Chapter 92

Chapter 92

The mayor and others were frozen before they had time to react, only able to move above their necks, with even tiny icicles forming on their faces and eyelashes.

The previously high emotions were extinguished by the cold ice, chilling them from feet to head, to the core.

At that moment, no one dared to speak.

Several fire-element psychics quietly tried to melt the ice encasing them, only to discover in horror that the ice was incredibly hard and impossible to melt.

What was going on with this zombie?

Why did it possess such immense power?

Lin An raised his head and swept his gaze over everyone. Those eyes, once full of disgust and hostility, now uniformly displayed fear.

They were afraid, afraid of him, his abilities, afraid that he might harm them.

For the first time, Lin An clearly recognized his own strength. He realized that with enough power, he could make everyone submit.

His fiery red eyes, always lowered in others' presence, now boldly met their gazes. The morning sun shone into the crystal-clear castle and into Lin An's eyes, making his red irises appear like burning flames or sparkling gems.

Those swept by his gaze dared not meet his eyes, bowing their heads—the only thing they could freely control.

Now, it was they who bowed their heads.

“Can you listen to me now?” Lin An’s voice was soft yet indisputable. He was polite, but to the others, it sounded like a threat of death.

“We will descend the mountain to kill zombies, ensuring not a single one enters Snow City. You don’t have to do anything. Just stay here, and don’t try to pour any potion into the labyrinth. The potion can’t kill me. And next time you anger me, I might just turn Snow City into, well, a city of the dead.”

Lin An spoke slowly. He rarely spoke so much in front of others, and even threatening them was a first, awkwardly biting his tongue in the process. But his words were effectively chilling.

His leisurely tone felt like a ghastly white skeletal hand slowly climbing up everyone’s back, eventually tightening around their necks, instilling a suffocating, icy fear. The residents, their lives now in his grip, dared not object.

The power difference was too great; this zombie was terrifying.

The only rebellious lord's face flushed red; his body was freezing, but his face turned beet red with shame and irritation. He had been the lord of the Ice and Snow City for thirty years and had never faced such a threat, let alone from a zombie!

As the lord of a city, he would never succumb to a zombie's threat in front of so many people.

"How dare you?" the lord managed to utter, his voice sounding like it was squeezed through clenched teeth, whether from the cold that froze his body or the anger swelling in his chest.

Lin An slowly turned to the lord, his face devoid of any expression, cold as frost, pale and perfect like an expensive, delicate doll in a cabinet, devoid of any liveliness.

He tilted his head slightly and said softly, "Do you think I wouldn't dare?"

He indeed did not dare; Lin An had never killed anyone. Even when bleeding and skinning prey in the forest, others did it, using his fastidiousness as an excuse not to participate. In truth, it was because he really didn't dare.

But now it was different. His previous kindness and naivety were due to not having suffered heart-wrenching pain, because the counterweights of his anger and malice were not yet heavy enough.

"If my companion really died, then I really would dare."

Lin An smiled at the lord, his pale, beautiful face only showing movement at the corners of his mouth, but his eyes carried a stubborn seriousness, and then he slowly raised a hand.

"Boom!"

A nearby house collapsed with a thunderous crash.

It was a small but exceptionally sturdy house used by the gatekeepers for temporary rest and warmth at night.

Many saw that countless giant icicles appeared out of nowhere above and around the house, plunging down rapidly. The house, pierced by the icicles and riddled with holes, turned into ruins in an instant.

His magnificent yet terrifying power seemed beyond human capability. However, he now truly belonged to a category beyond human, as he was a zombie.

The City Lord fell silent, under the intense gaze of Lin An's crimson eyes, feeling as if those ice spikes were about to be driven into his body.

Lin An lowered his hand: "Does anyone else object?"

Silence enveloped the surroundings.

"Good, let's go." He looked at his companions and then led Xiao Fu towards the city gate.

Not only the petrified residents of Ice Snow City but also his own companions were startled by Lin An's sudden display of power.

They had seen Lin An's timid and shy side, and his composed and calm demeanor, but today, his expressionless face threatening everyone and using force to subdue them was a first.

Tears brimmed in Udo's eyes. Only fifteen this year, she had weathered many storms, but today, surrounded and verbally abused by so many, pelted with stones, and with her grandmother gone due to her negligence, even possibly losing Shen Ge, she was exhausted, desperately holding back her tears and grief.

It wasn't until Lin An asserted his power and led them out of the city gate that her tears fell. But at that moment, she didn't feel wronged, just stubbornly determined.

Xu Fang kept glancing at Lin An, knowing he was capable, but usually too gentle. Today, his assertiveness was, truly, incredibly cool! Suddenly, he felt invigorated.

Ouyang Dong heaved a sigh of relief. Without Lin An today, they might not have even been able to handle the crowd. Indeed, formidable strength was the most crucial.

The three had different feelings, but seeing the zombie horde climbing the labyrinth outside the city, their eyes turned sharp and cold. If they couldn't stop these zombies, they would all perish.

Lin An, looking at the zombie horde below without Shen Xiuzhe to shield him, now had to face the zombies himself.

"Let's begin."

As Lin An's voice rang out, the ice walls on either side of the zombie horde abruptly rose and then thunderously collapsed onto the zombies in the middle, the thick edges of the ice walls soon oozing copious amounts of dark blood.

Ouyang Dong threw various plants collected from the forest, the giant vines and complex root systems continuously strangling within the zombie horde. The man-eating plants feasted as if in a banquet, their vast maws engulfing the zombies.

Fire-red flowers secreting sticky sap swayed slightly in the cold wind, immobilizing any approaching zombies, sticking them in place.

Xu Fang chuckled, and suddenly, the sunny sky turned dark, enveloping the entire zombie tide in shadows. The shadows deepened, and when a clever zombie fish looked up with its bulging eyes, it saw a massive cloud of earthy yellow sand.

Rolling sand fell from the sky, sweeping through the zombie fish swarm, lifting countless zombies into the air before they plummeted back down harshly.

Specks of foul-smelling blood rained down like a shower, scattering across the maze.

Then, the yellow sand morphed into a massive humanoid figure, lacking facial features but with an exceptionally robust body and limbs. The sand giant thrust its fist towards the densest cluster of zombies.

With each impact of the massive fist, it felt as heavy as a thousand pounds, making the entire iceberg seem to tremble.

Udo walked straight into the zombie tide, her twin blades unused. Zombies approaching her would suddenly lose their heads when they came within a certain range.

It was as if some invisible blade was revolving around this young girl, reaping the zombies' heads like a Grim Reaper.

The once densely packed zombies cleared a path as she approached.

Everyone fought fiercely, perhaps driven by the intensity of today's events, striking more fiercely and ruthlessly than ever. The zombie tide was continuously decimated, offering no resistance.

Lin An focused on the largest zombie whales, realizing he had no time to waste here and needed a quick resolution.

One moment, the zombie whales were rampaging and damaging the ice walls of the maze; the next, their bodies shrank rapidly. Containing a vast amount of water and fat, they were drained by Lin An's powers until they turned into mummified corpses.

Udo, arriving nearby, hacked at the desiccated corpse with her knife. The body, now utterly devoid of moisture, crumbled into powder with a single strike.

The prominently large zombie whales in the tide began to disappear. Lin An stood still, barely moving, with Xiao Fu by his side.

At the very top of the maze, near the city gate, the ability users had been frozen into ice pillars. The ice from their necks down was as hard as steel, rendering any effort futile. Trapped in the ice, they could only watch the scene below helplessly.

"Demons, they must be demons!"

"Their abilities are too strong. Just with these few people, they've held off the zombie tide."

Before the concoction of the potion, each encounter with the zombie tide in Ice and Snow City resulted in many deaths. But now, just a few individuals...

"After the zombies are killed, will it be our turn next?"

One person uttered this fearfully, and the others fell silent, their hearts sinking. The people below were too powerful to resist. If only they had known, they wouldn't have cared whether there were zombies among them and would have just let them out of the city. Now, they didn't even know if they could survive.

Another person's lips trembled: "Why did we have to offend them?"

They regretted their actions, but it was too late for regrets now.

The zombie tide from the sea was vast, and while each zombie wasn't particularly strong, they seemed endless.

The other three rested intermittently while fighting the zombies, but Lin An never took a break, mechanically reaping the zombies' heads like a Grim Reaper.

A new wave of zombies arrived, much larger than the day before. It was a scale even Ice and Snow City would struggle to handle, but Lin An still didn’t let any zombie breach the defense line.

He was exhausted, yet he had to persist, either until Shen Xiuzhe and Grandma U returned or until all the zombies were slain.

As everyone grimly persevered, a deafening explosion suddenly resounded from the nearby maze.

Ice and snow flew everywhere, with countless shards scattering. A figure emerged from the center of the melted ice wall.

It was Shen Xiuzhe.

He carried Grandma U, who seemed to be asleep, emerging from the side of the melted ice wall.

"It's the boss! He’s back with Grandma U!"

"Grandma!"

"That's great."

All three were delighted and finally breathed a sigh of relief, their steadfastness had ensured the safety of their companion.

Lin An stared blankly at Shen Xiuzhe, who moved with steady steps, protecting Grandma Wu behind him with his black down jacket. The moment he saw him, he immediately walked towards Shen Xiuzhe.

It was either relief or relaxation, the complex emotions long suppressed in his heart suddenly surged forth.

Tears slid down his cheeks, and he looked at Shen Xiuzhe through blurred, tearful eyes, feeling extremely wronged.