Chapter 57：Melting

"This thing has 'heat-absorbing' characteristics! It proves that my previous speculation was correct. These corpses are driven and controlled by it. They are attuned to our body temperature. That's why they gradually gather here. They don't track their prey by the smell of blood but they track the heat!" Dudian was reviewing the information that he had compiled. "Scott and the rest should attract more undeads as their group would produce more heat in comparison to ours. Moreover there are very large number of undeads and they are not leftovers ignored by the Hunters. Most probably, these zombies had moved over from other regions!"

Dudian frowned at such thoughts. He closed his eyes to recall the map that Scott had. There was a gray area near the are no 8. It had not been cleaned. There were other colored areas which marked the hunting grounds for other consortiums.

Concluding his thoughts, Dudian said to Mason and Zach, "It will help us to lower our body temperature. Soon we will be able to get rid of these undeads. As they would not be able to track us anymore. Because we have only three of them which means Sham won't get any for now. We gotta hunt another one and dig the dark blue ball out of its head. That way we will have enough dark blue balls for four of us to use."

Mason was alarmed. "Would we actually be able to avoid being tracked by them with this?"

"How can we hunt them? They are way too strong. We are not their opponents." Zach added on.

Dudian smiled and responded. "Humans are the strongest not just because we are good at fighting but because of the wisdom that we have. We can't fight hand to hand with undeads but we can use our minds to easily kill them."

"Easy?" Zach and Macon both echoed in a daze.

In three years of harsh training they were taught on how to search for prey in the wilderness as well as in a variety of environments. It was all about how to look for food. However, they were not taught how to hunt, because that was the work of the Hunters. So although they were trained but in front of certain problems such as facing undeads they were at a loss. Yet, compared with the other children, their lack of panic was already very rare.

"The easiest way is to use fire." Dudian smiled and said: "You first find some fabric. As long as the fabric can be lit. The more the better. I will go to replace Sham. I will give you ten minutes to find and gather fabric downstairs in front of the building."

Macon and Zach's eyes lit up as they guessed what Dudian wanted to do. They quickly left the room in separate ways to search the various floors for combustible materials.

Dudian went upstairs to see Sham still tirelessly throwing stones. "You should rest for a while, I'll keep throwing the stones."

Sham replied. "No. Jobs like this, where no brainpower is needed, should be done by us. You are the only one we can rely on to leave this place."

Dudian laughed/ "Mason and Zach are doing everything. After everything is ready we will be able to leave. We only need the eastbound wind."

"What do you mean?" Sham was confused.

Dudian shook his head and said. "Nothing. I'm free till they find everything that I asked for. You should go upstairs and bring some stones over. Do not empty this floor." The he grabbed a stone from the ground. He looked at wandering undeads and found that the number of these undeads had increased by a few. There was a single undead which was wobbling over.

Dudian threw the stone to another place. The undeads were led to other side of building because of the sound emitted.

Ten minutes later, Mason and Zach had already gathered flammable materials in a pile in an open space in front of the building. Dudian began to throw stones and glass close to the circle where clothing and wood was gathered. The sound echoed out and grabbed undead group's attention. They staggered towards the circle.

Because of Dudian's previous instructions Mason began to act as he saw undeads coming over. He was on the second floor. He ignited the torch and threw it onto the circle. He lighted five torches. Four of them fall onto the circle because of close distance. The flame soon spread to all over the circle. Clothes and rotting wood furniture was burning together and soon turned into a raging fire.

The undeads came close to fire but avoided it instinctively. However, they began to walk around outside the fire circle.

Dudian was slightly dispirited as he saw the scene. He threw few more stones to attract the undeads into the fire. However the sound was not able to attract them.

Dudian ran downstairs in hurry and yelled: "Incinerate them!"

Mason, Zach and Sham immediately set to implement the spare plan prepared by Dudian in cases such as this. It was simple, just burn the undead! The plan was made so that if the undeads didn't go inside the fire pit. Now, the plan would just be handy.

The three quickly picked up sheets, quilts and blankets that were prepared in advance. They began to throw them at undeads. Although they were not affected by the but were cover in sheets, quilts or blanket. They were walking around the fire pit so the fabrics were ignited by the fire. Soon their bodies began to burn up.

Dudian was relieved as he quietly watched. After some time the flame extinguished. There were close to a dozen undeads lying by the fire pit. A few undeads which had avoided the inferno had fled to few hundred meters away and continued to move on.

Dudian threw rocks at once, which lured them to a far away distance. He then let Sham to replace him in continuing to throw the rocks. Mason, Zach and Dudian arrived downstairs. They were ready to get close to undeads when they saw one of them lift it hand a little. They were surprised, didn't the flame burn them up?

"The body is charred, but the dark blue ball can still continue to control them..." Dudian's facial experssion changed. He asked Mason and Zach to throw more combustible fabrics and wood so that they burn them for more.

Seven or eight minutes later, after a careful observation of the undeads, Dudian threw stones onto their bodies. He was relieved as he saw that the undeads did not respond to the stones. He took Mason and Zach with him and went down towards the corpses of undeads.

Sham lured the undeads away by throwing more rocks so the job was easy. Their gloves were wrapped in fabric to prevent skin burns. Afterwards, they cut off the heads.

There were total of eight heads which were brought back into the building. Dudian pierced the head and saw that its intracranial tissues had softened and were almost in liquid state. The dark blue ball in its skull was melting. It had shrank from the size of a thumb to a soybean's. After the dark blue ball melted into liquid it had the appearance the same as translucent color of water.?"It can't handle high temperatures? " Dudian frowned.

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