Chapter 454: Chicken Thief

Looking at the crowd's expectant gazes, Lin An's face, as he turned his head, showed a slight hesitation.

Unexpectedly, they actually brought the last zombie over.

The crowd was packed, each person keeping quiet, but the fervor and pride in their eyes could not be suppressed.

They were very tired.

The violent rain raged, and after continuous combat, everyone's clothes were soaked.

Many even needed companions' support to barely prop themselves up.

Some faces were completely blackened, even scabbed from shrapnel wounds, with stains from falling into muddy water.

But these did not hinder their mood in the slightest.

"Captain Lin!"

An excited, urgent urging.

Gao Tian shoved over the half-zombie with its arms bound.

Though it was clearly a hideous monster, at this moment no one feared it.

After three days of desperate fighting, they had transformed from naive, uneasy students into true soldiers who had experienced battle.

They felt somewhat relieved.

Lin An gave a gentle smile and no longer hesitated.

He extended his arm, and his psychic power spread out like flowing water.

This time, he intended to try the method the second Lin An had once used to kill this zombie.

Divine Spike!

A silent psychic thrust struck toward the zombie's brain.

Using a butcher's knife to kill a chicken.

But it's not quite the same.

Relying on his excellent memory, Lin An tried to simulate 'his' fighting style.

Unlike before, when the Divine Spike skill would erupt with a substantive shockwave, this time the Divine Spike bombardment was more like mercury seeping in.

Removing the substantive shockwave, removing the psychic constraint like a drill, removing the continuously compressing explosive nature of psychic power...

All 'inefficient' auxiliary methods were stripped away, leaving only the Divine Spike's most basic penetrative ability.

Thus.

The consumption is extremely small, almost negligible.

Likewise, a Divine Spike attack kills the zombie.

Imitating the second Lin An's attack method, the consumption is obviously much less than when he previously used the skill.

Like a needle wandering.

The first time, as Lin An used Divine Spike to bore into the zombie's skull, he saw a large expanse of gray-white.

Mottled blood colors were distributed in the hypothalamus and cerebellum, while the rest was a uniform gray-white, some even rotting and altered.

Did it retain only the sense of hunger and motor ability?

Upon first 'seeing' the zombie's cerebral cortex, Lin An couldn't help but feel intrigued.

The zombie's brain is severely damaged; this point had been dissected countless times by numerous researchers in his past life, almost an accepted fact.

Nothing surprising about that.

One can only say, it actually doesn't quite fit logic.

Rather than saying the zombie's damaged brain conforms to biology and its behavior...

... it's more like the Doomsday Game giving humanity a pseudo-explanation.

Because the brainstem and hippocampal regions are damaged, zombies lack respiration, heartbeat, and memory.

Because only the hypothalamus and cerebellum remain, zombies retain the desire to eat and motor ability.

But essentially, all of that is wrong.

Even if a living person... had part of their brain artificially removed, they could not become a zombie.

Even if the damaged brain area were exactly the same.

One could say, the appearance of monsters in the apocalypse caused human scientific notions to collapse for a long time.

Of course.

Afterward, no one ever tried to explain zombies scientifically again.

After all, humans can now use psychic abilities—why bother about whether something is scientific or not?

For some reason, these thoughts suddenly came to mind, and Lin An couldn't help but chuckle helplessly.

Perhaps everyone instinctively wants to investigate the origin of zombies...

He shook his head, and the psychic power penetrating the zombie's brain instantly erupted.

「Zi」

A slight vibration.

The zombie that had been howling instantly fell silent and died completely.

Almost at the same moment, an invisible, heart-pounding pressure suddenly burst forth.

To others it might seem unfamiliar, but to Lin An he knew it all too well.

This is...

The pressure whenever the System appears!

In sync with his thoughts.

「Beep.. 」

At the same moment, the cold mechanical sound instantly echoed in the brains of ten billion players worldwide.

After realizing the system had issued an announcement again after half a month, all players who could pause what they were doing subconsciously focused their attention to listen.

Global announcements, each time they sound, signify the occurrence of a major event.

This time, who triggered it again?

Tens of thousands of faction leaders and military high officials had solemn faces, waiting for the announcement to sound.

"Global announcement: Congratulations to Huaxia War Zone player Lin An, the first to complete the Safe Zone mission!"

"Congratulations to Long'an Base, which has been promoted to an official Safe Zone and received a special reward."

"Reward One: All members of Long'an Base receive a 10% attribute boost and also gain a special title."

"Reward Two: Long'an Base commander Lin An gains 100 prestige points and the prestige leaderboard is opened."

"Reward Three: Long'an Base commander Lin An obtains fine equipment (blue) Splitter Greataxe."

"Reward Four: Long'an Base commander Lin An gains one special reward draw qualification; please check it yourself."

"Note: As the first Safe Zone is officially established, the system will open the Dungeon feature, open the Trade Channel, and release the Hire System."

"Additional reward: Because the Huaxia War Zone is one of the thirty-six major war zones that first built a Safe Zone, the Huaxia War Zone receives the Sprout reward."

"【Sprout】: Within three months, the difficulty of all tasks accepted by Huaxia War Zone players is reduced by 10%."

A series of announcements left all players worldwide stunned speechless for half a day.

In human history, it can be said that there has never been a moment that could make everyone quiet down.

Some were shocked by the newly appeared functions, some were shocked by how it's Lin An again!?

Moreover, some were shocked and envious of the rewards Lin An obtained.

Too much...

Really too much...

The system being terse with words is almost everyone's consensus.

Taking the player system that every player has as an example.

Such an important system displays pitifully little information, with most functions showing only four big characters (figure it out yourself).

But this time the global announcement, the system actually broke precedent and released so much content.

For a moment, it led countless people to let their imaginations run wild.

Especially...

Three global announcements, two of them occurred because Lin An appeared.

Establishing a Safe Zone... the world's first second level... completing the Safe Zone mission...

Of course, what they don't know is.

The second global announcement was also caused by Lin An.

However, just the mistaken belief in those two instances is enough to make many players envy to the point of going crazy.

If one were to ask who the most famous player in the world is, there is no doubt it is Lin An.

If speaking of the major war zones, some players are even too lazy to check who the strongest in their own zone is, but they definitely know Lin An.

At this moment, except for a small portion of Huaxia players who know Lin An's 'information'.

Almost at the same time, countless people couldn't help but flash a deep doubt in their minds.

Lin An, who exactly is he?

Especially for foreign players, this name simply makes them extremely curious.

A few seconds after the announcement ended.

"Buzz!!"

At an altitude of forty-two thousand kilometers in near-Earth space orbit, like a black hole-like space, a beam of light shot out.

Then.

A strong, heart-pounding pressure, nearly breaking through the atmosphere at light speed, descended from the sky and directly entered Lin An's sea of consciousness.

Stunned in place.

Lin An looked in astonishment at the blue greataxe floating in his sea of consciousness, and a strange thought suddenly arose in his mind.

Like others, he also hadn't quite reacted yet.

It wasn't shock at the system's newly appeared functions.

But rather the reward.

"Ding, Savior mission completed. Obtain orange weapon equipment 【Cain's Blade】."

"This reward, please take it out from the 'packaging'."

The Savior System, fearing he wouldn't understand, stubbornly put quotation marks around the two characters 'packaging'.

Looking at the blue greataxe floating in his sea of consciousness, Lin An clearly felt a heart-pounding fluctuation hidden within the greataxe.

Cain's Blade, hidden inside the blue greataxe.

In other words, this epic-tier weapon is the Savior System...

"Stolen?"