Chapter 682: Fragments

The man's whole body trembled.

In this situation, it's hard to describe the shock and complexity in his heart.

The demon... was actually Lin An.

In countless days and nights, he thought of the person he wanted to thank and repay.

The trembling wasn't from fear.

He had long since given up his life.

Half was seeing Lin An, his former benefactor.

Half was from excessive blood loss; that sword nearly shattered his vitality.

If not for the system's white light, that stubborn force sustaining him, his corpse would have long been cold.

He tilted his head slightly, expression unchanged.

Lin An gave a light chuckle, a flash of disgust crossing his eyes.

He indeed hadn't expected that the middle-aged man before him was someone he had casually saved earlier.

He had grown too thin, his face gaunt; he wouldn't bother to distinguish carefully.

"Do you think that because I saved you once, I should save you a second time?"

He asked softly, revealing Lin An's impatience.

He hated it when people tried to bind him with morality.

I can save you, naturally...

And I can kill you!

Monsters are ultimately monsters.

He didn't care about any moving familial bond between the red-clothed mutant and the man.

He only knew that if he didn't kill the mutant, he couldn't rest or eat in peace.

The man slightly opened his mouth, only to find he couldn't utter a word.

Yeah.

The red-clothed girl is his daughter; what does that have to do with Lin An?

Sensing the corpse tide approaching, Lin An simply used his mental power to fling the man away, the Cain's Blade in his hand thrusting straight ahead without hesitation.

"Don't!!"

The man turned pale with fright.

He wanted to unleash his newly awakened talent to block again.

But a Zero Rank ability, being able to block once is already astonishing; how could he manage a second time?

Besides tearing at his wound and vomiting out fragments of his organs, he could only watch helplessly as the blade struck again toward the girl's head.

A sword imbued with killing intent was far beyond what a dying mutant could block.

"Wait... one moment..."

Her small hand strained to grip the sharp blade.

The little girl suddenly lifted her head, barely squeezing out a few words from her mouth.

"Kill me... it will come!"

"You can't stop it..."

As she spoke, her brain split open again, a fragment emitting black light shooting out abruptly.

Huh?

Lin An's movement stalled; the fragment before him was intimately familiar.

This is...

The missing fragment on the Soul-devouring Hand?

He subconsciously countered.

"Who?"

That said.

Stay vigilant.

For some reason, his sixth sense, assimilated with the Void, began to sound an alarm the instant the girl spoke.

"It is another third-rank."

"It's much stronger than me..."

"It hunts you... you will die..."

"The corpse tide dare not come here..."

His voice was weak.

On her immature face showed a composure unbefitting her appearance.

Although she is just a little girl, Lin An always felt that the red-clothed girl who had become a mutant was far more mature in mind.

It felt as if there were a second soul.

Her intelligence is too high...

Is she really a mutant?

Having doubted more than once, Lin An locked his gaze on the girl and quickly retorted.

"Why should I believe what you say instead of you stalling for time?"

"Another third-rank, and you still have a child?"

In astonishment, Lin An couldn't help but look toward the man.

By what right do I kill the red-clothed girl, another three Fourth Rank will chase and kill me?

Ridiculous.

Between mutants, there really isn't any feeling.

These monsters will even devour their companions to gain evolution.

However, Lin An was half‑believing, half‑doubting that pursuit means death.

In a vague sense, he indeed felt that something was off.

He slightly recovered his state.

The girl consciously controlled the extent of her wound's recovery, avoiding touching Lin An's bottom line.

She spoke extremely fast, and with her head raised, her eyes returned to normal:

"There are no zombies here; this is the aura it left behind."

"It can command the zombie tide, I cannot."

"On this point, you know it better than I do."

After directly questioning back, Lin An was slightly taken aback, then also understood the girl's meaning.

He furrowed his brows slightly, gesturing for the other to continue.

He spread his mental power to its limit distance.

Upon careful observation, he indeed found that the zombie tide that had come wandering upon hearing the sound, when approaching the surroundings, dared not approach in a frenzy, as if an invisible barrier blocked them.

At first, he thought it was the girl's deliberate arrangement.

But after thinking, the Red-Clothed Mutant indeed showed no ability to control zombies.

"It has nothing to do with me."

"It only wants to use my brain to cultivate this fragment."

The girl continued speaking, trembling as she pushed the fragment toward Lin An.

The fragment emitting black light seemed not to belong to this world.

Instinctively using his mental power to probe, Lin An suddenly discovered that the thing that had been shielding his mental power all along was this.

"Beep, detected Obsidian Fragment (cultivating)"

"It can complete the Equipment, or strengthen the Equipment."

"After cultivation is complete, gain???, can unlock???"

The information came through.

Lin An suddenly realized that this was the missing fragment of the Soul-devouring Hand.

It's just that its shape is not quite the same as the piece the Black Dragon ate back then.

The sense of familiarity comes from the same power.

Using a mutant's brain to cultivate the fragment?

Such bloody means made Lin An's eyes narrow involuntarily.

He understood the girl's subtext.

Killing her, that three Fourth Rank will realize that a 'person' took the fragment.

Clues quickly connected one after another, Lin An's brows furrowed tightly.

Hospital. Black Dragon, fragment, Soul-devouring Hand, special mutant...

What exactly is the connection between them?

Holding his sword without loosening, Lin An couldn't help but ask, not having given up on locking on:

"What do you know?"

"What is the ability of the other three Fourth Rank? Where is it?"

"What does the fragment do, and are you really a mutant or not?"

Too many doubts.

Feeling agitated, Lin An always felt that he had touched upon the secret buried in Linjiang.

In his past life, the scene of the Linjiang war zone's destruction was as vivid as ever before his eyes.

Endless sea of fire.

A giant black shadow dyed like a torch rose from the flames.

That was a nightmare‑like disaster.

Seeing Lin An temporarily suppress his killing intent, the Red-Clothed Mutant replied bluntly.

The split skull slowly healed.

"I don't know."

"I woke up like this. I also don't know what I am."

His eyes showed some confusion.

After becoming a mutant, her consciousness remained in a chaotic state for a long time, with only simple thinking ability.

"Only after coming into contact with it and transplanting the fragment into my brain did I regain my sanity."

"Moreover... it seems I've gained many things..."

The Red-Clothed Mutant, back to normal, now sounded like a neighbor girl, her voice somewhat bitter.

"As for the fragment's function, that's all I know."

"That mutant has been searching for the remaining fragments."

"As for where it is..."

A slender, snow‑white arm pointed westward.

"It went that way..."

"Carrying many, many... zombies."

Lin An instinctively turned his head to look west; that area had never been explored before.

Xi'an War Zone?

A mutant that can control the zombie tide?

With a heavy heart, Lin An blurted out:

"What does it look like?"

"Is it the Zombie Emperor from my memory, the one who commands hundreds of millions of zombies?"

"It, born in Facing the River?"

"The girl in red hesitated for a moment, then lowered her arms:"

"It looks about the same as a little boy."

"Just a fragment is embedded in its chest."

"Just like the fragment in my mind..."