"Contract"
Su Han quickly reacted, without any hesitation, he directly chose to make the contract.
In fact, he had no other choice.
He had no idea what kind of hell this world had turned into.
Merely being in his shared rental house, just dealing with his "roommate" had made him so wretched, his hands were wounded, he was panting heavily, his heart was still pounding violently, and his whole body was nearly collapsing from exhaustion.
Not to mention, outside this building, in the mist, that one gigantic eyeball.
Only by seizing every opportunity to become stronger could he survive.
"I'm sorry, Yang Tian."
Su Han said softly, Yang Tian was his roommate, they were not very close, but he was a decent person, occasionally mentioning that he planned to visit his parents during the National Day holiday.
He hadn't gone home for two years, and his parents were already in their sixties, but now he would never be able to return home again.
The pages of the Book of Blood Spirit opened, and a red glow immediately enveloped the corpse.
In a few breaths, the corpse's remains gradually turned into red light, then merged into the pages of the book, becoming a human-shaped black pattern on the page.
Angel Envoy: Flesh Corpse
Level: First Order Inferior
Skills: None
The panel information that popped up was transmitted into Su Han's consciousness, invisible to anyone else.
As the contract was successful, Su Han felt a surge of strength feedback from the Book of Blood Spirit, merging into his body.
His limbs and body faintly grew stronger, his muscular sensation became more pronounced, his hand wound suddenly itched, he looked down to see it crusting over, albeit still bleeding.
Host: Su Han
Level: First Order Inferior
Skills: None
"So contracting an Apostle strengthens the body, and as the Apostle grows stronger, it in turn enhances the host as well, this is indeed good news. However, the Flesh Corpse doesn't seem very powerful."
Su Han recovered his strength and then directly summoned the Apostle. A red glow manifested behind him, and the Flesh Corpse appeared beside him immediately.
It was slightly taller than him, around one point nine meters, with the wound on its forehead no longer visible.
The body was hunched and twisted, its arms elongated yet resembling beast claws, and its pale skin, together with its creepy white eyeballs, always exuded an eerie chill.
"Pick up the fruit knife"
He tried to control the Flesh Corpse with his thoughts, and indeed, the Flesh Corpse moved, reaching for the blood-stained fruit knife.
The Flesh Corpse was quick to respond, grasping the fruit knife swiftly and then freezing in place, standing rigidly beside Su Han.
"Lacking much independent consciousness, this feels a bit like... a tool?"
Despite being a summoned creature, the feeling was different between those with independence and those without.
The Apostle Flesh Corpse felt like a robot to him, acting on clear instructions, and otherwise relatively inert, completely dissimilar to cats or dogs.
However, it had one advantage—it was controlled by telepathy, with no delay in response compared to his own movements.
He looked at the fruit knife, planning to have the Apostle Flesh Corpse hand it to him.
But as his gaze fell on the knife, he was suddenly surprised to see a completely different prompt.
[Detected fusable material: ordinary metal, would you like to perform fusion?]
The Book of Blood Spirit did not glow, and the prompt was drastically different from the previous contract prompt, feeling more intimate, as if it were a natural instinct.
'Is this my ability?'
Though it was just a hunch, Su Han felt he wasn't mistaken.
He took a deep breath and calmed himself slightly, "Do not fuse for now."
The prompt disappeared, he took the fruit knife from the Flesh Corpse's hand, and then controlled the Flesh Corpse to move to the living room.
He first locked the outside door, then barricaded it with the sofa to prevent any other Flesh Corpses in this building from breaking in.
Although the likelihood was not necessarily high, it was safer this way.
The red glow of the giant eyeballs was probably not just for one person, but for everyone. Those who survived would receive the Book of Blood Spirit, which meant that those who didn't would likely turn into monsters like the Flesh Corpses.
This was a truly terrifying thing.
If the mist was merely disrupting communication, isolating the environment, and the Book of Blood Spirit was granting people transcendent strength, both could be seen as mildly disrupting order, still within a controllable range.
But the possibility of monsters appearing nearby could severely impact order.
To put it bluntly, if the people in charge died, if those enforcing order died, no matter how many, chaos was bound to ensue.
The likelihood of rescue dropped to almost nil, and all he could rely on was himself.
Of course, there was also the Apostle Flesh Corpse and his newly discovered special ability.
He began to search the rental house for various materials. Since the fruit knife had shown up as an ordinary metal that could be fused, it was very possible that other materials could as well, and he wanted to test the extent of this ability.
The rental house was messy, with no shortage of fusable materials.
After making the Apostle Flesh Corpse pick up many things, Su Han finally selected four items to place in front of him.
One was a fruit knife, a piece used previously as decoration, a goose egg stone, a piece of wood and water.
The Fusion ability was very powerful; almost all objects that could be controlled by meat zombies and were relatively independent fell within the scope of Fusion, except for those in Su Han's own possession.
And the range of Fusion extended to items like paper, plastic, and even food, though Su Han had not chosen any of those items.
He did not currently know what the effects of Fusion were; everything was just speculation. Compared to those outlandish things, he had merely selected four items out of them.
"The effects of Fusion are still uncertain, but if it's about strengthening the Angel Envoy, these three items might enhance its strength, as for water..."
Su Han pondered, feeling like whatever he chose was a gamble, essentially betting his current means of survival on change.
"Let's go with metal."
In the end, he made up his mind, his gaze falling on the fruit knife.
[Detected common metal material, commence Fusion?]
"Fusion"
The meat zombie's palm gripped the fruit knife tightly, then flesh visibly began to wriggle, slowly enveloping the entire fruit knife and gradually merging it into the flesh until it disappeared from sight.
It felt as though it had devoured the metal.
During this process, Su Han felt a slight surge of power reverberating back from the Book of Blood Spirit.
The Angel Envoy, the meat zombie, was growing stronger, and he was receiving feedback.
Apostle: Meat Zombie
Strength: First Order Inferior
Skills: None
Fusion: Common Metal 1%
"So you can only Fuse one type of material at a time, and there's also compatibility?"
With the initial success of the Fusion, Su Han received more feedback, such as about this Fusion.
Fusion could enhance an Angel Envoy, but only one kind of material could be Fused at a time, and the higher the compatibility with the material, the greater the increase in the Fusion percentage.
If the compatibility was very low, then the Fusion rate would decrease significantly, and the amount of material required would increase significantly.
For meat zombies, metal was just so-so; to achieve 100% Fusion, the iron content needed would be far more than that of a fruit knife.
How much metal could a two-bedroom apartment possibly have?
The exterior of the fridge, the inner workings, the range hood, the washing machine, the metal parts of tables and chairs... All objects containing metal that could be taken apart were dismantled by Su Han and the meat zombie.
In the living room, there lay around fifty pounds of metal products; other than that, there were hardly any intact items left in the entire shared apartment.
"Begin the Fusion."
Su Han ordered the meat zombie to begin Fusing the metal; this amount of metal was far more than the fruit knife, which should also lead to a higher degree of Fusion.
The meat zombie clamped its palm onto the metal, flesh wriggling like worms, then attached to the metal, starting to slowly Fuse.
A streak of red light from the Book of Blood Spirit feedback into his body, muscles slightly bulging, and this morning's injuries were also gradually scabbing over and healing.
As the host, his strength was also increasing.
Although it was impossible to become a superhero overnight, sensing the strength in his body, it was already beginning to surpass that of an ordinary person.
"Gurgle"
However, as his body grew stronger, his stomach quickly conveyed a sense of hunger; becoming stronger required energy, and from last night to now, Su Han hadn't had a drop to drink.
He walked to where the kitchen was; the fridge had already been dismantled by him, and during the earlier search, he had scavenged some food as well.
Not much, just four or five packs of instant noodles, then some pickled mustard, rice sauce, dried noodles, and a few eggs; not even fruits.
"The food isn't sufficient."
Even for an ordinary person, this amount of food wouldn't last three to four days.
While the gas pipeline was still running, he started to boil noodles; pots, pans, and kitchen knives were metallic items that Su Han hadn't yet Fused, after all, they were still needed.
After boiling the noodles and gulping down a pack, he didn't feel full, the hunger remained, and he found his appetite had grown larger.
So, he boiled two more packs before he finally felt satiated.
"I need to find a way to get more food."
One meal had already consumed half of his food supply, which meant he needed to find more resources.
Fortunately, his meat zombie Angel Envoy was growing stronger; at least he had the strength to go out and explore.
The meat of the meat zombie had already wrapped around most of the metal, bit by bit devouring it into its body.
The metal was not small in volume, but under this Fusion process, it was impossible to discern where it all went.
Only Su Han noticed the common metal Fusion Degree increase as the Fusion progressed, from the initial 1% gradually growing to 50%, and still slowly increasing along with the Angel Envoy meat zombie's Fusion progress.
Su Han was in no rush, although there wasn't much food left, but compared to finding food, the strengthening of the meat zombie Angel Envoy was more important, he could feel his body's strength increasing.
Time ticked by, and after about two more hours, all the metal had been completely Fused, with the Fusion Degree also gradually reaching 99%.
Su Han stared intently at the last bit of the Fusion Degree, and as the meat zombie retracted all its wriggling flesh, it finally changed—100%.
[LV1 Common Metal Fusion completed, acquired skill Claw]