Chapter Sixty-One: Fear Among Men

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Monster Members: 2
Inventory: Ellie’s Music Box, Inverted Cross;
Acquired Traits: Enhanced Fear Resistance, Night Vision, Intimidation, Petrified Skin;
[Slaughter Value: 0/500]

Fan Li flipped open the Monster Handbook. He’d expected it, but his lips still twitched when he saw the final line—five hundred points of slaughter value. What did this mean? To summon a third monster, Fan Li would have to personally kill five hundred ordinary zombies. Even if those five hundred zombies sat still, crouched on the ground and let him hack them apart, it would still take him several days to accomplish such a feat.

Ordinary zombies yielded too little slaughter value. Compared to those mindless, slow-moving corpses, the swifter zombie hounds, the corrosive Spitters, the Mutants, and true monsters were the real shortcut!

Now, Fan Li had upgraded his arsenal, and his perspective had broadened. After all, besides Ellie, he now had a new ally—the Butcher, a being with a massive triangular headpiece.

Compared to Ellie, the shadowy assassin whose presence only inspired terror when you looked her in the face, the Butcher was different. Its entire being was almost impossible to look at directly: a sharp, enormous triangle for a face, a tumor sprouting at the back of its neck, and its spine stitched together with unknown sinews.

Most terrifying of all was the weapon in its hands—broad and long. Fan Li had no doubt about the devastation it could unleash.

He no longer cared to fight ordinary zombies. Even without summoning his monsters, just wielding his katana and relying on his petrified skin, he could face down a dozen regular zombies without feeling threatened in the least.

Fortune favors the bold, while the timid starve—Fan Li’s courage now was nothing like before. He ran his fingers across the page marked with the slaughter value, lost in thought. His goal was to become a true monster hunter; only nightmares, titans—such powerful beings—could grant him greater strength.

He turned to the next page. The Butcher stood before him, upright in the shadows, its broad blade resting beneath its hands. It was as if all resentment and darkness had coalesced into this figure. When it appeared, all light and vitality withered and vanished.

But there was a crucial point: summoning the Butcher required him to drip his own blood onto the inverted cross. The handbook had warned—if this step was omitted, misfortune would follow.

The Butcher recognized no allegiance. Once summoned, any living creature—apart from a half-meter radius around Fan Li—would become its target. The purpose of the blood was to create a protective aura around the summoner.

One could imagine, if Fan Li ever forgot this step, he might be the Butcher’s first victim.

“These monsters I summon… each is more wicked than the last!”

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Fan Li muttered to himself. Summoning Ellie required feeding her, while for the Butcher it meant bleeding himself. It seemed from now on, he’d need to keep a small knife handy, ready to nick his skin and drip blood onto the inverted cross at a moment’s notice—just to avoid becoming the Butcher’s prey.

What? Just cut himself with the katana? Fan Li had hacked down countless zombies with that blade. Sometimes, when swinging at monsters and advanced mutants, he’d even noticed the weapon greedily absorbing their evil blood. The last thing he wanted was not to die at an enemy’s hands, but to nick his own finger, get corpse poison in the wound, and die a miserable death.

Noon had long passed; it was now dusk.

After three days of rest, the torn ligaments in his leg had partly healed. He still couldn’t run, but walking was no problem.

Fan Li wanted to return to camp as soon as possible. Not because he missed Yang Shuo or Hu Huayao, but because that base was where he’d stockpiled a good amount of food. He was worried that, without him, the frenzied zombies might break into the building and destroy all the supplies he’d painstakingly gathered.

Summoning the Butcher had already delayed him. Traveling at night would be more dangerous than during the day, so Fan Li decided to stay here for the night and set out at dawn.

Waste was a sin.

There was still plenty of food in the house. Carrying all that heavy food back would be a burden, so he decided to have a hearty meal tonight.

The family of three who lived here had all turned into zombies. Ordinary food no longer interested them; compared to canned goods or rice, what they craved now was fresh flesh and blood.

Sliced sausage, canned beef on a plate, a packet of cooked instant noodles, and a bowl of rice—in peacetime, this would have been an ordinary fast-food meal, not even a nutritious one.

But now, in the apocalypse, such a spread could only be called a feast.

Only when you’ve lost something do you realize how precious it was to have it.

Fan Li picked up the rice, just about to eat a slice of sausage, when a soft knocking suddenly came from outside the door.

“Is anyone there?”

“Is anyone inside?”

“If there’s someone in there, could you let me in?”

“They…they’re coming…”

“A human!”

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Fan Li’s gaze sharpened. The light tapping, the lowered voice—all of it pointed to a conscious human being. The “they” the person spoke of could only mean the wandering zombies outside.

He’d been so focused on hunting zombies these past few days, he’d forgotten about the [Someone Inside] sign that man had deliberately posted on the door.

“What a nuisance.”

Fan Li frowned slightly. He just wanted to rest and return safely tomorrow. Who could have expected something like this to happen halfway through?

To save or not to save?

He sighed softly, picked up his katana, and walked toward the door.

“Is anyone there?”

“I’m begging you, please let me in—they’re right behind me. If you’re in there, please, save me!”

The knocking was much louder now. Clearly, the person was terrified to the extreme; their voice trembled and quivered.

This couldn’t go on. The zombie family in the yard seemed to sense something and began to wail, the noise sure to attract even more zombies nearby.

With a sharp snap, Fan Li opened the door. A deathly pale face appeared before him.

Terror.

The man’s eyes bulged, Adam’s apple bobbing in raw panic, as if bones had lodged in his throat, his pupils streaked with blood-red veins.

His face was bloodless, and the sudden opening of the door seemed to snap his already taut nerves.

He stared straight at Fan Li, body beginning to convulse, eyes rolling back, foam bubbling from his mouth—then collapsed lifelessly to the ground.

Fan Li hadn’t expected this. After a moment’s hesitation, he looked at the motionless figure sprawled outside and wondered, “Did this guy… just die of fright?”