Chapter 173: Disrupt the Call

Chapter 173: Disrupt the Call

Zac felt hed stumbled upon something important as he slowly controlled the Dao of Trees to rotate over the wound. It was a way of manipulation of the Dao that hed never done before. Usually, he just pushed the Dao into his attack or his body, but now he realized that type of usage probably could be likened to back when he was alone on the island.

The way he used Cosmic Energy in the start was to simply push it into his arms and legs to run faster and punch harder. There was no refinement or finesse to it, and most of the energy was wasted. However, using it in a controlled manner, such as through skills, showed far higher effectiveness.

It seemed that it was the same with the Dao. Even though he was anxious to get going he felt it was critical to test this further, so he slowly manipulated the little whirlpool containing his Dao of Trees. Eventually he managed to manipulate it slightly, such as growing or making it smaller.

More importantly, as he kept the small Dao field spinning over his wound Zac noticed that keeping it going was almost effortless. He still hadnt really understood exactly what the power from Dao was. Ogras called it the Power of Laws, whereas Calrin mentioned Spirit. Zac himself thought of it as mental energy.

In any case, the consumption of mental energy seemed far lower when hed turned the Dao field into a small whirlwind, as though the spinning was keeping the field from dissipating on its own. Zac only needed to supply it with a bit of energy every now and then to keep the rotation going. It was far more efficient than wasting a lot of energy to keep a blob of Dao to cover the wound for a while, and then rest a bit as the wound grew worse again.

Having finally found a way to combat the corruption he got up to his feet and started to walk away. However, he quickly walked back and cut off a few saplings from the tree, as the mutation was worth further study. It had even opened up a new avenue for him in a sense, showing a possible direction of how to take his Dao one step further.

Without death, there can be no life. The tree had taken that even further, as it created life out of death, converting miasma to cosmic energy. It was like the seasons, the death of winter turning into the warm life of summer. He felt it was very possible to use this concept into improving his Dao of Trees, though he wasnt quite there yet.

Zac kept going southeast through the forest, not bothering going back to the road. It didnt make much difference in speed whether he drove over broken-down roads or sped through the forest on foot, at least not now when his wound was under control.

Had this been a year or so ago hed be extremely freaked out by the gloomy atmosphere, but now it barely registered as most of his mind was preoccupied with the Dao of Trees. If he wasnt on a clock he would have secluded himself right at this moment, trying to formalize the wisp of insight hed gained as he sat under the resisting tree.

However, time waits for no man. There were myriad things he needed to get done. The first and foremost was finding Kenzie, but that was just the start. Next thing on his list was the hegemony quest. There was a one-month time limit on it, so needed to finish it quickly. It was only called the first step, which made it sound like a classic quest chain.

But even though it was only the first step it gave extravagant rewards, making Zac extremely curious as to what other things were waiting down the road. It was also quite welcome considering that there soon was the global treasure hunt.

The explosion clearly didnt come from a natural source, and though Zac generally wanted to avoid problems he couldnt help but curiously move toward the source of the sound. In just a few seconds a large plume of smoke rose in the air in the distance, giving him a clear direction.

As he moved forward through the gloomy forest he started to hear the sound of machine guns incessantly firing. Zac was surprised, as he didnt expect human activity this far into the Dead Zone. Hed moved quite quickly, sleeping only a few hours each day for four days by now, bringing him far into undead territory.

There should be good targets quite a bit further out with many towns being overrun by zombies, so there werent many reasons for Zombie Hunters venturing this far inside. It exponentially increased the risk of running into something dangerous, like the core invaders themselves. Besides, Zac had already run into two beasts that were quite a bit stronger than the tiger that caused John so much trouble, so the invaders werent the only thing to worry about.

The gunfighting sounded more and more intense as Zac increased his pace through the forest, until he finally reached the edge of the woods, the decaying trees giving way to what once might have been vast paddies, perhaps for growing rice. The vast irrigated field had turned into sickly puddles with thick fog wafting above it.

However, the fields werent what garnered Zacs attention. Rather it was the huge swarm of zombies walking together, and the people desperately trying to impede their march. However, even with zombies dropping every second the number was just unimaginable. The number of Zombies couldnt even be put in the same category as those that invaded his island. If Zac had to guess there had to be at least half a million of them stumbling along.

It was an ocean of the undead, and the only solace was that there seemingly werent any Aberrations or corpse golems amongst the ranks. There were however a few zombies who stood out from the mindless masses, and every now and again one would leap out from the ranks and try to snag one of the humans running along with the horde.

The resistance consisted of roughly 300 people, mostly of Asian descent, who kept moving along the flanks of the huge swarm of the undead, using various means of downing one zombie after another. Zac was a bit confused why they fought so hard though, as it seemed the endless hordes of undead were stumbling toward the core of the Dead Zone, rather than out towards the settlements.

Perhaps they simply tried to impede whatever was going on. Nothing good could come from hundreds of thousands of zombies gathering together, after all. If so, Zac could only salute their brave efforts. Normally he would have helped, but between his wound and his mission he decided that this was a battle he would simply have to bow out from.

He was about to recede into the forest and walk around the army, but a prompt in front of him suddenly appearing stopped him in his tracks.

[Distrupt the Call (Unique, Limited): The Undead are gathering. As a Lord of the living, spearhead the efforts to impede their progress. Slay 10 000 undead within ten minutes. Reward: 10 Purification pills (0/10 000) NOTE: Failure to complete quest results in your location and status be shared with the Lords of Undeath for 7 days.]

SHIT! Zac roared with frustration as he took out his axe while balefully glaring at the zombie horde.