Chapter 6: Slaying the Blood‑and‑Flesh Butcher, Traces of the Supernatural Sequence!

The next morning.

After feeding the little girl breakfast and leaving some food, Su Hao took a few pieces of bread and water, grabbed the Awakening Divine Lantern, and left the shelter.

To live better in the apocalypse, one must have sufficient strength!

As for today's three synthesis opportunities, he didn't use them right away, planning to wait until after he finished exploring that small village today.

After Su Hao closed the door and left, the little girl got up from the bed, hugged her pillow, sat on the sofa, and quietly watched the door.

After leaving the building and walking for nearly two hours, Su Hao arrived in front of an abandoned small village.

This village isn't very large; it has suffered severe damage, most of it turned into ruins, with only two houses remaining relatively intact.

One house stands at the village center, looking somewhat like a church.

The other house is not far from the village entrance; it's just an ordinary house.

Su Hao had visited this village once in his previous life, but by the time he came, it had been over a month since the strange descent, and everything inside had already been looted clean.

"Is this a butcher?"

Upon reaching the house near the village entrance, Su Hao saw that the house's main door had been smashed by tremendous force, split into two pieces, and lay beside the steps.

Beside the broken wooden door lay a corpse with no skin, entirely blood-red, over two meters tall, obese, whose skull had been crushed by a blunt weapon.

Around this bloody corpse lay more than twenty goblin corpses, some with their heads smashed by hammers, others cleaved in two by a single blade.

"No!"

If anyone else saw this scene, they would surely think it was a battle between goblins and a butcher, where the goblins, thanks to their numerical advantage, eventually wore the butcher down to death.

But Su Hao knew that things were absolutely not like that.

Although a butcher's strength is indeed far greater than a goblin's, it would be impossible for a single butcher to counter‑kill over twenty opponents while surrounded by so many goblins—in other words……

"There's more than one butcher inside that house!"

Su Hao's eyes narrowed slightly as he took the Frenzy Potion from a crevice in his armor and cautiously approached the wooden house.

Butchers possess tremendous strength and wield a bone‑cleaving knife; in a one‑on‑one fight, relying on his Rock Armor and Serrated Long Blade, Su Hao is fully confident of victory.

But if he had to face two butchers at once, he would likely get injured.

Before having any means to heal wounds, it's best to avoid injury if possible.

Moreover, this butcher differs from the ones Su Hao has seen before—it has no skin, looks even more bloody, and likely underwent some mutation.

However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing; usually, only exposure to supernatural items causes such mutations.

In other words, there may very well be supernatural items inside that wooden house!

Bang—bang——!

Just as Su Hao reached the butcher's corpse, the house suddenly emitted two loud bangs from inside.

Two similarly skin‑less, two‑meter‑tall, obese butchers burst through the wall and charged out.

Their bodies bore several wounds from blunt‑weapon strikes, clearly left by those dead goblins.

"Roar!"

After bursting out of the rooms by breaking through the walls, they let out a roar, raised their butcher knives, and lunged at Su Hao.

"Only two, that's fine!"

Su Hao had already expected there to be butchers inside the wooden house; at this moment he felt not the slightest panic.

While stepping back a step, he unhesitatingly poured the Frenzy Potion into his mouth.

"Gurgle‑gurgle——!"

"Hiss! This effect is truly instantaneous!"

Just after drinking the Frenzy Potion, Su Hao felt his muscles inflate like a balloon, his strength instantly multiplying severalfold.

Feeling the change in his body, Su Hao's confidence surged.

Seeing the two monsters charging at him, Su Hao curled the corners of his mouth, sprang up by kicking off the ground, met the monster on the right, and swung his Serrated Long Blade, striking the butcher knife that the monster was chopping down with.

With a single 'clang', the butcher knife in the monster's hand was cut into two pieces by the Serrated Long Blade, the cut surface smooth as a mirror.

"Die!"

Su Hao let out a roar, gripped the knife with both hands, raised it overhead, and, using his forward momentum, delivered a fierce diagonal slash at the monster's right neck.

With a soft 'puff', the Serrated Long Blade sliced into the monster's neck as easily as cutting tofu, finally passing through and cutting across the monster's left abdomen.

After that blow, a wound appeared on the bloody monster's body, running from the right side of the neck down to the left abdomen.

Immediately after,

Using that wound as a dividing line, the monster's upper torso slid downward and slammed heavily to the ground; thick fresh blood spurted from the neat wound, dyeing Su Hao's armor a dark red.

Bang——!

At the same moment, the butcher on the left closed in on Su Hao and swung a blade at his neck.

The tremendous force from the butcher knife passed through his sturdy patterned armor and struck his neck, feeling like a small car had bumped him; he stepped back two steps to the right before stabilizing his stance.

"Good thing I took the Frenzy Potion, otherwise that blow would have been unpleasant!"

Su Hao made two 'click' sounds, moved his neck slightly, then pushed off with his right foot, channeling power from his foot up to his waist, and delivered an upward diagonal slash from below.

With a soft 'puff', the second butcher's body was also cleaved in half by a single stroke, blood gushing out; the two halves crashed heavily to the ground, completely motionless.

Two blows, and two powerful butchers were dealt with!

Don't think that because these two butchers died quickly and cleanly at Su Hao's hands, they were weak.

On the contrary, in fact, if it were anyone else, even ten of them wouldn't be enough for those butchers to kill.

This can be seen from the goblin corpses lying around.

Butchers are strong, have obese bodies, and possess considerable resistance to blows.

Only because Su Hao had taken the Frenzy Potion, had Rock Armor protecting him, and wielded an extremely sharp Serrated Long Blade could he withstand a butcher's blow and win so cleanly.

Let's see what good stuff can be refined.

Looking at the three butcher corpses on the ground, Su Hao eagerly used the Item Refining Technique.

Immediately afterwards, Su Hao felt his head slightly swell, his mental power surged out again from deep within his mind, landing on the three corpses and turning into a bloody light that enveloped them.

Shortly after, as the bloody light faded, the three corpses vanished, leaving behind five drops of 【Polluted Blood】, two Monster Compendium fragments, and three beating hearts.

【Butcher Heart】

Effect: The butcher's strong heart; eating it may strengthen the physique, but it could also turn the eater into a mindless monster.

…… -> ……

Three butcher hearts—maybe after synthesizing them there will be no side effects.

Su Hao stroked his chin, formed a hypothesis, then tucked the three hearts away, intending to finish exploring before saying anything.

Huh? This is...

After placing the three butcher hearts in his storage bag, Su Hao read the information on the Monster Compendium fragment, and his eyes lit up.

【Bloody Butcher: Affected by the Blood Mage Rune, it became a mutated butcher—more brutal and with an even stronger physique!】

…… -> ……

Blood Mage Rune?!!

Su Hao's heart raced.

The Blood Mage Rune is a supernormal sequence—using it grants one supernormal abilities!

Phew! The Blood Mage Rune is mine!

Su Hao exhaled deeply and headed for the wooden hut.

Since the butchers mutated in this village, the Blood Mage Rune must be either in this wooden hut or at the church.