After a while, Yin Mei allowed the twins to rest and they made their way back to where the zombie emperor was. Qin Shuang had also appeared there, saying something to Yin Mei in a soft voice, and the girl nodded. They moved inside a building and up several floors before stopping.
"Looks like we were able to kill enough zombies to successfully attract the ruler of this area," Yin Mei said with a smile, though her eyes flitted toward the zombie emperor momentarily. Well, it might also be in part with the overwhelming aura of the someone sitting casually next to her, but either way, the means didn't matter much.
"Let's see what you look like," The girl said, though her relaxed air did nothing to instill any confidence into the Ri twins, who were nervous knowing that they would be encountering an even stronger zombie than the ones that they had just fought.
Yin Mei looked into the distance where Qin Shuang said the zombie was coming from. Yin Mei had no experience fighting a rank three zombie yet, though she had monitored the fight between Lei Han and a rank 3 zombie in order to have Qin Shuang steal himself the energy core.
Lei Han had struggled, meeting many precarious situations before finally pulling through, like all the main characters in the novels. Lei Han was currently stronger than Yin Mei, but she couldn't say if he could compare to Qin Shuang. Though, she had no doubts that if the two of them fought, Lei Han would win based purely on his plot armor and protagonist aura abilities.
Yin Mei spotted the zombie from the distance. It looked like... mm, it looked like a meatball.
Like a giant meatball.
Round and rough.
Yin Mei felt that if anyone tried eating that meatball though, they would definitely get indigestion. Since he was already meatball shaped, one could predict that he would continue down this evolution path and definitely not look human by the time he passed rank 5. He was moving exceptionally slowly as he meandered down the path, and Yin Mei couldn't decide whether she felt exceptionally disgusted or wanted to laugh until she teared up.
But, she could kill this guy without any worries. An opponent like this would have higher defense, high strength, and slow speed. If this zombie was rank 5, then they might have trouble, as he might have the intelligence to formulate plans to make up for his weakness, but currently, this type of zombie was the best hunting target for a long ranged fighter. The only problem was that Yin Mei's strength probably wouldn't be enough for her to hit him. But, Qin Shuang should have no problems dealing with this one alone.
And since he bore zero resemblances to any important zombie under the zombie emperor, they could kill him and take his energy core without worries.
"Hmm, for now, Qin Shuang, you should try tying him up, slicing him up, burning him up, smashing him up, tearing him up... um, what are any other methods of horrible death can you think of?" Yin Mei tilted her head, looking at the pale faced Ri twins, who shook their head. "Oh... well, I guess you can choose any option you want. But make sure he can't get any closer and keep around this distance."
Yin Mei glanced back at the very slow meatball. He was still pretty far. With a rank 3 zombie's strength, even one that specialized in strength, he shouldn't be able to hit him from here even if he performed AOE moves like body slam or earthquake. Though, Yin Mei thought that if he threw a slab of concrete over, it just might be able to hit them.
"... and put up a net in front of us, just in case," she added on, thinking that the possibility of him throwing things and hitting them was a little too high for comfort.
Qin Shuang nodded, and his hands moved, seeming to dance, albeit in a slightly clumsy manner. He didn't need the glove that Yin Mei had worn before, since he could change the properties of his thread where he touched with almost zero lag time. A tight net was erected in front of them. The side of the building that overlooked the city had been partially destroyed, and so there was nothing between them and the outside, aside from this newly placed net.
Qin Shuang had a face of concentration as he continued to move his threads. Yin Mei felt that with a few more rank 3 energy cores and practice, she would no longer have to worry about him. The only problem was that she still felt that he was lacking when comparing him to the Vampire King of back then. WAs it the difference in the situation? The former Qin Shuang had been refined from endless battles and blood, but the current Qin Shuang was more like a carefully cultivated flower.
"Maybe I'll have to throw both the Ri twins and Qin Shuang into a zombie horde later, to hone their skills." Yin Mei thought. Mm, what a good idea. She wouldn't want Qin Shuang to turn, as it would be a waste of such a good ability, but she certainly felt that if she continued to protect him like this, he wouldn't be able to grow as strong as he could have.
With Yin Mei's eyesight, although the Ri twins couldn't see the zombie at all, she could see him clearly. But with this distance, she couldn't see Qin Shuang's strings, which were already hard to see normally. Qin Shuang was relying on vibrations as his eyes for the battle though, so even if he couldn't see from this distance, he had no issues.
Though his control was still not up to par in Yin Mei's eyes, she had to admit that he had talent and could quickly form an image of the battlefield and react appropriately, at least from what she'd seen so far.
For a few minutes, she watched the zombie stop in place and seem to struggle with something. The problem with zombies is that if you cut them, they don't actually bleed. Only after bashing their heads in or something would you get blood. After all, their hearts aren't beating. Qin Shuang, despite his ability to control blood, couldn't actually control the blood in zombies, oddly enough. It only worked with human blood, and even then, the blood that he was most effective at controlling was his own. And he never ran out, because he could generate more for himself, like giving himself a transfusion of his own blood. Yin Mei wasn't quite sure about the details, but she was sure that there was a reason why the former Qin Shuang had decided that using his blood as threads was the most effective method of combat for him.
After a while, the Ri twins, who couldn't see anything, got bored and so went to go find something to take up their time. They were able to grab a deck of cards, amazingly enough, and so started playing some poker, using a few pieces of whatever stuff they could find as chips.
Yin Mei continued watching the battle a little while, but since she couldn't see Qin Shuang's threads, she also quickly became bored and went to join the twins.
In the end, even the zombie emperor was dragged in, though his face had on the oddest expression as he played cards with these three humans.
And poor Qin Shuang was by his lonesome, soloing the raid boss while his pig party members were chatting off to the side.
Several hours passed and Qin Shuang was getting exhausted, while the four had already played Old Maid, Texas Hold'Em, Go Fish, Blackjack, and etc. They started to play other games as well, like Word Chain, Twenty Questions, Truth or Dare, Sorry I'm Late, and others.
But, in the end, they ran out of games that they knew how to play, so Yin Mei took the Ri twins hunting again, bringing back some energy stones for Qin Shuang to consume and alleviate his fatigue.
With his team members supporting him with an endless supply of mana pots, in the end, Qin Shuang was the victor.
After all, with this sort of zombie, as long as you weren't hit by their attacks and had the stamina to outlast them (or in this case, the right amount of energy cores to give you the stamina to outlast them), then they would be fairly easy to beat. It was just a matter of time.
Qin Shuang retrieved the rank 3 zombie core with his ability, and Yin Mei urged him to consume it, though he wanted to give it to her, she immediately rejected him. This was the core that he had spent several hours getting himself, what sort of person would she look like if she was the one to consume it??
She nodded when she finally saw Qin Shuang eat the core, and was glad that their first rank 3 zombie was so suitable for him to practice his techniques on.
But, Yin Mei decided to stop their zombie hunting here. After all, wouldn't it be an utter disaster if they accidentally cleared out all the zombies or killed one of the zombie emperor's future right hand men?
So, instead, they paid visits to all the current H City leaders. If they weren't useful, Yin Mei would work on formulating a plan to get rid of them. If they were, she would attempt to subdue them first before talking later.
Because of the help of the two rank 3 cores that Qin Shuang had consumed, his abilities shot up by a notch, and he was finding it easier and easier to battle against the zombies.
In the end, they were able to consume one core per each of them, save for the zombie emperor, who couldn't absorb zombie cores.
There were four other zombies that Yin Mei beat into submission (an extra one had been in the north district, that Qin Shuang had initially been unable to sense), much to everyone else's shock. They really didn't know that you could actually forcefully take control of zombies like that...
Of those four, one of them was an important general of the zombie emperor's army, a zombie that had a lizard's tail and horns, looking like some kind of a dragon-mix. The other three, Yin Mei kept because they still looked human and she thought that they had some interesting abilities. One of them was an assassin-type class with high stealth. But, because Qin Shuang had set up threads and traps everywhere, he had immediately gotten caught. It was a bad match up.
The third zombie was a small child zombie with mental abilities. Initially, Yin Mei was worried because it would be a bad match up, as no one here had experience with mental abilities and so it would be easy for them to lose, but it was a good thing that this zombie easily submitted when he saw the zombie emperor. As for the fourth zombie, it was a female zombie with blue hair and snake like scales growing on various places of her body. She was an interesting looking variant zombie, but they didn't see her abilities as Yin Mei immediately beat her up with no remorse after she had tried to clumsily seduce the zombie emperor. What the f*ck, a zombie with the mind of a three year old, actually trying to seduce the zombie emperor? She was first shocked then outraged, and even Qin Shuang couldn't help but pull back a little when they saw that side of her as she "disciplined" the female zombie.
In the end, the Ri twins were shocked and surprised, but Yin Mei was actually really able to subdue H City, this zombie infested place that no man except idiots and crazies would dare to enter. Not only that, but it had only taken them a short week to do so.
They even returned to the group outside the city, shocking them silly, as they had all already thought that those kids had died.
"Do you want to go in with us? Actually, Ning An here has a special ability that deters zombies, which is the reason why we can casually hunt inside H City," Yin Mei decided to say. She didn't care about the others, but she still wanted that little girl. She was even beginning to be cruel enough to consider killing the girl's parents in order to obtain her, but she decided against it in the end. She had noticed in the end that that wouldn't be too good, and if the girl found out later, that was just erecting a big death flag for herself.
They went one by one to the places that everyone in the group wanted to go to. Some found notes, and others only found a messed up home that dashed their hopes to the ground.
The family of three were one of the ones who found a note from their son's dorm room, who said that he would be leaving for N City, which was a nearby city to the north.
Yin Mei sneakily glanced at the information before shaking her head. It was a pity, but that city would be overrun by a zombie horde in the next few years.
The other members of the group left, but it was only the family of three that Yin Mei extended an invitation for them to join her group. They initially denied, wanting to go to N City to find their son, but Yin Mei looked at them with an odd expression, before finally saying, "The journey to any city is really dangerous. It's hard to say whether your son is even still alive, or if you three will survive the journey at all. I find it already quite amazing that you can survive with a child with you, but you'll just be making it harder on yourselves to try and go the distance to N City. I recommend that you reconsider. It's better to prioritize the lives of the living over that of someone whose life or death is unknown."
Yin Mei's words were perfectly logical, but no parent would want to abandon their child that they didn't even know was alive or not. If they did, and he ended up alive in the end, how much regret would they feel then?
Yin Mei then asked if they really were insistent, they should leave their daughter with her, so that at least their daughter would stay safe.
Of course, at first, they wanted to say an absolute no to this. Leaving their daughter to strangers? Absolutely not. But, actually, it was true that leaving her to this group, who had someone that could deter zombies, would be much safer than bringing her along with them to N City.
But in the end, they refused. Although these kids looked like they had good intentions, you just couldn't trust anyone in the apocalypse. To top it off, if they left her here, they would have to journey back from N City to rejoin together with her.
Yin Mei was disappointed, but understood that trusting strangers was just too hard. In normal times it was hard enough, but this was the apocalypse. No one was kind without possessing an ulterior motive.
She could only regretfully see the family of three off, sighing in disappointment.
"Why were you so stubborn in trying to take on that kid? Everyone else refuses to group up with children since they're burdens, but you seem oh so eager to do so." Ri En pointed out, as the three people faded into the distance.
"Do you think Qin Shuang's ability is strong?" Yin Mei suddenly asked, confusing Ri En.
"Of course," he replied, wondering what this had to do with anything.
"Isn't it? And what would you think if all children under the age of ten have an ability just as powerful as his?" She said, turning around and walking back into the city.
Ri En followed along. Ri Yi,Qin Shuang, and the zombie emperor were not present, the former two holed up in their current base of operations practicing their abilities, and the zombie emperor there to keep any zombies at bay. Though Ri En felt that the zombie emperor was still untrustworthy, Yin Mei didn't have those doubts at all, seeming to blindly believe in the man.
"Wait, it couldn't be..." Ri En said, looking at her in shock.
Yin Mei continued, "I'm not quite sure of the true reason, but children who experienced the apocalypse before the age of 10, as well as those born during the apocalypse, all possess extremely powerful abilities. It's a pity though, that because many kids were thought of as burdens, they were unable to survive. In addition, many children possess abilities that are difficult to discover, and thus they were further unable to survive. Because of this, it took several years before people were able to discover this crucial fact, and they could only lament, as the amount of children still left from that time were simply too low. Most of those that had survive did so due to luck and their own ability, and developed a distrust toward other humans."
"Wait, you say that as if you know-" Ri En suddenly looked at her in shock. "Wait, no way. No way. That's impossible. You can't be-"
"What? Why can't I?" Yin Mei asked, raising an eyebrow, vaguely knowing what Ri En was thinking. After all, she had said that much, if he still couldn't guess what she was implying, then she would doubt his supposed intelligence. "This is the apocalypse. People have supernatural abilities, and zombies run rampant. What else could be new? Nothing should surprise you at this point, right?"
Ri En felt like she made a lot of sense... Eiii, no matter. Having someone that knew the future on their side was a good thing, right? There wasn't any point in thinking too much into it. "Then wait, so the reason you know my brother...?"
"He's famous in the future as one of humanity's elite. Too bad you two died before he could return to C Country, though." Yin Mei said.
"We died... no way! That horde??" Ri En said, as the first thing that popped into his head was his first meeting with Yin Mei. How she immediately approached him and how she seemed to know when the horde would appear.
Yin Mei nodded. "Yep, you initially would have died from the horde. Ri Yi would have no one to support her, and soon after she would be raped and killed by some bad people."
Ri En shivered. Thank god Yin Mei knew the future! Thank god their older brother was so amazing in the future! Thinking if that wasn't the case and that they would've already died a long time ago, Ri En once more thanked the gods several times.