Rebirth as a Demonic Cultivator: Starting with a Zombie Planet

Chapter 39: Words End Here, Do Not Approach

After chewing on the problem, Wang Gangjian settled on a compromise.

“I’ll scout the perimeter alone to see what exactly is happening. If things look bad, we pull out immediately.”

The unspoken implication hung in the air: if it wasn’t a threat, they were staying. The Black Vanguard Security Company had several hundred mouths to feed, and Donghu City was their turf. Fleeing into the unknown meant starting from scratch in a hostile wasteland. If they didn’t have to run, they wouldn’t.

Wang Yong opened his mouth to argue, but Wang Gangjian cut him off. “I’m a Level 2 Awakened One. My body can handle it. End of discussion.”

The others fell silent.

Grabbing a walkie-talkie, Wang Gangjian hopped into a modified off-roader and sped back toward the city limits. Wang Yong and the rest watched his receding taillights, their hearts heavy with anxiety.

Two hours later, Wang Gangjian parked just outside the rolling wall of gray fog.

The silence was absolute. It was unnatural. A Zombie Horde of that size should have been a cacophony of shrieks, tearing flesh, and roaring Awakened beasts. Instead, there was nothing. Just the churning mist, twisting like a starving phantom.

Knowing better than to blindly charge into an anomaly, Wang Gangjian scanned the ruined street. His eyes locked onto a rusted fire hydrant protruding from the cracked asphalt.

He crouched, wrapped his thick arms around the bolted iron, and twisted.

*Crack.*

The heavy iron sheared off its base with a groan of tearing metal.

Forming a Psionic Core hadn’t granted him any flashy elemental powers. It just packed his arms with explosive, monstrous strength. He called the mutation *Steel Arms*. As a Level 2 Awakened One, that brute force had only multiplied. Tearing a fire hydrant out of the concrete was child’s play.

With a guttural grunt, Wang Gangjian hurled the heavy iron hydrant like a baseball. The rusted metal tore through the dense fog, carving a tunnel of clear air nearly seventy feet deep before crashing into the unseen pavement.

Through that temporary tunnel in the mist, Wang Gangjian finally saw the truth.

The air inside was choked with a suffocating, ghostly gloom. It wasn’t a ruined city anymore; it was a slaughterhouse.

Thousands of Zombies and Awakened beasts stood frozen in place, trapped in some unseen paralysis. Above them, the sky was a storm of black blades. Hundreds of swords forged from pure, condensed baleful energy streaked through the air like predatory hornets.

*Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.*

The black blades plunged through rotting chests and mutated skulls with mechanical precision. The moment a creature fell, the Formation violently ripped the blood and qi from their bodies, leaving behind nothing but brittle, desiccated husks.

Wang Gangjian’s eyes bulged. He had survived the first year of the apocalypse when all of Donghu City had turned into a living hell, but this level of systematic extermination shook him to his core.

What on earth was happening? What were those black swords?

Static hissed from the walkie-talkie clipped to his vest. “Boss! Look up! Right above you!”

Wang Gangjian snapped his head back.

Hovering in the smog-choked sky was a young man standing casually atop a glowing flying sword. The stranger’s eyes were cold, indifferent pools of dark water. An invisible, suffocating pressure radiated from him, wrapping around Wang Gangjian’s throat like an iron vice.

Recognition hit Wang Gangjian like a physical blow. A few days ago, at the Donghu City bus depot, a young man riding a flying sword had casually butchered a massive, mutated Broodmother, inadvertently saving Tang Jinchuan’s squad.

This had to be the same person.

Chu Xuan stared down at the trembling Awakened One. “I thought your people were leaving,” he said, his voice flat and devoid of warmth. “Why are you back?”

He had known about the Black Vanguard Security Company’s evacuation plans. They had likely spotted the approaching Zombie Horde and decided to cut their losses. Chu Xuan had no connection to them, so he hadn’t cared either way.

For the past few days, he had been perched on a nearby skyscraper, monitoring the Yin-Fiend Soul-Stealing Grand Array. But the moment someone approached the perimeter, he had to intervene. He couldn’t risk a stray Awakened One disrupting his harvest.

“I… we were worried a high-tier Awakened beast might have spawned here. I just came to scout.” Cold sweat poured down Wang Gangjian’s face.

This man had slaughtered a Broodmother without breaking a sweat. Crushing a Level 2 Awakened One would be as effortless as stepping on a roach. Wang Gangjian chose his words with agonizing care, terrified of angering the mysterious powerhouse.

Chu Xuan’s gaze swept over him, calculating and dismissive. “Any living thing that walks into this mist will not walk out alive,” he stated.

“Words end here. Do not step within a thousand yards of this perimeter.”

Without waiting for a reply, Chu Xuan tapped the Heavenly Dipper Flying Sword beneath his feet. With a sharp hum, the blade tore through the sky, vanishing into the gray clouds like a streak of dark lightning.

The crushing, mountain-like pressure vanished.

Wang Gangjian’s knees buckled. He collapsed onto the cracked asphalt, his chest heaving. His tactical shirt was plastered to his back, soaked through with cold sweat.

*Too strong,* he thought, letting out a shaky, bitter laugh. *He didn’t even lift a finger. Just a look was enough to break me.*

The walkie-talkie buzzed. “Brother? You good? Did that guy attack you?” Wang Yong’s voice was tight with panic.

Wang Gangjian took a long, shuddering breath. “No. He just warned me to stay away from the fog. Said nothing living comes out of it.”

He paused, looking back at the churning gray wall. “I saw inside… the Zombie Horde is being wiped out. The ones that aren’t dead yet will be soon. We’re safe.”

On the other end of the line, Tang Jinchuan and Song Dayi exhaled collective sighs of relief. A powerhouse of that caliber had no reason to lie to ants like them.

“Turn the convoy around,” Wang Gangjian ordered, his voice steadying. “We aren’t abandoning Donghu City. Tens of thousands of Zombies just marched into their own graves. With the horde wiped out, this city is going to be the safest place on the map for years.”

The realization hit the men like a jolt of electricity. It was true. With the surrounding undead and Awakened beasts eradicated, Donghu City was practically a post-apocalyptic paradise!

“Wang Yong, calm the men down. Bring them back in staggered batches. No need to rush,” Wang Gangjian instructed.

“You got it, boss.”

“And hey,” Wang Gangjian added, a sudden edge of panic in his voice. “Make sure my box of game consoles is secure! Don’t lose them!”

A beat of silence. “…You’re more stressed about your games than the zombies, aren’t you?”

Two days later.

Deep within the Yin-Fiend Soul-Stealing Grand Array.

Chu Xuan glided through the dense, suffocating fog atop his Heavenly Dipper Flying Sword. He held the Formation control disk loosely in one hand. Recognizing its master, the swirling vortex of black, baleful swords parted around him, docile as tamed hounds.

He surveyed the slaughter.

Not a single creature remained standing. Tens of thousands of Zombies and Awakened beasts carpeted the ruined highway, their desiccated corpses piled high like freshly harvested wheat.

Chu Xuan bypassed the carnage, heading straight for the Formation’s core.

At the epicenter of the array lay a massive, excavated crater. The sheer volume of Yin-Fiend energy—ripped from the agonizing deaths of the horde—funneled directly into this depression, swirling like a dark, viscous whirlpool.

At the very bottom of the pit, faint glimmers of cold, metallic light flickered through the gloom.

A rare, predatory smile touched Chu Xuan’s lips. The sheer density of the death and baleful energy had accelerated the refinement process far beyond his initial calculations.

At this rate, in less than two months, he would harvest a massive batch of top-tier Yin-Fiend Steel!