Chapter 116 - before dawn

In the darkness, the pupils that had the colors of dark green and bright red lit up. Under the faint red light from the radiation cloud, a two-headed giant lizard emerged from the underground tunnel and began its foraging.

It was a mutated lizard, about the size of a hound. The surface is covered with scales that refract ambient light, allowing you to blend your own body with the surrounding color. This ability had a high concealment effect, but it was still far from being able to be completely invisible.

The mutated Double-headed Lizard had an organ that looked like a sac in its mouth and mouth in its two heads. This organ stores venom and flammable fluid, and has a small hole in the organ that acts as a compressibility and a extrusion. It could spew out poisonous fog and raging flames when the giant lizard needed them.

The two-headed lizard was not a very powerful mutated beast. Due to its limited structure, its combat radius was limited to three meters in front of its head. For hunters who knew about the giant lizard, this beast could be easily killed as long as they could cut it down from the back.

The giant lizard was crawling into a building. It was a residential building, with a height of more than twenty stories. However, due to the baptism of the meteorite rain and the long years of weathering, the buildings of more than six floors had already collapsed. The body of the building was now embedded in a supermarket across the street, a huge barricade across the street.

The giant lizard's nose was very sensitive. They were born with short-sighted eyes and had a limit of vision equal to their battle radius. Especially in the dead of night, the giant lizard's vision had been greatly reduced. However, their vision had deteriorated and they had a keen sense of smell. The giant lizard was especially familiar with the smell of blood.

It swam into the abandoned building, attracted by the imperceptible smell of blood in the air.

Blood meant fresh flesh and blood, while fresh flesh and blood meant food. For the lizard, which hadn't eaten anything for three days, this was a huge meal. The giant lizard had thick meat pads on its feet, which made its movements silent. Just like that, the giant lizard went along the corridor to the fifth floor. There were four doors on each side of the long corridor. The giant lizard was like a hound as it sniffed the air in front of each of the doors to identify the source of the smell of blood.

At the left side of the corridor, two pairs of eyes of the giant lizard lit up at the same time. It had already confirmed that the food was in this room. It arched its head and pushed open the unlocked door.

Half the room was piled with debris and bricks, and a thin trail of blood ran from the window that faced the street, all the way to the bedroom. The giant lizard followed the trail of blood to the bedroom, which was still intact. In the corner of the bedroom, there was a human figure. The fresh smell of blood came from this human.

The giant lizard swam over, and when it got closer, it could see that the human seemed to have fainted. The rise and fall of his chest indicated that he was not a corpse. A fresh living being was more than enough for the giant lizard to eat for a few days. Beside this human, there was also a strange creature.

This round creature looked extremely weak. The rhombus-shaped emblem on its forehead was glowing with a faint green light.

Although the giant lizard ate other mutated beasts when it was starving, it didn't want to test the strange meat quality of the mutated beasts now that there was a living person in front of it. Compared to mutated beasts, humans' flesh and blood were much more delicious, making them the food for almost all mutated beasts.

It swam silently towards the human in the corner. Since the man was sitting on the ground, the giant lizard could easily reach the height of his neck. One of the giant lizards opened its mouth wide, and its sharp back teeth easily bit off the fragile neck of a human.

But at that moment, the unconscious human suddenly opened his eyes.

The giant lizard instinctively sensed the danger. It didn't have time to retreat as it opened its mouth and used its two hands to grab onto the upper and lower lip. When he held the giant lizard tightly, the sharp teeth in his seemingly soft and weak palm did not break even the tiniest bit.

The human in the corner suddenly breathed out a stream of hot air, and a tremendous force suddenly burst out from his hands. He moved to the side and forcibly broke the giant lizard's mouth. The torn flesh splattered with turbid yellow lizard blood, some of it hitting his lips. The man casually licked his lips and his eyes lit up.

The giant lizard's other head panicked as it saw Dudian's eyes. This kind of gaze could not be more familiar. Whenever it saw its favorite food, it would reveal the same expression. However, one of its heads fell into someone else's hands. The giant lizard had no other choice but to retreat.

The man who was originally sitting on the ground suddenly jumped up. He stomped heavily on the other head of the giant lizard and lifted it up with both hands. The giant lizard felt an excruciating pain. The muscles between its two heads were immediately torn apart. The lizard's scales splattered, and more lizard blood spilled out.

The man let out a low cry, but bit into the lizard's wound like a wild beast. The next moment, the giant lizard realized with horror that the blood essence in its body was flowing into this person's mouth.

Hunters and prey's roles were immediately swapped. The giant lizard did not expect itself to be unable to hunt them down and end up as someone else's food.

It struggled with all its might, but this man's hands and feet were like cast iron, and with the strength of the giant lizard, it was unable to break free. With the loss of its blood, the giant lizard's strength gradually decreased. In the end, it finally gave up resisting and quietly waited for its death.

When he found that there was no longer any fresh blood to drink from his mouth, he slowly let go of the lizard. The giant lizard was dead, and the corpse that had lost almost 90% of its blood lay limp on the ground.

If someone were to see Zero right now, they would notice that his eyes were filled with a crazy look, just like a hungry beast. This expression lasted for a moment before slowly fading away. When his eyes returned to their usual cold expression, Zero looked at his hands in disbelief, as well as the lizard's corpse on the ground.

He only remembered that when he woke up earlier, he saw the giant lizard, and he broke its mouth due to his self-protection. However, when the giant lizard's blood entered his body, the pungent smell and sour smell filled his throat, and the blood rolled into his body through his esophagus.

Having lost too much blood, he desperately needed fresh blood to replenish his blood. His instinctive reaction immediately overcame his rationality, causing Zero to suck the lizard's blood dry like a vampire bat. After he had eaten enough of the lizard blood, he could clearly feel that the Essence in his body was recovering.

There was a slight itch on the wound on his left arm. It was a sign that the wound was healing. He undid the bandage on his arm, and the flesh and blood that had been lost returned to him. Freshmen's muscles and skin still had a faint flush to them. This color would disappear within 24 hours. At that time, Zero would look as if it had never been injured.

He moved his left hand, and the signals transmitted from his arm to his brain told him that in reality, the arm had not fully recovered its function. Whether it was the strength of the muscles or the reaction speed of the nerves, they were all reduced by 10% to 20% compared to usual. Although the lost blood essence had been replenished, the lizard blood was still a foreign substance. After being absorbed and decomposed by his body, he could only use about 30% of it.

This was not enough for Zero to fully recover his Essence. Right now, it looked like he had only recovered a bit, but if he wanted to fight, he could only unleash half of his usual strength.

Zero looked at his tactical wristwatch, which showed 4: 23. Looking out the window again, the eastern sky was brighter than the rest, and dawn was just around the corner. But before dawn, the world sank into the deepest darkness. During this period of time, it was also the most dangerous time in the wilderness. Zero could clearly feel the prickling sensation on his skin. These dangerous signals came from the unknown creatures that were almost everywhere in the ruins.

Right now was the time for these creatures to starve the most. Zero picked Lara up and prepared to leave. He didn't want to be food for these mutated beasts, even if he was still weak.