Novels online

Chapter 64: Austen

"What is this...?" Bai Mo discovered an inconspicuous small stone after cutting open the zombie's brainstem.

"Could it be an energy crystal, like the corpse cores or beast cores often found in novels after killing demonic beasts or zombies?

If you didn't cut it open, it would be almost impossible to notice such a fingernail-sized crystal in the brainstem, especially with its color so similar to the brainstem tissue. Any normal creature would have died long ago with a stone like that in its brainstem."

As Bai Mo pondered the origin of the small stone, his senses picked up another suspected zombie trying to crawl out of the rubble. So, he casually placed the small stone into a sample bag in his suitcase, then used his psychic power to "pull" it, freeing the struggling creature from the debris.

This time, to prevent the frenzied zombie from ruining his dissection results, the instant it broke free, he used his psychic power to seize it in the air like a giant hand, preventing it from gaining any leverage.

"Next sample acquired."

After fixing the new sample in the air as if hanging clothes, Bai Mo continued his study of the first zombie, which had already been cut into pieces.

Once the new "zombie" was suspended in mid-air, it saw the human limbs, cut into pieces, scattered on the ground. To its surprise, fear appeared in its eyes. The person moving among the body parts, occasionally levitating a chunk of flesh or an organ into the air for close inspection, seemed even more terrifying than a demon.

"Can you understand what I'm saying?" Bai Mo asked curiously, perceiving through his divine sense that the "zombie" had seemingly not lost its sanity and was even showing fear.

"Oh, right, my psychic power is holding you too tightly. You can't express anything beyond facial expressions." After Bai Mo finished speaking, he released the upper half of its body, and it quickly nodded.

"Do you still remember who you are?" Bai Mo asked again.

"I remember," it said with extreme difficulty.

"It's good that you still have your sanity and self-awareness." After Bai Mo set the "zombie" down, he attempted to communicate with it.

As soon as it was released to the ground, the "zombie" began frantically explaining itself to Bai Mo in English.

"I'm not a zombie! I'm human! My name is Jane Austen, an American reporter. I came to Rome intending to cover the Ability User conference, but who knew such a disaster would strike." Austen said, a hint of fear in her voice.

"No natural disaster, only man-made calamity," Bai Mo muttered to himself.

"His situation is quite similar to yours..." Bai Mo had only just pointed to the mutated organs (heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys) floating in mid-air and said half a sentence, when Austen bolted, running for her life.

She was terrified she would become the demon's next victim, turning into another part of that pile of fragmented remains. However, in her panic, she seemed to have forgotten how Bai Mo had frozen her in place just moments before.

Bai Mo, who didn't understand how terrifying the scene of him holding a knife and probing among various organs appeared to normal people, once again released his psychic power and dragged her back.

Austen felt as if she had crashed into a gigantic spiderweb; once stuck, she couldn't move.

"You... you... what do you want?! You demon, stay away!" Austen cried out in panic, struggling desperately.

In the apocalypse, what was more terrifying than zombies was the human heart. She finally understood why that saying existed.

"Why are you running so fast when I haven't even finished speaking?" Bai Mo slowly walked towards her, dissection knife in hand.

"Help! Help!" Austen watched Bai Mo approach with the dissection knife, screaming for help until her voice was hoarse.

"Can you calm down and listen to what I have to say?" Bai Mo continued, unhurried.

...

"How did I turn into this?!" After calming down slightly, Austen examined her body. It was covered in bursting wounds, many of them torn open by her swollen muscles, giving her the appearance of a flayed human muscle specimen from a specimen room.

"Ah!" Austen, more terrified of becoming a monster than encountering one, screamed again. Normally quite vain, she absolutely could not accept turning into something akin to a muscle zombie.

Unable to bear the disturbance, Bai Mo directly sealed her mouth with his psychic power. Austen's post-zombification strength, reaching a thousand jin, was utterly negligible before Bai Mo's psychic power.

"Now," Bai Mo said to Jane, enunciating each word, "I speak, you listen."

Austen found that while her strength had increased immensely, under the suppression of the person before her, even twitching a muscle or blinking her eyes required immense effort.

"First, you are very lucky to have survived less than four hundred meters from the epicenter of the nuclear explosion, and successfully retained your sanity, without being zombified. I speculate that your body underwent a rapid, directed mutation to extreme heat and radiation resistance, which prevented you from being directly incinerated by the heatwave."

"He, however, wasn't so lucky. Under the dual catalysis of intense nuclear radiation and Spirit Qi, his body also underwent accelerated evolution, just like yours.

Unfortunately, he couldn't hold on; he lost his sanity and turned into a zombie, so I killed him. And while I was at it, I borrowed his mutated corpse to study the reasons behind zombie mutation." Bai Mo gestured towards the pile of floating body parts.

"Secondly, I am not a murderer. You can simply view me as a forensic pathologist, someone who determines the cause of death by dissecting the deceased. I have no interest in you; at least for now, I don't have a hobby of dissecting living people."

"Next, I need to conduct some sampling and investigation on you. This will not only aid my research but also help you find a way to return to your original state. I believe you wouldn't want to keep this terrifying appearance, would you?"

After Bai Mo finished speaking, he released his psychic power's restraint on Austen.

After Bai Mo released her, Austen collapsed completely onto the ground. Clearly, she had been continuously trying to use all her strength to break free from Bai Mo's psychic restraint, but just as clearly, she had failed. Thus, the moment Bai Mo let go, she fell due to temporary exhaustion.

"Have you finally calmed down?"

"What choice do I have? And if I leave Rome looking like this, I'll likely be killed as a monster in any human settlement." After completely calming down, Austen carefully considered her situation. She realized she could only place her hope in this eccentric individual before her; at least he still treated her as human.

"How confident are you?" Jane Austen asked.

"I don't know," Bai Mo said, spreading his hands. "You are the first person I've encountered who retained their sanity after zombification.".