Chapter 24: The Flame Whip (1/2)

“What’s their combat strength?”

“About the same as a large imp, Master.”

“Weakness?”

“Their heads. Unless you destroy their heads, they’ll keep on attacking. Even if you destroy their limbs, they will try to use their teeth to bite you…” No.3 seemed to have thought of something as he said this; his face had an unnatural expression on it.

“It’s just a matter of focusing on their head.” Big 1 waved his bone club around in a show of bravado. “No matter what, this lordship will protect Master!”

Whether it was their defensive or offensive power, these zombies were at least a tier stronger than the skeletons we fought. Furthermore, they were a relentless army, they would not stop until their heads were destroyed. They did not sleep, eat or fear anything. They might even be infected with corpse poisons. Other than their sluggishness, they had no obvious weaknesses.

They were the perfect foot soldier for an army.

“Retreat.”

I quickly ordered a retreat.

Our side had only 33 large imps including me, Big 1 and No.3. On the other hand, the zombies numbered 50. We were clearly outnumbered in this fight. Fighting now would only incur unnecessary deaths.

With our superior speed, we quickly shook off the zombie army.

“Let’s check out the other areas.”I still remembered the strange look on No.3’s face when I asked about the zombies, so I pressed him further on this matter while we walked. “While I was unconscious, did you encounter any special zombies?”

“They are really hardy and strong. Furthermore, the only way to kill them is by destroying their heads.” The expression on his face as he talked about the zombies was not one of fear, but rather of vexation. Meeting such a difficult opponent troubled him. “Their claws and teeth were all poisoned, and had caused problems for our injured devils.”

“In what way?”

“Their limbs would start to feel weak, their bodies would feel hot, and they would cough up black blood…it would take a long time to recover from this poison.” My question seemed to have expended No.3’s vocabulary as he struggled to find the words to describe the symptoms. The answer I got was pretty vague.

“Did anyone turn into a zombie?”

“Yes.” Big 1 interrupted at this point: “The dead would come back to life and bite us.”

“The living were unaffected?”

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“They weren’t affected.” Big 1 and No.3 simultaneously replied.

This was pretty similar to the zombies I’ve seen in movies, manga or novels from Earth. They had the ability to create more zombies by infection, and only a small amount were immune to this ability.

I had two theories that could explain why this world’s zombies could only inflict [weakness, fever, and coughing black blood] instead of directly infecting the devils.

First: The zombie poison simply did not have that ability to directly infect people.

Second: Devils were resistant to the zombie poison. If this was the case, humans would probably turn into zombies upon being bitten. Dying was not required.

We picked a random direction and continued our exploration…

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This was the fifth day since I woke up in this new world. I had gotten up early and walked out of my cave only to find that disgusting corpse mountain in front of me once more…truth be told, I’m still a normal human at heart. What should’ve been a productive and happy day was instantly ruined by that mountain of corpses…

However, this couldn’t be helped. Devils needed to eat to evolve. Given the choice of having such an easy source of food available, most would choose not to complain about the corpse mountain. After all, who didn’t enjoy being able to feed without having to fight for it? Besides, my subordinates growing stronger benefited me as well so I just let it be.

“No.3, Big 1, our goal today is to head back to yesterday’s zombie field and investigate it.” I ordered the two devils standing guard outside my cave.

“Don’t forget to bring more imps with you. Around 200 large imps should do.”

“Yes Master.”

After 30 minutes of traveling, we reached the ancient battlefield. It was still as desolate as ever; with a bunch of weapons and bones scattered about. From a distance, it seemed to be devoid of life. However, this was merely an illusion, as someone who had visited this place yesterday I can attest to that.

The zombies were still there, but their numbers had grown to 60 since yesterday.

Honestly, I still don’t know where these undead came from. It had only been a day and the undead count had risen.

Among the large imp zombies and human soldier zombies, was a slightly unique fellow.

It was a heavily armored zombie that carried a huge sword. If it wasn’t for the crack in its helm revealing the signature blackish green mouth and teeth of a zombie, I would’ve mistaken him for your run of the mill human heavy infantry.

He seemed to be at a two-star level, but that shouldn’t be a problem as long as his speed was as slow as the other zombies. If we couldn’t win, we could simply retreat.