I am the Zombie King of the Apocalyptic World
Chapter 681 - 679: Entering the Mother Nest_1

Chapter 681: Chapter 679: Entering the Mother Nest_1

"Perhaps I’m overthinking things," Tang Ye murmured. Liang Hanyang and Ah Fu were still looking at the city in confusion, failing to see anything out of the ordinary no matter how hard they looked.

Just as Tang Ye was about to turn away, something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention: A tree pit at the side of the road, housing a withered and shriveled tree of an unidentifiable species.

All of a sudden, all his attention was focused on this tree.

The tree’s bark was curled up and falling off in large patches, exposing the dark pulp beneath. It was pitifully thin overall, but surprisingly tall, reaching a height of around five or six meters, and featured many branches.

It resembled a sapling, but upon further thought, a sapling wouldn’t have so many branches, would it?

Looking ahead, Tang Ye noticed another tree of the same type along the street. Just like the previous one, its trunk was pitifully thin, and yet it was tall, taller than the average sapling.

"These aren’t saplings!"

It struck Tang Ye in an instant!

He didn’t sense an iota of the zombie’s aura from these trees, indicating that they weren’t zombified plants!

This tiny detail made Tang Ye realize something. He looked around Liang City again and immediately noticed what was missing!

Human civilization had been destroyed in a blink when the apocalypse arrived. The cities which people depended on for survival had been abandoned since the collapse of human civilization.

Over time, evolved plants grew wildly. In the cities Tang Ye had seen during the few years of the apocalypse, apart from mindless zombies wandering everywhere, there was a flourishing growth of evolved plants.

Take Jinhe City for instance. When Li Henian, Tang Ye’s alter ego, arrived there, evolved plants had grown so rampantly that they had started to cover entire buildings. Everywhere he looked, there was greenery. Despite the menacing Ghoul zombies wandering the streets, there was an undeniable vigor to the city!

In Liang City, however, Tang Ye and his group hadn’t seen a hint of greenery since they left Gujin Base. The withering trees lining the streets were likely a result of being in this zombie nest!

It seemed as if they had been sucked dry of life by some strange creature.

As for zombified plants, Tang Ye’s group hadn’t seen a single one, likely for the same reason. If this bizarre entity was indeed responsible, it would stand to reason. It sucked away all life, leaving nothing behind that could become zombified.

Nothing in the universe could avoid the law of conservation of energy. If the nest produced zombies, it would need energy. But where would it get this energy from?

The nest was huge, it couldn’t stand up and hunt for prey, could it? Of course, the energy source had to come from below ground.

"Boss, what is it?" Liang Hanyang couldn’t take it anymore. His curiosity was scratching at him like a cat’s paw; he finally asked Tang Ye.

"Nothing much, just the lack of plants here."

"Huh?"

Liang Hanyang and Ah Fu looked around and discovered the absence of evolved plants. By the time they came to their senses, they found that Tang Ye had already stepped into the nest.

Little did Tang Ye know, he was about to encounter something that would leave him stunned!

Seeing Tang Ye enter the nest, Liang Hanyang and Ah Fu glanced at each other before hastily following him. As they all just stepped into the interior of the nest, they saw several strands of filament bulging up in a round shape from the root and then quickly squirming upwards, disappearing into the ceiling of the nest.

For a moment, several holes in the distant ceiling twitched, the flesh curling outward. "Splat!" A few zombie eggs fell out, splattering against the ground into a pool of pus-yellow liquid which was absorbed by the nest floor. It was ghastly.

Just then, a zombie woke up, uttered a few hoarse roars, and staggered out of the nest. With a few new members added to the horde, looking from a distance was enough to give one goosebumps!

"This thing really is massive!"

Tang Ye watched as the newly awakened zombies left the nest and couldn’t help but exclaim as he surveyed the area around the nest.

The nest should belong to some kind of zombie-like species, but it’s uncertain if it is alive. Nobody knows how such a thing came into being. Tang Ye tried to locate the nest’s spirit body, but when he released his own spiritline, he found no target. It was as if the nest had no life, but it also wasn’t a zombie.

But on the other hand, if you consider the nest as a machine specially designed to produce zombies, it’s not very reasonable either.

Even in the apocalypse, it’s impossible for such a strange entity to exist. So, Tang Ye is more inclined to believe that the nest is a kind of zombie!

Looking ahead, he couldn’t see any light in the distance. When he had stood on Ah Fu’s head and looked down, the nest appeared like a giant canopy over Liang City. Inside the nest, he expected to see the light on the other side. However, all he saw was darkness ahead, indicating that the interior of the nest also had "walls".

As Tang Ye progressed, he suddenly realized that the further he went, the lower he descended. He finally had to stop when he felt that he had reached the underground.

"Wait, the body of this creature extends deep underground!"

"Just how big is this thing?"

"Let’s head back up." Tang Ye said and looked behind him. Their twisting path wasn’t paved with man-made concrete, but consisted of the nest’s fleshy tissue. The surface had a spiral texture similar to a yarn ball comprised of purple, red, and black threads all mixed together.

The path was also inclined upwards, indicating that Tang Ye and his team had indeed been descending underground. The incline was slight enough that one wouldn’t notice it while walking normally.

Tang Ye, Ah Fu, and Liang Hanyang returned the way they came. The nest was vast, and it took Tang Ye a moment to survey his surroundings. After some thought, he led Ah Fu and Liang Hanyang back the way they had come.

There were many winding paths within the nest made of flesh. As Tang Ye kept moving, every step he took created a string of disgusting slime under his shoes. And the further he went, the more mucous that appeared on the fleshy ground of the nest.

There were also numerous holes in the fleshy walls on the sides. These holes were different from the ones on the ceiling from which the zombies emerged. Right now, the holes on the walls around Tang Ye seemed to be missing a piece, filled with palm-sized maggots crawling everywhere, exuding a stench of rot.

Tang Ye was disgusted and emitted his high-level zombie will, driving these maggots back into the holes in the fleshy walls, preventing them from staying on the ground.

"Boss, which way do we go now?" Liang Hanyang asked Tang Ye.

At that time, they had reached a crossroads with three winding paths available: one straight ahead and one each to their left and right. Beside them was a large zombie egg the size of a water barrel, and right above it, two zombie birth holes.

There seemed to be an accident with this particular zombie egg; its surface hadn’t ruptured. At the sight of this, Ah Fu advanced a few steps and eagerly stuck his hand into the zombie egg.

Roar!