Chapter 345: Transformation

Judging from the number of them gathered there, they did not look like zombies that were taking the route of individual strength.

After capturing one zombie, the red ribbon disappeared. The Elite Zombie did not stay where it was either. Instead, it took the ordinary zombie it had captured and returned to the red mist.

Joo Joowon thought about it and used spider silk to bring back some fur from the captured zombie monkey. He did not do anything else. He simply crouched and waited outside the red mist. Whenever he saw an Elite Zombie returning with an ordinary zombie, he would secretly pluck some material from its body and bring it back, just in case he needed it later.

The current situation had already given Joo Joowon a vague idea of what would happen next.

The Elite Zombies continued their activities until the second half of the night before finally stopping.

Not all of the zombies had gone out to capture ordinary zombies. Many of them had gone out to search for flesh and blood food and then returned.

However, because zombies already carried the virus inside their bodies, some of the food they brought back had already turned into zombies before they even had the chance to eat it.

The Elite Zombies gathered all the zombies they had brought back together. Joo Joowon returned to the hillside and secretly observed them. He soon noticed that the red mist covering this entire area began to gather together before rushing toward the food that had been piled up into a small hill.

Under the erosion of the red mist, the mountain of flesh and blood food quickly disappeared at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if it had been swallowed by an invisible mouth.

After eating its fill and getting enough energy, the red mist rushed toward the ordinary zombies surrounded by the Elite Zombies.

Although many of these ordinary zombies had lost arms and legs when they were brought back, the Elite Zombies had not killed them. They had only made them temporarily lose their ability to move, preventing them from running around everywhere.

Strands of red mist began squeezing into the bodies of the ordinary zombies. They spread across their bodies like blood vessels, transforming their bodies.

“As expected…”

When the Elite Zombies brought the ordinary zombies back, Joo Joowon had checked their levels one by one. Even the lowest-level ones were Level 4 or 5.

The perception abilities of these ordinary zombies were average, and even if they sensed that someone was watching them, they were being restrained by the Elite Zombies, so there was no way they could do anything to Joo Joowon.

Therefore, he had investigated them without any hesitation, detecting everything he could see.

These levels proved that the red ribbons did not simply bring back any zombie they happened to find.

Then did this mean that there was a cost to the red ribbons transforming ordinary zombies into Elite Zombies? At the very least, the ordinary zombies themselves had to possess a certain ability to withstand the transformation. Otherwise, the transformation could fail.

As the red mist squeezed into the bodies of the ordinary zombies, they could not help but let out miserable howls.

These howls were different from the zombie cries Joo Joowon had heard in the past. There was no bloodlust or greed in them. Instead, they were more like cries of agony instinctively released because they could not withstand the pain.

Ordinary zombies, who did not even have the ability to feel pain, could actually make sounds like this. It was easy to imagine just how much suffering this transformation by the red mist was bringing them.

Naturally, Joo Joowon had no reason to sympathize with zombies. He paid particular attention to several of the lowest-level ordinary zombies and discovered that something had indeed gone wrong with them. After holding on for less than ten minutes, their entire bodies suddenly exploded and turned into clouds of blood mist.

Clearly, the consequence of a failed transformation by the red mist was that the thing being transformed would be left without even a corpse.

A flicker appeared in Joo Joowon’s eyes. He immediately used the pieces he had plucked from the bodies of those ordinary zombies to briefly alter their fate and fortune.

These ordinary zombies were all lower level than him, so as long as he had something carrying their aura, it was relatively easy to influence their fate and fortune. It would not be as difficult as doing so against high-level creatures.

This kind of transformation by the red mist was already a process where life and death hung by a thread. As long as even a slight problem appeared along the way, it could cause the transformation to fail.

Since that was the case, Joo Joowon naturally had an opportunity to fan the flames and interfere with it.

Although the zombies had already died, when they came back to “life,” it was equivalent to being given a new life. They possessed “fate” and “fortune” as well, which allowed Joo Joowon to use the Astral Combat.

“Bang!” “Bang!” “Bang!”

One zombie after another continued to explode into blood mist, starting from the lowest level and going all the way to the highest. Without exception, every one of them failed.

The blood mist turned into a fine blood rain that fell from the sky. Joo Joowon was afraid that such obvious interference would be noticed by the red mist, so he simply covered Hwi’s eyes with his hand. He also watched from the corner of his eye while reducing his presence as much as possible.

At this moment, he discovered another situation. The red mist used for the transformation seemed to be a one-time resource. It did not return after the transformation failed. Instead, it disappeared together with the zombie whose transformation had failed.

As the sky gradually brightened, this round of transformation also reached its end. A huge zombie let out a roar as it walked into the zombie horde.