Dark Blood Path
Chapter 46: The Poisonous Zombie

In the early morning of the next day, the sky looked entirely blue and cloudless, and the sun hung high, shining a round of dazzling rays of light, sparkling a bright luster that flowed across the earth. The wilderness was scorching and humid, and the sounds of birds, insects, and wild beasts kept coming and going, making it lively.

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Learn English Via Listening | Beginner Level | Lesson 5 | Going Camping

Xiao Yu led more than forty elite members out of the cave, trekking in the jungle for over half an hour. After walking in the humid and hot woods for a while, everyone became soaked from the forest dew, looking like they had just been fished out of the water. This particular expedition had been one of the smoothest, if not the best, for the group. Probably due to the recurring passing of ogre monsters, forcing the surrounding beasts to flee for their lives, they encountered no monster attacks on the way. As a result, they arrived at the zombie coal mine area without any incidents.

The forest was tranquil. A few small black coal mounds stood silently in front of the dilapidated mine, surrounded by sporadic weeds, possibly because even weak beasts were reluctant to feed on them. Most of the zombies killed at the beginning were still festering on the ground in front of the mine, as many disgusting maggots had already been bred from them. A few carrion-eating birds were pecking at the corpses, and occasionally, when a zombie passed by, they flapped their wings and shrieked before flying away in fear.

Han Kexin mused as she surveyed the zombies wandering around the entrance of the mine from a distance, showing a somewhat stunned and puzzled expression, “Strange; I remember that when we left last time, the zombies outside were basically all cleared out, but now their numbers seem to have increased again.”

Upon noticing this, Wang Chao intervened, saying, “Boss, this world shouldn’t be entirely similar to a game, right? Where monsters will always respawn?!”

“Nonsense, of course not.” Xiao Yu carefully looked up at the zombies and slowly spoke: “they all came out from the mine. The majority of the undead wandering around at that time were zero-order rotten zombies, while most of the monsters over here are essentially all zombie miners; and the two others over there are chained zombies, which are stronger elementary monsters.”

“This big fat guy is so dumb; his brain is like a vase, and he only asks silly questions, it’s best if we ignore him.” Jiang Xiaowen repeatedly nodded her head like a chicken pecking at rice before changing her tone of voice, as she said: “However, Xiao Yu, your eyes are so sharp. You can actually still see everything from such a distance.”

Jin Shi patted him on the shoulders and said, “Fatty, you should try and say a few words less.”

Wang Chao shrugged his shoulders, ignoring Jiang Xiaowen’s sarcasm.

Xiao Yu turned his head and said to Yunyun, “Is it possible for you to shoot a zombie’s leg at a distance of 100 meters?”

Yun Yun felt nervous as those deep-black eyes stared back at her, yet she was very clear about her archery skills, so she said with little confidence, “I…I can try.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Xiao Yu continued, “you can practice your archery slowly; today, you will be entrusted with attracting the monsters.”

Yunyun nodded and took an arrow from her quiver before walking forward on her own. When she got to a certain distance, she set the arrow, drew the bowstring back, and aimed at the leg of a wobbly and staggering zombie miner. The arrow in her hand burst into flames, and as soon as she let go of the bowstring, the arrow completely turned into a flaming projectile and flew out. It did, however, miss the target by at least five to six meters. The arrow pierced the ground and was instantly devoured by the blaze of fire, turning into a heap of ashes. She blushed and quickly drew another arrow and shot it, but it also missed. When the third arrow was fired, it finally struck the zombie miner in the leg.

The zombie miner groaned strangely and limped towards her, its decaying hands clutching a pickaxe. The monster was slow, to begin with, and now that it had been hit in the leg by an arrow, with the flames scorching a significant portion of its lower limbs, it became even slower.

Seeing the zombie approaching, Xiao Yu sent a person from the team with late zero-order strength, “We will not assist you; you must rely solely on your strength to defeat it. If you fail, you will not be given a second chance. Unfortunately, this also means you will miss an important opportunity to advance to the elementary realm.”

“Got it.”

The guy was especially respectful toward Xiao Yu. He quickly responded, gripping a goblin’s short spear in both hands, and rushed up to engage the charging monster. The zombie moved very slowly, but thanks to its tough body, it was difficult to hurt or kill with ordinary weapons, and it took him a lot of effort to finally knock it down and kill it with a spear stab after battling for half an hour straight. He then directly absorbed the essence through his forehead as his strength entered the peak of the zero-order level.

Yunyun took up the bow and arrows from her quiver to draw the monsters back in and fired her shots before directing the remaining team members to defeat the aggregated creatures.

This battle was not only intended to be a round of training for Yun Yun’s archery, it also was meant to hone everyone’s combat skills, since the speed of these elementary zombies was neither fast nor slow, and they were constantly moving around randomly, making them undoubtedly one of the best moving targets. In addition, they were unresponsive and had a poor perception of their surroundings. Therefore, Yunyun could assertively shoot arrows and draw them in. The movements of zombie miners were relatively stiff, and their attack patterns were not particularly sharp, which made them more of a good combat practice for others as well.

It took everyone an entire morning to clear out all the zombie miners wandering around the mine. However, most of the group members completed their battles successfully, and four individuals even advanced to the elementary realm. Unfortunately, they all developed average common talents. The good thing, though, was that Yunyun’s archery skills had clearly improved after a whole morning of practice.

After that intense battle, everyone decided to take a break and eat some food to regain their energy. The lunch consisted of two pieces of bread, a can of luncheon meat, and a bottle of water. Everyone had about the same meal, including Xiao Yu. After lunch, they sat down and rested for a while before making their back way into the mine.

Trekking through the dark coal mine, people would hardly see their own fingers. Han Kexin’s bunch, with their exceptional physiques, were fine, but the others would be powerless over here. Xiao Yu assumed the role of exploring the mine to attract zombies thanks to his practical ability to see through the darkness. Not long after heading deep into the dark and dim coal mine, he found a chained zombie wandering by. He immediately attracted its attention before cutting off one of its legs, forcing it out. The chained zombie was relatively strong; hence, this time around, two people were arranged to deal with it simultaneously, and after a fierce fight, the two successfully killed the monster.

The group then repeated this consecutive action six to seven times in a row, allowing three people to advance smoothly.

Xiao Yu entered the coal mine for the eighth time, but the number of zombies there became much more scarce than before. He walked in deeper than ever till the point where the air was becoming foggy and blurry, and it was almost difficult to breathe in, yet he still didn’t see a single zombie in sight. Nevertheless, he had a dangerous sense of foreboding in his heart that if he continued in this way, he might finally come across that mighty existence.

The surrounding terrain gradually changed. There was more and more black coal, and the passage narrowed down while the traces of man-made construction ceased to exist. Now, it looked more like a natural cave than a mine.

“The mine is connected to an underground space, and there are undead creatures over there. Was this the reason?” Xiao Yu broke a lump of black coal from the wall, “only, the terrain here is really strange.”

At this moment, several roars loudly echoed from the darkness up ahead.

Although the voice was not loud, it was filled with terrifying killing intent. Xiao Yu’s hair stood on end as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water on his back, and his heart began to beat a little faster. The luminous beast blade in his hand suddenly burst into a cyan light, and he took a few steps forward.

Then as fast as lightning, a pale bone arrow shot out from the front!

Xiao Yu walked forward without blinking his eyes. He, who had seen through the attack trajectory long ago, just tilted his head calmly, and the bone arrow missed its target by a hair’s breadth and directly plunged into the hard rock wall behind him. Half of the arrow’s body sank into the wall, and numerous cracks appeared on the surrounding stones.

Four skeletons appeared in his line of sight. Their bones were large and complete, with a green light gleaming in their eye sockets and a pale bone bow grasped with their crackling hands.

These were skeleton archers, monsters with peak elementary strength, not enough to threaten Xiao Yu. The creepy roars he had heard previously came from a container that resembled a coffin standing amidst the four skeleton archers. The container itself appeared to be part of some exotic wild plant, with a swath of purple leaves wrapping around it and a purple fruit hanging in the middle as vines climbed all around.

Suddenly an arm stretched out from the ‘coffin’. The arm was thick, covered with purple-red hair, and its nails were long and sharp, glowing coldly.

Xiao Yu’s expression changed, “So the poisonous zombie was actually here!”

The four skeleton archers all pulled the strings of their bone bows at the same time before a strands of white mist gradually gathered all around the strings, quickly turning into four pale bone arrows, and the arrows were instantly shot out of the bows the moment they let go of their hands.

Bullet time!

The pupils of Xiao Yu’s eyes shrank suddenly, and the four arrows that had already left their strings abruptly stopped in the air, moving slowly at a speed similar to a snail’s. Right then, Xiao Yu sprang up with his blade, the weapon’s energy light flashed continuously, and the arms of the skeleton archers, as well as their bone bows, all shattered almost immediately by a cyan streak of light. The ‘coffin’ in the middle shook for a while, and a burly body rushed out.

In the blink of an eye, a dense purple-red mist surged out, covering almost the entirety of the area.

“This is… the poisonous fog! In such a small space, I won’t be able to hold on!”

Just as Xiao Yu covered his mouth, a nimble claw grabbed straight toward his face. He swung his blade to block it, then turned around and ran away. The powerful poisonous zombie stalked him like a ghost and closed in quickly.

In front of the mine, Han Kexin and others were standing more than 200 meters away and waiting. Unfortunately, Xiao Yu’s excursion this time was taking too long. Still, just as everyone was wondering when he would return, suddenly, they felt the ground around them vibrating slightly. Then there was a ‘bang’ noise in the surroundings as a large amount of strange purple-red fog spewed out from the mine entrance, among which were two figures chasing one another at extreme speed.

“This is the poisonous zombie, a first-order monster; all of you, back away!”

Xiao Yu yelled and dashed into the forest as the poisonous zombie followed him. The monster was shrouded in a thick poisonous fog, rendering it impossible to see its true form. It just left behind a trail of poisonous fog wherever it went. As a result, the grass and vegetation withered at a speed visible to the naked eye, while the insects and small animals died on the spot.

Jiang Xiaowen’s pretty face suddenly changed, and she exclaimed loudly: “What a scary zombie!”

“Everyone be careful.” Han Kexin reminded loudly: “Some things are coming out!”

Four pale skeletons rushed out of the mine through the poisonous fog. They were the skeleton archers whose arms and weapons were cut off by Xiao Yu. But even though they lost their right hand and weapons, they were still fierce. Seeing that Xiao Yu had run away, they quickly rushed to kill everyone else.

The skeleton archer’s left arm struck a person who had just entered the elementary level. The short spear in his hand broke apart immediately, and the impact sent him flying four to five meters back, seriously injuring him.

No one dared to underestimate these guys anymore. Wang Chao went berserk for the first time in this battle and engaged a skeleton archer head-on. Everyone else also did not dare to be careless and flocked up to fight these four peak of elementary level monsters.

Han Kexin ordered loudly: “All zero-order members retreat; everyone else entangle them!”

The body of the skeleton archer was as hard as steel. People below the elementary level would need a magic weapon in hand. Otherwise, they can’t harm it. Even those who had just entered the elementary level were not much of a help. Only the few who had entered the elementary level for a while and only those with proper equipment could harm the monsters.