Tens of thousands of zombies were completely swallowed by the black mist, as if they had no power to resist.
The black mist spread outward at an unimaginable speed, even faster than the movement of the giant Corpse King by several degrees.
In just a few seconds, the black mist caught up with the giant Corpse King, drowning that invincible giant.
The black mist devoured everything, and Li Kang and his three companions were no exception.
The four seemed to have fallen into a netherworld, with coldness from the soul constantly assaulting them from within the black mist.
"Where is this place?"
Someone asked, but no one responded.
As the strongest among them, Li Kang quickly composed himself from his initial shock.
By identifying nearby buildings, Li Kang pointed toward the direction to leave Jiao City.
"Although we haven't seen any danger yet, we should leave Jiao City now and report this to the upper levels of the settlement."
The other three nodded repeatedly and immediately fled along the route they came.
However, after they ran several hundred meters, a deafening roar erupted in the black mist.
"Roar!!!"
The large area of black mist was forcibly shaken apart, and not far away, the giant Corpse King, over ten meters tall, was engaged in a fierce battle.
Opposing this terrifying Tier Four creature was an extremely bizarre lifeform in the eyes of Li Kang and the others.
It seemed to be stitched together with numerous vengeful spirits, with a body tens of meters tall covered in numb, twisted faces all over.
The gigantic ghost claws swept through the black mist, with all the wandering souls wailing in unison, the cries seemingly capable of freezing the soul.
Even though Li Kang and his group were several hundred meters away, they could still feel their souls trembling, consumed by fear, unease, and other negative emotions as if they became tangible and engulfed them.
The giant Corpse King repeatedly retreated in front of this bizarre vengeful spirit, its extraordinary power rapidly weakening.
The giant Corpse King did attempt to counterattack, but the extraordinary power in its terrifying heavy punches was largely consumed by the surrounding black mist each time, rendering the remaining power and physical attacks insufficient to shake this stitched vengeful spirit.
Anyone could see that the downfall of the giant Corpse King was just a matter of time.
In the black mist, more vengeful spirits slowly appeared, advancing towards Li Kang and his companions who had accidentally intruded, surrounding them with hundreds of vengeful spirits in an instant.
"Terrifying undead capable of contending with a Corpse King and this eerie ghostly realm, what on earth has happened at the ruins of Jiao City?"
Li Kang's eyes were filled with despair.
At that moment, a voice emerged from the black mist.
"Who are you?"
The moment the voice sounded, the multitude of vengeful spirits halted and their bodies dispersed, merging into the black mist.
The four survivors looked toward the voice and saw a figure standing amidst the billowing black mist, entirely shrouded by the eerie fog, with only a vague human outline visible.
Simply standing there, it seemed to be the center of the entire black mist, exuding a chilling aura.
Is it human?
Li Kang was filled with doubt, but faced with this figure who appeared in the black mist, he dared not question and respectfully answered:
"Honored sir, we are transcendent beings from Settlement 73, and our purpose in coming to Jiao City is to search for supplies."
Within the ghost fog, Lu Yan held the Soul Banner, curiously sizing up the four transcendent beings before him.
This was the first time he had seen living people in the three months since he entered the apocalypse version.
Since he last killed the peak Qi Cultivation extraordinary zombie Blood Mustache and refined it into the main soul, upgrading the Soul Banner to the Top-Grade Magical Artifact, Lu Yan had been relying on slaughtering zombies to accumulate vengeful spirits.
In over two months, Lu Yan had been refining zombie wandering souls day and night, accumulating as many as eight hundred vengeful spirits, clearing all zombies in the outskirts of the city.
Each of these vengeful spirits was at the third level of Qi Cultivation, with the main soul Warrior, Blood Mustache, having reached the peak of Qi Cultivation under Lu Yan's nurturing.
Once the Soul Banner was deployed, it became a Ghostly Realm transformation. If not for being limited by Lu Yan's inability to break through, the eight hundred vengeful spirits might even advance to the mid-stage of Qi Cultivation with enough wandering souls nurturing.
After three months of accumulation, today was the time for a version upgrade, so Lu Yan decided to try his luck at hunting a Corpse King at the early stage of Foundation Establishment.
Souls at the Foundation Establishment Stage are considered precious materials even in the Xianxia version.
Lu Yan specifically chose one of the weakest Corpse Kings, the Giant Corpse King that had just advanced to the Foundation Establishment Stage two months ago, to begin today's hunt.
The main force of attack came from the previously refined main soul, Blood Mustache.
After becoming the main soul, Blood Mustache converted the extraordinary power once fused with the zombie into the talent skill Soul Fusion Technique.
With the peak of Qi Cultivation realm, gathering the power of four hundred resentful spirits, Blood Mustache directly enabled the giant resentful spirit he fused to break through the Foundation Establishment Stage, forcibly suppressing the Giant Corpse King.
In panic, the Giant Corpse King invoked a corpse tide to choose escape, leading to the previous scene.
Lu Yan ignored the battle between the Giant Corpse King and Blood Mustache; since the moment the Corpse King fled, the outcome was already decided.
By comparison, Lu Yan was more curious about the four transcendents in front of him and the gathering place they spoke of.
From Lu Yan's perspective, he could naturally see that among the four transcendents, three young men were at the early stage of Qi Cultivation, while the man with scars on his face was at the late stage of Qi Cultivation.
This kind of strength was not weak in this ruins city, no wonder they had the confidence to break into this place.
If they had come a few days earlier, Lu Yan might have had the mind to communicate with them and confirm the situation of the apocalypse version and the extraordinary system.
But now, with a new round of version updates about to begin, Lu Yan needed to harvest the Giant Corpse King's soul early and had no time to waste on them.
With a light wave of his right hand, a path was opened up in the ghostly realm, and Lu Yan pointed in the direction of the path.
"Follow this way, and you can leave this city."
Everyone was instantly overjoyed, the three young men hurriedly bowed to thank Lu Yan, and then fled along the path.
Only Li Kang hesitated for a moment, then gritted his teeth and took out three orange diamond-shaped stones from his bosom, respectfully handing them to Lu Yan.
"Thank you, sir, for showing the way. I have nothing to repay you with but to present these three Sunstones to you."
Lu Yan's pupils slightly trembled; at a glance, he could see that these stones contained a large amount of Great Sun Spiritual Qi.
Although there was Great Sun Spiritual Qi in the daylight usually, the concentration was extremely scarce, and Lu Yan hadn't yet understood its purpose.
The Great Sun Spiritual Qi within these three Sunstones was so abundant, it almost exceeded the total he had absorbed during his three months of cultivation, making them an absolute treasure not to be missed.
Looking at Li Kang with a hint of satisfaction, Lu Yan invoked his magical power to receive the three Sunstones.
After a moment of thought, Lu Yan took out all the remaining supplies from his storage bag.
Due to the need for food shrinking with his cultivation improvement, Lu Yan still had more than half of the supplies prepared for three months.
These food and drinks should be quite valuable in the post-apocalyptic world.
With a wave of his hand, he erased all text that could reveal information using magical power, giving all these supplies to Li Kang.
"I won't take your things for nothing; let's consider these as an exchange."
Looking at the cartons of joy water, self-heating meals, instant noodles, and clean mineral water left behind by Lu Yan, Li Kang was stunned on the spot.
As someone who had personally endured the apocalypse version, he had not seen such goods in countless years.
Even those of the highest level at the gathering place could not enjoy such precious resources, enough to incite a scramble among the big players at the gathering place, with a value far exceeding the three Sunstones.
Li Kang trembled with excitement, repeatedly saying:
"Thank you, sir! Thank you, sir!"
However, when he lifted his gaze from these supplies, he discovered that the figure in the ghostly mist had disappeared at some point, together with the ghostly realm that covered the sky.
In this section of the street, only a gigantic skeleton remained.
A kilometer away in an abandoned building, Blood Mustache and many resentful spirits were suppressing a formidable soul, precisely from the previous battle with the Foundation Establishment Corpse King.
With a swirl of the Soul Banner in his hand, Lu Yan imprisoned the Corpse King's soul into the Hundred Souls Banner.
This was the first hunt of a Foundation Establishment Corpse King, and Lu Yan had already set his mind to refining it as a main soul, although currently, Lu Yan's cultivation realm was a whole major stage lower than the Corpse King's, even with the suppression of the Hundred Souls Banner, failure was likely.
Lu Yan could only temporarily store it and wait for a breakthrough in his cultivation realm before conducting the refinement.
Time slowly passed, and the progress bar finally reached 100% on the interface before Lu Yan's eyes.
In the next moment, information popped up.
[The apocalypse version has ended, with a version change rate of: 0.2%]
[Version update progress is full, select one version from the following for update.]
Martial God Version: Entering this version makes it worth the price even in death!
Xianxia Version: Ascension? Immortality? What truly lies at the end of the immortal path?
Online Game Version: In 2077, the immersive online game "Starry Sky" opens for its first test!]