In the dimly lit cemetery, the sound of rain is mixed with a series of muffled popping sounds.

Dean slammed his fist into the back of the head of the person under him like a madman, and the hard fist was like a hammer, and with the sound of breaking through the air, it was dyed red and white, and it was washed away by the rain.

Smash!

Smash!

The rain stopped.

Dean finally withdrew his fist with minced flesh, looked at the rotting coconut shell head beneath him, breathed a long sigh of relief, and his tired face showed a victor's smile, he got up and left the bloody corpse and walked away.

A hand grabbed him by the ankle, and as soon as he looked down—the fleshy head turned at the same time, revealing a bloody face with his left eyeball jumping out of its socket and the bridge of its nose twisted to the left, like a demon.

The contours of his facial features are exactly the same as his.

Dean in front of him had a bloodthirsty red glow in his eyes, and his mouth grinned to the base of his ears, revealing red teeth stained with minced flesh and a cruel smile—

"Hmm!"

A muffled grunt erupted from the quiet bedroom.

Dean sat up straight from the bed suddenly, reached out and touched it, his pajamas were drenched with sweat, and when he looked at the alarm clock at the bedside, it was only five o'clock in the morning, but he was already not sleepy.

"Shet! It's endless. ”

He jumped out of bed with a mutter, walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, his pale face and dark circles became more and more obvious, and his eyes were as bloodshot as a row of red textile threads.

Now he only needs four hours of sleep a day to keep him energized for the day, but those four hours are restless, and nightmares about the Zombie Eater are always coming up.

As Tim said, the Eater of Death's howls had a noticeable negative effect on him.

"I can only improve my meditation as soon as possible and add some will to carry it over."

……

Nightmare to nightmare.

Life has to go on.

After no longer going to LVPD to pick up volunteer tasks, Dean has a lot of time, in addition to going to school and chatting with friends, Dean loves to find Gretchen to fight...

Fighting has been upgraded to lv2, and his hand-to-hand combat ability has been improved in all aspects, boxing, wrestling, sanda, judo, grappling, and weapon fighting skills, as long as he wants to use it, he can use it at will.

The level is roughly equivalent to five or six years of hard training, and if he goes to MMA, he may be able to become a professional fighter.

However, the level can be improved, the efficiency of daily training is further reduced, and the proficiency is only increased by 1 point a week, and Dean ponders that maybe he can kill enemies who are proficient in fighting in order to experience the thrill of "riding a rocket" again.

In addition, Dean also discovered the imbalance of his physical fitness, and his agility of 12.7 made him superhuman, and the attack of ordinary people seemed to him to be a bit slow-motion.

With a physique of 14.6 exceeding the limit of a normal male, his endurance is amazing, his skin and muscles have become tough and dense, and ordinary people's fists and kicks cannot leave traces without hitting his vital and vulnerable parts.

However, the power of 11.3 seriously pulled these two legs, and Dean always felt that he couldn't do it well when he used certain strength-oriented martial arts skills such as "Iron Mountain Lean" and "Lift".

Gretchen saw his troubles and gave him a suggestion for specific strength training.

Downtown Las Vegas, 24-hour gym.

The natural lighting illuminates a pile of neatly arranged fitness equipment on both sides of the aisle: barbells, dumbbells, gantry, bench presses, pectoral presses, rowing machines, treadmills...

At the side of the squat rack, Gretchen is squatting down a pair of 50kg barbells at the back of his neck until his thighs are parallel to the ground, and then slowly going up, up and down, and the two newly braided fine and tight boxing braids at the back of his head swing gently.

At the same time, the beautiful muscle lines between the gray sports bra and the elastic pants are tense and loose, and there is a kind of beauty of strength.

Standing behind her, Dean was wearing a cotton sweat-absorbing blue shirt, cotton athletic shorts with a hem slightly above her knees, and the speed-type muscles she had trained through martial arts were hidden under her clothes, and she didn't look as sharp and exaggerated as professional fitness athletes, without bulging green tendons and blood vessels.

But when you reach out and touch it, you can feel that the barrier is clear and full of explosive power.

Dean was warming up with the elastic bands on her hands while watching the muscles behind Gretchen and studying the perfectly shaped hips she had worked so hard to develop.

Of course, in the future life, his behavior of peeping at women in the gym will inevitably be posted on the Internet by his mobile phone - sisters, today I met a man with a lower head in the gym, who is dead and perverted.

Bang dang...

After fifteen squats, Gretchen put the barbell back on the squat rack and turned to look at Dean with a smile, "Do you see clearly?" ”

"I can see a little bit of a lesson." Dean put down the elastic band and handed her a towel, "Tighten your abdomen and pout your ass... Toes and knees in one direction, no deviation ... The spine remains in a neutral position, and there is no excessive arch or tortoiseal back..."

"The analysis is quite the way, just after you finished your warm-up, stand up and try it!" Gretchen put down the sweat towel, called him to the squat rack, and selected an empty pole for him plus 10kg of breeding trays on the left and right, for a total of 40kg of weight.

"Bring your feet together a little, about shoulder-width apart, raise your head and chest and back straight,"

"It's good to put the barbell on the bulging trapezius and deltoid muscles."

"Inhale and slowly bend your knees and squat, exhale and push your legs hard, beautiful!"

Under the careful guidance of the female coach, Dean carried 20 full squats of 40kg barbells in a row, and the action standards were not discounted at all.

"Stop, put it back slowly." Gretchen's warm little hand touched the muscles of his shoulders and thighs, "Does it feel like it's tearing?" ”

"I don't feel it." Dean removed the barbell from his deltoid muscles and twisted his neck, looking relaxed as if he had taken a few minutes in the garden.

"The weight is too light, add another plus to find the maximum load."

Gretchen began to constantly add weight plates to the left and right sides of the bar, and Dean kept shaking his head every time he squatted with the barbell on his back,

"No, it's too light, it's too light..."

"Next..."

"Plus!" Dean soon reached the maximum weight of 100kg that Gretchen had practiced for a year.

"You only weigh 80kg, and the first time you do 100kg, do you add more?" Gretchen shook his head, "That's all for today, don't be reckless, you will know that it hurts your waist." ”

Dean didn't refute either, just carried a hundred kilograms of weight and did twenty full squats in a row, breathing evenly, not a drop of sweat on his body, and he now felt the super endurance brought by his 14.6 physique very clearly.

Gretchen gritted his teeth, and a deep envy flashed in his eyes—

Is talent really so much stronger than hard work and sweat?

She reluctantly asked, "How many of them do you feel like you can do with this weight?" ”

Dean smiled, "Keep doing it." ”

Gretchen silently lifted the weight plate.

And Dean's weight increased from 100kg all the way to 180kg, and before he knew it, the sound of the equipment operation in the entire gym disappeared.

More than a dozen fitness enthusiasts who were originally deadlifting, bench pressing, and dumbbell lifting stopped their movements and threw excited and expectant glances at him.

The two muscular male representatives walked directly over to the gantry, both dressed up in sports vests and tight shorts, generously showing off their hard-working pectoral muscles of at least D, ordinary people's thick thighs, and gluteus maximus muscles that can put wine glasses.

They also carry professional equipment such as belts, knee ties, wrist ties, etc.

"Man, good practice, this weight is rare here for us. How much do you weigh? One of the white bearded men held out his hairy hand to him with respect on his face, well, his arms were already encircled beyond Dean's thighs,

“80kg。”

"Do you want to keep trying?"

"Go on."

"If you go any further, we'll help you," the big man didn't wait for Dean to agree, and called his chimpanzee-like companions to stand on both sides of the squat rack, one left and one right, "If you feel weak when you get up, alert us." ”

Dean hardened his head and constantly challenged the weight under the gaze of more than a dozen fitness enthusiasts and the two muscle protectors on the left and right.

Starting from 180kg, Dean was obviously struggling, and during each squat, the green tendons and blood vessels on his neck, arms, and thighs began to burst out, and his face was slightly red, and sweat was oozing out drop by drop.

200kg，

220kg，

240kg，

With each success, the temperature in the air climbed a few degrees, and a group of fitness men and women looked straight at his thighs and back, their burning eyes as if they wanted to roast and eat him, depriving him of muscle strength.

260kg。

The barbell bar is slightly bent by the action of the weight plates on the left and right sides.

The crowd of onlookers held their breath.

Dean is like a mountain picker, carrying a barbell that weighs more than three times his own weight, squatting until the hamstrings of his thigh touch the gastrocnemius muscle of his calf.

Then, the glutes maximus, who had worked hard through countless trials in mixed martial arts and shooting, began to contract and exert force, leaving his center of gravity off the bottom, and his posterior quadriceps muscles followed up to support him to his feet.

Throughout the process, Dean felt like a precision crane.

Every muscle and every "part" of the whole body, especially the thigh muscles, are tacitly coordinated between this body and condensed into a huge upward force.

His face was as red as blood, and every muscle under the T-shirt was trembling slightly.

He carried a 260kg barbell and slowly straightened up.

Bang dang!

There was a crisp metal crash, and the barbell hung up smoothly on the stand.

In an instant, Dean's tense cheeks loosened, and a large amount of hot sweat poured out of the pores of his body, and he grinned unconsciously as he grinned with a sense of prostration, a sense of extreme exuberance and accomplishment that was different from martial arts.

Then the two muscle protectors on the left and right lifted his arms and lifted him off the ground.

"Congratulations, man! You've set a new squat record in our gym, and I'm announcing that all machines are free to you until the record is broken again. ”

A hint of surprise flashed in Dean's eyes, his strength of 11.3 is supposed to be not up to the ceiling of 12 for normal men, how can he set a record with a squat of 260kg, surpassing this group of 1.9 or 2-meter big men?

Could it be that the strength of the combat skill improvement is more balanced?

Before he could think clearly, a Latin beauty with a cool wheat complexion and a cool face came over with long legs, smiled sweetly, and gently stroked his back with her fingers, and electrocuted him.

"Do you wrestle?"

"I've practiced a little."

"Your thighs are so thin, it doesn't look like you've practiced, how can you carry 260kg?" Another bald hunk stretched out his hairy hand to pull his trouser legs, and his eyes glowed to study his thigh circumference.

"What are you doing... Ah, take your hands away! ”

A group of muscular hunks and hunks blocked Dean in the center, and asked for advice with their hands and mouths.

"Be respectful, everyone! Don't touch my ass! Dean's pleading eyes turned to his girlfriend outside the crowd.

Gretchen flicked his pigtails, looked at this scene with his hands on his hips and smiled, and the depression that had been hit before was swept away,

"Aren't you able to squat all the time? Keep squatting for me! ”

……

Since then, Dean has been going to the gym for free four or five times a week, bench presses, squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, to exercise muscle strength throughout the body, and enjoy the thrill of constantly challenging the limits.

Outside of fitness.

In the battle with the Eater of the Dead, Dean was deeply aware that his marksmanship was seriously weakened, and his effective shooting skills were at most thirty meters away, while the Eater of the Dead's amazing marksmanship was still accurate from eighty or ninety meters away, almost not inferior to a superpower, and the distance was far beyond the "Shadow of the Past".

Dean is also looking forward to the day when he can have this killer feature, and no longer have to rely too much on the nine-minute supergod state of "Shadow".

Shooting range in the field of struggle.

Dean with a fully automatic Ar15 stood in front of the shooting track, breathing evenly, his eyes staring at the target at twenty meters away, feeling the slight shaking of the muzzle up and down, and at the same time his index finger gently pulled the trigger and held it down-

Da-da-da-da!

The deafening sound of gunfire echoed, the bullet casings were thrown away, and the muzzle of the gun was raised.

Dean emptied a magazine in one go, white smoke and debris flew everywhere, and more than a dozen new craters were added to the target in the distance.

"Well, the hit rate is more than half, super level play." Dean exposed his chamber and wiped it gently.

At the side of the shooting track, more than 500 bullet casings were densely packed at his feet.

During this period of time, he persevered in frantically brushing the gun, half of the pistol and half of the rifle, feeding at least 500 rounds of ammunition every day, and sometimes thousands of rounds, his shooting accuracy improved visibly with the naked eye, and faintly grasped the shooting feel of "intentional aiming, unintentional firing".

If the range is not open to him for free, he is bound to go bankrupt.

In addition, he was able to persevere, thanks to the strong recovery ability provided by his physique and iron man talent, it is easy for ordinary people to practice guns so wildly, and it is easy for their wrists and shoulders to retire early.

Putting down the AR-15, Dean changed into a Remington M870 shotgun to hit a 10-meter target, and then a TAC-50 sniper rifle to shoot a 100-meter or 200-meter target, repeatedly training, experience, absorb and digest the LV1's shooting technology.

In the last battle, the pistol's weakness of short effective range and insufficient power was completely exposed, and it would have been easier for him to win if he had carried a high-powered weapon with him at the time.

It's just that he currently only has 3,000 deposits to buy fully automatic and has no confidence, and he has no channels for the time being, and the spear is large in size, inconvenient to carry, and it is easy to alarm the enemy with him.

He couldn't help but wonder when he could get a superpower like storage space.

……

In addition to regular martial arts, gym and shooting, Dean spends three nights a week studying lore.

Xiaosuo's Nancheng Old Street.

Tribeca's house.

"It's just in time, you have your favorite grilled fish today." The woman with a kind face welcomed Dean into the house, quickly entering the familiar rhythm.

Tribeca sat on the sofa, holding her carefully compiled tome of folklore, and began to tell the story with emotion.

And Dean enjoyed a hearty dinner, asking questions about her story from time to time...

"Wendigo is a cruel, vicious, supernatural being with great psychic powers, derived from a legend of northern America."

"There are also legends about the Alkungaon Indians in Canada."

"Indians?" Dean took a sip of Asciaco's soup, his mother and uncle were Indians.

"In the Indian version, insatiable greed, destruction of the environment, and cannibalism would give birth to Wendigo."

Tribeca's finger swept over a giant monster with the body of a giant reindeer on the page,

"According to the information I've gathered, Wendigo has a deer head, and its bones and heart are made up of ice cubes and are indestructible."

"Standing 20 to 30 feet tall, with a large mouth full of sharp, protruding fangs, it can easily bite through human bones, and it is extremely powerful, with claws as sharp as a scythe."

"If you encounter it in the ice and snow, don't try to fight head-on, use the terrain to block its huge body and run for your life."

Dean bowed, "Have you seen it with your own eyes?" ”

"I've only heard from an old friend who lived near Rogers Pass in Montana, northern America, and for a while, every winter, a few local residents who went out to buy supplies would go missing, and the local police department could find scattered blood and irregular pieces of broken flesh and bones, as well as huge non-human deer hoof footprints near the disappearance site, leading to the depths of the icy and snowy mountains, and it was very difficult to search."

Tribeca looks up,

"But in the last decade or so, the legend has begun to fade away, and there have been fewer and fewer disappearances."

"What's the reason for that?" Dean ate the oily rice,

"I think the Wendigo has moved to a more hunting place... After all, it ages slowly and has a long life... There are many migrations throughout your life. ”

……

"In fact, based on my years of research on folklore and personal experience, I have found that some cannibalistic 'monsters', including Wendigo and werewolves, have something in common, they can obviously rely on normal food to satisfy their hunger, and it is not difficult to obtain food, but they prefer to eat people."

"It's like a curse, an instinct engraved deep in our genes, but it's still inconclusive."

Dean was thoughtful.

"And did you know that such a feared man-eating monster also has a part of its following?" Tribeca paused, "They worship monsters as totems and beliefs, and they imitate monsters. ”

Dean put down his fork and suddenly felt that the cured pork in the bowl was a little harsh,

"This group of followers is just for psychological stimulation, or is there something mentally problematic?"

"No, they are a group of natural anomalous beings who eat the food of ordinary people most of the time, but must eat 'special food' every once in a while, otherwise they will get out of control and become monsters dominated by appetite."

A hint of fear flashed in Tribeca's eyes,

"These anomalies look like ordinary people, and their daily lives are not unusual. However, he is slightly more than ordinary, and has an excellent sense of smell, comparable to a hunting dog, and can smell the same kind of smell from a few streets away, and can also smell the physical health of other people, so as to choose prey. ”

Dean's eyes lit up and he asked a few more questions.

The atmosphere in the hall was extremely harmonious and harmonious, and the two of them were like a pair of grandchildren.

……

From the beginning of October to the middle of October, during more than half a month, Dean's life was full and regular, his study and training were correct, and his abilities were fully exercised——

Dean Lew

Character Level: 2 (180/300)

Age: 18

Physique: 14.6

Power: 11.3→11.4

Sensitivity: 12.7

Perception: 10.4→10.5

Spiritual: 14.3

Will: 12.2

……

Specialty: Omitted

Capacity: 5/5

Fighting Lv2 (0→2/300)

Shoot Lv 1 (100/200→116/200)

Shadow of the Past Lv1 (22→37/200)

Balance Meditation Lv1 (73→88/200)

Mimic lv0 (5 days countdown)

……

"There are still five days to activate the new ability, and I have to find a suitable target to draw some blood and prepare to do a big job."

(End of chapter)