Chapter 95: The Hero in My Heart

“Good. Be careful.”

Zi Hui handed Qin Hao an Eye of Ten Thousand Sects, and Qin Hao pinned it to his clothes.

He did it only to put her mind at ease. Yesterday, when the woman had shown weakness, even Qin Hao, whose heart was like iron, had shown her a little extra consideration for her fragility.

Qin Hao knew that no spatial passage from the Ancient Demon Civilization would appear in the coming days, but the others did not.

After that, Qin Hao activated the spatial teleportation disk and left the Magic City.

With two jumps, he had already reached the Capital.

Yet the moment he arrived, he saw zombies wandering the streets, in terrifying numbers.

After the end of Survival Two, only a single day had passed since the alien invasion’s second wave of monsters was released, and the Capital already looked like a living hell.

Not only were there all manner of predatory creatures attacking, but, more importantly, the appearance of the Voodoo Demons had quickly gathered a vast horde of zombies into action.

If no one controlled the Voodoo Demons, this city would sooner or later become a city of the dead.

By rights, the Capital should also have second-tier evolutionaries. The Voodoo Demons were only first-tier evolutionary beings, so why had no one eliminated them? And especially—why had Ling Bo not made a move?

Perhaps it was simply too soon. Only yesterday had the Ancient Demon Civilization opened a passage to replenish the number of Voodoo Demons.

The Capital’s remaining population was only ten million, even fewer than in the Magic City. The Magic City was Qin Hao’s stronghold and had received care from many sides; the Capital was densely populated, and its losses were correspondingly severe.

With ten million people, there were only ten Voodoo Demons.

Qin Hao opened the mission predictor and quickly located the Voodoo Demons.

Ten minutes later, he had reached the area around them, and in his ears came the sound of gunfire like beans being split apart.

Qin Hao’s steps faltered slightly.

In the Country of China, firearms were strictly controlled. Anyone who possessed guns and could still use them after the Aurora Apocalypse had to be tied, in one way or another, to official power.

Could this be Ling Bo’s gathering place?

Qin Hao walked forward and saw a luxurious villa district.

The Yanbei Villa District.

A gathering place for the Capital’s nobles and dignitaries. Every villa was worth hundreds of millions, far beyond the reach of ordinary people.

And now, around this villa district, there were also a number of high-rise buildings. Qin Hao’s power of thought could sense that these towers held extremely dense populations, all of them watching in this direction. Meanwhile, a defensive line had already been established around the villa district, and a group of people had begun using weapons to slaughter the zombies.

Unfortunately, even with headshots, those bullets could do nothing to the zombies.

There were a full five thousand zombies.

Only five hundred people were defending.

“Hit the Voodoo Demon. Don’t waste bullets on the other zombies.”

“Damn it. Bastards.”

“Quick, shoot!”

A man standing atop a villa roared furiously. In his hand was an unusual firearm.

With a sharp crack, a streak of blue light cut through the air, pierced the heads of five zombies, and shot toward the Voodoo Demon hiding among the horde.

But the Voodoo Demon dodged with uncanny agility, leaving the weapon unable to land a hit.

The Voodoo Demon bared a vicious smile within the zombie crowd. Opening its mouth, it spat out a mouthful of thick dark green venom. After the zombies surrounding it absorbed that venom, their strength actually surged dramatically; their claws and teeth turned dark green, and their poison grew even stronger.

They surged forward in a crushing mass, madly attacking the people with guns.

Any person who was caught would see their body rot away rapidly, then die of poisoning and become a zombie.

The Voodoo Demon did not need to fight humans at close range. With this method alone, it could endlessly create zombies and wipe out mankind.

Qin Hao glanced at the building beside him, then walked out from the rear.

“Wind, fire!”

His power of thought spread wide, and Qin Hao released his ability.

Flames burst forth and struck five zombies, while fierce winds whipped up, mixing the fire into a spinning gale.

Wind and fire moved together, nearly forming a blazing tornado.

The fire tornado swept past, and hundreds of zombies were swallowed by a sea of flame. The virus was burned away, and the zombies gave out hoarse, rasping cries.

Inside the high-rise beside the villa district, countless people were looking down at the battlefield below. Beside them stood evolutionaries as well, but their attitude was lofty, and their eyes were full of contempt.

“Look carefully. The reason you can still stay safe here is all because Young Master Wu Qiong has been fighting for you.”

“Open your eyes wide and don’t miss Young Master Wu Qiong’s brilliance. Remember to admire him, or else you’ll have no conscience.”

“The ones in front, can you even see anything crouching that low? Stop slacking off. Anyone who slacks off, I’ll throw you down right now. I can’t say whether you’ll be killed by the fall, but the zombies will definitely eat you.”

This evolutionary was forcing the ordinary people to watch the battle.

Every one of those ordinary people was gaunt and haggard. Some of the elderly were so thin they were nothing but skin and bone. They watched the battle below with numb expressions and did not feel at all that this was a hero fighting on their behalf.

But if they did not watch, if they did not show respect to those heroes, they would not be given food.

It was strange. Respect and admiration were emotions known only to oneself, intangible and invisible, and yet, for some reason, the heroes seemed able to know them.

Some people who were good at flattery, who would cry out in exaggerated astonishment over how formidable the heroes were, were often the ones who got to eat.

But if some people truly did not believe those heroes were anything special, or even resented the way the heroes used such methods to demand their admiration, the heroes would somehow know.

It was as if these heroes possessed some mysterious power.

And yet the more they were forced, the less some people were willing to give those emotions. Worse still, for people like that, starvation was only the beginning. They would also be sent to do the heaviest and most dangerous work.

They built showcase bases, transported supplies, and in the end, they all died.

Was that what heroes were supposed to do?

These were not the heroes in their hearts.

And in that very instant, an unfamiliar figure suddenly appeared before them, unleashing a sweeping blaze that crashed into the zombie horde with overwhelming force.

“Ah!”

Cries of shock rose from the crowd.

“Fire ability.”

“And wind ability too. Who is this person?”

“An ability user? Like Ling Bo?”

People stared with wide eyes, utterly shaken.

Even the evolutionary beside them showed an expression of disbelief. Since when had the Capital gained such a hero?

No.

The evolutionary suddenly realized that even he himself was, at that very moment, contributing his power of thought in admiration to the person who had appeared out of nowhere.

“What are you all looking at? So what if he has abilities? Don’t forget, it was Young Master Wu Qiong who fed you, who gave you drink, who gave you a safe place to live. And who just mentioned Ling Bo? Are you trying to die?”

The evolutionary was beside himself with rage.

At that moment, however, a young man in the crowd, his face dark with brooding anger, shouted, “I’m looking at a hero. This is the kind of hero I recognize. I’d rather die than worship someone who keeps us like pigs and dogs. What Young Master Wu Qiong? He’s nothing but a wastrel, a rapist who steals, ravishes, and plunders!”

As he spoke, the young man suddenly hurled himself forward, smashing through the glass of the floor-to-ceiling window and leaping from the high-rise.

It was too suffocating. Living like this was worse than death.