The journey ahead was smooth, with no further obstacles.
They didn't even encounter a single zombie the entire way, unsure if it was because the recent battle had driven them away, or if Shandar City regularly cleared out nearby zombies.
As the car approached Shandar City, it slowly stopped. Zhou Ming looked at the tightly closed city gates and opened the car door.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Max, I don't think I can personally escort you into the city."
"What? You're leaving?"
Dr. Max exclaimed in surprise, but then seemed to understand something. He looked at Zhou Ming's appearance, which was vastly different from a human's, and fell silent.
How much suspicion and rejection would Zhou Ming face entering the city with that appearance?
And how many would covet his non-human, powerful strength, willing to use all sorts of open and covert struggles, schemes, and tricks to deal with him?
Internal strife was always what humans were best at and excelled at the most.
Dr. Max wanted to persuade Zhou Ming to stay, but facing the man who had saved him more than once, he was utterly speechless, unable to utter a single word of retention.
What surprised him even more was that after Zhou Ming got out of the car, Qin Wumeng followed closely behind him, silent, completely in the manner of someone who would follow Zhou Ming to the ends of the earth.
"Miss Qin, are you also..." Dr. Max asked in surprise, only to find that he was the only one expressing astonishment.
The other three in the car silently watched them get out, without the slightest surprise on their faces, as if they had planned it long ago.
"Then we'll be going first." Zhou Ming and Qin Wumeng exchanged a smile and nodded to the people in the car.
"Take care." Whale Shark waved to the two, saying in a muffled voice, "Wait for us."
"Definitely." Zhou Ming nodded, and the two no longer lingered, turning and leaving.
The four in the car watched silently as the two walked further and further away, until their figures disappeared into the distance, no longer visible.
"Let's go." Gong He sighed lightly, "Someone always needs to keep an eye on developments within the city. We can still contact them."
Whale Shark was silent for a moment, then restarted the car and drove towards Shandar City.
Soon, news of the arrival of the renowned biologist Dr. Michael J. Max spread throughout Shandar City.
The reason his arrival was treated with such solemnity was because it was rumored that he had developed a potion to eliminate the zombie virus, which would soon go into production, completely eradicating all zombies on Earth and allowing humanity to once again dominate the world.
This shocking news spread wider and hotter within the city. Although it had not received any official confirmation, it quickly became the most talked-about topic in the streets and alleys.
In fact, this was not entirely baseless. The experimental data and theories brought by Dr. Max were highly valued by the Shandar City high-level, who formed a high-end research group specifically for the study.
This research group was led by Dr. Max, and the other members were all leading figures in the field of biology.
They fully utilized their intelligence and ingenuity, coupled with Shandar City's abundant human and material resources, and almost every day, good news came from the laboratory, with research progress being very encouraging.
Time thus passed peacefully for a month without much incident.
During this month, Whale Shark and the other two lived quite comfortably in Shandar City. Before entering the city, they had reached a consensus with Dr. Max and successfully fabricated new identities to blend in.
With Dr. Max's strong assistance in the city, the three did not attract much undue attention, allowing them to recuperate and soothe the deep Soul fatigue left by continuous battles for several days.
In Dr. Max's allocated room, the four were sitting together, enjoying specially provided food and fine wine, chatting idly.
"The kenny potion is almost successfully developed, right?"
"Hmm, progress is very fast. If all goes well, in about another week, we'll be able to fully deduce the results."
"Which means, the time we can stay here..." The three exchanged glances, not continuing the topic.
Dr. Max also didn't press for anything, maintaining the tacit understanding of a smart person.
"I wonder how Zhou Ming and Qin Wumeng have been doing recently."
Xiang Zenan sighed, and everyone immediately fell silent.
After a while, Dr. Max spoke, "I heard from the patrol team that they've discovered a very strange phenomenon recently."
"The number of zombies that originally lingered near Shandar City has been gradually decreasing recently."
"Originally, they had to risk going to surrounding towns to collect resources. Now, they walk boldly on the streets of those towns, and it takes a long time to encounter a single zombie."
"They found this phenomenon very strange, so they continuously explored further, trying to figure out what was happening."
"Initially, it was just within a ten-kilometer radius of Shandar City. Later, they risked exploring further out, twenty kilometers, thirty kilometers, fifty kilometers..."
"The boldest team ventured a hundred kilometers outside Shandar City and still didn't find many zombies."
"It's as if ninety-nine percent of the zombies in this world disappeared overnight."
Listening to Dr. Max's narration, a figure appeared in everyone's minds simultaneously.
The man who could refine zombies into walking corpses, who once commanded an army of walking corpses to battle zombie hordes, creating what was a miraculous achievement for them.
"Is it Zhou Ming?" Xiang Zenan murmured.
"It's him, it must be him." Gong He's tone was firm, "Only he could do something like this."
...A thousand kilometers away from Shandar City, in another large city.
Zhou Ming stood at the top of a skyscraper over three hundred meters tall, listening to the wind whistling in his ears, gazing at the magnificent scene below.
In just over a month, the power of the Forest Sea Reincarnation Body had been fully displayed on him. Ninety percent of the Wood Charm Gu's physical alteration had now disappeared.
His skin had regained its elasticity, though his complexion still had a somewhat woody dullness. The vines that had grown on his body withered and disappeared, never to grow again.
His once greatly altered appearance had now recovered, still maintaining his youthful look, though his long hair still hung to his waist, its color having turned dark green. Fortunately, no more vines grew in his hair, nor did any green leaves sway.
The skyscraper beneath his feet was once the city's landmark building. Standing at its apex, one could overlook the entire city's beauty. Now, however, all that met the eye was desolation, decay, and ruin everywhere.
But it was not silent.
On the ground below, all kinds of corpses lay everywhere: zombies, walking corpses, bizarre Mutants, white walking corpses, black walking corpses, green walking corpses... Buildings were destroyed, districts were smashed, smoke rose everywhere, and half the city had become ruins... The battle had been going on for a long time, with countless casualties among both zombies and walking corpses. Now, this battle was finally about to come to an end.
From Zhou Ming's position, he could see almost every area of the city, and of course, he could also see that at the very center of the battlefield, countless walking corpses were rushing fearlessly towards a tall, ferocious Mutant in the middle.
Although the walking corpses were like paper, easily shattered by a casual slap from the Mutant, or kicked to pieces by a single foot, with every move it made, it could kill a swath of them.
But the number of walking corpses seemed endless, constantly gushing out from all directions, submerging the streets, submerging the buildings, submerging the entire city.
No matter how much the Mutant slaughtered, the shattered corpses under its feet piled up layer after layer, yet they were still inexhaustible, stretching as far as the eye could see.
At this moment, the Mutant even regretted why it had developed intelligence.
If it were just a Super Mutant, without thought, fearless and unafraid, perhaps at this point, it would only need to keep fighting and then die a glorious death.
But it was an Ultimate Mutant; it possessed wisdom, could think, and felt fear. It considered itself a higher life form than humans, a more Advanced being.
It wanted to escape, but it simply couldn't leave this place. It didn't want to die, but it felt its strength and life draining away little by little, about to be exhausted by what it considered the lowest of things.
It wanted to find the culprit who manipulated these low-grade trash and fight to the death, even if it meant dragging that damned human down with it. But it clearly knew where the other party was, yet it couldn't break through no matter what.
These countless walking corpses formed an insurmountable chasm, trapping it firmly here, unable to go anywhere, slowly wearing away its life.
A majestic Ultimate Mutant, self-proclaimed a higher life form transcending humans, now had to die here in such a suffocating manner. It was unwilling!
Above the landmark skyscraper.
Qin Wumeng stood beside Zhou Ming, also watching the battle that was about to conclude, and laughed softly, "This time, winning was so much easier than last time."
Zhou Ming chuckled, "After all, personal strength hasn't truly reached a point where it can override everything and disregard numbers."
"In the last battle, we had only been in this world for a short time, unable to accumulate a sufficient numerical advantage."
"But now... hehe, it can command zombies, and I can control walking corpses, and my numbers are two, three, ten times more than its!"
"Quantitative change leads to qualitative change. With so many zombies, even by piling them up, we can pile it to death!"
Qin Wumeng stood quietly beside him, pointing to the battlefield and saying, "Look, it's fallen!"
Following the direction of her finger, the tall Ultimate Mutant let out one last unwilling roar, and the next moment, it was completely submerged by countless zombies.
"Hmm, this battle is over. It's time to move on to the next target."
Zhou Ming chuckled, his gaze looking into the distance.
"Whale Shark and the others sent word that it will probably only be a few days until the kenny potion is successfully developed and produced."
"Before we return, let's clear out more zombies and try to exhaust the walking corpse horde."
Saying this, Zhou Ming gently waved his hand, controlling the army of walking corpses to charge towards the next city.
For a time, corpses surged like a tide, vast and mighty, submerging everything... (End of this world!)