"Seven rib fractures, punctured lung from broken bone."
"Severe burns over the entire body, ninety-five percent mobility loss."
"Remaining HP: 6. Entering critical condition."
"Severe burn status: losing 4 HP per minute…"
One after another, the system prompts dragged Qi Lin's fading consciousness back from the haze. But after glancing at his condition, worse than words could describe, he simply shifted onto his side, enduring the stabbing pain within his body, and found a somewhat less agonizing position amidst the still-glowing embers.
"As expected… too reckless. Only three hours into the server launch, and I've already burned my first revival chance…"
"…But taking down that many people with me, I suppose it wasn't a total loss."
Oddly, it didn't hurt as much as before. Perhaps the nerves under his skin had already been burned dead. Now it was just a prickling itch, a numbing sensation.
The burn damage notification ticked down again. Qi Lin's HP: just 2 points left.
"I wonder where the next respawn point will be… Hm? What's this?"
When he tried to move his right hand beneath his head, his fingers brushed against something hard.
"…The Corpse King Serum? It didn't get destroyed?!"
He pulled it closer. To his astonishment, it was the small syringe the BOSS had dropped. Neither the explosion nor the flames had damaged it, there wasn't even a single crack.
"Purple-grade items are really built different, huh?" Qi Lin thought. Anyway, once he revived, this serum wouldn't matter to him anymore. So, with a "waste not" attitude, he plunged the syringe into his carotid artery.
Snap.
The glass ampoule at the end, containing compressed air, broke with a squeeze. Under the pressure, the clear liquid rushed into his bloodstream.
"Corpse King Serum is merging with the body… Mutation in progress…"
Drowsiness swept over him. His last sliver of HP was nearly gone. Just before losing consciousness, he vaguely saw his internal radiation level, once at zero, suddenly spike to 100.
"As expected… injecting zombie fluids directly into a human… If you don't keel over instantly… that'd be the real miracle of science…"
His awareness blurred. But sensation returned to his skin, fiery pain, as if his flesh had been stripped and someone poured brine over the raw meat.
Yet Qi Lin had no strength left to scream. His body convulsed occasionally, the only proof that this charred husk wasn't quite dead.
Had anyone else witnessed it, they would have been stunned: Qi Lin's carbonized skin was cracking and peeling off in chunks, revealing tender, newborn-like flesh beneath…
"…This is… the respawn point?"
When Qi Lin awoke, he glanced around, and froze.
He was still lying amidst the gas station ruins. But his condition? Perfect. Stronger, even. His remaining revivals? Still three.
"I… didn't die?"
Realization struck. The Corpse King Serum must have saved him. But he clearly remembered: after injecting it, his radiation level had skyrocketed. Even if the burns hadn't killed him, the radiation should have.
Frowning, he pulled up his wrist console to check his stats:
Strength: 12Agility: 11Perception: 9Endurance: 14Radiation: 0Satiety: 73Hydration: 41HP: 500
The superhuman stats alone were shocking. But below them was something even more startling:
Lv. 1 Evolver
Mutation Abilities:
Super Vitality – Possesses five times normal HP.Rapid Recovery – Drastically enhanced healing and stamina regeneration. Reduced penalties from injuries.Advanced Radiation Immunity – Immune to all radiation levels below 1000. At 1000+, chance of benign/malignant mutations, with a very high chance of death.
"…These are all… side effects of the serum?"
Even Qi Lin, who'd seen more than his share of chaos, was dumbstruck. Surviving had been blessing enough. But now? The serum had turned him into a walking BOSS.
"Evolver? I've never even heard of that term…" Still, he understood: if it existed in the game, it must exist in reality too. Using mutant creature serums to induce human evolution… exactly the sort of thing the scientific madmen must be researching.
No matter what, becoming a Lv.1 Evolver meant he now had the capital to dominate. If his attackers came again, he wouldn't need self-destruction to wipe them out.
Agility 11, Strength 12, imagine Usain Bolt sprinting at you, then suddenly turning into Mike Tyson and smashing your jaw with a brutal uppercut. That was Qi Lin now.
With 500 HP on top, unless someone scored a direct hit to heart or brain, even a hail of bullets might not finish him. Like those old anti-Japanese war-drama protagonists, riddled with bullets yet refusing to die.
And with Advanced Radiation Immunity? Even better. No need to waste resources on anti-radiation meds. He could stride freely into zones too toxic for ordinary players, claiming all their resources. Water contaminated beyond recognition? For him, it was just bad-tasting.
As Qi Lin marveled at his new abilities, the World Channel erupted.
This time, no fewer than seven "Upper-Class" players, those pampered residents of the Wealthy District, had perished in the inferno.
Seven lives gone. Seven revivals. Seventy thousand resource points. And worse, the visceral terror of dying, something those spoiled brats had never truly experienced. Now, none of them dared face the madman known as 9527 again.
But the bounty on his head skyrocketed, to 20,000 resource points, ten times higher than before! Even the wealthy young masters had to pool funds to reach such an amount. Their hatred for Qi Lin ran deep, but their courage shallow, they could only pile rewards higher, hoping someone else would burn through his "last two revivals."
Meanwhile, far from the noise, Leng Xue sat in a dusty leather sofa inside a ruined city's bar. White ash clung to everything. He frowned, taking a hard drag of his cigarette.
Something gnawed at him. In the gas station explosion… that 9527 hadn't died.
He couldn't prove it. Couldn't even imagine how anyone without specialized gear could survive. But still, he believed it.
Even until the blast hurled him skyward, he'd never glimpsed 9527's true face.
He drew the last puff, crushed the butt into the ash-stained table, and grabbed his shotgun. Then, on the Bounty Task Platform, he posted a new mission:
"Investigate the background of player 9527. Payment negotiable based on intel value."
(End of Chapter 7)
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