"Cough! Ugh... bastard," a raspy voice groaned, shattering the cold silence inside the crumbling ancient temple. Jian Wu Chen tried to open his eyelids, glued shut by dried blood and thick dust. Agonizing pain instantly invaded every nerve in his body, as if thousands of red-hot needles were being thrust into every inch of his skin all at once. "It hurts... it hurts like hell," he whispered with a trembling voice that sounded completely foreign to his own ears. "Where am I? Why does my throat feel like it's stuffed with hot sand?" He tried to move his right arm, but the excruciating pain made him groan again. "Argh! Damn it! My arm... why is it so small?" he muttered, staring blankly at his skin-and-bones forearm covered in grime. "This isn't my arm. Where did my right arm with the dragon tattoo go?" Wu Chen dragged his body backward, leaning against a cracked stone altar coated in thick dust. His head spun violently, delivering a sudden deluge of foreign memories that storm

"Ugh... my head feels like it's about to split open," Wu Chen groaned hoarsely, opening his eyelids, which felt as heavy as lead. A drop of cold rain landed directly on his forehead, sending a sharp ache through the back of his skull. He woke in the dead of night inside the remains of a ruined old temple. Heavy rain had begun pouring over Tingzhou, creating a constant roar that fortunately masked the foul stench of blood and decay from the three zombie corpses surrounding him. "Fucking system," Wu Chen muttered, wiping the rain from his filthy face with his trembling left hand. "Three months of my lifespan gone just to survive for one minute. And now... my vision really is like it's covered in a gray fog. Damn it." He tried to stand, but both knees immediately buckled beneath him. Li Jian Nan's body felt incredibly fragile, as though every last bit of energy had been squeezed out of it. "I'm fucking weak. My legs feel like they don't even have bones," he muttered, rubbing his

Whoosh! The rusty sword sliced through the night air at an impossible speed. Wu Chen barely managed to pull his head back a few milliseconds before the iron blade slammed into the stone pillar beside him, shattering it into pieces. "Fuck! That's fast!" Wu Chen shouted instinctively, his eyes widening as he stared at the fragments of stone flying before him. "Big brother! Watch out!" Xiao Yu screamed from behind him in terror. "Back off, Xiao Yu! Find somewhere to hide behind that pile of wood! Don't come out until I tell you!" Wu Chen ordered loudly, pushing the small girl toward a corner of the alley covered by rubble. The cultivator zombie twisted its body in jerky movements. Although the Meridian Plague had completely destroyed its sanity, the muscles in its body still remembered the fundamentals of Awakening-stage combat techniques. It raised its sword again, a thin, unstable red aura radiating from the blade. "Krrrggghhh..." The creature growled as it prepared for a

"Open the gate, you bastards! Open it!" Wu Chen screamed at the top of his lungs, slamming his right hand against the cold iron bars of the gate. Behind the sturdy iron bars, a group of wealthy merchants in luxurious silk robes screamed hysterically from behind a barricade of mounted soldiers. Their faces were twisted with disgusting fear. "Don't open it! Never open it!" shrieked a fat merchant with a thin mustache. "They're all plague carriers! If even one of those filth gets inside, our businesses in the Merchant District will be ruined! Lieutenant! Fire your arrows at all of them! Quickly!" "Yeah! Kill anyone who approaches the gate! Our lives are worth more than those plague-ridden rats!" another merchant shouted beside him, further inciting the soldiers. Wu Chen spat harshly onto the ground. "You fucking cowards! You're only brave enough to scream from behind an iron fence!" "B-Big Brother... they're... they're pointing their bows at us!" Xiao Yu cried, her voice trembling v

Woof! Woof! Woof! The barking of military tracking dogs echoed loudly, reverberating off the slippery stone walls of the vast sewage tunnel. The splashing of water beneath the charging footsteps of a small squad of soldiers grew closer by the second. From the darkness of the tunnel, a man in polished silver armor stepped into the main drainage chamber. Lieutenant Zhao. He was personally leading his small unit, holding a burning torch in his left hand and a slender sword wreathed in blue energy in his right. His sharp eyes immediately locked onto Wu Chen, who was weakly leaning against the sewer wall. "So you're really still alive, Little Rat," Lieutenant Zhao said in a calm but deeply intimidating voice. "Fucking Lieutenant... You really went through all this trouble just to find me in a sewer?" Wu Chen rasped sarcastically, trying to mask the excruciating pain coursing through his entire body with the cynical laugh of a mafia boss. "I don't like leaving anomalies unreso