Embark on the Road

by Tai Baiyang

  If he used the Bloodvine Lotus, he was confident of killing everyone present. However, their leader might not appear due to his careful nature.

  Some of the evolvers were already throwing their attacks at him. Zhang Mu fervently thought of ways to hurt these people but not kill them. This way, the leader had a greater chance of appearing.

  As the flames drew near Zhang Mu’s head, he decided on a plan and suddenly moved backward, just managing to dodge the attack. Evolvers who had their agility leveled up instantly caught up with Zhang Mu. Zhang Mu quickly increased his speed and escaped the two wind blades.

  Seeing the two deep cuts at the spot where he was just now, Zhang Mu wavered a bit. If these evolvers didn’t become cannibals, they would have a bright future ahead. But they had chosen their path. There was no return once they stepped on this path. If Zhang Mu didn’t kill them now, they would target all the other survival bases.

  Zhang Mu noticed the distance between him and the evolvers and chose not to move back. Instead, he suddenly braked and with a twist of his foot, he charged towards the direction he came from. The two wind-type evolvers didn’t expect Zhang Mu to turn back and had no time to react. Before they could form a wind blade, Zhang Mu had passed between them and they had no chance left.

  Their energy immediately dissipated. Zhang Mu had called out the Bloodvine Lotus in that second that he passed by and pierced a hole through their bodies. Their eyes clouded and they couldn’t control their energy anymore. These wind blades which were a threat to Zhang Mu disappeared before they could be formed.

  Zhang Mu muttered, “their close combat abilities are very weak and they still dared to rush after me with just the two of them. Who gave you such courage? Or did you all think that I am easy to defeat?”

  This attack only took Zhang Mu one second and he didn’t stop at all after it. He was within the range of attack of the people opposite him.

  The others might not have seen it, but the white-shirt man saw every small action that Zhang Mu did. He saw his only two wind-type evolvers falling down simultaneously. He could no longer contain his emotions and gritted his teeth, “are you a plant-type evolver? Too bad, I am one too.”

  The white-shirt man gave a shout and the shirt in front of his chest torn apart, exposing a hideous Piranha[1]. None of the other evolvers looked shocked. They must have seen the Piranha before.

  It was really ugly. Under the control of the man, the Piranha’s opening turned towards Zhang Mu and its stem vibrated. Was it preparing to launch an attack?

  “What? A real plant-type evolver, Piranha,” as someone similar to a plant-type evolver, Zhang Mu knew how powerful the plant can be. The mutation of this Piranha left a huge impression on Zhang Mu in the future. Anyone with such an ability was highly sought after in a survival base. They were needed during offense and defense. Although the power of the Piranha was still weak now, it’s ability would increase exponentially once it broke through Level 1.

  Zhang Mu moved at a speed four times faster than a normal human just now. However, It wouldn’t be fast enough this time. He had no choice but to increase his speed to five times that of a normal adult.

  With this type of speed, he could safely escape the ultimate blow of the Piranha.

  As expected, once the man saw that Zhang Mu wanted to retreat, he stopped gathering his energy and hastened the Piranha.

  The Piranha received the order form the man and immediately stopped the vibration in its stem. It opened its mouth and a jet of dark green liquid shot out at Zhang Mu. Luckily, Zhang Mu predicted its attack from its appearance and prepared his defense. He moved much faster than the Piranha and managed to dodge its liquid attack.

  Although it wasn’t his first time seeing this, Zhang Mu still let out a cold shudder. This was too scary. The ground that was about five metres away from Zhang Mu, with a diameter of around two metres, was corroding and sinking into the mud.

  He actually calculated his speed and direction and predicted his path of motion.

  If the plant-type evolver knew Zhang Mu’s fastest speed, he would be a pile of thick blood now. Those evolvers standing near him automatically moved out of the way when they saw the Piranha. This was why the man commanded so much respect when the leader was not here.

  They were all afraid. They had seen people suffering from the Piranha and their death was gory. Their skin and muscles slowly peeled off a little at a time and they wouldn’t die immediately. It was a living hell.

  [1] ... It’s a mario!

  Chapter 92: The Truth

  Although he was stunned, Zhang Mu didn’t stop moving. He moved backward and kept changing his direction. Although it seemed as though he was retreating, he was actually circling the evolvers. The evolvers were like mutated animals now.

  Zhang Mu saw anger boiling in their eyes as well as the desire to eat him up, bit by bit.

  “Still not coming out? Seems like this is not enough. I thought that you would have a heartache after your only two wind-type evolvers were killed but you didn’t.”

  “Let’s see how many of your subordinates have to die before you come out of your hiding place.”

  Zhang Mu sneered at the silver-hair middle-aged man who still hadn’t appeared. He was more cautious than Zhang Mu expected. Even after Zhang Mu displayed such abilities and killed the rare wind-type evolvers, he could still hide behind the scenes calmly and kept baiting.

  Zhang Mu started his next step. To destroy all the cannibals.

  Zhang Mu stopped moving and placed his hand in front of his chest, quietly waiting for the evolvers’ arrival. Within two seconds, they were in front of Zhang Mu.

  The man in the white shirt breathed heavily and gave a sinister smile, “why have you stop running? Aren’t you very good at it? Have you gave up and decided to be our dinner?”

  Zhang Mu gave a gentle smile, “what if I want to join you?”

  The man immediately calmed down and considered the credibility of this statement. He shook his head after a while and said, “it might be possible if you had shown your true powers earlier. Then you just have to eat a human with us and join us.”

  “I really see potential in you, little guy. But it is impossible now. You killed the fat man and the two wind-type evolvers that our leader placed high importance in. I can only kill you to answer our leader. If not, I will be in trouble too.”

  Zhang Mu smiled even brighter, “they were killed by me so easily. That shows how useless they are. Am I not worth as much as three useless evolvers?”

  “That is somewhat true. You are very powerful but no matter how useless they are, they have been implanted the...”

  The white shirt man suddenly stopped breathing and his face turned red. He took a while before he regained his breath and said, “I almost said too much. No, you can’t join us. Prepare to die.”

  Zhang Mu was actually very curious about the half-finished sentence. What exactly was implanted?

  At this time, the man realized that something was wrong, “Wait, you do not want to join us. You are trying to stall time?”

  Zhang Mu’s grin got wider and he snapped his finger and said, “correct! Let me reward you with a little red flower.” and instantly, veins started to shoot up from the ground. Zhang Mu planted them when he was moving around just now.

  The unlucky evolvers immediately got penetrated by the veins. The white shirt man managed to dodge the first round of attack but still got tied up by the veins. In just a second, more than ten evolvers died. The man tried to struggle but the thorns on the veins cut deeper into his skin.

  Zhang Mu didn’t use all his full strength and left some survivors. These people recovered from their shock and started attacking the veins crazily. However, they didn’t know that their comrades had already become corpses and continued attacking the veins with their energy or weapons.

  “I am a plant-type evolver too, why? I am not convinced.”

  The man shouted angrily after his futile attempts at escaping the ve
ins. He stared at Zhang Mu with blazing eyes and then looked down at his Piranha. He realised with fear that the Piranha on his chest which had its roots in his heart was getting smaller and smaller.

  “What is happening? What have you done to my Piranha? You are sucking its energy.”

  Zhang Mu was curious too. When the Bloodvine Lotus came into contact with the Piranha, Zhang Mu felt that the Piranha didn’t give any resistance and was completely subdued by the Bloodvine Lotus. It didn’t have any chances of releasing its acid and let the Bloodvine Lotus sucked up all its energy.

  Zhang Mu was amazed that the Bloodvine Lotus had such an ability when facing other plants.

  Thinking about it, if the Bloodvine Lotus was not so domineering, there wouldn’t be so many powerful survival bases fervently chasing the evolvers who had Bloodvine Lotus and killing them.

  The man started scolding Zhang Mu and then changed to insulting him. When he realised that his energy and his life was being sucked away, he finally started pleading.

  This guy didn’t learn the good qualities of a human but kept the part of it that was afraid of death.

  Zhang Mu looked at the man in disdain. At the same time, he was really agitated. He had killed more than ten evolvers and this guy who looks like the second-in-command was also dying. Yet, there was no action taken.

  Could he have guessed wrongly and the silver-hair middle-aged man was not here? Did he overestimate him?

  Zhang Mu started to feel irritated as he looked at the remaining cannibals. He prepared to use the Bloodvine Lotus and killed all of them.

  Just at this moment, a voice sounded beside his ear, “Era Merchant, you are getting overboard.”

  Zhang Mu realised he missed out something. The mastermind knew his true identity. He knew that he was an Era Merchant.

  Zhang Mu wanted to speak but couldn’t. He had lost control of his entire body.

  No wonder the evolvers became cannibals and were so afraid of their leader. This guy was a psychological-type evolver!

  Chapter 93: The Source Of Avarice

  Zhang Mu felt like he lost control of his entire body. This was the exact feeling he had when Paradise Era was first activated and he heard the voice. Zhang Mu only controlled his soul and his consciousness. His entire body seemed to be split into two parts, the soul and the body.

  From this, you can tell how scary this middle-aged man was. This mastermind’s psychological power had already leveled up to this stage. Zhang Mu even had the delusion that this person had reached Level 2!

  However, he knew that that was impossible. Human mutation needed time to slowly prepare and accumulate. It was impossible, even if you are a genius, to use ten short days and evolved to the next level.

  Zhang Mu remembered clearly that the leaders of the big survival bases and the geniuses took one to two months before they reached the peak of Level 1 and was going to breakthrough to Level 2. Zhang Mu himself had never touched the bottleneck of Level 2 before so he couldn’t believe that someone had done it already.

  This time, he needed to change his plans totally. Oh wait, it was more of being forced to take certain actions.

  When Zhang Mu was deep in thought, the voice behind him sounded again. This time, it was much closer, “Why, you seemed to have overestimated yourself, Era Merchant. Or should I call you the first Era Merchant of Luoyang City?”

  Zhang Mu couldn’t turn around to look at the person. His eyes started to quiver and his expression changed. It was normal if this person knew about his identity as an Era Merchant but he also knew that he was the first Era Merchant. This was getting strange.

  Is she an Era Merchant too? The third? Or the fourth?

  Zhang Mu couldn’t think of any other possibilities. However, he didn’t need to crack his brain anymore. A shadow of a person slowly walked around him and walked towards the white shirt man. He gently patted the Bloodvine Lotus and it fell to the ground. The Bloodvine Lotus had lost control too.

  “You want to eat evolver’s meat too? Seems like your ambition is still there. You want to overtake me, Ji Lin.”

  The leader kindly patted Ji Lin who was in low spirits, “I have too many hopes on you. I thought that you would change after that episode but you didn’t.”

  Ji Lin’s face was pale and it wasn’t because of the Bloodvine Lotus. He seemed to be entirely frightened by what the man was saying to him. He knew how those people were tortured by this fake kind man in front of him. It was a living hell.

  “Boss, please forgive me this time. I wanted to kill him and offer his body to you. However, the stupid fat man was too impulsive. You know that the fat man is slow thinking. He wanted to eat the evolver first and I got tempted by him.”

  Ji Lin no longer looked formidable. He answered his leader submissively, afraid that his leader would kill him the minute he made him angry. His eyes were pleading.

  “Haha, you think that just because I am old, my brain is clouded? If you didn’t meet such a strong opponent, he would already be in the pot. So many evolvers died. You just wait. Now, get out of my sight.”

  Ji Lin heaved a sigh of relief. The leader had spoken. This meant that his life was safe. He was most fearful of this person when he kept smiling at him and not say anything.

  The middle-aged man was neither tall nor well-built. However, he easily raised the 1.8m tall guy with one hand and threw him to one side. Ji Lin used every last ounce of energy and scurried away. With the help of the rest of the survivals, he managed to stand up with much effort.

  The leader seemed to finally remember Zhang Mu who was still unable to move. He slowly walked towards him.

  His steps were slow. Zhang Mu’s heart dropped with every single step.

  “I am sorry, my subordinates don’t have manners. I will discipline them. I’m afraid I haven’t been a good host,” the silver-hair leader looked at Zhang Mu gently. Zhang Mu felt a chill running down his soul’s spine.

  “Why did you do this? Aren’t we good business partners? Why did you come to my survival base again? Do you have another business for me? No one talks about business like this right? I only have a few subordinates and you just killed them like that. From a businessman point of view, I need to be compensated right? What are you going to compensate me with? Money? Or rather, your life?”

  Zhang Mu realised he could control his facial muscles and with much difficulty, he said in a cold voice, “them? Was it human lives that I killed? And you, are you even a human?”

  “Haha, all I did was eat humans. Do you have to be so pissed off? It is just a mass of protein. A mass of useless protein eaten by a more powerful protein. Is there a problem with that?”

  Zhang Mu felt his anger rising. He controlled his emotions and said, “No matter how useless they are, aren’t they the same race as you? Can’t you eat normal food? How can you swallow it?”

  The silver-hair leader smiled when he heard Zhang Mu’s questions, “do you really know what hunger is like? Oh right, merchants like you always have good food. You won’t understand our pain. Even before the Cataclysm, survivors of a plane crash would eat other people’s corpse to stay alive. Did anyone condemn them? Would you 100% for certain say that you won’t eat human meat in that kind of situation? No, you can’t commit. People who are dying of hunger are crazy people.”

  Before Zhang Mu could reply, the middle-aged man continued. His started to have a faraway look as he recalled his memories and started telling his story.

  “That was three days ago, I remembered I was very hungry. I didn’t even have any water for the three days and I was dying. If I still have energy, I might even bite off my tongue and start eating it.”

  “At that moment, I saw a 20 years old girl holding a piece of bread in her hand and started eating in front of me. I pleaded her profusely,” the leader’s face turned sinister and his voice got sharper, “she didn’t even give me a bite of that bread. Not even a single bite!

  His voice was shaking as he remembered how he pleaded her,
“I just wanted to eat something then. I want to live. My whole mind was focused on the girl. I want to eat the bread in her hands.”

  The man smiled, “unexpectedly, the girl stopped moving. My head was hurting tremendously. I don’t know where my energy come from but I slowly inched towards her. It took me a few minutes but I did it. I crawled to her side.”

  “I slowly move towards the bread and took a huge bite. Accidentally, I bite off her finger. That feeling, that taste was marvellous. It was so delicious. I had never eaten anything so delicious in my entire life. I slowly sucked her blood and forgot about the bread.”

  The man paused and gave a warm smile to Zhang Mu and continued, “the blood seemed to give me strength.”

  “And then, there was no more blood.”

  “I started to eat her, bit by bit.”

  Chapter 94: Self Delusion

  Zhang Mu listened to the middle-aged man’s story and was not the least moved. His cold voice was filled with disdain, “such a joke. You could have eaten the bread and survive, why did you eat the girl? Okay even if that time you were forced to eat human meat, what about the times after that? Were you forced to? Stop lying to yourself.”

  Zhang Mu’s words pierced right into the leader's heart. The leader acted like he didn’t hear anything and just continued, “That time, I was thinking about the difference between bread and human meat. If I like human meat more, why can’t I just eat it?”

  “What do you say, young Era Merchant?” in spite of the insults by Zhang Mu, the leader didn’t display any signs of guiltiness. He continued looking and Zhang Mu with a smile.

  “This is the reason why you keep eating humans? Oh please, you are just a mutated animal with human skin. You think that humanity will forgive you?” Zhang Mu continued provoking the man in front of him. He spoke slowly and calmly as though he was saying a fact.