Chapter 773: Exhausted, On the Verge of Life and Death

"Young Master, what do we do?" Ghost Shadow’s face turned pale with fright. It wasn’t that he was afraid of dying, but dying at the hands of the undead was utterly pointless.

"We fight," Ye Xiu said, his gaze icy. "The words ’run away’ don’t exist in my dictionary!"

Earth System Totem, activate!

Instantly, huge pits collapsed into the distant beach, swallowing droves of zombies as seawater rushed in to fill them.

But that wasn’t all. Spikes of sand and mud, each over two meters long, erupted from the ground, impaling one zombie after another. Earth Dragons rose from the ground to rampage wildly through the horde. Giant arms of condensed mud materialized, swatting the undead like flies, with each slap obliterating a large swath of them.

Ye Xiu was using the Earth System Totem with spectacular creativity. He unleashed one imaginative attack after another, shattering masses of zombies.

Ghost Shadow wasn’t idle either. He manipulated the surrounding seawater, forming massive waves that blasted any zombies in the water back onto the beach. At the same time, countless water blades materialized and sliced the zombies’ heads off one by one.

Together, Ye Xiu and Ghost Shadow’s killing efficiency was astonishing.

However, the sheer number of zombies was overwhelming. They just kept coming, one wave after another, charging relentlessly without any fear of death.

After nearly an hour of such intense slaughter, Ghost Shadow was exhausted.

Ye Xiu immediately activated the Water System Totem, attacking with both Totems at once. To any onlookers, it still appeared as though he and Ghost Shadow were fighting together.

"Ye Xiu truly is extraordinary!"

More than two thousand meters away, Wolong and Fledgling Phoenix were observing the spectacle from a room on the top floor of a tall building, using a telescope to watch Ye Xiu and Ghost Shadow’s techniques.

"What do you see?" asked the blind old man standing behind the wheelchair. He was Wolong, blind from birth, his world a constant, unending darkness.

"Ye Xiu is using the Earth System Totem to attack the zombie army," the old woman in the wheelchair replied with a sinister smile. She had only the upper half of her body. "I’ve seen many people who possess the Earth System Totem, and we’ve killed quite a few of them, but Ye Xiu is the only one who can use it with such flair. There’s someone with him using the Water System Totem, but his water-based attacks are very ordinary."

She was Fledgling Phoenix. Abandoned by her parents as a child, her lower body had been severed by human traffickers who then forced her to beg on the streets.

"Anyone who can compel the three great Judicator Families to release all their prisoners and issue such a high-profile bounty is bound to be extraordinary," Wolong said, his voice hoarse. "But even the strongest have their limits. Faced with the relentless onslaught of ten million zombies, Ye Xiu will eventually tire. That is when we will make our move."

"KEKEKEKE..." Fledgling Phoenix cackled, the sound like grinding teeth. "So young, and already feared by the three great Judicator Families. Ye Xiu must be a genius among geniuses. And I do so love killing geniuses."

"Good," Wolong said. "I’ll leave Ye Xiu for you to kill."

It wasn’t just Wolong and Fledgling Phoenix. All the prisoners and bounty hunters hidden within one, two, and three thousand meters of the port were also watching the display of the Earth and Water System Totems through their own telescopes.

They weren’t as twisted as Wolong and Fledgling Phoenix, but they were genuinely shocked by Ye Xiu and Ghost Shadow’s power. To face a zombie horde without fear and actually dare to fight back—that courage alone was beyond them, and their strength was truly terrifying.

"Sister, Ye Xiu can’t last much longer. Should we go help him?" Atop another building, one of the enormously fat sisters, Luo Yan, asked while observing the battle through binoculars.

"He tricked us! I’m not saving him!" her sister, Chenyu, grumbled.

"But he’s really handsome!" Luo Yan pointed out.

"That... is true," Chenyu conceded after a moment. "Alright, we’ll wait until he’s exhausted, then we’ll make our move."

"Okay!" Luo Yan nodded.

Just from the sound of their voices and their conversation, one might mistake them for a pair of innocent, lovely girls. However, a single glance at their appearance would shatter that illusion.

「Another half an hour passed.」

Suddenly, through their various vantage points, Chenyu and Luo Yan, Wolong and Fledgling Phoenix, and all the prisoners and bounty hunters saw Ye Xiu collapse to one knee on the ship’s deck. He was gasping for breath, sweat pouring down his face like rain.

"KEKEKEKE! Ye Xiu’s exhausted!" Fledgling Phoenix cackled. "Wolong, let’s go!"

At the same instant, Chenyu and Luo Yan, along with all the other prisoners and bounty hunters, burst from their hiding spots and sprinted toward the port.

However, the path was densely packed with zombies, severely impeding their progress.

"Sister, we miscalculated!" Luo Yan fretted. "With so many zombies, Ye Xiu might be eaten before we can even reach the port!"

"Then we’ll fight our way through!" Chenyu roared, swinging her two great hammers. With a single strike, she smashed a zombie’s head to pieces, sending its body flying back to knock down a large swath of others.

"We’ll smash through!" Luo Yan yelled, swinging her own massive hammer.

It wasn’t just Chenyu and Luo Yan slaughtering the zombies now. All the prisoners and everyone who had accepted the bounty began carving a path, desperate to be the first to reach Ye Xiu and claim his head.

"Young Master, let’s escape! You set up the Formation, so we can flee outside its borders," Ghost Shadow urged, seeing Ye Xiu’s exhaustion.

"I can still fight!" Ye Xiu gasped, shakily forcing himself to his feet and drawing his Dragon Sparrow Sword.

By now, zombies had already climbed aboard the ship and were swarming the deck.

With strenuous effort, Ye Xiu decapitated the advancing zombies one by one. Ghost Shadow was even more frantic. His Martial Prowess was almost completely depleted, with only a tiny fraction replenished, but to ensure Ye Xiu’s safety, he gritted his teeth and furiously slaughtered the incoming horde.

Zombie corpses began piling up on the deck. Soon, Ye Xiu and Ghost Shadow were surrounded by a wall of bodies, yet more zombies just climbed over the grisly mountain to continue their relentless assault.

Before long, they were completely buried under a mound of corpses. The zombies that followed had to start throwing the bodies overboard just to get to Ye Xiu. Gradually, the pile of corpses in the water grew until it was level with the ship’s deck.

An unknown amount of time passed.

Finally, one of the prisoners became the first to successfully board the ship.

"Haha, Ye Xiu’s head is mine!" the prisoner cackled, charging at the pair with a knife.

Ghost Shadow’s expression changed drastically. "Young Master, run! I’ll hold him off!" he shouted.

He was just about to rush forward and intercept the prisoner to buy Ye Xiu time to escape.

At that very moment, the sound of a death knell rang out. The zombies that had been attacking Ye Xiu and Ghost Shadow suddenly turned and began swarming the prisoner instead.

Ghost Shadow sighed in relief. "It seems Wolong and Fledgling Phoenix don’t want you to die at someone else’s hands, Young Master. Let me stand guard while you meditate and recover your Martial Prowess."

Ye Xiu nodded and immediately sat down cross-legged.