Zombie Life Begins in Hongxi Village

The next morning, before the morning mist had completely dissipated in Hanging Coffin Town, Lin Yi had already finished eating breakfast at the Eight Immortals Table in the main hall of the haunted house.

Ren Tingting poured him a cup of tea and sat down beside him. "Are we leaving today?"

Lin Yi glanced at her, thought for a moment, and said:

"I'll take you somewhere that might be good for you."

Ren Tingting didn't ask where they were going, and simply said yes.

Lin Yi stood up and gently pressed her shoulder.

Ren Tingting felt a blur before her eyes, and she was no longer standing on the blue brick floor of the haunted house, but on a small town path paved with gravel.

The houses on both sides of the road were gray and dusty, with lush moss growing on the courtyard walls, and a cool, damp atmosphere permeated the air.

She subconsciously looked back—the haunted house was still there, the hanging coffin cliff was still there, and even the crooked locust tree at the entrance of the courtyard was exactly the same.

But Lin Yi is nowhere to be found.

"Ayi? Where are you?" she called out, her voice echoing through the empty town.

Before she could finish speaking, Lin Yi had already appeared beside her.

"This is the place I was talking about, exactly the same as outside." He took her hand. "How are you? Do you feel uncomfortable?"

Ren Tingting shook her head, took two deep breaths, and her expression changed from surprise to delight.

"I didn't feel uncomfortable at all; on the contrary, I felt very comfortable. It was even more comfortable than when I was at the Hanging Coffin Mountain."

Something cool was seeping into my body, making me feel refreshed.

She released Lin Yi's hand, took a few steps forward, squatted down, and touched the bluestone slabs by the roadside, her fingertips touching a thin layer of moisture.

"I really like it here. When I get back from Guangxi, I'll definitely stay here for a few more days."

"Don't worry, this is a secret realm that can follow me."

"Stay here for the next couple of days to avoid the long journey. You can come out again once you arrive in Renjia Town."

Lin Yi took out a few novels he had bought out of boredom from his storage ring and handed them to her, saying, "You can read them when you're bored."

Ren Tingting took the book and held it in her arms, her gaze passing over the courtyard wall of the haunted house and looking at the gray sky in the distance.

"For some reason, I feel that this place is better than the Hanging Coffin Mountain," she suddenly said, her tone tinged with emotion.

"It's like someone who has always lived in a smoky and polluted place suddenly coming to a forest with fresh air."

"Go inside and rest. The layout inside is the same as outside." Lin Yi patted her shoulder gently, and then, with a thought, she appeared on the summit of the Hanging Coffin Cliff.

He stood atop the mountain, overlooking the entire cave—several low mountain ranges surrounded the main peak, with underground veins and dark rivers all present, covering a total area of ​​about ten square kilometers, beyond which lay a hazy boundary.

Except for the lack of people, this place is a gloomy, underworld-like version of the hanging coffin town.

As the master of the grotto-heaven, he can appear anywhere at will.

The various factions within the cave have already settled down.

King Ai of Zhou led five of the seven heroes who had captured the ghosts back to their original cave.

Ah-Qiang and Ah-Zhen settled down by the pool at the foot of the mountain, with Ah-Zhen on the shore and Ah-Qiang in the water.

As for the evil god couple, Mahakala and the White Bone Bodhisattva, they built a small temple on the mountaintop using white bones, where they enshrined Thangkas and the Sister Drum, thus officially settling down.

The three forces are clearly distinct and do not interfere with each other.

However, they were still too vast compared to this enormous cavern.

Lin Yi arrived at a desolate mountain on the outskirts, opened her palm, and took out the essence blood of the drought demon from the blue teardrop.

A drop of crimson blood hung above the palm, its surface burning with an inextinguishable dark red fire.

The firelight wasn't bright, but it distorted and warped the surrounding air.

The mountain mist evaporated instantly, and the wild grass under his feet visibly withered from the edges, with a ring of scorch marks spreading outward from him.

Hanba, a celestial maiden in blue robes under the Yellow Emperor, was originally named Nüba.

In the ancient Battle of Zhuolu, he exhausted his divine power to disperse the wind and rain, helping the Yellow Emperor defeat Chiyou. After the battle, his divine power was depleted and he could not return to the heavens. He remained on the earth for a long time, and the divine power in his body transformed into a scorching drought fire, which burned the land for thousands of miles wherever it went.

She was a progenitor-level being who naturally transformed after her divine essence fell. Regardless of her strength, in terms of level, this drop of essence blood was definitely not inferior to Jiang Chen.

Lin Yi had a strong premonition.

Having absorbed the essence of the drought demon, the bloodline constraint that had firmly locked him within the realm of second-generation green-eyed zombies might be broken.

Just like Kuang Tianyou drinking the blood of the Demon Star—although he won't immediately evolve into the first-generation red-eyed Pangu, he can break through the ceiling that limits potential.

However, the Demon Star is ultimately connected to the bloodline of Pangu, while the Drought Demon is the progenitor of the ancient gods after their divine status fell.

If the two drops of blood essence could truly merge, then he would no longer be a pure descendant of Jiang Chen.

After the two primordial divine bloodlines collide and merge, it is very likely that a completely new bloodline will be born.

As for what exactly it will become, no one can say for sure, but one thing is certain—

Once the fusion is successful, he will no longer be bound by the Jiang Chen bloodline level.

Lin Yi was not an indecisive person; he swallowed the drought demon's essence blood in one gulp.

The burning sensation was like swallowing a piece of molten iron, burning all the way from the throat to the stomach, then exploding from the stomach and spreading wildly along the blood vessels to the limbs and bones.

Jiang Chen's bloodline is as violent as a raging wind, while Hanba's bloodline is as fiery as a blazing fire. The two collide in their veins, like two ancient ferocious beasts tearing each other apart in the same cage.

Fine blood cracks appeared on the surface of his skin, which then quickly healed under the self-healing power of the second-generation zombie—cracked and healed, healed and cracked again, leaving him crushed between two giant mountains.

The second-generation zombie bloodline ultimately had the upper hand, and the drought demon's essence blood was quickly suppressed and forced to retreat.

However, fire suddenly burst forth from deep within the body, joining the Drought Demon's side. Using the fire, they recaptured the position, and the battle between the two sides once again became a stalemate.

Just as the stalemate was at its peak, the power of the moon rose from the bottom of the blood vessels, transforming into a silver film that enveloped the crimson torrent of the drought demon's essence blood.

The essence of the earth's veins followed closely behind, its azure halo merging into the tyranny of Jiang Chen's bloodline.

The coolness of the moonlight softened the scorching heat of the drought, and the richness of the earth's veins tempered the sharpness of Jiang Chen's bloodline. The two forces, originally incompatible like fire and water, achieved a delicate balance under the harmonization of the moonlight and the earth's veins.

What truly propelled this fusion was Lin Yi's evolutionary talent from Earth.

His ancestors were not created by Nuwa from yellow clay, nor were they created by praying to heaven for power; rather, they evolved naturally from ancient apes over millions of years.

The instinct for evolution was etched deep within his genes, and after becoming a second-generation zombie, it was enhanced by the Pangu bloodline into a predatory and complete evolution.

At this moment, this instinct was fully activated by the conflict between the blood essences of the two progenitors—

His body no longer passively endures the struggle between the two.

Evolutionary instinct, like an invisible hand, used the power of the moon as a solvent and the essence of the earth's veins as a carrier to forcibly fuse the scorching drought fire of the drought demon's blood with the Pangu divinity of Jiang Chen's bloodline.

The three forces, under the coordination of evolutionary instincts, underwent an irreversible chemical reaction.

The bloodline of Jiang Chen provides the foundation of divinity, the essence of the drought demon provides the power to burn the heavens and earth, while the moonlight and the earth veins serve as catalysts and buffers.

Two primordial-level powers that were originally impossible to merge achieved a balance within his body.

The blood had completely changed. It was no longer the violent scarlet of the pure Jiang Chen bloodline, nor the scorching red of the Hanba bloodline, but a completely new golden-red that had never appeared in this world before.

Golden-red blood surged along his meridians, transforming his physical body wherever it flowed.

Bones, muscles, and fascia undergo deeper transformations under the influence of the golden-red ancestral blood.

Lin Yi's eyes snapped open.

The emerald green is fading, replaced by a dazzling dark gold.

It wasn't the dull, earthy yellow of the third-generation zombies, but a dark gold with a twisted divinity within its majesty, like a demon god of the night.

A tearing pain shot through his shoulder blades, and two enormous bat wings burst forth from his body, spanning over three meters. The wing bones gleamed with the same dark golden luster as his pupils, and the translucent wing membranes shimmered with a metallic sheen.

At the same time, the three souls and seven spirits underwent a complete transformation under the influence of the new energy.

The Heavenly Soul had long been transformed into the Divine Soul by Jiang Chen, but the Earthly Soul, Human Soul, and Seven Spirits were still based on mortals.

At this moment, under the tempering of the new energy, the earth soul and the human soul are transformed at the same time, and the seven spirits are also completely reshaped.

The second-generation zombies are deformed descendants of the Pangu clan, while the drought demons are products of the fallen divine essence of the gods.

The new bloodline formed by the fusion of these two naturally bears the mark of a fallen god in its soul.

Fallen demon soul, the soul of an evil god.

From this moment on, he is the true, entirely new fifth progenitor of zombies, not a dubious and incomplete version of the Pangu clan.

His power surged to five million tons, completely exceeding the limits of a second-generation zombie and reaching the level of a pseudo-first-generation zombie or even an ordinary red-eyed zombie.

Although it is not yet at the top level, it has unlimited potential and is definitely a ancestral-level zombie cub.

He no longer needs to live on blood—flames, moonlight, earth energy, and even malevolent energy are his sustenance, and of course, blood counts too, but ordinary blood can no longer fully meet his needs.

Lin Yi slowly stood up, her dark gold bat wings silently unfolding behind her.

A terrifying and ominous aura spread outwards from him in all directions, penetrating the mountains, the underground river, and every inch of the cave.

While Mahakala was resting with his eyes closed in the Temple of Bones, he suddenly trembled all over, his six arms began to shake involuntarily, and the bloodshot light in his eyes shrank to the size of a pinhead.

The White Bone Bodhisattva sat on a lotus throne, while the white bone spikes trembled violently and uncontrollably, silently shifting the lotus throne several positions away from Lin Yi.

King Ai of Zhou lay prostrate in the cave, emitting low sobs, as if he were kowtowing to an emperor.

Ah-Qiang jumped out of the water and shielded Ah-Zhen behind him, his body covered in mud, his legs shaking like a leaf.

Ren Tingting leaned back in her chair, feeling as if a huge rock was pressing on her chest, making each breath extremely difficult.

Lin Yi retracted his bat wings, and the dark gold in his pupils faded, returning to normal black.

The ominous aura receded into his body layer by layer, like the slowly receding tide.

He extended his right hand, and a dark golden flame silently ignited in his palm—

The new flame, formed by the fusion of aerial fire and drought demon fire, possesses both the ability of aerial fire to burn intangible things and the power of drought demon fire, but unlike drought demon fire, it is not uncontrollable.

Meanwhile, deep within an unnamed cave thousands of miles away from Hanging Coffin Town, the sleeping Zombie King Jiang Chen suddenly opened his eyes.

He glanced in Lin Yi's direction, let out a barely audible low laugh, then closed his eyes again and fell asleep once more.