Updated: 2012-07-31

Sauron is in a bad mood now, and the reason for his bad mood is a battle provoked by a non-human creature on the way.

After learning that Zero was going to Remut with Leah, he gathered his team and drove away from the Z7 base. If all goes well, Sauron could have visited the settlement the day after Zero arrived in Remut. If things had gone the way, Zero wouldn't have thought of adventuring into the ruins of the university town of Lampez, and wouldn't have known Su and Ben. He and Leah will be detained by Sauron and brought back to the Dark Council's stronghold.

But life has no ifs for these two words.

Sauron was "late" because they encountered a cluster of living corpses on the way.

It was no accident that Zero and Teddy saw the migration of living corpses during their night camp on the outskirts of Silvertree, where the living corpses of Silvertree City and other members of the same species had migrated from nowhere quietly gathered in the ruins of a city on their way to Remut. Sauron travels day and night in pursuit of Zero, and at night, the living corpses roaming the side of the road smell the fresh flesh of the members of Sauron's team, and the first encounter takes place.

Of course, the number of living corpses that didn't even have a hundred was no match for Sauron's team. The battle ended shortly after it began, and Sauron didn't care, ordering the team to move on. He didn't think that in the ruins not far away, a larger number of living corpses heard the gunshots and were attracted to them. So in the second encounter, Sauron was faced with hundreds or thousands of living corpses.

But in this case, it won't delay Sauron for too long. But among the living corpses that came to commit crimes, there were high-level living corpses such as butchers and rippers, and there were quite a few such elite monsters. You must know that whether it is a butcher or a tearer, there are not many such high-end goods naturally produced in every group of living corpses. And among the living corpses that came that night, there were about twenty butchers and rippers.

Unlike the Butcher's humanoid tank-like monsters, the Rippers are small in stature, and their appearance is indistinguishable from that of a normal living corpse, but their bones are highly mutated. The bones of any part of the Ripper's body can be deformed as needed to form a razor-sharp blade that can easily tear through armored vehicles, and their agility and speed are beyond the reach of the Butcher.

In some specific cases, a ripper is far more dangerous than a butcher. Take the second encounter with the living corpses, where the Rippers, who were among their kind, only launched a surprise attack when they approached Sauron's team. They used their companions as cannon fodder, putting a lot of pressure on Sauron's side.

Zuihou or Sauron himself stepped out to temporarily force the group of living corpses back. Soon, however, the Scouts received a message that another group of living corpses had assembled and were heading towards the road. Knowing that his forces were not enough to destroy more of the living corpses, Sauron reluctantly gave the order to evade, and the team retreated all the way to Silvertree. Taking advantage of the cover of the city's buildings, Sauron's team and the living corpses engaged in a three-day tug-of-war in Silvertree City.

No one could help anyone, and the living corpses were evacuated. And Sauron, when the number of soldiers in the team was almost halved, did not dare to rush overnight. They began to work in and out of the night, and during this time, Sauron sent out the tracking expert Kab. Sauron's original intention was to let Kabu find out the distribution of the living corpses on the way, so as not to start an inexplicable war with the living corpses like last time.

Unexpectedly, Kabu went and found an extremely strange phenomenon.

The tracking expert followed the trail of the living corpses to the ruins where they were inhabited, and found that an area of the ruins was guarded by high-level monsters like the Butcher and the Ripper. Finding it strange, Kabu used a nearby high-rise building to conduct a long-range reconnaissance, and what he saw with multiple electronic telescopes was projected directly onto Sauron's tactical board through the Dark Council's network.

So Sauron saw the image that he would never forget.

Countless living corpses were tearing and devouring each other in a building. Stumps, internal organs, intestines, and brains spurted all over the floor. That bloody picture is enough to make people with thick nerves unable to eat for three days. Sauron's nerves weren't slender, but they weren't so thick as to look at the images and ignore them.

The strange phenomenon of the living corpse was reported to Sauron's headquarters, but this was not his main task, so Sauron did not investigate the anomalous activity of the living corpse in depth. After this small episode, Sauron continued on his way with the team, while the returning tracking expert rested for two days before reappearing.

Regarding the anomalous movements of the living corpses, it was not long before Sauron received instructions to "never mention it". Sauron knew that if such a large number of living corpses were to happen, the bases or companies within 3,000 kilometers of this fringe would have to be exhausted. The lords of the Dark Council don't plan to give a wake-up call to nearby companies, and Sauron naturally won't bother with it. In his opinion, it was none of his business if all the people died in this backwood, even if his family had a small mineral base in the area.

So in front of Theon, Remut's second-in-command, Sauron never mentioned that a biochemical storm was brewing more than a thousand kilometers behind Remut.

Now Sauron is more concerned about the movements of Zero and Leah.

Looking at the photo on the tactical board, Theon smiled kindly: "It turns out that you are looking for the two of them, so you can be regarded as asking the right person." ”

It was the best news Sauron had heard in a week, and a rare smile appeared on the young man's face.

The city where Ron Co. is located is called Raging Reef, a city that towers over the sea. Due to the geology, Reef City is not able to build an underground base like Remut. Ron had no choice but to install various radiation purification devices in the city to reduce the exposure of city residents to surface radiation.

Today, fifty years after the Cataclysm, even ordinary people are many times more resistant to radiation. Therefore, although they live on the surface, they can barely survive with the help of purification devices. It's just that the average life expectancy of the surface dwellers will be about one-third shorter than that of the base dwellers, and they will also be infected with all kinds of strange diseases.

But in these turbulent times, being able to have a tile to cover your head is already considered heaven, so the residents of Fury Reef City don't have much to complain about it.

Zero and Leah arrived in the city of Ron Corporation at noon yesterday, and unlike Remut, there is no strict entry and exit system. Ron Co. had a lax system, with only the sheriff acting as a politan in the city, except for soldiers guarding the company's headquarters.

Of course, you don't have to expect a few sheriffs to make a difference. Normally, these officials are just going through the motions. Therefore, Reef City can be said to be a free city, or it can be said to be a chaotic city.

Zero left Leah at an official hotel run by Ron Corporation. The fee here is about 30% higher than that of a regular hotel, but no one dares to make trouble in the hotel, and it is safer for Leah to stay here than in a private hotel with a mix of dragons and snakes. Zero, on the other hand, registers at the Guild Halls in Fury Reef, and only temporarily registers in the Guild Halls in each city for mercenaries or hunters to be able to get information and missions from the Guilds.

After completing the registration formalities, Zero applies to meet with the president of the union, hoping to take the opportunity to get close to the top of Ron Corporation to get information about the company or organization that might cure Leah. But there is no news about this appointment until today. Zero had to put it aside for the time being, and there was another channel for such a thing as information besides official sources.

The place where that channel is located is undoubtedly the tavern. So at this moment of nine o'clock in the evening, Zero appeared in front of the door of the only tavern in Fury Reef City.