Chapter 502: A World Filled with Despair

"What a truly unfriendly world!" Lingyun stood in a forest where only withered branches remained, frowning as he looked around.

In this place, the entire sky was gray, and even the sun had lost its radiance. The ground beneath his feet revealed an eerie dark red, as if it had been soaked through with fresh blood. The trees surrounding him had completely rotted away, showing not a trace of vitality. Occasionally, some buildings could be seen in the forest, but these structures had long since become broken walls and ruins, showing no signs that anyone had ever lived there.

A gust of wind carrying a pungent, strange odor whistled past Lingyun; he could even sense trace amounts of toxins within it. The air was filled with a heart-palpitating atmosphere, as if countless vicious things were hidden in the shadows, eyeing him like a tiger watching its prey. Strange roars drifted through the wind, though it was unclear whether they were emitted by the malicious entities hidden in the dark or formed by the wind blowing through the dead wood.

Looking at this world that seemed to have completely fallen into Hell, Lingyun let out a long breath, and an invisible Protective Qi Shield naturally appeared around him, isolating the filth of the surroundings.

"It really is a world filled with despair!" Lingyun sighed and said.

Suddenly, an eerie roar sounded from beside Lingyun, and a black figure abruptly appeared behind him. Lingyun's figure flashed violently, and in an instant, he dodged more than ten meters away, landing on the branch of an ancient tree.

"Boom—" A massive tail swept fiercely through the spot where he had just been standing.

Borrowing the sunlight filtering through the withered branches, Lingyun saw the full appearance of the monster that had attacked him. It was a monster with a body size of three or four meters. It had a torso like a tiger, yet there was not a shred of fur on its body. Bulging veins like water pipes coiled across it, and the head of some unknown creature was held high, with threads of saliva dripping constantly from its mouth, corroding small pits into the ground.

"Is this, a Gastrea?" Lingyun looked at this deformed creature that was radiating immense malice toward him, and he could not help but frown.

"Roar—" An eerie roar came from the creature's mouth, and it saw its four limbs press slightly downward before it suddenly lunged upward, pouncing in Lingyun's direction.

Lingyun waved his hand casually, and several Wind Blades swept out from his hand, tearing several huge wounds into the Gastrea's body and knocking it to the ground. However, the Gastrea displayed powerful self-healing abilities; in just a few seconds of Kung Fu, the wounds on its body stopped bleeding and even showed signs of healing.

"What truly tenacious vitality! Then, how about this!" Lingyun raised his hand, and golden light dissipated from his palm, scattering toward the Gastrea.

Under the illumination of the Purification Light, the Gastrea let out a shrill roar, and subsequently, its body actually began to melt rapidly, eventually turning into fly ash and disappearing.

"It seems this method is more effective after all!" Lingyun said thoughtfully.

"Forget it, I had better go find a place with human habitation first; I have no idea where Ruoxi threw me." Lingyun's figure turned into an afterimage, flying away toward the outside of the jungle. "According to what Ruoxi said, the current point in time should be the ninth year of the great war between humans and Gastrea!"

Approximately nine years ago, this world was still a seemingly peaceful place with a population of over eight billion. However, a terrifying disaster appeared, and a type of monster emerged in this world without any warning. They were creatures born after organisms were infected by a terrifying virus that had high infectivity through blood and could rewrite an organism's DNA. The virus was named the Gastrea Virus.

Organisms infected with the Gastrea Virus, whether human, animal, or even plant, would all be transformed into Gastrea at an astonishing speed by the virus, becoming monsters through and through. These monsters not only possessed terrifying, brutal power and could infect other organisms by injecting body fluids into them—causing the infected organisms to become Gastrea—but they also possessed a certain degree of regenerative ability.

Most importantly, these creatures held immense hostility toward humans, as if they existed naturally to be enemies of humanity. Humans faced only two outcomes when confronting Gastrea: one was to become nourishment for the Gastrea, and the other was to be assimilated as a member of the Gastrea. Even more terrifying was the fact that ordinary weapons could hardly cause effective damage to these creatures.

Under such circumstances, a terrifying number of Gastrea launched a massive offensive against the human world nine years ago, igniting a world war. In the end, humanity suffered a crushing defeat; over ninety percent of humans perished in this battle, and eighty percent of the territory ruled by humans was seized by the Gastrea. The remaining one-tenth of humanity could only hide, scattered within regions surrounded by huge black monoliths, and engaged in a nine-year tug-of-war with the Gastrea.

The material that constituted these huge black monoliths was a metal unique to this world, named Hu Jinshu. This metal could effectively suppress the regenerative systems of the Gastrea and could emit a weak magnetic field, weakening the activity of the Gastrea Virus.

It was precisely because of the existence of this metal that humanity was able to survive in the midst of the Gastrea's frenzied attacks and establish humanity's final survival bases. It was also because of the existence of this metal that humanity possessed the ability to fight against the Gastrea, and to this day, they still dreamed of reclaiming the lost land.

However, Hu Jinshu was not invincible; there existed in this world humanity's greatest enemies—the Stage Five Gastrea. They were massive in size and exceptionally powerful, unaffected by the magnetic fields emitted by Hu Jinshu. There were a total of 11 such terrifying existences, named after the twelve Zodiac signs.

In the war between humans and Gastrea, Taurus and Virgo had already been defeated, and now there were still nine Stage Five creatures wandering around the world. Wherever these guys appeared, it was the end of the world for the humans there.

"Hmm? Is that a Monolith? It seems I have found where a human city is!" Lingyun's figure landed on a withered branch and looked ahead.

In the distance stood huge black monoliths, each one taller than an average mountain, planted in the ground. Among these huge monoliths, there was, surprisingly, a metropolis.

"Since I have found a city, I will go there and take a look. I have no idea what place that is; if it is the Tokyo Area where the plot begins, then that would be truly interesting!" Lingyun's mouth hooked into a smile, and then his figure turned into an afterimage, flying away toward the direction of that city.