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When Liu Yang woke up the next morning, it was already past 10 AM, and the sun was high in the sky.
He stretched his lean, toned waist, enjoying the rare luxury of sleeping in until he naturally woke up.
Back in his school days, he had to drag himself out of bed every morning for classes. Even on weekends, he had to get up early to stand guard as a security guard in the residential complex.
He barely got to sleep in a handful of times a year back then.
How could that compare to his life now, where he could sleep as long as he pleased?
Besides, with several top-tier beauties living downstairs, this was even better than an ancient emperor choosing which concubine to visit.
After washing up and eating breakfast, Liu Yang began planning his day.
Unexpectedly, a system notification suddenly popped up in his mind.
"Congratulations, Host! You have killed a total of 22,000 zombies and gained 2,200 Attribute Points!"
Liu Yang was stunned.
"What? Two thousand two hundred attribute points?!"
Then he realized what had happened and grinned. "The ten dormitory buildings at the university must have completely burned down overnight! Over twenty thousand zombies incinerated in one go! That's awesome!"
Right now, Liu Yang's baseline stats stood at 325 points each.
Dividing 2,200 by 4 meant he could add 550 points to every basic attribute!
Once allocated, his stats would jump to 875 points across the board!
His physical capabilities were now 16.5 times the human baseline!
An absolute superman among superhumans!
"[Dark Space] leveled up again, too. Leaving such a massive storage area empty is a total waste-I need to hurry up and loot the large supermarkets for food supply."
"As time goes on, other survivors will get desperate from hunger and start scavenging. If I wait too long, the major supermarkets might get stripped bare, leaving nothing behind."
"Besides, with stats 16.5 times higher than a normal human, it's time I head outside the residential compound and test my actual combat power!"
And so...
Liu Yang initiated his first simulation of the day.
This would be his first time stepping outside the villa area and onto the open streets, so he had to be cautious.
After all, back at the university, those five sports students had almost caught him off guard.
The open streets could be even more dangerous.
"Simulation begin."
With a single vault, Liu Yang cleared the three-meter-high main gate of the villa compound. The street outside was packed with abandoned vehicles, completely gridlocking the main road.
Some cars had crashed into the curb and caught fire, reduced to piles of charred metal.
The drivers inside had been burned down to black skeletons.
In other cars, the drivers hadn't managed to escape in time and were gnawed into bare white bones right in their seats.
Looking at the gruesome scenes, Liu Yang felt a brief wave of emotion.
Luxury cars worth hundreds of thousands-vehicles most people couldn't afford after a lifetime of hard work-used to be the ultimate flex for the wealthy. Who would have thought they'd turn into mobile coffins, becoming their final resting places?
Liu Yang pressed forward. The supermarket was only about a kilometer away from the villa compound, and he didn't run into any active zombies along the road.
However, the closer he got to the supermarket, the more zombie corpses he found scattered on the pavement.
As he inspected them, he realized every single zombie had been cleanly sliced in two. Some were decapitated, while others were severed at the waist. The bisected zombies' upper bodies were still alive, frantically crawling along the asphalt with their hands.
Some had even been cleaved vertically down the middle, split straight down the center!
Liu Yang stared at the sight, genuinely shocked.
"Holy crap... who did this? Is there another ability user around? I haven't even walked that far, and I've already found over a dozen severed zombie corpses. How strong is this person?"
What stunned him most was the attacker's weapon.
Every zombie was cleanly severed in a single stroke. Whether sliced horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, the blade cut through flesh and bone as easily as warm butter.
Liu Yang looked down at the battle-tested fire axe in his hands, suddenly feeling it had lost its charm.
Although the fire axe possessed armor-piercing capabilities, it tended to lodge itself in the skull whenever he chopped into a zombie.
How could it compare to a weapon that sliced through everything in one clean stroke?
Liu Yang immediately heightened his vigilance.
If the perpetrator really was an ability user, this would be the first one he had ever encountered. He had no idea how powerful the person actually was.
Caution was paramount!
As Liu Yang pressed on, the density of chopped zombie corpses increased the closer he got to the supermarket.
Finally, beneath a massive tree in front of the supermarket entrance, he found a pile of over a dozen dead zombies.
Stuck deep into the ground beside them was a pitch-black katana.
Liu Yang froze.
"What's going on? The zombie trail ends here, and that weapon is drenched in zombie blood. The owner clearly used it to slaughter them... but if the zombies are all dead, why leave the weapon behind? Did something happen to them?"
Liu Yang walked over, intending to inspect the scene and draw the blade.
After all, a weapon this sharp was a rare treasure-he'd be a fool to leave it behind.
Right at that moment, he caught a faint, exhausted voice crying out: "S-Save me..."
"Huh?" Liu Yang snapped to alertness, immediately scanning his surroundings, but he didn't see any survivors.
"Save me!"
The feeble voice called out again. This time, Liu Yang pinpointed the direction.
He abruptly looked up-and gasped in shock!
A woman, her hands and feet bound, was suspended high in mid-air. Beside her hung an unconscious man.
The woman was bound in a spread-eagle shape.
The man beside her was suspended in a similar fashion.
Surrounding the pair were dozens of zombies, also bound and suspended in mid-air!
Some of the zombies had already dried up into withered husks, while others were still thrashing helplessly, proving they had been captured at different times!
Liu Yang instantly went into full combat readiness. Stepping forward, he called up to the woman, "Who tied you guys up there?"
Before the words had fully left his mouth, a thick vine shot out from nowhere, wrapped tightly around his ankles, and yanked him into the air!
Liu Yang's world spun rapidly. By the time he regained his composure, his wrists and ankles were tightly bound, dangling him in mid-air right alongside the rest.
He, too, had been pinned into a spread-eagle position.
Liu Yang was shocked.
"What a terrifyingly fast enemy!"
He hadn't even detected the opponent's presence before getting captured!
This had to be an exceptionally powerful ability user!
To his surprise, the woman beside him spoke in a weak, trembling voice: "This big tree... it's mutated. It learned to use its vines to catch prey and drain their nutrients. I'm so sorry... it's all my fault. If I hadn't called out to you for help, you wouldn't have been caught, too..."
"A tree?"
Liu Yang was thoroughly stunned by her words.
He had assumed that the apocalypse only turned humans into zombies. He never expected plants to start mutating, too!
Not only did this tree capture humans, but it even harvested zombies as fertilizer. Talk about vicious!
While Liu Yang was processing the shock, the mutated tree extended a fresh, tender, tentacle-like vine from its canopy.
It aimed straight at Liu Yang's chest and plunged toward his heart!