Chapter 628: Reality

Zhang Tie stood beside Lin An, stunned, blinking his eyes.

Lin Dui, the tone is really heavy.

He could see that Xiong Hanzi, although he didn't rebut him, still somewhat disagreed.

Lin An slightly furrowed his brow, then looked at him seriously:

Don't think that just because my mental storm was strong earlier, the corpse horde is nothing special.

Yes, zombies are indeed easy to kill.

But it's not that simple.

Extreme will combined with my new talent has indeed strengthened my group attack, but the consumption is equally huge.

Two mental storms, without converting life force, are basically my limit.

Purely to test my strength.

Only Lin An, the person involved, knows how extravagant the consumption of the mental storm that swept half the industrial zone is.

Otherwise, how could he activate the skill and then choose to walk?

And still have Zhang Tie look for a car?

Indeed, he could still erupt with stronger combat power, or fight using his physique.

Not necessarily relying entirely on mental power.

But what's the point of just killing ordinary zombies?

Out of about a hundred zombies, one becomes a first-level.

Out of a hundred first-levels, one becomes a second-level.

And so on.

With a population of trillions and a base of over eighty billion zombies, the number of third-level mutants will reach a terrifying nearly one hundred thousand.

This doesn't even count special mutant species.

With the massive zombie base, the number of third-level far exceeds their imagination.

Moreover, as the apocalypse progresses, the mutants' strength will quickly increase.

Seeing Lin An so serious, Xiong Hanzi, with a muffled voice, unconsciously wanted to say something.

One hundred thousand?

It sounds scary, but they, inside the amoeba worm, have seen several hundred million third-level.

Also nothing much.

Lin Dui.

I didn't underestimate mutants either.

But our strength is also getting stronger.

I feel our rate of growth will definitely surpass these monsters.

You aren't even a third-level yet.

Once you reach third-level, won't it still be like chopping melons and cutting vegetables?

Besides, old Zhang isn't a vegetarian.

He grinned cheekily.

Xiong Hanzi awkwardly tried to ease the heavy atmosphere, but felt he had said the wrong thing.

Lin Dui's mood was fine, but his interruption made it turn heavy.

He thought simply.

Getting beaten makes you stronger; anyway, he hardly ever dies, right?

As his words fell, Lin An hesitated a moment, then decided not to hide anything further.

Zhang Tie has followed me this long; he probably guessed some of what I know—obviously too much.

His expression was gloomy.

Okay.

Assuming we can handle third-level, we can keep maintaining our growth speed.

What about fourth-level?

Throwing the question back, Lin An's tone grew grave, not giving Xiong Hanzi time to reply:

Besides fourth-level, have you thought about the later disasters?

Global earthquakes—magnitude nine, even ten or twelve—can we handle them?

A magnitude-nine earthquake releases energy equivalent to 1.1 million Hiroshima atomic bombs.

With massive casualties and defenses destroyed, can we still hold back the zombie tide?

Hundred-meter-high mega tsunamis, magnetic pole reversal, volcanic eruptions.

Technological means gradually fail, instruments damaged.

Extreme weather, polar ice melt, sea level rise, severe food shortage...

What do you think we should do?

After hearing, his expression stalled.

Zhang Tie suddenly recalled that Lin An, before taking down Linjiang Academy, had once hinted at something vaguely in the car to them.

Not giving him much time to think, Lin An spoke rapidly, as if suppressing worry, continuing:

Not only that.

All global organisms will undergo mutation.

Don't tell me you haven't noticed that the birds you've recently encountered are somewhat abnormal.

Don't you think that whether it's snakes, rats, insects, or birds and beasts, their 'courage' has grown a lot?

If every species, even if it only had the aggressiveness of an ordinary zombie, what kind of disaster do you think we would face?

Before the Apocalypse, the global population was a hundred billion.

As for poultry, just the farmed meat chickens, the number born each year reaches 260 billion.

Pigs, 7.8 billion.

Cattle, sheep and other common types, totaling over 46 billion.

Speaking purely of biological species, regular statistics count 1.5 million species; even if each species numbered only over a hundred million, the total would reach the level of hundreds of millions of billions.

This doesn't even include the most numerous insects.

It's possible that a certain category of insects alone reaches the trillion level.

How much effort do you think we need to expend, and what kind of defense system must we build, to resist the invasion of these monsters contaminated by spiritual energy?

A string of data was reported, causing Xiong Hanzi to stare with his mouth wide open.

He had never thought of this before; he only felt that these astronomical numbers sounded truly shocking to hear.

Lin An saw this, gave a self‑mocking smile, shook his head and let out a sigh.

"These... just forget them."

"Do you still remember the ocean I told you about before?"

"The ocean covering 70% of the planet's surface—how many terrifying monsters do you think would be born in it?"

"I can tell you."

"Even the most ordinary sardine species, their regular numbers are calculated in trillions."

"Once they mutate, they evolve amphibious capabilities."

"Facing mutant beasts with over 9 million species and numbers in the quadrillions, do you still think the Apocalypse is no big deal?"

Seeing Zhang Tie's increasingly grim expression, Lin An also didn't intend to continue speaking.

What he said, or what he knew, was merely the tip of the iceberg of the Apocalypse.

After the catastrophe came the Demonic Beast invasion; its scale was unknown, almost a terrifying invasion of the entire world.

The current situation is merely the early stage of the Apocalypse.

The situation facing humanity appears grim, almost reaching a dead end.

But we haven't even left the "newbie village" yet.

The future world will be even more brutal.

If it weren't so.

In the short three years of my past life, with humanity possessing Fourth Stage supreme experts, how could we only struggle to survive?

To say we were merely lingering on would be a kind description.

To be precise, it was a war between Demonic Beasts and Mutants, leaving no room to attend to the weakest humans.

But even so, the demise of human civilization is merely a matter of time.

Third Stage?

Before this apocalyptic catastrophe, what does it even amount to?

This is also why Lin An never thought of saving the world or taking on responsibility.

Being able to bring AnXia and the others to establish a base, to shelter one side and let them survive, is already his greatest wish.

In the silence, Lin An lightly patted Xiong Hanzi's shoulder, indicating he didn't need to think about these things either.

These pressures, let him bear them.

"All right."

"I'm saying this not to make you frown all day, but just to tell you not to be careless."

"At this stage, we are very strong, but only temporarily."

"Even if we encounter a disaster‑level meme or a national‑level event, we still can't just get away with it."

"As for the matter of the capital..."

As he spoke, Lin An turned his body, extinguished the cigarette in his hand, and shook his head slightly:

"Chu An gave me some information."

"The situation in the capital is far more complicated than we imagined."

"Maintain the current situation, develop steadily. When I become stronger, maybe we can find a way to resolve it."

After saying that, Lin An didn't say anything more, just calmly looked out the window, waiting for the appearance of a Second Level Mutant.

By the way, hand the energy core to him so he can connect the hotel's power supply.

After listening to his words in a daze, Xiong Hanzi opened his mouth.

"Lin Dui..."

"Sorry..."

After taking the energy core that served as a battery, he looked dejected, and after speaking he returned to his room in low spirits.

On the system panel, a Second Level countdown appeared: 49 minutes 33 seconds.

Watching the hotel's outer wall gradually light up, Lin An lightly tapped the armrest beneath his fingertips.

After resting overnight, perhaps tomorrow we can first "take" the Twin Stars Base.

Around that time, the people of Long'an Base should also have arrived.