he could save in the liquid storage pearl before continuing on his way.
"I guess I'll have Shangguan Bing Xue to send someone to take care of those bodies. That should be a few tons of meat and plenty of resources to build equipment." Bai Zemin muttered as he waved his hand and took several things from inside his spatial storage ring.
Pots, pans, a carafe with a small portable stove, a lighter, vegetables, rice, a cutting board, chopsticks, soybean oil, salt, pepper, and many more condiments.
Having a space storage ring was undoubtedly a tremendous relief. Bai Zemin felt that the current him could not live a day if his ring was taken away from him now that he had tasted the forbidden fruit.
Bai Zemin was not a genius in the kitchen but at least he could fend for himself. At the very least, Bai Zemin was confident he wouldn't starve to death even if he ended up being alone for the rest of time without a female partner to rely on and to share.
"... Right now I'm really thankful I wasn't born into a rich family." Bai Zemin chuckled as he recalled how Chen He once burned the roast beef he tried to prepare together with other soul evolvers as a celebration after migrating all the survivors from the North Camp to the Beginner Village.
One hour later, Bai Zemin managed to prepare several dishes using deer meat.
Roast meat, fried meat, braised meat, steamed meat, sautéed vegetables, fried vegetables, boiled rice, fried rice with tomato sauce, etc.
Although it wasn't a great variety, Bai Zemin didn't mind. To begin with, he wasn't picky about food. As long as he could fill his stomach with something edible, Bai Zemin would be more than satisfied; his personality had been molded from the moment he decided to become independent so as not to make things difficult for his younger sister or anyone else in his family.
"Mm. This is good... Not as good as Qing Ming's food, but good in the end." Bai Zemin muttered as he chewed on a piece of tender meat.
The evolved beast meat was simply delicious. Even the worst cook in the world could prepare a delicacy with it if it existed before the apocalypse.
Bai Zemin took his time to eat and as he sat on the corpse of the giant deer, he began to think carefully about what he would do next.
"Eastern Dragon's Back is about 100 kilometers long and approximately 200 meters wide. It was built in the year 1959 and once every 20 years, constant inspections and improvements were made to prevent its deterioration.... Considering that we are currently in the year 2022, the third inspection was only about 3 or 4 years ago so the bridge should be in optimal condition."
"Even if several hundred vehicles modified with heavy body parts of different beasts were to pass over the bridge, Eastern Dragon's Back will definitely be able to withstand. However...." Bai Zemin paused as he thought this far and frowned tightly.
"However.... I doubt that the bridge could withstand the confrontation between two Second Order beings.... No. Even the battle between two First Order beings would probably end up collapsing the bridge sooner or later."
The shockwaves from the battle between First Order beings could not be underestimated at all since if those fighting were Strength-focused powerhouses or possessed overly destructive skills, everything within a radius of between ten and twenty meters would surely be crushed.
Although the Eastern Dragon's Back bridge had been built and modified with the best possible materials to avoid problems for obvious reasons as considering the size of the bridge a collapse would represent one of mankind's greatest catastrophes, Bai Zemin had no confidence that the bridge could withstand too much in the apocalypse.
"I'm afraid I'll have to make sure to finish every battle as fast as possible.... More importantly, I have to be careful with my attacks." Bai Zemin immediately began to feel a tremendous headache even though he was only going over what he could and could not do as well as thinking up new ideas.
"Gravity Manipulation is a big no no. Crimson Blood Judgment is out of the equation, I can't afford to use this destructive skill even if a dangerous enemy appears or else the bridge will undoubtedly fall. My greatsword Crimson Thunder Dragon's Last Words can't participate here either..... As for Annihilation of the Falling Sky, I'd better keep its spear form; this way I'll avoid the air cannons caused by the explosions of a greatsword and at the same time I'll be able to finish off enemies without letting them get too close of me."
Because the Bloodthirsty Wolf Full Body Armor of Bai Zemin had been practically completely destroyed after experiencing so many battles to the death during the invasion of Oblon World, Bai Zemin naturally could not use it as it was really useless at this point.
In fact, it was not just his armor; Bai Zemin's shoulder pads, as well as his leg protectors, had been partially or completely destroyed in Oblon World.
Moreover, since all his forging tools were in the Beginning Village, he also could not afford to forge new armor or any piece of equipment too extravagant to him. After all, Bai Zemin had no choice but to rely on the normal hammer used by the blacksmiths that Camp Baiquan had.
Of course, he was still able to forge a Rank 1 armor with 600 points of physical defense. However, it was far from being comparable to his past Rank 2 armor with over 1000 points of physical defense.
Although the current Bai Zemin was more experienced than in the past regarding blacksmithing and working with leather, he had actually been lucky back then when his now-destroyed Bloodthirsty Wolf Full Body Armor was born. Furthermore, while he could have increased the quality of the armor by embedding some Soul Stone, Bai Zemin felt that it was a waste to use a Soul Stone in a suit of armor that would be replaced sooner rather than later.
After Bai Zemin spent the entire morning using the hammer, chisel, anvil, tongs, and other tools to craft a new leather armor to fit his immediate needs, as well as a new pair of shoulder pads and leg protectors, Bai Zemin left the base but not before telling Shangguan Bing Xue about it.
Now, he was only 500 meters away from his real target.
"Even from here, I can sense several strong auras mixed in among a huge horde of undead creatures." Bai Zemin frowned harder and harder as he realized that this task might be more difficult than he initially estimated.
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