Liam had always only thought about their survival, increasing his own strength and fighting the things that threatened them, so he had never considered something like this before, a life even after the apocalypse.
There was even a chance that a semblance of peace could be established and people would be able to take a breather.
Slowly a clear picture was beginning to form in his mind about what he could do to make this happen. But would he really be able to build a stronghold like this?
Liam sighed and shook his head. This was something to think about later when he had these possibilities in front of him. For now, he first needed to identify the next dungeon.
As he hopped back onto Luna, preparing to vacate the place and move on to the next location, suddenly, something thundered in the distance.
Hmmm? Liam frowned, but when the dust cloud came closer to them, he could see that this was just a big gorilla-type beast with two horns on its head, most likely the portal's elite boss.
Since he had closed down the portal using another method, this beast probably sensed it and rushed towards him. Liam silently observed the huge elite.
Meanwhile, the gorilla jumped in front of Liam and started beating its chest proudly and arrogantly, letting out a threatening howl. It wanted to show a sneak peek of the terror it could unleash.
However, all of this lasted for a second. The next instant, something sparked in its eyes as its gaze shifted from Liam to Luna and then back to Liam. Its face visibly changed.
It stopped shouting and shut its mouth tightly. The beast even began to step backwards, shaking its head. Without any warning, it then suddenly turned around and started running away!
Huh? Liam's eyes widened in shock. Luna, on the other hand, grinned. How could it be so easy to escape?
Growl! She blurred and immediately appeared right in front of the gorilla that was speeding away. "Not so fast." With a single swipe, the beast was taken care of, and Liam received another <1 experience point gained> notification.
He then hopped down to shove the beast's corpse into the spatial artifact. Since he had been running dungeons a lot lately, he dug out the beast's forehead, searching for a core out of habit.
"I guess these won't have any mana cores?" Liam was about to take his hand out when he struck something hard and cool. "Wait, this guy had a mana core?" He was once again shocked.
Not only was this beast considerably intelligent, but it also possessed a mana core. The more frightening aspect was that this change was observed in a little more than three weeks.
Best
Liam gave a rueful smile as he pocketed everything. The rate at which these creatures were evolving was something that should be taken note of!
Unlike humans, who were slower and had to put in a lot more effort, even the common, trash-grade beasts that poured out of the dungeon portals were becoming more and more dangerous as the days passed by.
Soon instead of serving as a stepping stone for the humans to take their first step towards their evolution, these would instead become death traps roaming around the planet.
Liam ordered his soul minions to keep killing as many beasts as possible as he once again started his search.
While his soul minions combed through the lands for any signs of treasures, portals, dungeons or magic shops, he silently sat on Luna's back and started meditating by circulating mana through his body.
With the world around him rapidly evolving and the existence of naturally blessed individuals like Lan Deming and Lan Fen, who had an extreme affinity with mana, he couldn't afford to take it easy. He tried to strengthen his own mana affinity and attune his body to the energy as much as he could.
This continued on for a while, but except for two more portals, they did not come across anything special. On both occasions, Liam made sure to use the stone tablet and collect the portal crystals and then resumed the search.
Another few minutes later, they finally did come across something else, but it was not a dungeon. It was a vampire nest.
From a distance, Liam calmly observed the huge factory space that the group of vampires were occupying. Surprisingly, in this one, he did not find any human slaves or large-scale debauchery.
However, that did not mean that this place was any better. Outside the factory, in a corner, hundreds of human corpses were piled up to form a small mound as if to make a spectacle out of it.
The very sight was horrifying. It was a bloody rotting mess. They had used human beings as blood bags and thrown them out afterwards like they were trash.
But Liam noticed something else. These guys were surprisingly not just sticking to the human beings. He watched some vampires feeding on wild beasts.
These were either the beasts that had charged out of the portals or beasts that were already present on the planet and had now mutated because of mana.
Either way, this single act proved that this group of vampires had the potential to become much stronger and more formidable when compared to the first group he had encountered back in the hospital.
They were also considerably larger size-wise and probably also strength-wise and in other attributes as well. Moreover, in total, about five hundred vampires were there just in that area.
With this much manpower and rapid power boosting, it was inevitable that these guys become a massive threat in the foreseeable future.
However, that was before Liam decided to pay them a visit. "Come out." He calmly said as he gazed at the huge factory that sprawled across a vast expanse of land. "Kill everything in the area." He gave the order.
***
Mass Release Chapter 2~
Please thank Raymond Vollintine for sponsoring this chapter!