Epoch of Twilight

Before their journey, there were slightly more than twenty soldiers. Now, only four soldiers remained including Commander Xia. Everyone looked gloomy and tired; sadness flashed in their eyes from time to time. Although it was a norm to witness death since the outbreak, especially for these soldiers who always faced uncertainties in their life, they would still mourn for a while before they started to get busy again.

The remaining firearms and ammunition were all kept by the soldiers; categorized into different wooden boxes one by one so that they could load them into the truck easily. A soldier then picked up a weapon and a shoe from the ground; suddenly his eyes shed a few teardrops and he secretly wiped them away. He turned and crouched down to hide his face.

Mu Wenwen and Wang Shishi also helped within their capabilities. No one wanted to speak so it was completely quiet and depressing. Under this atmosphere, Luo Yuan could only afford to lie down for a while. He then slowly stood up. Wang Shishi noticed him and quickly dropped the bullets in her hands and ran over; even Commander Xia and his soldiers stopped their work and looked at him in shock.

"Brother Luo, have you recovered?” Wang Shishi asked in surprise.

"Do not worry, I am getting better. I have a strong body, with such injuries I can recover very fast.” Luo Yuan answered and smiled. This explanation made a lot of sense. Some evolutionary humans did have amazing healing abilities; even if there was a hole in their body, they could recover speedily. Everyone was well aware of this fact.

"It is truly good news to see your recovery; without you, we would’ve died a long time ago. There is nothing much I can say except thank you. We owe you a life." Commander Xia spoke gratefully with his rough voice. He looked tired.

"This is too much, I am also saving myself here. If I didn’t kill this giant mutated snake we will all die together.” Luo Yuan shook his head and said. He did not want to bear this kind of gratitude for no reason, he did not deserve it.

"Our soldiers can distinguish what is good and bad, no matter what we all know that you saved us a life." Commander Xia responded and continued, "If you have a chance to go to the redevelopment area, feel free to come and look for us whenever you encounter any difficulties. We are in the new 18th Army 11th Brigade – group B. However, this is assuming we are still alive."

Luo Yuan nodded, accepting the appreciation from these soldiers. However, Commander Xia noticed that Luo Yuan did not seem to be interested in what he had just said. He then spoke again, "You’ve never lived in the redevelopment area before so you might not know how tough the situation is. There are limited resources available. For tighter regulation of key materials including meat and food, it can only be purchased through tickets. With the tight supply, a lot of people do not even have enough to eat. Because us soldiers risk our lives every day, we enjoy some small privileges. You see the bodies of these mutated sea beasts? If this happened in the redevelopment area, with so many level five types of meats, it is enough to cause chaos in the city with everyone wanting to buy it. But it is worth nothing here. In the redevelopment area, the distribution of most of the mutated meat will still be managed by the government. Thus, in order to stimulate the enthusiasm of the soldiers and to encourage civilians to join the army, the government will secretly leak out resources out to the soldiers. The amount is still considerably big as most of the mutated meat sold in the black market are sourced from the army. You should understand what I am trying to say by now."

Luo Yuan tried to nod more convincingly now. Times have changed. Being in the army had also been a career with high risk and high income. If he wanted to make good money, building a good relationship with Commander Xia was definitely a good path to go. However, he had been living in the occupied areas for so long that money was no longer that important to him, thus, Luo Yuan did not want to think much about it until he was back to redevelopment area.

Commander Xia still noticed that Luo Yuan was not genuinely interested in what he had just said. In a way, he could totally understand it. Such a strong evolutionary human would definitely be appealing no matter where he went. The government would probably recruit him to do something so money was definitely not an issue to him.

"Anyway, what is your plan for this snake?" He asked Luo Yuan in an attempt to switch topic.

It was not usual to see a level six mutated beast even in the redevelopment area. Its resources are important materials for war. Commander Xia hesitated slightly and said, "It was killed by you, so I will let you decide."

At the moment, the body of the giant mutated snake was still moving but its movements were much milder than before. It was mainly only its tail that was still moving whereas its upper body had completely stopped and was lying idle on the floor.

"I will just take a part of it and you as well as your team can have the rest." Luo Yuan shook his head and said. Besides, he could not take too much along with him.

Then he focused his attention back to the giant mutated snake and asked the few soldiers, "Do you have a knife?"

"Is this ok?" A soldier pulled out a foot-long knife from his boot and handed it over to Luo Yuan with respect.

Luo Yuan took it and touched the blade; he shook his head in his mind. For general use, this knife was sharp enough but it definitely could not be compared with the Zhanmadao. He guessed that it would probably not be able to penetrate the skin of a blue level mutated beast. However, his Zhanmadao was still inside the throat of this mutated giant snake, so this knife would be the best option for now.

"Thanks, I will give it back to you later." Luo Yuan said casually.

"Ah ...... You’re welcome, feel free to use it as needed." The soldier was not particularly talkative but answered excitedly.

Luo Yuan wiped his face and realized the dried scar on his face had peeled off- exposing the inner layer of his skin. He held the knife in one hand and quickly walked toward the snake. Less than a minute later, Luo Yuan was already close enough to the snake. The giant mutated snake that was so fierce ten minutes ago could not even give any response now. Luo Yuan observed the area which we stabbed the snake based on the handle which was still exposed outside its body. Apparently, his Zhanmadao has penetrated its head and cracked its skull.

Luo Yuan was focused and knew he should not be careless. He held the soldier’s knife firmly and walked around the snake to check on its condition. He only relaxed a little when he confirmed that it had already died. To be honest, this was also the first time Luo Yuan saw such an exquisite mutated beast. Every inch of its body was filled with mysterious colors and every scale was shiny and was about the size of a football. There were also some complex patterns on it.

Its wide mouth, red crown, and tail, had amazed Luo Yuan. Even though it was dead, its prestige still surrounded its body and made people feel pressured when they were near it. However, Luo Yuan was not afraid. He had killed it even when it was alive so now that it is dead he was more relieved.

Luo Yuan checked again and again until he finally confirmed that the snake was definitely dead. He then tried very hard to pull out his Zhanmadao but failed. He tried again and again but it was still not moving. Only then did Luo Yuan notice that the snake barely bled and even the wound that the Zhanmadao caused it was already tightly sealed.

"It has such a scary self-healing ability, I am afraid that the Zhanmadao has been fully integrated with the tissues of its body." Luo Yuan thought in his heart. He had to use his remaining will to tear off the muscles around the wound before he managed to pull out his Zhanmadao.

When he held the Zhanmadao in his hand, he felt strange. He was very familiar with his weapon now and he could clearly be able to tell if the knife was lighter by even one milligram. Now, not only was the weight a lot lighter, the material seemed to have changed. He carefully looked at the Zhanmadao and his face changed. The black synthesized Zhanmadao had now turned gray. Luo Yuan was very familiar with this color as it should be the original color of the Zhanmadao. However, just to be certain, he used his identification power to check. As expected, all the synthesized features had gone and it was back to its original form. It was undoubtedly an unpleasant shock for Luo Yuan. Apparently, all the synthesized essence had been absorbed by the giant mutated snake. This was really a scary thing but it made Luo Yuan even more excited about its meat.

Luo Yuan ripped off two scales from its body and although they were only about two to three milliliters thick, they were extremely heavy. Each piece weighed about a kilogram. Luo Yuan tried to bend the scale but failed. Of course, he had limited strength now as a result of their battle. The durability and flexibility was undoubtedly good. The best-synthesized knife not only had to be hard but also had to be flexible or else it would be easily broken. Obviously, these scales were good material for his knife.

The material of the Heaven’s Pillar Tree that he used last time was flexible but not very hard even though it was also green level material. The Zhanmadao was still fairly good if he were to use it to fight against light green level mutated beast, but it was definitely no good for killing green level mutated beast. Luo Yuan had always been somewhat dissatisfied with it and now that he had a chance to resynthesize it, he wanted to get the best material for it. Luo Yuan chose a good spot to hide from the soldiers and started his synthesis process. In total, he used up five scales to complete the synthesis. In just a moment, a shiny brand new Zhanmadao appeared in front of him. He looked closely and noticed that the knife was not only silver in color, but there were actually complicated fine black patterns on it. Luo Yuan could not wait to use his identification power to analyze it.

"Dragon Scaled Zhanmadao"

"Material: 6m alloy, bloody Dragon Scale"

"Rarity: Green."

"Weight: 14kg"

"Attack Power: 36-51"

"Additional Abilities 1: Attack speed 2”

"Additional Abilities 2: Separate soil and water (passive), whenever it passes through soil or water it will cause them to be separated. (Slight effect)”

"Equipment Requirements: Strength - 14 points"

"Remarks: This is a mysterious Zhanmadao. It carries a mysterious force with it, although its power is weak."

Luo Yuan was excited with his new Zhanmadao. Its attacking power and speed had significantly increased. He was curious about the two supplementary effects and the evaluation. He quickly tested them out but the results were disappointing. It really had a mysterious force that was unexplainable.

When he put the knife on the floor, the soil beside it quickly separated; leaving a foot-deep and an inch wide concave hole. However, the effect was not very good on stones as there was no effect if the target size was as large as a fist. Luo Yuan could not think of any use for it since he would not be using it to drill the ground. It might be useful on water but there was no water at the moment so he could not test it.

Anyway, other than all these strange capabilities, the brand new Zhanmadao was definitely better than the previous one. The only thing that concerned Luo Yuan was that the ability to absorb life had disappeared. If there was any injury in future, he had to think of another way to cure it. However, since they were going back to the redevelopment area, they might not need to risk their lives anymore.

Subsequently, Luo Yuan started to cut off more parts of the snake. He was quite skilful nowadays at doing such jobs. To avoid any sudden twitches from the snake, Luo Yuan opened up the scales below the neck looking for a gap. Then, he gathered his will and stabbed directly into the central nervous system to destroy it. The body of the snake tensed up for a moment and remained motionless after that. Once the danger was removed, Luo Yuan started to take out the inner organs slowly.

Its organs, gall bladder, and brain, were taken away and separated into a small packages made from the snake’s skin. All these wrapped packages were still moving, and one kept on bouncing. Every single bounce was one to two meters in height. There was once that it bounced five meters away.

Luo Yuan quickly took it back again and opened it. It was the snake’s heart, which was still expanding and contracting. It was still pumping even though he already took it out for ten minutes. To avoid it from moving away again, he cut it into half.

“Eh?”

There was something that attracted Luo Yuan’s attention. There was a red and yellow irregularly-shaped object hanging on the top of the left atrium. It looked like a stone grew in its heart.

"What is this?"

He used his fingers to pinch and pull it out. He realized that the heart immediately stopped beating when he took the object out. He quickly used his identification power to analyze it.

"Active energy collector."

"Grade: Inferior”

"Weight: 0 kg"

"Remarks: This is an inferior active energy collector which contains a lot of impurities. The active energy collector can store energy more efficiently than fats. It is commonly present in green or higher level mutated creatures. Through a lot of eating and other means of energy absorption, it can store the excess energy in it for necessary use."