Through the core device, I notified the people who went through the red phase that we would go out the next day. Some were worried while others asked what to bring. Some crazy idiots, like Shane and my younger siblings, were excited. I sent everyone a list of things they should bring. Just some extra clothing. I would carry the food and rest of the supplies in my space and put their clothing in the space in the morning.
The people who I knew could trust were in charge. I would be able to come back whenever I was free, so there would be no mishaps. It was a good thing that my secretary had gone through the red phase, but it would have also been good if he didn't. He was responsible and would have managed the base very well.
Alas, it couldn't be helped.
At dawn, everyone was up and ready to go. They all had brought suitcases of clothes. Oh, I forgot to tell them how many days we would be out for... We would stay for one day at the very least, and three at most.
Nevertheless, I didn't show any expression as I put all the suitcases and stacked them neatly into the storage room of the house in my space. When I was young, I had a habit of putting my hands back and standing up tall whenever I lied. I had fixed my habit but still purposely showed it to my siblings in this life because I knew that people would have mixed feelings about a person if they didn't have any weakness. Even though I knew my siblings weren't like that, because this was my second life, and because the future would be different, I had to be careful. But in all reality, there was no way I would show any expression on my face after going through the zombie apocalypse. Everyone was a professional actor during those times and to not let anyone suspect you of anything, you had to be strong and able to lie easily. Any liabilities would perish.
Some family members of the people who were going to go out came and said goodbyes to us. They were a little worried but knew that there would be no serious casualties with so many strong people around.
Currently, only I had the ownership over the base's barriers and walls. My eye scan and fingerprint, as well as a drop of blood needed to be check everytime somebody wanted to go out. It was decided that I would be in charge of the base with some other representatives, but it would be left to other people whenever a group was going out. This was because I had decided to go out whenever a group went out. I'd be somewhat like a supervisor.
Everyone passed the huge barrier and became shocked at how different the environment was as soon as they stepped outside.
Our base had no mutant plants or animals. Through our brilliant researchers, we created a neutralizer and had spread it around all the plants and injected it into the animals. The next generation of flowers, trees, plants, and animals would not be mutants either.
But the outside was different. The temperature was scorching hot and everyone used their water or air abilities to cover themselves with a thin layer of mist to cool themselves down. The plants were all shriveled and dying and the whole mountain seemed deserted. It was very hot in the mountains even for us, and we were physically enhanced. Only the fire ability users freely walked around, but if it was like this for us, what would it be like to the people who came up to the mountains?
We saw dried up corpses of birds, boars, snakes, and small critters. Some of the people puked while others were showing incredulous expressions at the surroundings. They started to record everything with their core devices and some people were watching. It was kind of like a... vlogger, as Xiao Lai worded it. There were comments at the videos and they were mostly exclamations of how terrible it would've been if they were not evacuated to the base.
We made it out of the mountain and into the countryside. There was a village nearby here according to the maps, so we headed there.
To show the harsh reality, I filmed how the roaming zombies started running at us when we came into their sight. One scared teenager hastily waved her hands and roots of the dying trees flew out from the ground and captured the zombies. The girl stared at her hand in wonder and to thank the trees, fed them water.
The netizens, as termed by Xiao Lai, were really enthusiastic and cheering for the girl.
"Everyone watching, please clearly listen. If you want to kill a zombie, you must specifically aim for its head and crush it. These are just regular level one or two zombies. Starting from level three zombies, there will be small crystals in their head. By absorbing it, you will gain more power. If you meet a mutant zombie, they will usually have a crystal that is suited for an elemental ability, so people with the element will benefit greatly while it won't do a thing to people without that element affinity."
While explaining, Xiao Lai shot some string into the air and wrapped a million strands around the zombies' heads. Grabbing them and pulling them off neatly, the zombies' heads landed on the floor with oozing pus and rotten blood flowing out slowly.
Xiao Lai motioned to Ge who, unlike his gentle appearance, crushed the zombie heads ruthlessly with his earth ability by making huge rock fists come out from the ground and punch the heads.
"By upgrading your power with these crystals, you can eventually be on the level of creating natural disasters after gaining billions of them. If you see here, my Ge made fists with his Earth ability. This was done through practicing his control over the minuscule details. It's not easy to uphold dirt, so he did this by combining both his air element and earth element. This can also be done with the water and earth elements by forming sludge and moving around the wet dirt and hardening it, later controlling the dirt with the earth ability."
This sort of became an educational program, hasn't it?
"Right now, I can't feel any life from this village. But if any of you are to chance upon a regular ability user or a regular human, be modest and only show one ability at medium power. That alone will indicate you as a powerful person. But do not be conceited. If you think you are the best, and only bow down to the strong while bullying the weak, you will sooner or later be taught a lesson. There still are very powerful people in this world that are in hiding. They may even be more powerful than me or any of the other powerful ability users on base," I warned.
We moved on and found abandoned cars. With my water ability, I entered the water into the keyhole and then froze it with the air ability. I showed this example and let some of the other people who had the two elements try them out.
"Those who can't fly should get in a car." Some of the people who could proficiently use the air ability or had wings flew up and hovered in the air while the rest got into cars that had sufficient gas in them.
"I suggest that if you have an air element ability or wings, train hard. Those wings that are currently weak and small will grow. Girls that got the dragonfly and butterfly wings. You said they did not look pretty while you are on the ground. But don't you know that what is far away looks best? If you can fly high up, the fur on your wings can't be noticed unless they try to look closely. And the dragonfly wings sparkle glisteningly in the sunlight, so I hope that all of you do practice and strengthen your abilities."
About 30 people needed to get on cars, making us "borrow" 6 cars while everyone else was in the air.
"Next, we will go to a city. There will be living people and ability users, so we will conceal our powers. Even if you think they are pitiful, do not trust anyone. Even if they try to incur your pity, trust, or even love, remember that people will be jealous of what we have. We are very lucky, to even be able to celebrate with a party on the coming of the apocalypse. Even the youngest of children will be vicious out in this place. To the people outside, be cold-hearted and battle ready, they will stab you in the back the least you expect it," I once again warned. It would be better for the people to have Xenophobia, or else there might be some problems if outsiders were brought in and told of the place to others.
"Everyone else other than me, Lu Han, and Ge will act like regular people. Pat some dirt onto your clothes. After that, come to me or Li Hua. We'll make you look tired and suffering. If you do not necessarily want to go into the city, you can come to me and I'll hide you in my space. You can still watch the filming from there. If you are exhausted from using your air or water ability to cool yourself down, you can go into my space as well. The more the better, otherwise people will suspect from seeing such a large group."
Only a few people remained outside after hearing that. Xiao Lai and Xiao Bing went in complaining that it was too hot. Little Blue's mother dragged him inside the space and he cried out for his father but his father could only helplessly wave his hand since he needed to analyze what it was like. My secretary sent his son who had also gone through the red phase into my space and the boy went in happily as it was too miserable out here.
In the end, it was Shane, Andrei, my secretary, Little Blue's dad, Ge, Lu Han, Ying Xuan, Li Hua, and me.
"We all look pretty good, do we need to wipe dirt on our clothes?" asked Hua.
"No, we can even flaunt our powers if we only have this amount of people. Hua, you have lots of affinity with birds, use it to fly. Brother-in-law and Ge, you guys will also need to fly. Everyone else, get in the car. Even if you can fly or have wings, it's enough with four people."
Hua chose her Anhinga form. The white and navy feathers contrasted in color but were quite matching. Lu Han had chosen the falcon so his wings were mostly in shades of gold-ish browns.
Shane commented, "Hehe, Rain, you must be the seductive devil while your brother is the pure angel!"
I frowned, "But I haven't had a relationship in both my lives. While my brother is even married. Who knows what he does with Lu Han." Ge blushed and hid in his husband's embrace.
Shane laughed out loud and laughed louder at the comments who were saying that I was an ancient virgin. In the ancient days, virginity was precious, it really is a wonder how everyone thinks losing it is a good thing nowadays.
"Ok, we can just pretend to be a group of rich people who had previous news of this. It is kind of true after all."
With five people in the car and the other four flying, we quickly made it to near the capital.
"If you see a zombie, don't freak out. For a reason unknown yet, ability users who passed the zombie trial can't be infected. Only regular ability users or humans can. The only reason we're out here is to find mutant plants, animals, and zombies so that we can study and gain satisfactory results. We don't necessarily have to kill off the zombies, we'd just be doing the grunt work for the others."
The streets were very familiar looking now. Corpses were strewn about, all the lights off, distant screams coming from all directions, zombies roaming. It made me smile, happy at the way the world had somehow returned. I had become too used to this kind of world that it was disturbing if life was so comfortable.
But no doubt that the rest were disgusted. It stank, but the familiar smell instead calmed me down. The city looked terrible, but it was what I had lived most of my life through.
"Get used to it, everywhere will look like this."
The people flying came down and stopped at the middle of the street after I motioned to them.
"That is what all ability users are like right now."
I then pointed my core device at the scene that was playing out.
There were a couple of people grouped together that were primitively fighting with kitchen knives, a crowbar, and a bat. Altogether, it was several people struggling to fight off a few zombies.
"They can't even properly use their powers," I commented as the man in the middle tried to use his newly acquired water ability but only squirted some water.
But this was a couple of level one zombies, and an ability users physique was enough to take down about 2 or 3, so the group was saved.
The commentators of the live filming seemed to be half laughing at them and half pitying. But they didn't associate themselves and began comparing. It was best like this.
When seven more zombies came their way, the group tried to retreat but were stuck between the zombies surrounding them.
One middle-aged woman yelled, "You have some sort of power, save us!" and pushed the man out.
The man stumbled and tried to retreat, looking fearful. He was too scared to shoot a look at the woman.
This wouldn't go well.
Another man was captured by a zombie after he fell backward. His shrieks that were so desperate and the audience on base didn't comment for a while.
"Would you guys be able to guarantee that you wouldn't put your lives first if you were a regular person? Don't try to be heroes when you're on a mission outside." The comments quieted down again.
"Look, that's how a person turns into a zombie."
The man that was being gnawed on by the zombies had died properly and slowly staggered up.
The people in the now-turned-zombie's group shrieked as they saw this sight.
"But, just to let our first outing be a little milder, I will save them. But try to stay away from people if you are going out."
"Ge, charm factor please," I requested. Some of the people at the base had charm, mainly the beautiful and handsome stars and movie actors. When they went out, they could use this way to lure zombies, mutant animals, and even mutant plants.
As soon as Ge released a bit of his charm, the zombies sniffed the air and moved towards our direction. The undead human decay looked grotesque and terrifying when they were at lower levels, but it was not scary to me as they could not hurt us.
"If you want to keep your abilities a secret outside, you better learn martial arts. My Ge here is proficient in many weapons and I've personally taught him. He also learned from many masters. I brought in many martial artists onto the base. I believe that they will teach you if you are diligent and give points."
My Ge didn't want his shoes or hands dirtied, so he encased them in a thin layer of air that was already slashing everything.
"See, my Ge might look kind, but he's very strong."
The audience saw my usually gentle brother snapping necks of zombies, kicking the legs from under zombies, ruthlessly punching the solar plexus of zombies, crushing the heads of zombies with a mere stomp, and smiling gleefully while he went all out on zombies.
<...Hey, wait, how strong is our Chief then if he's the one who taught his older brother?>
<...>
<...>
<+1>
<+2>
...<+183>
...Well, if they got the point, it's fine.
Lu Han had a blank look on his face that transformed into a smile.
"...Ah, did I look weird?" my bashful brother asked.
"No, it's good that you know how to protect yourself. But as your husband, I can't let myself be beaten by you. I should also train hard."
Yup, that's how a person should be. Becoming smarter, gaining wisdom, while also increasing in strength. After Lu Han had formed the imprint with Ge, I was very satisfied at how he conducted himself and cared for Ge.
Would there be someone like that for me too?
...Let's not think about nonsense.
"Since there aren't many people here, they either must've evacuated to a safer part of the capital," my secretary inferred. Yes, my secretary is intelligent, it's great to have such smart people around. Talking to them is much easier since they actually have common sense.
The people who were surrounded by the zombies earlier came scurrying to us.
I quickly said to the audience before they could get to us, "When you become high level, you can turn the earth into sand and bury zombies underground. It's easy and efficient, not soiling your hands. But reaching that level is far away for most currently, so I suggest you guys to learn some skills if you are going to outside the base."
The man who had the measly water ability was about to talk, but the woman who pushed him reprimanded, "If you guys were there, you should have saved us earlier! That man just died because of your dilly-dallying!"
Everyone frowned.
"Are we obliged to save you? We could have left you to die but we were kind enough to save you. Is this how you thank us?"
Then, with a wave of my hand, her body began to convulse and her skin began to sag.
"Here is an example of using the water ability on living things. When you reach my level, you'll easily be able to concentrate on the water of living bodies. Zombies will become slower after you take the moisture left in their blood, but they will still somehow be able to move. For the researchers, please get to work on that too. On living human beings, this way is efficient and quiet. By boiling the water in their bodies or squeezing the moisture out slowly, the human won't have a chance to move or scream properly if you do that while blocking her or his throat with water. And then, after a while, the body will bleed out or shrivel up. But I will tell you something, don't kill as often as you please. This person is infected, so I killed her, but don't kill humans so wantonly. Think about it, after the apocalypse is over, we will still want to fight since we will get used to the excitement. Due to this, some might even commit murder."
There might be children or people disgusted and scared by this, the members of my group seemed pale too. But this was necessary. The world isn't good and they should know it clearly.
The woman slowly shriveled up and only released a high pitched squeak as her body deflated. The saggy body collapsed and looked like a mummy by the end. She was infected but acted like she should be the top priority, how ironic.
The other group looked terrified and retreated hesitantly. Ungrateful.
But the man who had a little ability still looked at us without any terror or disgust, but with gratefulness and humbleness.
"Thank you for saving us. Could I ask for a favor from you?"
Oh, he knows that he would have been dragged down by that woman. Since he was almost killed because of her, he had known the consequences.
"Let's hear it first."
"Please escort us to the safe base. It's at the Northeast part of the capital, but we've gotten a late start."
I smiled, "What will you give us in return?"
<+1>
The audience took it lightly. This pleasantly surprised me. Joking about death like this. Maybe it was because to them, it was like a movie? Were they deluding themselves? It was said that if people didn't experience it themselves, they could never feel what it was truly like. There should be some psychologists at the base, I might have them set up appointments. But it wasn't all of the people at least. Only the younger men and researchers were commenting. Hopefully, they weren't deranged.
"I-I will work for you! Please just get these people to the base safely!" the man bowed. This righteous person, I kind of wanted to bully him to let him know that the world wasn't that easy. I know he was really courageous and brave, but that's just stupidity you know?
"You are very weak. What can you do for us?"
"Um..."
The people behind him were only looking at him like it was only right for him to save them.
"Pitiful. Why are you so willingly being used by these people? You are an ability user. Why should you help such ordinary people? Are they intelligent? Useful? Strong? They don't look like any of that to me."
I know it's wrong for me to discriminate, but as a person who had been used by normal humans for so long without any gratitude given back, it's only fair for me to think that people are naturally evil when they're at a lower status.
Not hearing an answer, I turned my back and continued on giving a lesson to the people at the base, "Here's an example to the red phase passers and the original zombie trial passers. If you concentrate on the air, you can use it and make sharp wind blades. Or, if it's a living target, just choke all the oxygen out of them. Water ability user can do this too, except for the choking part being drowning."
Turning away, I opened up my wings and flew into the air, aiming air blades at signal poles that toppled over.
"She's the devil!" somebody cried out. Shane giggled and Andrei blocked his mouth with a stern look. And really? Assuming my gender?
"Then, am I an Angel?" the silver-haired Ge asked so gently that it was scary. If they hadn't seen my brother fighting so ruthlessly before, they might have nodded their head.
"Please! They suffered because of me. I'm too weak to protect them and I brought the zombies over. I can lead the zombies away from the city, so please take them away!" Good people don't last long, and this was a perfect example of that.
"Hey, get a clue. None of these people are going to be able to anything," Shane said this in an exasperated tone. Of course, the man couldn't understand it since he didn't speak English. I could tell just from the look on his confused face.
"What's your name?"
"Yun Zhou." I heard that name before... but when?
"Oh, the Saint," I murmured to myself. This man was destined to become the leader of all self-righteous people of City B's base. He was really too kind-hearted, letting almost everyone come in. The base almost died out because the guards didn't check up on some people who had been infected.
"I'll lead you there. No need for thanks."
The several people behind him carefully trudged their way and found some spare cars.
And the people who had been hiding and watching also came out. Most people should have evacuated by now as it had been several days, but clearly, not all of them had. In the end, there were dozens of people following us.
The base was overwhelmed and had ability users who were already quite decently controlling their abilities to block out the zombies that were following us. There were Earth, Plant, and water users trying their best.
The infected were sniffed out quickly and were chased away. Nothing could be done about them for now.
Several doctors came out and tended to the weak. They hadn't realized that a water ability user could do more than them.
"Let's go. We need to go help out my friend, Mo Yun."
Before we left, the eight of us cleared away the zombies silently in chunks when nobody was around. Some sank underground. Some were restrained by metal bars and nets. Some had their heads cut off right in the middle.
We didn't say goodbye and just directly left. To Yun's house, we go.
When we got there, the huge fort-like mansion was surrounded by zombies. I had told Yun about crushing the heads of zombies, but maybe he had forgotten because all of these zombies had wounds but no heads crushed.
Ignoring the rasps and groans of the zombies, the ones who had wings flew while the ones who didn't were put in my space.
"Hua, what do you think happened?" I asked.
"These are all soldiers. Maybe the others were feeling sentimental and couldn't bear to kill them?"
"They probably don't know that even the most powerful zombies won't remember anything from their past human selves. Well, I don't know about the higher leveled zombies, but yes, that's what I've been told."
"I don't think you told us that before?"
"I just did."
"..."
The mansion was heavily protected but it still had an open window at the top. Hadn't I warned Yun about mutant birds?
But surprisingly, there was Yun, waiting for us.
He had a pair of dull eyes and red rims from crying. His weak smile looked devastated.
"Hey, you came."
"What happened? Aren't those all soldiers out there?"
"I didn't expect it to be this bad. Some of those people, I knew for my whole life. They were good men and women, so why did it have to be them? ...I really should have listened and gone with you."
"...What about your family? And the rest?"
"My dad's down in the dining room, briefing all the remaining people left."
We followed Yun and found many soldiers. And in the midst, standing on a table was Yun's dad.
Hua opened up, "Momo... where's your mom?"
Yun's eyes teared up again but it seems like he had no strength to squeeze those tears out.
"She's been infected. But she had gained the metal element, so she's the one leading the zombies out there."
Hua hugged him tightly and glared at me to come over. I moved my body and put an arm around them both. My feelings for my parents had completely dissolved, but Yun was still only 16 and his parents really did love him.
"Can you stop talking? I can't hear what the commander is saying," complained a soldier in front of us.
His voice was a little too loud in the serious mood and everyone turned to look at us.
"Yun." Well, it looks like his dad had cried a lot too. His eyes were red and he just looked as depressing as heck.
"...Dad."
"You brought your friends?"
"Yes."
"Good. Shui Yu, please help us. we don't know the weak points of the zombies. We have family members of the soldiers situated in the house, and we need to keep the people outside safe as well."
This man never liked me, but now was asking for favors. What a hypocrite.
"Crush their heads. And zombies don't remember their past even after many evolutions and level rising, so just kill them."
I sniffed at the air.
"There are some infected in here as well. You should just kill them off before they can change."
The several infected, 6 of them, rose to the air as I controlled them and struggled mightily. Their comrades cried out and rushed at me, but were also held back by the air.
One of the infected turned midair and you could see the pasty yellow-white skin and white eyes. His nails lengthened and became impeccably sharp.
I pierced a thin stream of water into the newly turned zombie's head and spread it out. The next thing it knew, ice had frozen its brain. Using the air and water ability together was really useful.
The comrades of the zombie turned silent with shock and looked angered instead. They were probably thinking why that man hadn't left when the rest of the infected were pushed out. Or were they actually angry because I killed him?
"Don't blame him. Would you like to be scorned by your family and friends? Or are you mad at me for potentially saving you?" As I said this, the rest of the infected slowly turned as well and were cleanly killed off.
We left the dining room area after killing the zombies off.
"Yun, come with us," I offered.
"Sorry, but can you give me the zombie trial reagent?"
I sighed. We would be parting ways then.
I handed him the serum along with two others. They were still being made and improved, and these were the final product, but this was all I had on me currently.
"I'll come by and check on you then. And the ones that have abilities. You can easily tell by seeing if they're excited. Right now, there should be a couple of ability users."
"Wait, go through the zombie trial right now," I ordered after a thought.
"Are you worried that I'll use it on somebody else?" Yun gave another weak smile with thanks to my care.
"No, I just want you to touch blood and muscles. And you should also gain the water ability as well as the plant ability. For the last one, I suggest you choose a harpy eagle. I have some animals in my space, wait." I disappeared into my space and looked around for the animals I raised in here.
I turned off my core device and sat down at the farthest corner of the space for a while. Ah, what could I do? I was worried about my friend but there wasn't anything else I could do if he didn't want to come along. I wouldn't force him, but it did make me worry.
I captured the harpy eagle that was nesting by the leg and brought it outside.
Injecting the needle into the right place on the arm, Yun trembled for a while, dealing with the slight pain from the revised zombie trial.
In succession, he touched the harpy eagle, water, and ginseng I had procured from the space.
I took a vial of red liquid that was formed with the help of researchers. It was all types of blood, rare or common, mixed together.
For muscles, I didn't feel any pain when I cut open my arm. Yun looked shocked, so I pushed my torn skin onto his hand after dripping the mixed blood onto his hands. His hands were stained with red and he fell to the ground in shock as his knees buckled and gave up.
"Yu Yu. Don't do this for anyone, don't cause yourself pain, don't do things like this!"
"What did you say?" I gave a smile and showed him my fully healed arm. But the residue of the blood was still left. I used my water ability to clean it up.
"Yun, don't worry, I'm not that helpless." I wiped away the blood on my friend's hands and patted his back as he finally was able to pour out a waterfall from his large eyes.
"Why, why did this happen to us? Why do we have to deal with this? Why am I so weak? When will this be over? I want my mom back, I want her back..."
I could hear Yun's pitiful mutters as we headed back up. I sighed and patted his back.
As we were back at the tallest room where there was an open window, I asked again, "Will you really not come with us?"
"I want to stay with my Dad. And I know he'll be staying."
I could only nod helplessly at the determined boy and hand him a core device.
"Here, if you're ever in trouble, don't hesitate to use this. It's like a phone and is easy to use. If you're nearby, wrap yourself in a layer of mist and come up the mountains. Everyone at base knows you and they'll let you in even when I'm gone. And I will often give lectures that might be useful, so watch them. It's solar powered, so don't worry about it running out of battery"
Hua added, "If you don't come, we'll go looking for you."
We waved goodbye and left without looking back.
Hua silently cried while flying away.
"You know, I'm really worried for Momo. He's not like us, with weird parental relationships or no parents at all."
I consoled her, "He'll be fine. With touching the blood and muscles, he'll gain a stronger body and his two blood conditions won't be able to hinder him any further. And I gave him the recently improved zombie trial reagent. It's very close to being as efficient as the real zombie trial. He'll be fine."
"I meant his emotional conduct."
"...That too."
Hua laughed and wiped her tears away.
"When are we going back home?"
"Soon. We just have one more thing to do. We haven't collected the mutant animals or plants yet after all."