Beating Heart

Damn! What the hell!

The young man was startled by the corpse's actions and cursed. His body quickly retreated back.

The corpse struggled forcefully, slowly pulling itself out from the chair legs, intestines continuously flowing out from the hole in its stomach.

But the corpse had no sense of pain. It charged towards the young man, a flickering light shining in its eyes.

The young man's figure suddenly froze in place, not moving an inch.

Seeing the corpse about to reach him, the young man gritted his teeth and cursed: Taste my precious treasure!

After saying that, the young man regained his ability to move. He took out a severed head from his backpack and threw it at the corpse.

The head's closed eyes suddenly opened, revealing an eerie smile. It opened its mouth wide and bit into the corpse.

Then...

Like a meat grinder, the head ceaselessly bit into the corpse.

The corpse's flesh disappeared at an extremely fast speed, until only the skeleton remained.

The head heavily fell to the ground, its mouth full of blood.

Humph!

The young man let out a satisfied humph, warily glanced at the head, and directly put it into his backpack before charging up the stairs with a displeased expression.

Wang Ye, who had gone up first, had his brows deeply furrowed.

Not far away, rhythmic vibrations came from an emergency operating room.

Thump

Thump

The regular pounding echoed through the laboratory door and kept resonating in the hallway.

It seemed...

Like a heartbeat.

Wang Ye noticed there wasn't a single ghost slave on the second floor.

Listening to the rhythmic sounds, the atmosphere felt oppressive.

It was as if Wang Ye's heartbeat gradually changed to match the rhythm of the sounds, altering its pace.

The sounds grew faster and faster. Wang Ye abruptly clutched his chest and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.

Xiao...Si...

Wang Ye gritted his teeth and summoned Xiao Si with all his might.

Xiao Si slowly walked towards the operating room and shoved open the door.

A heart was suspended in midair, blood continuously dripping from it onto the floor.

A middle-aged man in a doctor's coat stood there expressionlessly dissecting his own body with a scalpel.

There was a hole in his chest where his heart should have been.

A level three ghost slave?

Seeing the energy-filled heart, Wang Ye gritted his teeth, steadied himself against the wall, and Xiao Si charged at the heart.

The doctor suddenly raised his head and looked at Xiao Si, a sinister color on his ashen face. The heart hanging in midair started pounding violently.

In an instant, countless heartbeats sounded.

On the laboratory floor, the chests of a group of nurse corpses split open, revealing beating hearts inside.

The next second, the female corpses slowly stood up, blocking Xiao Si's path.

Abilities are enhanced after death?

Wang Ye was certain a single awakener wouldn't have such powerful abilities.

Or in other words, their physical capabilities were insufficient to support overexerting their powers.

Awakeners needed to carefully control the energy in their awakened parts to avoid completely draining themselves. That was another reason having more awakened parts meant stronger abilities.

But the dead could go all out.

Under such terrifying power, Wang Ye's heartbeat reached a horrifying rate, blood endlessly circulating through his body.

If not for his greatly strengthened physical capabilities after multiple strengthenings, he likely would have become a corpse already.

Suddenly...

A flash of light appeared in Xiao Si's empty eyes, and the corners of her originally plain face slightly turned up.

A terrifying pressure spread from her body, sweeping through the entire operating room.

As the light in her eyes flickered, the bodies of the female corpses exploded one after another, while the bronze stud on Xiao Si's forehead kept trembling.

Ignoring the doctor's resentful gaze, Xiao Si slowly walked up to the heart.

The doctor had already dismembered his own legs and struggled to crawl onto the operating table, charging at Xiao Si with the scalpel.

The scalpel glinted coldly.

Xiao Si stiffly turned her head, her empty eyes looking at the doctor.

Then she silently extended a slender finger towards him.

The doctor, who was still charging forward, had half his head fall to the ground.

Then his arms, hands, muscles...

His body seemed to have been perfectly sliced, turning into meat strips in just a second.

The trembling of the bronze stud on Xiao Si's forehead grew even more intense.

From afar, Wang Ye watched with slightly knitted brows and a grave expression, silently observing Xiao Si's back, lost in thought.

As the heart continued beating, his complexion turned deathly pale and his body shook slightly, somewhat unable to control the flow of blood in his body.

As if she'd just done something trivial, Xiao Si tilted her head and looked at the floating heart with her empty eyes. Then she gently took the heart down.

Her other hand extended a finger and lightly drew it across the left side of her chest.

A massive wound appeared, but Xiao Si seemed unfazed by the pain.

Through the injury, her chest could be seen to be hollow, without a heart...

Then she gently placed the heart inside through the wound.

One by one, blood vessels swiftly wrapped around the heart from Xiao Si's body, and along with the heart's pulses, it was as if the sound of blood flowing through her body could be heard.

Xiao Si's empty eyes finally showed some life again.

Her pale skin also gradually regained some rosiness.

But the next second, as Xiao Si's vessels wrapped around the heart, it suddenly swelled up and exploded like a balloon.

The blood vessels withered again.

Though they were slightly more robust than before.

Xiao Si's eyes dulled once more, and the trembling of the bronze stud on her forehead ceased.

A barely audible sigh, tinged with regret, lingered in the air.

Then the wound on her chest rapidly started healing at a visible pace, soon restoring to unblemished.

With the heartbeats gone, Wang Ye heaved a long sigh of relief and slid down to the floor, breathing heavily.

But his gaze remained fixed intensely on Xiao Si.

She was currently one of his strongest cards. If something went wrong with Xiao Si that caused her to turn against him, the danger would be no less than the ghost in Lin'an City.

Although, he had left some contingencies on Xiao Si as well.

Fortunately...

With the heart's explosion, Xiao Si returned to her previous tranquil, numb state.

Wang Ye softly exhaled in slight relief. He shakily got to his feet, deep in contemplation.