Yu Xian and Zhang Shou sat atop the massive dragon's head, gradually putting distance between themselves and the Martial Ultimate Zombie King.
After a dozen minutes had passed, Zhang Shou was still panting heavily, sweat pouring off him like rain. In lingering terror, he gasped, "Holy shit, that nearly scared the piss out of me. That zombie just now was terrifying."
Lacking the Appraisal skill, he had no idea what the Martial Ultimate Zombie King's true background was. But when a weak creature encountered something far stronger than itself, an instinctive intuition naturally took hold.
Just as when a person ran into a tiger, even without knowing how powerful the tiger was, fear still gripped them.
Zhang Shou was in precisely that state. Overwhelmed by the Martial Ultimate Zombie King's horrific aura, he had kept his mouth firmly shut the entire time, terrified of drawing the creature's attention.
"Salty Fish, weren't you scared?"
Seeing Yu Xian looking completely unfazed, Zhang Shou wiped away his sweat and eyed him with suspicion.
Beside him, Yu Xian looked as unperturbed as Jiang Taigong sitting firm upon his fishing terrace. "He was a hero," he remarked calmly. "What's there to be afraid of?"
He then explained the Martial Ultimate Zombie King's history to Zhang Shou. After listening, Zhang Shou fell silent for a moment before admitting in grudging admiration, "Damn, what a real man!"
One man holding the pass, ten thousand cannot break through.
That was undeniably a dream harbored deep within the hearts of countless men.
Although the Martial Ultimate Zombie King had failed in the end, defending nothing, no one could fault a man who had martyred himself for his country.
"If our world really comes to an end one day, Salty Fish, would you choose to leave, or stay behind like him?" Zhang Shou asked out of nowhere, gazing at the dim sky and pitch-black earth ahead.
Both possessed extraordinarily long lifespans; barring accidents, they were guaranteed to live until the end of the world.
Yu Xian gave a self-deprecating smile. "I don't know. The me of right now would definitely choose to stay. Even if it meant dying, I'd defend Huaxia. But the future… people change. If I have too many things I can't let go of by then, I might not be as resolute as I am today."
What if he and Nora had a child in the future?
He could never stand by and watch his child wait for death. Once a person had attachments, their convictions were no longer so pure.
In truth, the moment he had said he didn't know, his Super Brain had already calculated the answer. It was just that emotionally, he didn't want to accept it.
"Sigh, suddenly I feel so hopeless," Zhang Shou exhaled, looking up toward the sky.
All of a sudden, a city began to emerge on the distant horizon. The lights shimmering from within made Yu Xian's eyes brighten. "It's precisely because things seem hopeless that we need to search for hope all the more," he said. "The outcome of this world won't necessarily be the outcome of ours!"
"Holy crap, holy crap! There's a city! There are lights!" Zhang Shou shouted in excitement, leaping to his feet as he caught sight of the city ahead.
Yu Xian kept his gaze locked on the distant settlement. It had no outer wall, its perimeter reduced entirely to broken tiles and collapsed masonry. Yet the closer one looked toward the center, the more intact the buildings became, and numerous windows radiated a hopeful glow.
Suddenly, an unusual scent brushed past his nostrils, and a mental model that had previously been completely blank in his mind rapidly expanded.
His eyes gradually widened. A bubble quickly expanded at his fingertips, swift enough to envelop both him and Zhang Shou. But in the fraction of an instant before he could teleport, a streak of dark green light lanced out from the city, flashing past in the blink of an eye.
Boom!
The dragon-shaped perfect creature was cleaved in two in an instant, its flesh and blood rapidly dissolving away within the brilliance.
At the same time, the bubble Yu Xian had created was blasted to pieces. The terrifying shockwave tore the two men apart. Zhang Shou's body was instantly twisted into a pretzel, killing him on the spot, while scales continually flashed across Yu Xian's body, perfectly fending off every bit of the assault.
Both crashed to the ground. Yu Xian immediately snapped his gaze toward Zhang Shou and shouted, "Old Zhang!"
Red light washed over his frame, and he flickered across space to appear right in front of Zhang Shou just as the man revived. Grabbing Zhang Shou, he flickered again, crossing a distance of a thousand meters.
Another beam of green light thundered out from the city, drowning the spot where they had stood only moments before.
"What the hell happened?" Zhang Shou yelled, terror written all over his face as he stared at the scorched crater.
Yu Xian didn't answer. Instead, he continued flickering relentlessly across the landscape to put distance between them and the city.
Three seconds later, the city behind him 'came to life.' Pupils appeared within the dense clusters of windows as a multicolored giant serpent covered in 'windows' raised its head, its myriad eyes locking firmly onto Yu Xian and Zhang Shou.
In truth, there had never been any city at all.
It was nothing more than a giant serpent disguised as one, coiled motionless on the earth, the patterns across its hide flawlessly mimicking an urban landscape.
One could only imagine, during this world's most despairing hours, the sheer joy countless refugees fleeing their homelands must have felt upon seeing it—and the sheer despair when they uncovered the truth.
"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!" Zhang Shou cursed in rapid succession, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull as he saw the serpent shed its disguise, hauled along behind Yu Xian like a kite.
Yu Xian kept flickering without pause. He didn't dare linger in any one spot for long, for the giant serpent's attacks were terrifyingly fast.
Moving at breakneck speed, the serpent swallowed the carcass of the dragon-shaped perfect creature in a single gulp, then surged in pursuit of the two men.
"So fast!"
Yu Xian didn't need to look back to know the serpent was closing in; his sense of smell tracked it clearly.
He gritted his teeth and accelerated his flickering, but in his perception, the gap between them only shrank.
In this world, without using his spatial bubbles, relying solely on the special energy of the Dragon Shield's core meant he had to lock onto a target location before every jump.
To make matters worse, apart from tracking the giant serpent, his Super Smell was practically useless in this world, returning mostly blanks and forcing him to rely entirely on his own eyes to acquire targets.
As a result, his reaction speed severely lagged behind.
Each flicker covered roughly a thousand meters, and that was already the most efficient he could manage.
As for deploying a spatial bubble?
What had just happened on the dragon-shaped perfect creature's head was the clearest proof of what would happen. He might survive, but Zhang Shou would undoubtedly die again.
More importantly, doing so still wouldn't let them escape.
Boom!
Rumble!
Countless beams of light erupted from the giant serpent's eyes, virtually sealing off every vector of Yu Xian's escape. Fortunately, Yu Xian wasn't running on foot; he was flickering through space, allowing him to emerge in the blind spots of its attacks every time.
In fact, the serpent's initial beam attack had targeted the dragon-shaped perfect creature rather than Yu Xian and Zhang Shou; the two of them had merely caught the residual shockwaves.
Yu Xian had serious doubts about whether the Dragon Shield could withstand a direct, full-powered blow from the beast.
This giant serpent was simply too formidable, nearly rivaling the Extreme Dragon he had encountered by chance back then. During his flight, Yu Xian realized their only chance of survival lay back in the ruins!
Almost there!
Just as the giant serpent was about to run them down, Yu Xian's eyes lit up. Catching sight of that back that resembled an unyielding fortress, he accelerated his teleportation toward it.
In a flash, he materialized within the ruins, while behind him, the roaring serpent charged headlong toward the Martial Ultimate Zombie King.
Chapter 120