"So..." Chen He frowned deeply and looked at Bai Zemin with a completely serious expression, "What you are saying is that you think that because of this new energy called mana, it is possible for new life forms to slowly begin to emerge?"

Bai Zemin nodded with a firm expression and asked back, "If you think about it carefully, it's actually not too crazy, don't you think? This thing called Soul Record can even grow us to monstrous levels where we can destroy and demolish houses with our bare fists, obtain strange treasures out of thin air, and level up like characters out of a video game."

​​

The room remained silent as everyone present seemed to sink into deep thought.

Before, after Shangguan Bing Xue returned from the forest where she had faced the goblins, Bai Zemin gave them a simple but concrete summary of the information Lilith had given him previously. Of course, to avoid suspicion he simply said that it was an idea that had occurred to Lili, who was by his side.

Shangguan Bing Xue looked at Lili with narrowed eyes before turning her face towards Bai Zemin.

"I think Lili's thoughts are not crazy." She expressed with a slight frown and pointed out, "In this new world, anything is possible and we have no choice but to adapt to the circumstances and the new rules of the game if we want to survive."

Chen He also nodded to express that he agreed as well. However, he soon noticed a major problem.

"If things are really like this, then doesn't it mean that humanity is in deep trouble? Just the zombies and some mutated beasts and a few evolved ones already cornered all human beings... If even more unknown species appear on the chessboard, won't it increase the difficulty of the game to hell mode?"

Bai Zemin sighed and nodded heavily, "Indeed... It could be said that the chess game became several levels more difficult now that the goblins appeared. Although we don't know if their numbers are too much, if they are like the goblins in the human stories then we have to fear the reproductive ability of these little monsters."

Shangguan Bing Xue brushed her hair and pointed out an irrefutable truth: "Thinking too much about this matter will get us nowhere considering that we hardly know anything about it. I think what we have to do hasn't changed anyway, hasn't it?"

"That's true." Chen He sighed and scratched his head a little tired with the whole sudden situation.

Bai Zemin remained silent for a few minutes. The only sound inside the room was the breathing of the four people present.

After about five minutes, under the watchful eyes of Shangguan Bing Xue and Chen He, Bai Zemin looked at Lilith and stood up.

"I have decided." His eyes flashed coldly and his determined voice gave the final verdict: "We will continue charging in a southerly direction. We need to find the military camp as soon as possible!"

If only he could get the equipment from a military arsenal, Bai Zemin was confident that, at the very least, he wouldn't have to be hiding like a sewer rat for fear of zombies. After all, even for the current him, it was impossible to protect 1500 survivors from the claws of zombies or any other enemy 100%.

No matter how strong he was, Bai Zemin was still only a human being who had just begun to take his first steps on the path of evolution. He did not have the ability to shake the heavens and the earth, nor was he capable of annihilating armies with a wave of his hands.

Until then, modern firearms were something he could rely on.

First Order existences were still relatively scarce while Second Order ones were practically non-existent. Therefore, unless they were unlucky, their worst enemies were zombies and other types of Unclassified monsters.

Against these types of enemies, modern firearms capable of placating entire armies were the best counterattack and defense.

Light machine guns, heavy machine guns, IFVs, battle tanks, machine gun mounted vehicles, helicopters, fighter planes, and many other weapons capable of increasing the battle capability of the weak human race enormously against enemies that outnumbered them by a wide margin.

Of course, there were also other factors such as having the ability to properly operate such weaponry. After all, the weapons were machines that needed to be operated by human beings, and depending on the use to which they were put the result could be a completely different one than the one expected.

However, it was better to have than not to have. Therefore, Bai Zemin followed by Shangguan Bing Xue, Chen He, and Lilith in her human form began to delegate simple and quick orders immediately without even pausing to rest for a moment.

* * *

On a road heading south, two modified jeeps were speeding along in the middle of the night.

The surroundings were silent up to the point where the faint whistling of the wind whipping the branches of the dark, unnaturally sized trees at the edge of the road. No matter where one looked, all was pitch black and the only source of light was the four headlights of the only two vehicles on the road.

Inside one of the modified jeeps, the one leading the way at the front, Shangguan Bing Xue, Wu Yijun, and the driver rode in silence. Only when they came to an intersection would the vehicle stop, forcing the second to stop as well, and they would only resume driving when Wu Yijun pointed the way forward.

After all, she was the only one with clear knowledge of the direction of the military camp.

In the second modified jeep, Bai Zemin, Chen He, and the driver rode in silence just like the women in the first jeep. The only difference was that, unlike the jeep in which the women were traveling, the silence inside the jeep in which they were traveling was heavier as none of the three said even a single word.

Chen He was observing the surroundings with caution as traveling at night was incredibly dangerous.

The driver was too nervous because of the gloomy night and the frightening environment as well as the respect he had for the two people beside him that made it difficult for him to even breathe. Therefore, the man only drove following the lead of the main jeep.

As for Bai Zemin, like Chen He, he was scanning the surroundings with cold eyes. Besides, he was not a very talkative person to begin with and was not particularly close to any person present so he simply focused on the road while trying to imagine different scenarios.

In these scenarios, different enemies and in differents numbers appeared while he projected different ways and efficient methods to obtain victory with the least possible losses in the least amount of time. That way he could better respond to different unexpected problems that might arise out of nowhere.

In total, they traveled for more than eight hours without rest.

It was eight hours of tension and exhaustion, but after so much effort it was finally time to see the fruits.