03. Love, The End(3)

Rain drenched the ruined town filled with Zombies everywhere.

Billions of drops descended into streams of water flowing between the hollow roofs of old buildings, shattered stagecoaches scattered on stone streets, hair and clothes of the Zombies who were sheltering under the buildings, and then formed puddles in several random holes in the streets and ground.

A Zombie boy with black messy hair standing in front of an old inn. He let the rain wet his emaciated, pale, and decaying body.

'Have I been reborn? Reincarnation? Transmigration?'

The boy let his dull eyes be drenched by the rain as he looked up and stared directly at the sky covered in dark clouds.

He still remembers everything that happened in his previous life.

But... All those memories now feel very empty.

For him, it was all just his past on a planet called Earth.

It was almost as if they were all memories belonging to someone else.

'I, Zen, will cultivate.'

In addition to the burning desire that prompted him to immediately cultivate and obtain immortality, all of his past memories on Earth had turned into a series of gray images.

In Zen's hand was an old book that he had picked up in the drawer of the desk in the room where he had woken up. The book is now drenched in rain.

There are letters and alphabets that are unknown to Zen.

He had been born in another world as a Zombie.

But it doesn't bother Zen at all.

He threw the old book aside.

The wind blew and accelerated the process of falling raindrops when Zen took a fist position.

He spreads his legs with his left foot in the back and the right foot in front.

Zen started punching... Punching... And keep punching!

Splashes of water were ejected from his body every time he threw his fist. Each of his punches always became faster and more precise than before.

Zen is not practicing. He was just trying to refresh his memory of a martial technique he knew.

Among the many martial techniques he knew, Zen chose the [Flaming Punch Technique]. A high-level martial technique that he had obtained from the hands of an old hermit.

Zen's thin and pale hand continued to move rapidly.

Under the heavy rain that seemed like it wouldn't stop anytime soon, Zen's small figure reflected the mighty figure of a martial artist who fought against nature by relying only on his body.

He didn't practice his martial technique, but every time he moved, his connection with his body kept getting stronger and stronger.

These Zombies' bodies were sluggish in some aspects, but that didn't mean they were weak.

In Zen's hands, his Zombie's body moved at a complicated speed and angle.

After a while, he even moved his legs and threw a kicking move.

The water droplets that stuck to his body scattered around; making the illusion as if he was sweating profusely.

Zen wasn't worried at all even if some other Zombies stared at him from under the building protecting them from the rain.

After experimenting for a while in the early seconds of his awakening, Zen had confirmed that the Zombies would not attack each other.

Therefore, even though he was stared at by dozens of Zombies who had terrifying faces, he wasn't worried.

The only thing Zen cared about right now was to cultivate. Or rather, he prepared himself for the cultivation session he was about to undertake.

Lightning occasionally descended. Giving this dark wet world a flash of light.

The occasional flash of light descended on the figure of Zen who continued to move tirelessly.

Now, he didn't need to worry about anything other than cultivation.

The Zombie's body didn't need food, so he didn't need to stop cultivating just because he had to eat. The mechanism behind it is still unknown, but Zen is sure it will be very useful to him later.

All of his past relationships were now just the past for him. Even if he remembered about Zhongmei, Zen didn't feel hurt, sad, or hopeless at all.

To him now, Zhongmei was just his first love who had left him. His love has ended, so that's all. There is no need to worry about that problem anymore.

Now that everything that was bothering had disappeared completely, Zen could focus on cultivation, and only cultivation!

Zen's fist pointed towards the gray sky, shattering hundreds of raindrops.

His pale face smiled widely. He was looking forward to what kind of heights he was able to reach by cultivating in this world!

***

For a young Cultivator to enter the first Realm or Martial Realm, they had to start with a meditation session to strengthen their Mind power and gather a sufficient amount of Blood energy before they began practicing their first martial technique.

As a cultivator, Zen belonged to the lucky group even though he ended up being killed quite unluckily.

During his travels around the world, he once came across an old pavilion along with a close friend of his.

After overcoming many obstacles, traps, puzzles, and even some powerful enemies, the two of them managed to obtain the treasure stored in the old pavilion.

In addition to various magical treasures and a collection of precious spiritual stones, they also found a scroll of meditation techniques that looked intricate and powerful.

The meditation technique is called the [Water Flowing Crystal Technique]. It is a high-level meditation technique.

Unfortunately, at that time, Zen and his close friend were clearly already practicing their own meditation techniques. As a result, they were unable to use the meditation technique they found however much they wanted to. Because a cultivator couldn't change their meditation technique once they practiced it.

The risk in attempting to change this meditation technique could cause severe damage to the cultivator's soul.

Soul damage is definitely not trivial. In fact, it is the most dangerous type of damage of the most dangerous.

And Zen was definitely not stupid enough to do so.

At that moment, Zen and his close friend were in the end forced to decide to sell the meditation technique to a high-level Sect at a high price.

Even so, Zen had memorized all the instructions and how to practice the [Water Flowing Crystal Technique].

This meditation technique also corresponded to the cultivation art he planned to practice, the [Storm Azure Fluidance Serpent art], so he welcomed it very much.

Right now, Zen was meditating on the floor of this town's library.

It had been almost a month since he woke up in this town.

Zen had now taken a lot of things from what originally belonged to the inhabitants of this town.

Zen clothes are now not broken fabrics torn on the stomach. His clothes were still shabby, but they were at least worthy of being called clothes.

Some equipment; such as sword, dagger, backpack, shoes, and glove... Zen obtained those things from a kind male Zombie. The zombie was so kind that he let Zen strip him naked.

He had also gained some knowledge about this world after reading some of the books available in this library.

Regarding the language, Zen initially had a lot of difficulties. However, after he began to work hard to understand the language of this world, a short piece of memory from what Zen thought was a piece of memory of the owner of this body appeared.

The piece was very short and completely insignificant, but it gave Zen a pretty good grasp of the basics in his understanding of the languages of this world.

There was still a lot of vocabulary he still needed to learn before he could speak fluently in the language of this world, but at least Zen could now start accumulating knowledge about this world from reading a few books in his spare time.

After practicing hard, Zen even began to be able to make the right sound. He was a Zombie, so at first, only a dirty low growl was able to get out of his vocal cords.

At that moment, the sound he let out even made Zen himself feel uncomfortable. It was as if his throat was a dusty, clogged pipe that was suddenly forced to be used.

After experimenting with the Water Flowing Crystal Technique, Zen discovered that his current body was quite compatible with the Meditation Technique. It seemed that he had spiritual roots that were quite close to the water element.

Zen consciousness was now immersed in the river of [Water Flowing Crystal Technique]. The rushing river water eroded and forged his consciousness and strengthened his mind power at the same time.

The stronger his mind power, the faster Zen would become gathering the blood energy he needed to complete the first stage of the Martial Realm.

The magic energy in the air flowed rapidly into Zen's Zombie body. Inside Zen's body, the magic energy would flow throughout his body. Then, after the magic energy became Zen's signature magic energy, Zen would use his mind power to convert his magic energy into blood energy.

Like oxygen and food to humans, zombies in this world depend on the abundant magical energy in this world to sustain their lives.

This town, or perhaps, this world, has been attacked by an Zombie outbreak. Zen was very sure that was what happened by seeing how many Zombies there were in this town.

Even so, that doesn't mean that the Zombies in this world are the same as the Zombies that Zen saw in the movies available on Earth.

Zombies in this world do not exist because of a viral infection. The zombies of this world were more like Undead monsters that were born after the dead bodies of humans or animals were exposed to contaminated magic energy for a long time.

Under the influence of magic energy, they would undergo some strange stages of evolution; making them transform into creatures that do not live or die, but move based on the body's instincts left behind.

Since they belonged to the monster category, they would always attack humans who approached.

However, the Zombies in this world should not have the ability to turn their opponents into Zombies like the Zombies on Earth.

It seemed that the Zombies that were now rampant in this world had undergone other changes apart from the natural changes that magic energy gave them.

Whether it was someone's act or happened naturally, Zen didn't know the truth behind it, and he didn't want to know either.

Focusing on cultivation was his life's goal. As long as he could cultivate, Zen didn't really care about anything.

Submerged by the river water flow of [Water Flowing Crystal Technique], Zen consciousness finally reached the critical point of the first long-awaited change.

The Zen form of consciousness was originally just a transparent image of himself. Now that Zen had continued to practice the [Water Flowing Crystal Technique], his consciousness had changed to look like a water figure that resembled Zen.

The water figure was very calm and always emitted cold air.

All of Zen's anxiety disappeared instantly after a change occurred in his consciousness.

At the same time, his blood energy had also accumulated enough to properly practice the [Flaming Punch Technique].

Zen stood up straight.

The blood energy in his body is like magma; they were turbulent and smoldering as Zen began to move and manipulate his blood energy and mind power according to the instructions from the [Flaming Punch Technique] that he remembered.

The temperature around Zen's body began to heat up.

Zen punched forward. Sparks gushed out from his fist, and every time he continued to punch, the sparks grew stronger and stronger, then continued to become stronger.

***

Under the cloudy blue sky, a ship over tens of meters in size flew quietly.

The sails of the ship are driven by the wind while the propellers available on the lower hull of the ship rotate rapidly.

Inside the captain's cabin, a beautiful woman with long red hair was lazily reading the direction of the map. A compass decorated with silver carvings continues to show the four cardinal directions on the side of the map.

The woman stared curiously at the icon of the abandoned town that happened to be quite close to where they were flying now. At most, the place was only 1 month's drive away from where they were now.

"Frincaal town?"

The woman stood. She went deeper into the captain's cabin, then entered her bedroom.

Her thin white pajamas could barely hide the beautiful curves of her body when she moved.

The woman stopped in front of a shelf containing a colliding of paper rolls and books.

A faint light illuminated her figure. On top of her skin, some scars slightly reduced the woman's charm; giving her a little oppressive and powerful aura.

The woman picked up a scroll of paper containing information about the mapper's author that she had read earlier. She also picked up some magazines and small books that she remembered had some information about Frincaal town.

The woman brought all of them and read them on the large table of the captain's cabin study.

She compared all the information she got with the map.

After reading many articles, the woman couldn't help but become very happy.

"Is this real? This town has never been explored, yet it doesn't seem to have any powerful Zombies within the town?"

She was like someone who had traveled a long way in the desert and suddenly found an oasis. She has always had to save her water supply. Death might even happen if she wasn't careful, but now, she could relax in an oasis full of water! If she didn't have time to cook the pool water in the oasis, she could only take some coconuts and chug down the very delicious coconut water!

Without wasting any more time, the woman immediately ran into her room and changed into her captain's jacket.

She ran out of the cabin. Quickly, she instructed the ship's driver to change direction towards Frincaal town.

She could barely hide the smile on her face when she felt her heart rate increase in anticipation.

However, the woman, Martha, failed to realize one thing.

On the table, the book containing the page of information about Frincaal town fell because it was on the side of the table and was in an unbalanced state since earlier.

Falling to the floor, the pages in the book opened on the last page.

That last page lists the most dangerous dead towns and cities that have been discovered.

And Frincaal town entered the 35th ranking.