Chapter 35: Change of Heart III

The cluster of dark wooden huts resembled black stones scattered randomly on a beach.

Faint groans could be heard coming from some of the huts, sounding like the dying struggles of those who had been tormented by illness for a long time.

Lin Hui and Deng Mingchao cautiously walked into the gap between two black huts, one with his sword lowered, the other with his sword held horizontally.

Black mud mixed with all sorts of filth piled up in the corners on the ground. A faint stench permeated the air, the smell of some kind of protein rotting for a long time.

They walked forward. In just a few seconds, they discovered a mostly decomposed dark brown female corpse in the corner on the right.

The flesh on the upper half of the corpse had been eaten away by something unknown, exposing some of the white bones beneath the skin.

She was slumped against the corner, her eyes lifeless and purple. Long, thin, milky-white maggots occasionally drilled into her nostrils from the corners of her eyes.

She was still wearing a tattered brown cloth skirt, and her right hand clutched an object that looked like a stone.

“She must have been dead for a while. The night here actually didn’t devour her completely?” Deng Mingchao frowned and stepped forward, gently poking the corpse’s thigh with the tip of his sword.

“Junior Brother, look at this corpse. Here, people with tumor lesions cannot receive Myriad Fortune Meat, so any food here is extremely precious. Normally, a corpse would not be casually abandoned outside, except for one possibility…”

“What possibility?” Lin Hui asked, frowning and enduring the stench.

“The corpse died from the disease,” Deng Mingchao said gravely. “Otherwise, a normal corpse here would be dragged away as food and stored.”

“…” Lin Hui was speechless. Looking at the corpse on the ground, doubts arose in his heart. “There is no obvious barrier between here and the suburbs. Why don’t the people here run to the suburbs to steal food?”

“How do you know they didn’t? How do you know there isn’t something similar to a barrier over there?” Deng Mingchao countered. “The road we just came on is filled with a special power that ordinary people cannot sense. That power becomes weaker the closer you get to the Mist Zone and stronger the closer you get to the urban area. In fact, it is precisely because of this power that the mist has been kept out.”

“Senior Brother means that the invisible force blocking the mist also blocks these patients? Making them afraid to approach the inner areas?” Lin Hui asked.

“Exactly. But undeniably, if there are too many patients, they will also pose a threat to the safety of the surrounding residents, so we need to come out and clean them up every once in a while. We are just one of the cleaning forces,” Deng Mingchao explained. “There are also many other forces that have taken on cleaning tasks and will come regularly to deal with the patients.”

“Next, let’s see why these patients here need us martial artists to clean them up, and why even the Head Constable is so cautious.” Deng Mingchao retracted his sword and exhaled.

Suddenly, he slashed to the left, actually using the sword like a saber to chop vertically toward the darkness on the left.

Simultaneously, within that darkness, a red light approached at extreme speed. Soon, the red light was revealed to be a human eye.

A one-eyed man, wearing tattered black hemp clothes, his exposed gray-white skin covered in festering sores, roared with a ferocious expression and pounced on Deng Mingchao in mid-air, but he met the blade of the slashing long sword head-on.

Puff.

The one-eyed man and Deng Mingchao crossed paths, and a spray of blood splashed in the air.

Immediately after the blood landed, the one-eyed man fell heavily to the ground, lifeless.

“One,” Deng Mingchao said calmly. “A Blood-Eye Patient.”

“Very fast. Compared to ordinary people, those without training would probably find it hard to react in time,” Lin Hui commented, his expression slightly solemn.

“This is just the lowest-level Blood-Eye. According to the severity of the disease, after Blood-Eye, there is Blood-Body. Let’s go, continue inward.” Deng Mingchao shook the blood off his blade and walked slowly inward.

Behind him, a crack slowly opened in the head of the one-eyed man’s corpse.

“Just now, that wasn’t the Nine-Section Quick Sword, was it?” Lin Hui asked in a low voice.

“Of course it was. I just slightly modified one of the moves, changing a point into an extended slash. Sword moves are flexible and changeable, not rigid,” Deng Mingchao replied.

The two continued forward. This time, before they had walked ten meters, two more patients with blood-red eyes appeared.

This time it was an old man and a young man, both male, actually holding farm tools like hoes in their hands.

“Meat… eat meat!! I want to eat meat!!” The two patients pounced fiercely as soon as they saw Deng Mingchao.

“One for each.” Deng Mingchao dodged to the side, jumping to the only open space, and drew away the old man.

Leaving the young man, who looked to be in his teens, for Lin Hui.

In an instant, the young man pounced in front of Lin Hui, the two less than two meters apart.

The opponent’s hands were already grabbing toward Lin Hui‘s face.

“Try not to get touched to avoid infection.” The Head Constable’s previous warning flashed through Lin Hui‘s mind.

He took a step back, and the blade in his hand suddenly unsheathed.

Chii!

The silver sword tip pierced precisely into the opponent’s throat the moment he pounced close.

Then the sword tip jerked upward, slicing the opponent’s entire windpipe and chin into two pieces with a chii sound.

Black blood sprayed.

Despite suffering such a heavy injury, the young man didn’t even scream. He continued to pounce forward, trying to grab Lin Hui with his hands.

Puff.

At this moment, Lin Hui followed up with a second strike.

The Clear River sword retracted, then thrust again, piercing straight through the opponent’s right eye socket and out the back of his head.

This strike finally stopped the young man completely.

Following the inertia of his forward pounce, he fell heavily in front of Lin Hui.

“Phew… no sense of pain?” Lin Hui pulled out his long sword and looked at his Senior Brother Deng Mingchao, who had also resolved his battle on the side.

“Yes. The patients have increased speed, enhanced strength, and no sense of pain. The only weak point is the head. It’s useless even if you chop up their other limbs; they can still attack and live for a long time.” Deng Mingchao had a gloomy expression. “So don’t be careless. Try to kill them with one blow.”

He looked at the wound on the young man’s corpse on the ground and nodded.

“You did well. Next, we might encounter Blood-Body Patients. The speed, strength, and defense of this kind of patient are much stronger than Blood-Eye. Once we start fighting, I may not be able to protect you. You must hold on carefully by yourself. I will come back to help you after I resolve my battle.”

“Don’t worry, Senior Brother. I won’t drag you down,” Lin Hui nodded solemnly.

The two said no more, carrying their swords and continuing inward.

The narrow alley wound around. In a short while, they encountered two more Blood-Eyes, which were easily dealt with by the two.

Having killed so many in one go, Deng Mingchao paused to rest a bit, wiping the dirty blood off his sword to prevent rust, and then continued leading Lin Hui deeper.

Only this time, they hadn’t walked twenty meters.

A strange person, completely different from the previous Blood-Eye Patients, appeared in front of the two.

On the ground of the pitch-black alley, a bald man whose entire body was blood-red stood quietly in the middle of the road, his hands hanging down, motionless.

The bald man wore no clothes, and the skin over his entire body seemed to have been peeled off, revealing the muscles and tendons underneath.

“This is a Blood-Body… step back a bit.” Deng Mingchao lowered his voice and reached out to stop Lin Hui behind him.

“Help me guard the surroundings,” he instructed, carrying his sword and slowly approaching forward.

Lin Hui responded and held his sword, alertly keeping watch left and right.

But in the instant his gaze flickered, his peripheral vision lost track of his Senior Brother and the Blood-Body Patient.

Clang!

Clang clang clang clang!!

In an instant, five consecutive sounds rang out, and five sparks splashed in the alley.

Deng Mingchao and the Blood-Body Patient engaged in close combat in the blink of an eye.

Both were extremely fast, attacking over a dozen times a second, killing each other frantically like the wind.

Attack, block, attack, block.

No dodging.

There was no time to dodge. In this kind of high-speed offensive exchange, the goal was to seize the initiative. Once one dodged, they would fall into a passive position and get stuck in a vicious cycle of only being able to dodge and defend.

Deng Mingchao‘s face was ferocious. He utilized the Nine-Section Quick Sword to the extreme. The sword shadow blurred, faintly giving the illusion of wind.

Gray sword shadows constantly flew toward the opponent, only to be blocked at high speed by the Blood-Body Patient‘s hands.

The patient’s weapons were the pitch-black nails on both hands. Those nails were like ten black spikes, sharp and carrying obvious toxins.

For a time, violent collisions constantly exploded with sparks.

Lin Hui took another step back. In this dim environment, his eyesight could no longer clearly see the specific situation of their exchange.

Deng Mingchao‘s Nine-Section Quick Sword was more proficient and perfect than his, and his moves were steadier and stronger. Without using his special effect and seal, Lin Hui felt he wouldn’t last a hundred moves at this sword speed.

But the Blood-Body Patient could withstand the sword shadows for so long, which instantly raised Lin Hui‘s assessment of its threat level to extremely high.

Before long.

Puff!

Deng Mingchao decapitated the Blood-Body Patient with one sword strike.

His sword seemed to have been modified; it was suitable not only for stabbing but also for chopping and slashing.

At this moment, he was also panting slightly, shaking the dirty blood off his sword.

“See that? This is a Blood-Body. Under normal circumstances, without top ten strength in our temple, you wouldn’t last ten seconds in front of them. This is also why the Emergency Response Team’s strength requirement standards are so high.”

“Understood…” Lin Hui looked at the patient’s corpse on the ground with apprehension. “Are there many patients like this? What is the ratio?”

“Of course not many. About one Blood-Body mutation appears in twenty or thirty Blood-Eyes. This depends on the patient’s constitution before death,” Deng Mingchao explained.

He checked the Blood-Body corpse, confirmed it was dead, and then stepped over it.

“Let’s go, continue.”

“Do you need a rest?” Lin Hui asked worriedly.

“No need…”

“Junior Brother Deng, it’s better to rest a bit…”

Suddenly, a familiar voice drifted from not far behind.

Deng Mingchao and Lin Hui‘s expressions changed slightly; both recognized whose voice it was.

Mu Qiaozhi!

“Senior Sister Mu—I’ll call you Senior Sister one last time—weren’t you assigned to another team? Why didn’t you go clean up patients but instead ran over to our side?” Deng Mingchao‘s face tightened, a bad premonition faintly rising in his heart.

“Just had some free time and wanted to see how my former fellow junior brothers are doing now. I also wanted to show you my martial arts attainments since joining the Black Dragon Gate…”

Mu Qiaozhi‘s figure suddenly emerged from the darkness behind them.

She wore a dark Response Team uniform and carried a black sword on her back. Her right hand wore a set of black metal arm guards, and her five fingers also bore sharp metal claws. Her style had completely changed.

“Junior Brother Deng, Junior Brother Lin, what was the purpose of your martial arts practice before?”

(End of Chapter)