Chapter 365, Is This Also a Profession?
On the road ahead, skeletons dressed in leather armor and holding weapons were patrolling along the way.
Further away, there was still a large skeleton army.
They were cleaning up the battlefield or carrying away scrapped vehicles blocking the road.
What's going on?
Where's the zombie horde that was entrenched here?
How did they all turn into skeletons now, and cleaning up the battlefield—did the battle just end?
What exactly is happening?
"Are those skeleton soldiers from the Old Factory District? The armor and weapons are the same," someone said directly.
Even if they couldn't believe someone could control so many skeletons, the identical armor and weapons matched the skeletons from the Old Factory District.
That couldn't be dismissed as a mere coincidence.
It made the people even more certain that these were skeletons from the Old Factory District.
"How could there be so many skeletons? Are there more of them than zombies?"
"Did the Old Factory District attack this area? Wasn't it said that there were tens of thousands of zombies here? How could they possibly have taken over?"
"No wonder the journey here was so smooth. The zombies must have been wiped out."
This route was selected after careful scouting several times.
Along the way, they hadn't encountered any zombies.
They had thought the route was just well-chosen, but now it seemed the zombies had already been cleaned out by those skeletons.
The roundabout was definitely the most dangerous area in the city—densely populated, and there could even be advanced mutated zombies.
And now it was occupied by skeletons? How many zombies must have been killed?
Even the military-run refuge, with its abundance of weapons and ammunition, wouldn't dare attempt to clear out the zombies here.
"Don't provoke them. Let's withdraw and report back to the base," the squad leader ordered in a deep voice.
Despite the shock, he kept himself calm.
The nature of their mission had changed, and they needed to bring this intel back.
"Okay!" the driver responded.
After contacting the others via radio.
The three armored vehicles began to turn around.
But suddenly, heavy footsteps came from ahead.
The people inside the vehicle immediately looked grim.
Two skeletons, each three meters tall with thick bones, came charging towards them with thousands of ordinary skeletons, surrounding the armored cars before they could complete their turn.
Even though these skeletons only carried cold weapons, and the armored cars could forcibly break through.
The vehicles were surrounded so tightly that it created an overwhelming sense of pressure.
"What are they trying to do?"
The squad leader stared outside, gripping his radio tightly.
He hesitated, debating whether or not to order them to ram through.
While he hesitated.
The surrounding skeletons made way, clearing a path.
Qi Hancai, wearing a camouflage bulletproof vest and followed by a tall, thin skeleton with dual blades strapped to its waist, walked out directly.
She scanned the armored cars and made a circling gesture towards the glass window.
The air was quiet for a few seconds.
Eventually, the armored car window rolled down, revealing the people inside.
Qi Hancai asked directly, "Which refuge are you from?"
"Leader Qi, we're from the military refuge. We met back at the market," the squad leader said with a forced smile.
Qi Hancai looked the man up and down, not having any strong impression of him.
But judging from their equipment, they did seem to be from the military refuge.
Of course, they could also be imposters from another refuge.
Armored cars weren't unique—her side had them as well.
Still, where they came from wasn't of much importance.
"What are you doing here?" Qi Hancai asked again.
The squad leader said, "Leader Qi, don't misunderstand. We received orders to scout the movement and status of the zombie horde here. We didn't expect to find no zombies along the way and ended up here."
Qi Hancai nodded. She didn't really care why they were here.
With the number and strength of the skeleton army, even the military, equipped with modern weapons, would have a hard time posing a threat.
Guns and machine cannons, no matter how powerful, weren't going to work if the skeletons didn't stand still and let themselves get shot.
Unless they brought out missiles or something.
There wasn't any refuge that could defeat the Old Factory District otherwise.
Qi Hancai looked through the window at the people inside and said, "We've occupied the roundabout area here, and will be assigning forces to guard it. Stay away unless it's important—to avoid any misunderstanding and potential danger."
"Understood, we have no other intentions. We'll report this back," the squad leader said.
"Alright, we still have a battlefield to clean up, so I won't be keeping you."
Qi Hancai waved, and the blocking skeletons moved aside to open a path.
The squad leader smiled, "Leader Qi, then we'll head back first. Congratulations to the Old Factory District for taking over the central area."
"Thanks!"
The convoy turned around and left into the distance.
Once they'd traveled some distance.
Someone spoke up, "Qi Hancai's really got some swagger now."
"With an army like that, anyone would have swagger."
"True. What's the deal with the Old Factory District anyway? How could an ability control so many skeletons? There are more of them than zombies."
"Abilities are mysterious by nature—nothing surprising about what they can do."
"It looks like the Old Factory District is going to surpass all other refuges. Now that they've taken over the roundabout, they might become the first refuge in the country to successfully reclaim a city."
"That's kind of terrifying."
"Doesn't matter to us. We're leaving before winter anyway, so we won't have much interaction with them." "True!"
...
On the other side, in front of the mall.
Wu Heng looked at the corpses on the ground, frowning slightly.
After daybreak, he personally led the skeletons on another round of searching inside the mall, bringing down the body parts shattered by Barrett, both bones and flesh.
When converting to skeletons, necromancy would perform some degree of repair on the corpse.
But there were limits to this restoration—severely missing parts could not be regenerated out of thin air.
Fortunately, the four-legged third-tier zombie's body was intact enough, with severed parts that could be collected.
However, the two second-tier big-headed zombies only had their heads and lower bodies intact.
The chest area was completely blown apart and could not be salvaged.
Wu Heng felt regret, making a note to himself to use Barrett less if he intended to preserve the corpses.
Such anti-material weapons were far too destructive for ordinary zombie bodies.
Killing without being able to convert the bodies would be a waste.
If nothing could be done, it was just best left alone.
He glanced again at the corpses and cast [Raise Corpse].
The flesh of the third-tier zombie melted like hot wax, and a massive skeleton rose from within.
It stood about four meters tall, with a pelvis connected to four legs, like a crab.
The upper body remained humanoid, with thick bones and unusually large hands.
After looking at its appearance.
Wu Heng checked the skeleton's attributes.
[Skeleton Quadruped Warrior (Level 15)]
[Attributes: Constitution 38, Strength 40, Agility 25, Intelligence 18, Perception 15, Charisma 8.]
[Traits: Hollow Skeleton, Basic Soul, Quadruped.]
[Feats: Biological Aberration, Constitution Aberration, Morphological Aberration.]
[Quadruped]: This unit has specialized legs that allow rapid movement in rugged environments.
[Biological Aberration]: Constitution +2, Strength +5. [Constitution Aberration]: Constitution +3. [Morphological Aberration]: Agility +3.
Looking at the quadruped warrior's stats, Wu Heng's eyebrows rose.
Strength had reached 40 points, surpassing even warriors of the same level.
Constitution 38, Agility 25—also nothing to scoff at.
The remaining three attributes were a bit lacking, not very outstanding.
"From now on, you're called 'Quadruped.' Stand aside for now," Wu Heng said.
The massive skeleton obediently stepped aside.
The four human legs moving in tandem looked a bit odd.
Wu Heng searched among the flesh on the ground, finding a level-three zombie core.
He picked it up with a plastic glove and stored it in his space ring.
He continued converting the big-headed zombie corpses nearby.
Since the bodies were incomplete, he used the bones to complete the conversion.
[Skeleton Spirit Demon (Level 8)]
After the conversion, Wu Heng's eyebrows lifted.
Although the bodies were incomplete, combining two into one still resulted in a Skeleton Spirit Demon, retaining the ability to command zombies.
That was not too bad.
It wasn't as big of a loss as he had imagined.
Continuing to search through the ground, he found two level-two zombie cores and stored them in the space ring.
After completing the conversion of a few mutated zombies.
Wu Heng moved on to another area.
In the empty lot marked with parking spaces, over a hundred corpses were neatly lined up.
The shriveled-skin evolved zombies.
According to Qi Hancai, these types of zombies had been mentioned by the central broadcast.
They represented a transformation of ordinary zombies after evolution.
Their flesh no longer rotted or decayed. Although shriveled, they looked more resilient.
Moreover, their movement was more coordinated, and they displayed a low level of sentience, able to make certain judgments.
Wu Heng was curious about these zombies and had instructed the skeletons to bring them over while cleaning up the battlefield.
He took a quick glance at them and then directly cast [Battlefield of the Dead].
A grey-white ripple spread out.
All the corpses lying nearby were transformed into skeletons.
They rose from the ground.
[Skeleton Warrior (Level 5)]
The evolved zombies became level-five skeletons.
Wu Heng examined their attributes.
Strength, constitution, and agility had all improved, and intelligence had reached 6, indeed possessing some level of intellect.
However, something about these skeletons seemed off.
How could the evolution of these zombies be so similar to the tiers of another world?
After reaching level five, professionals would advance to the second tier, gaining significant enhancements in traits and abilities.
On the zombie side, they seemed to follow the same pattern—level five marked the divide between ordinary zombies and evolved zombies, displaying obvious physical and mental changes.
Are zombies also a profession?
What the hell!