Zombification

"Ah!" The young female Evolver could no longer bear it, letting out a scream of agony. 

Clutching a weapon in her hand, which looked like a long stick, she exerted all her strength to pull out a slender sword from within it, and threw it down at Maxwell's feet, her voice hoarse as she growled, "Quick! Kill me now!"

Maxwell picked up the sword but did not act as she had requested. Instead, he asked, "Isn't it good to be alive? Why seek death? Surely someone can save you!"

"There's no time left! Kill me now! If you don't kill me now, once I turn into a zombie, you'll be the first one I kill!" The pain was evident in the young Evolver's voice.

Her facial zombification became increasingly apparent, and her skin also seemed to be undergoing rapid changes.

"Stop talking nonsense! Just kill me! I don't want to become a zombie! I don't! Do it now!" The girl shouted, her voice breaking into sobs, tears streaming from her eyes.

Maxwell gripped the hilt of the sword.

Having been in this world for a week now, Maxwell knew all too well that individuals like this young female Evolver were generally beyond saving unless a high-tier Evolver intervened to help by blocking or expelling the virus from her body.

However, there were no such powerful Evolvers nearby in this base city capable of such feats. 

As she had said, if delayed any longer, she would turn into a zombie. The process was excruciating and painful, and indeed, it might be more merciful to end her life now rather than let her turn.

However... even if Maxwell killed her now, there was still a chance she might turn into a zombie.

"Damn, these stupid zombies have no sense of who they're dealing with, daring to attack us! It's a big joke. Unfortunately, the boss only killed one mutant zombie this time; those mutant ones are really cunning! What's going on? Why is there crying upstairs? Let's go check it out!"

Suddenly, a loud voice came from downstairs.

Someone had entered!

Maxwell quickly reacted, stowing Eva and the Tier 1 mutant zombie at the staircase entrance into his space.

The three people quickly climbed in through a window. Two men and one woman, all looking to be around twenty years old. 

As soon as they entered, they immediately saw the young female Evolver lying on the floor. As for Maxwell, standing not too far away, he was outright ignored by them.

"Hey, isn't this our genius Evolver? Awakened her abilities at ten, became an Evolver at fifteen! Hahaha, what's going on with you? Why do you have necrotic patches on your face, signs of zombification on your body? Oh my, you're not turning into a zombie, are you? Tsk tsk tsk!"

All three saw her, but the woman among them suddenly began to taunt her in a strange, mocking tone.

Hearing her words, Maxwell realized that these two women might have had some past grievances.

Seeing the trio, the young girl immediately stopped her tears, her gaze turning cold, and the necrotic patches on her face faded again. At the same time, the stick she was tightly holding began to emit a faint red glow.

The trio's faces changed drastically.

"It's Flame Burst! Run!"

The trio had initially entered through the window and hadn't moved far from it, making their escape quite convenient. They immediately turned and jumped back out the window, moving so fast that Maxwell barely had time to react.

"Hurry up, don't daze out! Hand me the sword!"

Maxwell was still a bit dazed when the young female Evolver suddenly urged him on, the glow from her stick having disappeared at some point.

Maxwell realized then that the young Evolver was at the end of her strength, merely bluffing to scare off the trio. The fact that she could scare them off so easily suggested that they weren't Evolvers yet, probably just Awakeners.

The necrotic patches on the young Evolver's face covered it again, now spreading to over three-quarters of her face, and continuing to spread at a visibly slow rate.

She wanted her sword.

Maxwell understood that she felt unable to do it herself and was planning to end her own life.

Maxwell sighed and handed back the sword, which originally belonged to the young Evolver. She looked at him with a hint of gratitude, grasped the hilt of the sword, and aimed the tip at her heart. Just as she was about to stab herself, a figure suddenly appeared, snatching the long sword from her hands with incredible speed.

"You almost had me fooled there! Thinking of suicide now, eh? I'm afraid it's not that simple."

A male voice rang out; it was one of the trio who had hurried in and out earlier.

"Hahaha, what an honor it is to witness the favored daughter of the heavens fall from grace, to be tainted and become a zombie. This is too interesting! Don't be in a hurry to get angry. Think of it this way: right now, we can't defeat you, and even after you turn into a zombie, we still won't be able to. But there's a process to this transformation! When you're at your weakest in your zombification, I'll make sure to strip off your clothes first..."

"Don't rush to curse me, I have no interest in you as you are now! Not only that, but I'll also pull out your teeth, cut off your tongue, and chop off your limbs, how about that? After all, I've captured a mutant zombie alive! I can surely call everyone to come and see, right?"

The man laughed recklessly, unashamed of his intentions.

"Travis really knows how to have fun, huh! We should have people watch, especially those who know her, get all her acquaintances to come too, it'll be much more interesting! I'm already getting impatient!" another man chimed in.

"Stop laughing, there's still another person here. What should we do with him? Just kill him?" The woman standing beside them turned to look at Maxwell, prompting the two men to also glance his way. One of them said, "He's just an ordinary person, let's just take care of him."

The casual tone of their conversation was as if they were discussing something mundane like the weather or what clothes to wear today, not the life of a living person.

To the Awakeners, particularly those of a higher tier, ordinary people might not even count as human beings.

In the apocalypse, human lives are as cheap as dirt.

Maxwell knew this, and at that moment, he understood this truth even more deeply.

Inside the base city, people could still pretend to be civilized, maintaining a semblance of law and order. But once outside, their hearts became as wild as their environment—survival of the fittest, might makes right, the law of the jungle. This is what the apocalypse truly looks like.

Inside and outside the high walls, human nature shifts.

These three truly embodied the definition of ugliness and fully displayed the nature of scum.

However, they did not yet realize just what kind of "ordinary person" they had set their sights on.