Dark Moon Era

Walking alone in the Safety Zone, the whistling wind seemed to blow stronger and louder because of the loneliness.

Dark clouds rumbled and scattered, ultimately being carried away by the strong wind to someplace far away, revealing the pale sky behind the clouds.

There was neither daylight nor gloomy weather. Only the white brazen light shone blindingly.

Sorrow was a strong power. It made Tang Ling numb to the cold, distance, and even time. It might have been a long time, but it also might have been a moment.

Tang Ling ultimately stood on the edge of the transfer hub. Looking at all the crumbled walls and ruined paths, the remaining daylight that was rather stagnant seemed to shine a little brighter and showed no signs of dimming down.

Even after some time after the fire, blurry smoke still floated around the transfer hub. The pungent singed smell and the coppery stench of blood filled his nose just like that frightening night.

Tang Ling’s Adam’s apple moved as he forcefully endured the tremendous pain and slowly walked into the rubble.

The already muddy paths were blanketed with debris and broken tiles. It was painful to even walk on them, but Tang Ling’s heart was numb to all the outer pain. His gaze looked empty and lost, and his heart was numbed by an indescribable sensation.

As if a certain power was pushing him forward, it allowed him to neglect every outer sensation and kept him walking. Tang Ling even forgot how he had gotten out from the Safety Sector, or how he went through the highly guarded gate.

Unable to think of any of that at the moment, all that was left swirling in his mind was the moment when his grandmother and his sister were killed. Horrified and saddened, he seemed to have latched onto the only comfort that he could grasp, which was that as long as he could reach the spot where they were killed, he felt like he could see them again!

Psst!

A rustle from the broken tiles and debris came beside Tang Ling’s feet. It was extra irritating to the ears among the dead silence in the area.

However, before Tang Ling could venture deeper into the destroyed transfer hub, the surroundings seemed to have reacted to his footsteps as all sorts of rustling exploded in the area.

Psst!

Pikpak!

Bang!

Tang Ling suddenly stopped. He arched his body instinctively and cried, “Who’s there!?”

As his voice echoed in the Safety Zone, his breath hurried all of a sudden. Fresh and clear consciousness suddenly gushed out from the bottom of his heart, seeping into the numbed and delayed mind of his that had been in a trance.

How did he arrive here again? Why would he have such a strange impulse? It seemed reasonable yet extremely weird!

The memories of him walking all the way here seemed to have deviated as well. The seemingly connected yet murky details were filled with a sense of disconnect that felt wrong.

Unfortunately, there was no time for Tang Ling to think about that. As his cry subsided, the atmosphere went silent for less than a second before it erupted. The soft and faint rustling in the area turned brazen and changed into loud noises that could cover both the sky and the land.

Distorted human figures stood up shakily from the ground one after another. A little further away in the ruins, a charred and bloody arm burst out from the rubles and swept away the debris on top of it. With a low growl, it started to climb out of the ground less than ten meters from Tang Ling.

“Uncle Zhang?” A familiar name popped up in Tang Ling’s heart. It matched the figure that he saw before him.

Uncle Zhang died under the sword of the Purple Moon Warriors. Did he wander his way here?

A sour stinging sensation swirled around Tang Ling’s mind, but a rotten stench carried by the wind blew towards his face. Tang Ling bent backward instantly and dodged that gray claw that tried to grab his face!

With the speed of a wild beast and accompanied by the rotten stench of a corpse, the cold gray eyes showed a frenzied desire to feed.

Is he really Uncle Zhang? He’s completely turned into a zombie!

Any human dead body, if not cremated in time, would turn into a zombie. It was the rule of the era and no one could break it.

Looking at the waves of wobbly figures further away that slowly surrounded him, Tang Ling did not even have to think, and he knew he was surrounded by zombies.

Uncle Zhang’s appearance was just the start of the movement of this death classical symphony.

Tang Ling fell into the depths of the abyss of despair instantly, but he was unable to continue thinking about all these strange events anymore. His natural Precise Instinct allowed him to determine every detail of the sudden situation from the very first moment.

As he tumbled away, Tang Ling grabbed a piece of sharp stone with his hand and stopped his tumbling body by latching onto a broken pillar. Before he could catch his breath, he rolled over and relied on the pilar to stand up.

Fresh blood and flesh were a lethal temptation to the zombies. After missing the first grab, the zombie threw itself at Tang Ling once more.

Under such circumstances, Tang Ling took a big step towards his left and spun around with a jump without even thinking.

The zombie threw itself over in a timely manner. Tang Ling dodged it in the nick of time, causing the zombie to miss, but he could not stop the powerful momentum from his movements, hence he crashed into the pilar.

Tang Ling fell to the ground at the same time as the zombie. The spot where he landed was precisely behind the zombie!

The zombie turned its head around and growled angrily. It had lost the ability to think, so all its mind had was instinctive anger. How could a weak prey escape its grasp?

Tang Ling puckered his lips as he relied on his instinct and curled his arm around the zombie’s neck from behind.

He lifted the sharp stone in his hand up, and the zombie retracted its hand, trying to claw Tang Ling’s arm over its neck.

If the zombie so much as scratched Tang Ling, there would only be one ending—transforming into a zombie himself.

There was no time for Tang Ling to hesitate. The sharp stone landed powerfully at the back of the zombie’s head, and the black blood burst out instantly upon impact.

The zombie’s body froze for a second before it fell weakly in Tang Ling’s arms.

It was not a difficult kill though as bashing a zombie’s head with a sturdy stone was no different from cracking a fruit.

A clean kill! However, Tang Ling was not pleased about how nimble his hands had become, how strong his power had grown, or how perfectly he was able to match his Precise Instinct for the first time.

Once upon a time, he extravagantly hoped that his body could keep up with his judgment.

Pak!

Tossing away the stone, Tang Ling showed a painful yet strange smile. The moment he bashed the zombie’s head with the stone, he was able to lock gazes with the zombie. Even though the gray and greedy eyes were a stranger to him, the face was a familiar one.

The pain suffused quickly. Accompanied by the so-called memories, Tang Ling instantly fell into ‘purgatory’.

He felt like Uncle Zhang was standing in front of him, wielding a sharp stick and poking it into a sharp-toothed rabbit’s body.

“Remember. The moment a sharp-toothed rabbit jumps, it will expose its soft stomach, so you must be quick.”

Uncle Zhang had smiled kindly in front of him and quietly stuffed a small piece of ration into his hand. While the ration was not big, it saved the family who had been starving for two days.

Puckering his lips hard, Tang Ling refused to cry. He quietly grabbed a rusty rod that was used to support a tent from the rubble beside him.

With a deep inhalation, he picked a direction with fewer zombies ahead before moving forward towards the thick tropical forest of the Secondary Safety Zone steadily.