NOVEL WEB Chapter 340: Night Of The Dead (2)
"Su Xiaoli, why are you in such a rush to eat? You don't even need food anymore," Xue Qiang said as she stepped closer, watching Su Xiaoli eagerly grab the menu.
Su Xiaoli shot her a grumpy look. "Hmph. What do you know? I eat for the taste, not for sustenance."
Xue Qiang rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. But can't we go shopping first? What's the big hurry?" She liked good food too, but Su Xiaoli's obsession was clearly on another level.
With a dramatic wave of her hand, Su Xiaoli dismissed the protest. "My taste buds are suffering from neglect. If I don't feed them something amazing now, they might atrophy. I have no choice… It's a matter of survival!"
Soft footsteps padded toward them, followed by a gentle chuckle.
"Since we're already here, let's eat first," Huang Xue said, her voice calm. She leaned in to take a look at the menu, eyes scanning the dishes with growing interest. The names alone were enough to make her mouth water, and despite not feeling the slightest hunger, a drop of saliva had already gathered at the corner of her lips.
Su Xiaoli smirked triumphantly at Xue Qiang. "It's two against one. Let's go!" she said, grabbing Huang Xue's wrist and pulling her along without waiting for another protest from Xue Qiang.
Xue Qiang stood there for a second, weighing her options with a sigh. In the end, she relented and followed after them. It wasn't like they were in any rush tonight, anyway.
They chose a table for four by the window, one that offered a clear view of the lively streets outside, bathed in the gentle crimson glow of the moon and lanterns. After settling into their seats, they quickly ordered several dishes, the anticipation of the meal lightening their mood.
The Return To Void guards, meanwhile, did not join them on the table. They stood silently a short distance away, their eyes sharp and alert, scanning every movement inside the restaurant like hawks watching over their prey.
But the food never came. Before long, a commotion broke out near the entrance.
"Sir, you can't fight—" a waiter's voice rang out in alarm, only to be abruptly cut short by the sickening sound of a blade slicing through flesh.
Gasps and muffled screams filled the restaurant as everyone turned toward the doorway.
Three figures stood there—cultivators, each with pitch-black eyes that seemed to absorb all the light around them. Blood dripped from their weapons, pooling at their feet and staining the beautiful white carpet below.
The waiter who had tried to stop them lay motionless on the floor, his head severed and rolled a short distance away, a grotesque testament to the brutality that had just occurred.
However, to the horror of everyone present, the nightmare didn't end there.
The mutilated waiter stirred.
With stiff, jerking movements, the dead waiter stood up, his headless body staggering unsteadily to his feet. Then, in an eerie display, he crouched down, picked up his severed head, and pressed it against the raw stump of his neck. His lifeless eyes snapped open—now the same pitch-black as those of his murderers.
The restaurant fell silent for a heartbeat—an eerie, suffocating silence—before the panic erupted.
Screams tore through the air as chairs clattered and dishes shattered against the floor. Customers scrambled to escape, pushing and shoving toward the back exits in desperation.
"What is this… necromancy?" someone shouted in terror.
Huang Xue's expression remained calm, though her voice carried a chilling certainty.
"There's no life in their bodies. Every single one of them… is already dead." Her senses, finely attuned to the flow of lifeforce, didn't lie. These things were puppets; corpses moved by some dark power.
One of the guards stepped forward immediately, positioning himself between the girls and the growing threat.
"Ladies, leave through the window!" he commanded, his voice filled with urgency. "We'll handle them."
Without hesitation, the guards drew their weapons. The air around them shifted, the overwhelming presence of peak Return To Void cultivators filling the restaurant and stabilizing the chaotic atmosphere, if only slightly.
Outside, the sounds of terror were beginning to echo from other parts of the city.
This was only the beginning.
Su Xiaoli, Xue Qiang, and Huang Xue did as they were told, slipping out through the window. However, what awaited them outside was no better than the nightmare inside the restaurant.
All around, figures with pitch-black eyes prowled the streets, slaughtering any living being they came across. Each new victim rose moments after death, their eyes just as empty and dark, swelling the ranks of the undead.
It was a scene straight out of a horror story—a zombie plague unfolding in a cultivation world, and it was spreading at an alarming rate.
"There's nowhere to run. Let's fight," Xue Qiang said, her voice firm, her spear already materializing in her hand. She had never been the type to shy away from a fight; if chaos came knocking at her door, she would meet it head-on.
A pair of dead cultivators—a man and a woman—lurched toward them, their hands stained with blood, scraps of flesh still caught beneath their nails.
The air around Xue Qiang grew noticeably hotter as she gripped her spear, flames rippling along the shaft. With a single swing, she unleashed a searing wave of heat. From a distance, the heads of both attackers melted, their skulls collapsing in a wet hiss.
But to her shock, the bodies didn't stop moving. Headless, they still charged toward them.
"What?!" Xue Qiang recoiled, not from fear, but from the sheer unnaturalness of it.
"Didn't you hear what Huang Xue said? They're already dead!" Su Xiaoli shouted as she drew a weapon from her space ring. "Don't aim to kill them; destroy their bodies instead!"
In a flash of blue light, Su Xiaoli's Suppression Fan unfolded. Under the haunting red moonlight, it gleamed like a blade of ice. With a single swing, a freezing gust swept out, turning the two attackers into brittle statues of ice.
Another casual flick of her wrist shattered them into a thousand glittering shards of flesh, blood, and frost. This time, there would be no getting up again.