Chapter 93

The movement of Gong Lixin and his entourage was very natural and didn't attract the attention of Tan Mingyuan. He saw that the sky was getting darker. The jungle that was not too far away was covered in shadows that light couldn't cut through. He reminded the others, "Let's rest for five more minutes. All those that need to piss, hurry up and go. The car won't wait for you. If you are late, this Laozi will kick you in the crotch!"

The ability users sneered and some people immediately stood up and walked into the bushes to relieve themselves, not aware of the dangers lurking nearby.

A man whistled as he leaned back and relieved himself. He didn't notice that the dark brown soil under his feet was gradually turning into pale yellow sand. He was then surprised that under the sole of his feet, the ground had become unusually soft. A pair of skinless bones in the shape of hands with sharp nails at its ends suddenly grabbed his ankle and pulled him into the quicksand.

The man let out a scream of horror and disappeared in the blink of an eye. The pale yellow quicksand slowly returned to its former brown soil shape, but the layer of wild grass that had covered it had sunk into the ground along with the man, leaving the space bare.

Hearing the scream of the ability user, Tan Mingyuan and the others quickly ran over to check the situation, but after a round of laps, they didn't find anything strange and had no choice but to return to their original location. A living person disappeared in a flash, leaving only a pool of warm and smelly urine. This situation was too strange and fear slowly spread in the hearts of the group members.

Tan Mingyuan took the initiative and made a decision. "Quick, leave this place immediately."

Gong Lixin and the others still sat on the rocks and didn't move. Tan Mingyuan didn't notice their strange behaviour due to his anxiety, but urged them to evacuate instead. But this time, it was already too late. Thirty diameters of grass under their feet slowly turned into sand and became a pit of quicksand which left no man alive.

They rushed to the off-road vehicle on the side of the road and raised their feet off the grass and sand. They didn't run far before their ankles were caught and they fell into the sand and could no longer pull themselves out. The group members were shocked and started struggling, but the more they struggled, the more they fell and soon, the sand had swallowed them up to their calves.

"Don't move! It's quicksand!" Tan Mingyuan shouted a warning, feeling complex and anxious, added, "We might be dealing with a third-level low-grade earth system zombie and there's probably two of them or else one couldn't have the ability to change such a large amount of soil."

After his voice fell, despair and fear erupted. A pair of hands grabbed ahold of the throats of the members and suffocated them. A third-level low-grade zombie was a god-like existence for them. Just last month, two teams of ability users on the island had met a third-level low-grade fire system zombie when they were out on a mission. At that time, they were more than 50 people yet only three survived and those three had burns all over their body and died within a few days. After that, only six of the original eight ability user teams remained and the strength of the base was greatly affected. If not for that, Bao Long and Kang Zhengyuan wouldn't agree to the presence of Gong base's forces.

Thinking of the Gong family, Tan Mingyuan discovered that Gong Lixin and his party were sitting on a rock and watched them safely. The gesture could be called leisurely, relaxed and comfortable even.

"Young Master Gong, pull us out!" Just as the people were about to die and were on their last straws, Tan Mingyuan anxiously shouted and didn't see how abnormal the others' behaviour was. The other members of the group also quickly called for their help making for a very chaotic scene.

Gong Lixin sat on the rock and didn't move. A pair of dark eyes stared at them quietly. There was no joy nor sorrow on his face, neither was fear present, only a state of indifference and ignorance that made people not dare to look straight at him.

This was the aura only the top ability users could have and faced with it, people couldn't help but surrender. Tan Mingyuan's pupils violently contracted for a moment. He had vaguely thought that there was more than meets the eye to Gong Lixin. The change in the atmosphere that he had felt before had not been an illusion.

But their current situation hadn't allowed him to think too deeply about it as the earth ability zombie lurking underground had begun to act. It suddenly stretched out its claws from underneath the sand and dragged a member down. In the area where their group were stuck, a horrible crunching noise sounded and blood-stained sand was sprayed from the bottom of the pit. The thick smell of blood spread across, stimulating the nerves of the trapped people.

Their legs and feet went soft as they kept struggling and more anxiously than before, called for help. However, Gong Lixin still didn't move and his team members also quietly watched on with an indifferent expression, as if they were watching a farce. Having faced numerous life and death situations, their wills had already become as strong as iron. Even the eleven-years-old Xiao Sun Jie's appearance had the vicissitudes of indifference.

The group members were dragged into the quicksand by the zombies one by one and, in less than half an hour, only twenty-seven people remained out of the forty. Tan Mingyuan spoke up again, his tone containing his desperation. "Young Master Gong, I beg you to save me and my brothers. You can rest assured, I will never tell anyone about your true strength." Tan Mingyuan still had brains and understood the ability users hiding their power was definitely trying to play pigs to eat the tigers and immediately showed them respect. After all, if he died then that was the end.

"Save them. If they are dead, it won't be easy to explain how we are still alive after we return." Lin Wenbo opened his mouth and looked at Gong Lixin warmly, who had inquired his opinion.

"Hn, then I'll save them." Gong Lixin nodded and flew out. He took Tan Mingyuan's arm and pulled him out of the quicksand, throwing him to the opposite tree.

Tan Mingyuan who had been thrown towards a thick tree trunk by Gong Lixin, had a dumbfounded expression. This is it? This is being saved? So fast and so easily? He looked at the quicksand before him and thought so incredulously.

Without waiting for him to return to reality, Gong Lixin's pushed out with his tiptoes and flew again and pulled another member of the group out and threw them towards the opposite rock. At the same time, Song Haoran and Lin Wenbo no longer suppressed their abilities and released fire bombs and slashed with piercing claws at the zombie sticking out of the quicksand, saving an ability user who was about to be dragged down. A steel rope wrapped around the team member's waist and quickly pulled him out of the quicksand, dragging them onto the rock.

Song Haoran frequently fired to cover Gong Lixin and Lin Wenbo so that they could quickly fish people out. Under the tacit cooperation of the three people, 18 members were successfully rescued and placed on nearby rocks or trees. The group of people sitting in the same place, all of them feeling unsettled as they seemed to have seen their lives flashing before their eyes.

"Oh no, our stones are sinking." Before they could breathe a sigh of relief, Gu Nan shouted.

The prey that was in the palm of its hands had been taken away after much hardship. The starving zombie that had been hungry for a long time was naturally unwilling to give up and immediately turned the soil around them to sand and swore to wipe the others out. The rock carried the weight of more than a dozen people and the speed of its sinking was very fast. To be able to survive, only killing the zombie would get them out.

But the soil had turned into quicksand and they had nowhere to go. Also, the zombie was hidden in the ground, how could they kill it? The faces of the 18 people that had just been rescued from purgatory once again fell and became deathly pale again.

Gong Lixin furrowed his eyebrows and told the team members, "Don't move, I'll kill it."

Tan Mingyuan saw a light flash by and secretly measure the power level of Gong Lixin. The zombies were third-level zombies yet he was calm and self-assured. If he was so calm and confident when facing them, could it be that Young Master Gong's level was above third-level? If that was true, did he have to switch sides? His heart felt turbulent as his eyes were firmly locked on Gong Lixin.

Gong Lixin's voice had barely fallen when he jumped from the rock and stepped onto the sand. The eighteen people who weren't familiar with him, showed a horrified expression before being stunned. They saw him walked smoothly on the sand without even leaving a single footprint, as if he was walking on air.

"Wow, there's no trace in the sand! I almost forgot that Young Master Gong is a wind ability user. He could use the wind to float in the air!" Ma Jun thought so out loud. When his eyes fell on Gu Nan, he patted the other's shoulder and asked curiously, "Hey, can you fly too?"

Gu Nan's gaze was focused on Young Master Gong's fairy-like appearance and shook his head, "Not yet. To be able to fly using the wind so freely like Young Master Gong, I need to at least be at fourth-level low-grade. I can only climb walls and jump from building to building for now."

Ma Jun patted his shoulder to show his encouragement. The two people's chatter provoked a storm in the hearts of the 18 people from the prison, especially Tan Mingyuan. The knife-mark on the bridge of his nose was somewhat distorted. Fourth-level low-grade? How could that be? His hearing definitely had a problem. As he thought so, he held out his little finger and scratched his ears.

But soon, Gong Lixin used facts to prove that what they had heard was anything but false, just that they lacked the courage to face reality.

Walking quietly on the sand, he felt the zombie lurking in the ground. Gong Lixin moved his hand and aimed his palm towards his feet. The soft sand was hit by the palm of his hand. Feeling the vibration from above ground, the hungry zombie couldn't resist and immediately sneaked closer. It extended their claws out of the sand, trying to drag their prey down, but only caught empty space.

Gong Lixin had long been waiting for this moment. He grabbed the zombie's wrist and pulled it out of the ground. Without waiting for it to react, his other hand took out a knife and inserted it in between the zombie's brows, piercing its skull and, conveniently, dragging the crystal nucleus out, making it fall out.

After red and white brain matter fell out, Gong Lixin threw the dead zombie to the side as if throwing away a piece of garbage. As its life dissipated, the ground restored back from dark yellow sand to black-brown soil, but the layer of grass and weeds that had grown on top of it had sunk into the ground, leaving the top bare.

The time needed to kill a three-level low-grade zombie took him only half a minute. The hit was clean and neat and was as effortless as pinching an ant. What did that mean? It meant that the difference between Young Master Gong and this zombie was by at least a level! This meant that Young Master Gong was indeed a fourth-level low-grade ability user! Tan Mingyuan had recovered from his shock and was already making calculations in his heart.

He quickly climbed down from the tree and took out the two wind system nuclei that had been taken away from Li Dongsheng earlier. He said in a respectful manner, "Young Master Gong, I was previously rude. These two nuclei are returned to you." His words just fell when he eyes laid upon Song Haoran's and Lin Wenbo's different coloured irises making his heart jump.

A fourth-level low-grade and two third-level low-grade, they could easily kill the eighteen of them and killing Bao Long and Kang Zhengyuan was only a matter of minutes. He then knew that the heads of their base didn't have much longer to lead. After thinking about it for a second, he secretly gave a look to his team members. There was no problem. Everyone nodded and chose to join Young Master Gong's side. In their current world, the strong was always on top.

Gong Lixin didn't deny him. After taking the nuclei, he threw them towards Gu Nan and Cao Yanan and threw the three-level low-grade earth nucleus in his hand to Sun Tiantian. Sun Tiantian hurried to catch it and her cheeks were red from excitement. With this nucleus, she could also be promoted to the third-level and then, she would be among the strongest. After today's incident, she would be able to solidify the ground and kill the zombie in the ground without all the labor.

"Don't look like that. There will be more and more third-level zombies in the future. Everyone will get a high-level crystal nucleus." Lin Wenbo saw that Sun Tiantian had received the envious glare of her teammates and became so flustered that she placed the crystal nucleus into her pocket for fear of being robbed, making for a funny scene.

Gong Lixin nodded and seriously added, "Hn, this happened to be an earth system nucleus. I will get you guys one corresponding to your element next time. Let's go back."

Everyone heard his words and cheered up and their spirits were filled with excitement as they jumped off the rock and ran on the road towards the off-road vehicle. Today, Young Master Gong guarded them and, when they were stronger, they could guard Young Master Gong with all their heart.

Seeing that Young Master Gong was generous to his team members, Tan Mingyuan and the others relaxed and thought they didn't choose to follow the wrong person. This kind of temperament belonged to the strong and compared to Young Master Gong, Bao Long was nothing by a slag.