198: Chapter 198 Advancement! Energy Gathering Realm!

"Boom!"

"Boom——!"

One continuous explosion after another, along with the boss's terrified screams carrying a hint of fear, drifted over from the west side of the Main Hospital Building from time to time.

Every single sound that reached the Exotic Beast Research Laboratory and the Underground Dissection Center made the members of the two Pioneer Squads tremble fiercely in their hearts.

"They're still not dead? That squad at the north gate is actually still fighting... Could it be that the teleportation tower of Huangshan Base City has been built? Did a squad from the central district arrive?"

"Hiss, the zombies over there seem to be getting fewer and fewer..."

Exotic Beast Research Laboratory.

If at the very beginning, the squad at the number one position of the Exotic Beast Research Laboratory had sneered inwardly at the squad at the north gate when they saw both bosses being lured away—

"We bust our ass for half a day, and isn't the core area just going to benefit us in the end?"

However.

As the battle dragged on longer and longer.

Three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes...

Not only did the sounds of battle from the Main Hospital Building show no signs of stopping at all, but even the blood-curdling screeches and roars of the horde seemed to be vaguely suppressed.

It was as if... the horde had been wiped out by the other party!

The moment this thought arose, everyone in the squad shook their heads repeatedly.

How could that be possible?

However.

When a shrill and piercing wolf howl, accompanied by a clear, explosive gunshot, suddenly came from the direction of the Main Hospital Building,

someone in the team finally couldn't hold back the tension and curiosity in their heart any longer.

A team member ran up to the roof, took a drone out of their backpack, and remote-controlled its takeoff.

As the drone flew past the Sanatorium and Rehabilitation Center and then over the Main Hospital Building, the dim footage displayed the scene of the open space on the west side of the Main Hospital Building. The few people who had run up to the roof together and saw the real-time footage on the remote control screen...

all gasped in a breath of cold air.

That was a "hill" composed of zombie corpses of all sizes. One grisly pile of corpses after another was piled together, and the ground was completely covered by vicious, grayish-white zombie heads.

"Blech!"

Such a nerve-wracking scene caused a team member with poor endurance to instantly fail to hold back a dry heave.

They slumped to the side and vomited profusely.

As the drone footage continuously zoomed in and closed up, the huge crimson corpse of a monster, which still had a large area of zombie corpses pressed beneath it, came into view.

"That's... the Sovereign boss!"

The pupils of several people shrank violently. They saw the dense tentacles that, in their impression, could be hardened all over the body, shot out as bone spikes, and even fused into two fleshy wings to allow the Sovereign boss to glide in mid-air—

were now completely bare.

A chopping mark extended from the top of the skull all the way down the spine for a full meter or more.

It was almost on the verge of splitting the Sovereign boss right down the middle.

Scattered all around were either hard bone spikes obviously shot out by the Sovereign boss, or soft tentacles that looked like they had been forcibly hacked off with a knife tip or something.

"Where are the people? Why aren't we seeing anyone from that squad?" The captain's expression flickered uncertainly.

Just the moment his words fell,

yet another sharp and shrill wolf howl made the drone pilot hurriedly look toward the direction the sound came from.

Following that, everyone saw a scene that would make them unforgettable for the rest of their lives.

That was the wreckage of a special service armored vehicle that contained an equipment box container inside.

At this moment, atop that huge special service armored vehicle, Fenrir's ferocious, bloody maw hung limply, and the joint of its lower jawbone looked like it had been violently severed.

Severed along with it was its pair of forelimbs with sharp wolf claws.

A figure covered all over in blood stains and various viscous body fluids was stepping on Fenrir's head at this moment, holding a purplish-red hand axe that looked exceptionally bewitching in the dark environment.

The latter raised the hand axe once more.

"Squelch!"

With a swing of the axe down,

the hand of the team member operating the drone couldn't help but tremble along with it, their face pale and horrified.

"Is, is this even human? Why is he the only one..."

Everyone looked in disbelief at the figure standing tall on the boss's corpse in the footage.

The horde originally numbering in the thousands had actually been slaughtered by just this one person until barely a hundred remained. Furthermore, the remaining zombies weren't even completely intact.

Looking at the figure in the footage who had just resolved Fenrir,

two golden apples suddenly appeared in his left and right hands, tossing them amidst the zombies that were gathered and crawling with difficulty over the corpses of their surrounding companions toward this side.

"Boom——!"

"Boom——!"

Two familiar explosions stirred up a violent wave of source energy.

Atop the pile of corpses, the two explosions once again kicked up a large expanse of blood stains and broken limbs, making the stomachs of the few squad members churn turbulently.

Not a shred of color could be seen on the face of the drone pilot anymore.

"Is this a human? How could anyone single-handedly hack down an entire horde... He should be worked to death from exhaustion, right?"

And just as this pilot was muttering to himself,

Chu Hong indeed felt like he was going to be worked to death from exhaustion.

The effect of the painkiller had long since worn off. Furthermore, due to casting and maintaining the ability Slaughter Overlord under high load, every single pore all over Chu Hong's body was transmitting a bone-piercing, excruciating pain at this moment.

When the zombies blown to death by the last two golden apples gathered a few clusters of life energy that surged into Chu Hong's body,

Chu Hong's complexion instantly turned pale.

"Hiss!!!"

The life energy that should have nourished his body's high-load consumption like a desert spring instead gave Chu Hong an excruciating pain the moment it surged into his body, as if someone was scouring his body with concentrated sulfuric acid and subjecting him to torture.

The intense pain caused Chu Hong's body to twitch violently.

And when the very last zombie around was also killed by Chu Hong,

the ability Slaughter Overlord finally ushered in its true countdown.

Ten seconds, eight seconds, six seconds...

When the countdown ended, the aura of the Energy Gathering Realm Stage Nine on Chu Hong's body abruptly began to plummet drastically.

Energy Gathering Realm Stage Eight! Stage Seven... Stage Three! Stage Two!

However,

when the aura dropped to Energy Gathering Realm Stage Two, the source energy fluctuations that should have continued to fall back to Energy Gathering Realm Stage One, and then drop back to the original Ninth Stage of Qiyuan Realm,

miraculously stopped falling instantly.

His near-exhausted body began to slowly and naturally draw source energy from the air around the secret realm.

Chu Hong slumped limply on the head of Fenrir's corpse.

A look of joy flashed across his eyes at this moment.

He had broken through!

Acting like a madman, he had pushed himself into a continuous state of limit and fought a great battle against thousands of zombies, and finally, just as the old city lord Jiang Xingdong had said,

he successfully promoted!

And right off the bat, he reached Energy Gathering Realm Stage Two!