Chapter Fifty-Three: The Copy Fails! (First Update)

"What are you trying to do? Don't you dare do anything rash. Young Master Tu will not let any of you off..."

By now, the man called Brother Huang had already been trussed up hand and foot under Liang Jing's orders. Seeing Liang Jing's big hand reaching for his head, his heart clenched violently, and he almost shouted the threat on instinct, though even he could hear how much weaker it sounded than before.

When he saw that the other man had no intention of paying him any attention, and that the hand drawing ever closer to his head seemed to carry some kind of strange power, Brother Huang could no longer rein in the fear inside him.

"No, don't kill me! I'll do anything you want, anything, really, anything at all! Just spare me, and I'll be your most loyal dog. Tell me who to bite, and I'll bite them..."

"I am an Awakened. My abilities are very strong. I can help you do many things. I also know a lot about the Tu family. I know..."

At last, Brother Huang fully understood the situation. The other side had not been affected in the slightest by the power behind him, or perhaps they were simply desperate men who cared for nothing at all. Terror filled his heart. He was an Awakened now; he had risen from a common laborer to the upper ranks of human society. His good days had only just begun. How could he die like this? He had to live.

"I am an Awakened. You can see how powerful my ability is. It was already calculated that only one Awakened appears out of every hundred thousand people..."

Brother Huang seemed to have lost his wits again. As he begged for mercy, he kept blurting out every scrap of information he knew. Especially when he saw Liang Jing stop his movement, he seemed to glimpse hope and began speaking even faster.

Seeing how cooperatively the other man was behaving, Liang Jing was happy to pause and listen carefully. From this, he learned that they were a migrating group of refugees who had fled from Seaside City. Because the city lay too close to the ocean, mutated beasts were everywhere, many of them unimaginably powerful, assaulting the land almost without pause. At first, the government troops had been able to suppress the attacks effectively, but as time passed the mutated creatures grew stronger and seemed to acquire some form of unified command. Casualties mounted, ammunition was consumed at an alarming rate, and now that there was no electrical equipment left, production had become extremely difficult. In the end, the city’s upper leadership had no choice but to abandon Seaside City and retreat toward North City. Of course, among them were the usual privileged groups that required military escort to leave first. This, in turn, was noticed by the highly intelligent mutated beasts up ahead, who seized the opportunity and broke through the city’s defenses, which had already weakened as the army was reduced. Seaside City collapsed into instant chaos. People were continuously overtaken, killed, and devoured by the mutated beasts, and only a very, very small number survived.

During the early, relatively stable and safe period, the higher-ups had paid close attention to the Awakened and conducted thorough investigations into them. Based on the total population of Seaside City before the mutation and the number of Awakened known at present, the conclusion was that roughly one Awakened was born from every one hundred thousand people. Compared with the data obtained by the survivors who had fled from River City earlier, the difference was enormous. Still, both were only rough estimates, and there must have been many errors and unreasonable assumptions in them. For instance, some people who could have awakened had been killed by monsters before it happened; some Awakened hid their identities, and so on. Even so, one fact remained clear: Awakened were truly rare. At the very least, it took tens of thousands of people to produce one.

From this, it was obvious that Awakened were a scarce resource. Perhaps this was not yet obvious now, but in the future they would certainly become the main force in humanity's struggle against the increasingly powerful and intelligent mutated beasts. Moreover, as Awakened continued to grow stronger, firearms would face all sorts of limitations. Once military ammunition ran out, production would become far more difficult. Human beings could rely only on Awakened with formidable strength if they wished to carve out any place for themselves in this world.

The Awakened would inevitably become the upper class of humanity, the target of every faction and organization seeking to win them over...

"The Young Master Tu you mentioned—he's from the Tu family in North City?" Liang Jing had learned the general picture, and he was now very interested in this enemy, with whom he had already formed a grudge and who was so cruel and vicious. Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind. Could it really be such a coincidence?

"Yes. Young Master Tu is a member of the Tu family in North City. The Tu family is an old and powerful clan in North City. Even the military leaders in our migration group are eager to curry favor with them, so..." Brother Huang was a little surprised that the other man had actually guessed Young Master Tu was from the Tu family in North City. But for the sake of his life, he quickly connected everything he knew and told it all to Liang Jing, hoping to survive first and worry about the rest after his injuries had healed.

"Oh?"

Hearing this, Liang Jing lifted his brows and fell into silent thought. So it really was such a coincidence. It seemed he and this Tu family were bound by some inescapable fate. First there had been that mother and son, and the black-clad man Dai Wu, and now this matter as well.

He had already decided to join one of the refugee groups and travel with them to North City first, to take a look at the situation and strengthen himself along the way. After all, Liang Jing himself now felt profoundly insecure. Spending another day in the wilderness with his companions filled him with anxiety and pressure. No one knew when they might run into a monster as terrifying as the Flood Dragon, or a swarm of rats, or a horde of mutated mosquitoes. If a leader with a fair amount of intelligence appeared, they would have almost no ability to resist. But things would be different if he joined the crowd. In Liang Jing's dark little corner of thought, even if a great disaster did arise, with his own strength and that of the others, they would still probably be faster at fleeing than most people. By then, with so many bodies to fall back on... heh.

Let others die so that I may live.

However, he had now already gone against Young Master Tu of the Tu family twice. It could be said that a deep blood feud had already formed. With that man's character, if he ever discovered that Liang Jing was responsible, he would certainly not let it rest. And that black-clad Dai Wu had escaped alive. The chances of meeting them again were quite high. It seemed he would need to make preparations. If necessary, he might even have to face the troops within the refugee group.

From Brother Huang's words, Liang Jing learned that not far from them was the place where Young Master Tu was, namely the refugee group that had fled from Seaside City, numbering well over a hundred thousand and migrating in a huge procession toward North City. Liang Jing had already decided to keep the Scary Mask on at all times. Though it was conspicuous, Dai Wu had seen his face before, and the probability of truly running into each other was not that high. Still, Liang Jing prepared for the worst. For now, though, he would see what else he could gain.

"What, what are you doing? I've told you everything. I can still..."

Seeing Liang Jing move in on him again, Brother Huang cried out again and again, straining desperately against the ropes. Unfortunately, the tendons binding him had come from a mutated bull and were extraordinarily tough. Let alone now, when he was severely injured, even if he had not been, and even if Wang Meng and the others had tied him up just as tightly, he would still have been powerless to struggle.

Liang Jing knocked him unconscious in a single blow.

Then Liang Jing instructed the others nearby to interrogate the remaining two underlings whose wrists had been broken by his steel pellets. Without the slightest concern for being seen, a thin, translucent white membrane appeared in Liang Jing's hand and wrapped itself around the unconscious Brother Huang's head.

He was using the scanning function of his innate ability, Copy.

Liang Jing controlled the translucent white membrane and let it seep into Brother Huang's head, skipping directly past the brain's various tissues and heading for the most mysterious place of all: the symbolic core of his sea of consciousness and innate ability. Slowly, the white membrane enveloped a secret region deep within the man's mind and began to analyze and penetrate it. A progress bar also appeared within Liang Jing's sea of consciousness as he attempted to scan and decipher that inner domain. Unfortunately, as time slipped away, sweat began to appear on Liang Jing's face more and more often, and even his complexion gradually turned pale, alarming everyone watching nearby.

Progress bar.

Huff—!

Liang Jing suddenly stopped all movement and drew deep, heavy breaths. His face was deathly pale, and cold sweat kept pouring down.

It still would not work.

Earlier, he had tried to copy the symbolic core of the black snake's innate ability, but even after exhausting every bit of energy in his body, he still could not make the scanning membrane enter the sea of consciousness. In the end, he had no choice but to give up. This time, he had changed his approach, greedily attempting to scan the sea of consciousness itself along with it. But the opened sea of consciousness in the human mind was an extraordinarily mysterious and complex thing, far beyond what Liang Jing's present meager blend of impurity energy could accomplish. The attempt had drained him violently, leaving his whole body wracked with discomfort.

Though Liang Jing very much wanted this ability to enhance physical defense, reality was what it was. He could only abandon the attempt in frustration.

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