Chapter 53: Opening of the Global Leaderboards

Unknowingly, the four of them had been killing zombies the entire morning.

"Piaopiao, cast a speed-buffing spell on Shiyun, Ruke, and yourself, and charge forward with me," Lin Yu shouted loudly.

His magic power was more than half depleted, and he needed a rest.

"[Spell: Speed doubled!]"

Expending fifteen thousand points of magic power, Ye Piaopiao quickly inscribed three spells and applied them to the two young women and herself.

The effect would last for ten minutes.

In an instant, their speed surged dramatically.

All of them broke past three hundred points.

These sub-tier-one zombies had a speed of at most sixty or seventy points, making it impossible for them to even brush against the hems of the group's clothes.

"Flame Roar!"

Lin Yu cleared the path ahead, while the three women advanced swiftly right behind him.

"There is a hotel up ahead; let's stay there for the night." The four of them pushed their way through like a steamroller.

Night fell.

The four of them enjoyed hot pot once again, living a delightfully cozy life.

[Congratulations to all survivors. Someone has successfully broken through to Tier 2, and the World Rankings are now open.]

Suddenly, a cold, mechanical voice echoed in everyone's mind.

Lin Yu knew this was the materialized voice of the rules themselves.

"Brother Yu, that Big Senior Brother has advanced to Tier 2," Liu Shiyun said.

"Huh? So fast?"

Startled, Lin Yu opened the rankings.

"Before Tier 5, no one will advance faster than this guy."

"You guys know this Big Senior Brother who's ranked first?" Ye Piaopiao asked, her curiosity piqued.

"Yes, a zombie king from Kundu City. He was bitten by a zombie, and even after mutating, he somehow retained human characteristics."

"How on earth did this guy level up so fast?"

"I suspect he might have already unified the zombies in the ancient town at the foot of Xiyun Mountain."

Liu Shiyun recalled that incomparably gentlemanly fellow.

"His method is impossible for anyone else to replicate. As long as he continuously incorporates zombie hordes into his ranks, he will have a steady, endless stream of Tier-one zombies appearing to supply him with materials for leveling up."

"That's practically cheating!" Ye Piaopiao was speechless.

Given her current strength, killing a Tier-one zombie was easy, but finding them was quite troublesome.

Moreover, many Tier-one zombies were surrounded by thousands of ordinary zombies. Successfully acquiring even a single Tier-one crystal core was no small feat.

Not to mention ordinary evolvers below S-rank.

"The world rankings are almost entirely filled with people from Great Xia!" Lin Yu glanced over them roughly, a surge of pride welling up in his heart.

In his past life, despite Great Xia's massive population advantage, its citizens only occupied a quarter of the slots on the world rankings.

In this life, among the top one thousand people on the global overall rankings, Great Xia alone claimed six hundred and sixty-two spots—truly a terrifying dominance.

Even internationally renowned powerhouses lagged far behind Great Xia in global standing.

"King Arthur, 36th; Angel Gabriel, 39th; Lucifer, 41st; Scorpion King, 48th; Pisces King, 49th; Chizuru, 57th; Superman, 71st; Sun Knight, 76th..."

In that instant, the entire world fell silent.

Then, the Great Xia chat channel completely exploded.

Comments scrolled past at a dizzying speed, making it impossible for anyone to read them clearly.

At this moment, the hearts of every single citizen in Great Xia were filled with excitement. Even in the apocalypse, everyone was shouting, seemingly casting aside their inner fears.

The World Forum exploded as well.

The hottest thread, [Great Xia is the Supreme Power of the World], was pinned to the very top.

Beneath the post, replies were countless.

Virtually every second, innumerable new comments were generated.

"Who on earth is this Big Senior Brother? Absolute legend, bringing glory to our country!"

"What kind of awakening talent does this powerhouse even have? I haven't even reached Tier 1 yet, and he's already at Tier 2."

Aside from Lin Yu and his companions, no one knew that Big Senior Brother was actually no longer a pure human.

He was a zombie king.

"All one thousand people on the world rankings are at least Tier 1, and our Great Xia accounts for nearly seventy percent of them. I am so damn proud!"

"As a person of Great Xia, I am immensely proud!"

"What do the trash from Sakura Country have to say? Did you wet your pants in fear? Haha!"

"Just wait for your deaths on the Hundred-Nations Battlefield!"

"What's so great about it? So what if you have more people? Our powerhouses are just keeping a low profile, otherwise we'd take first place in a heartbeat!"

"Exactly! Our genius samurai Chizuru possesses three S-rank talents. If he wanted to, a mere Tier 2 would be as easy as taking candy from a baby."

Quite a few evolvers from Sakura Country were losing their tempers and had actually ended up leaking some crucial information.

"Baka yarou, which bastard leaked my information out?"

At this very moment, inside a shrine at the foot of Mount Sakura.

A man with three samurai swords hanging at his waist exuded a terrifying aura.

"The world rankings, I'm actually ranked 57th?"

He found it hard to believe. As the genius samurai of the shrine, he had awakened three S-rank talents after the apocalypse began, becoming the undisputed number one figure in Sakura Country.

Never had he imagined his ranking on the global charts would be so low.

"They must have just gotten lucky and reached Tier 1 a step ahead. It doesn't prove anything."

"Just you wait, detestable people of Great Xia, soon I'll make you all taste the might of Chizuru."

Over in Great Xia, those who saw this message felt a jolt in their hearts.

Three S-rank talents?

If that were true, the strength of this person was probably terrifying beyond measure.

Many people began to feel uneasy because across the entire nation of Great Xia, they hadn't heard of a single person possessing three S-rank talents.

"Master, that Chizuru from Sakura Country sounds really strong, having three S-rank talents," Ye Piaopiao said with a look of surprise and suspicion.

"Him?"

"He's nothing special, not even close to being a top-tier powerhouse," Lin Yu smiled faintly.

"Are three S-rank talents not considered strong?" Ye Piaopiao asked, startled.

"In the beginning, the talents of the vast majority of powerhouses might be at the S-rank, but as evolution continues, some people can elevate their talents to 3S, or even 6S..."

Lin Yu explained calmly, "Chizuru might have three S-rank talents, but getting even one of them to evolve further is already difficult enough. In the later stages, it devolves into having one high-tier talent dragging along two low-tier ones. Do you still find that terrifying?"

"No matter how many talents you have, in front of a truly high-tier talent, they are all utter trash!"

A person's energy and time are limited; simply continuously evolving a single talent is already exceedingly difficult.

Having three talents, if one doesn't know how to prioritize and discard the weaker ones, they will only drag oneself down.

"Perhaps, by the time my Flame Mastery evolves all the way to 6S, the strongest batch of others will probably only reach 4S, and the majority will likely still be stuck at SS."

Lin Yu thought to himself inwardly.

Talent evolution becomes progressively harder the further along it goes, and the gaps widen dramatically. The difference between 4S and 6S is vastly greater than the difference between D-rank and S-rank.

Just ask yourself:

Even if an evolver possessed ten D-rank talents, could any of them pose a threat to a single S-rank talent?

Therefore, when it comes to talents, quality matters far more than quantity.

And fortunately, Lin Yu's Flame Devouring talent line did not require spending vast amounts of time on comprehension; he only needed to continuously devour high-tier flames to keep evolving.

...

In the West, atop a towering skyscraper.

"Heh, Great Xia."

A tall man draped in golden light gazed toward the East.

His codename: King Arthur.

He was currently the top-ranked powerhouse in Great Britain.

The opening of the World Rankings had captured everyone's attention.

The powerhouse across various Western nations who made it onto the rankings did not care much about it.

In their view, among the tier rankings, probably only that second-tier powerhouse ranked first, Big Senior Brother, was worthy of attention.

The rest simply reached Tier 1 a little earlier than they did.

...

"Attention survivors, this is the official military command of Kundu City. Our troops have established a safe zone in the Nanlong District, and nearby survivors can come here to take refuge. At the same time, we will be pushing into the urban area to clear out zombies and rescue survivors."

Another new popular post had been pinned to the top.

Military forces from various regions were starting to surface, though the subtext in their announcements was hard to decipher.

It carried the distinct undertone of gathering survivors to expand their own spheres of influence.

Today was already the twenty-second day of the apocalypse.

The timid, the cowardly, and those meant to die had already perished. The people who remained alive basically existed in the form of small groups.

By joining forces, they could barely manage to clear out ordinary zombies, acquire crystal cores, and evolve slowly.

Over the past two days.

The group of four had eliminated nearly one hundred thousand zombies, accumulating over twenty thousand crystal cores, including a full eighty-two Tier-one crystal cores.

"Advancing to Tier 2 is still quite far off."

In Lin Yu's hand, there were only four Tier-two crystal cores, leaving them six short of what was needed.

"Here, take twenty crystal cores each." Lin Yu distributed the Tier-one crystal cores among the three women.

This would allow all of them to break through to Tier 1, Level 3.

Every level gained at Tier 1 increased all attributes by 10 points, magic power by 1,000, and provided 10 free attribute points.

The improvement from gaining two levels was quite noticeable.

"Master, I feel like our zombie-killing speed isn't slow at all, but picking up the crystal cores is just too troublesome," Ye Piaopiao said.

"Yeah, I've been picking them up for two days straight, and my hands are sore," little Ruke complained with a pout.

Throughout the battles of the past few days, she hadn't participated in combat, taking charge of picking up crystal cores the entire time.

Just as the four of them were chatting.

With a loud crash, a heavy impact echoed from the first floor of the hotel.

The expressions of all four changed, and they walked over to the railing to look down.

The rooms of the hotel they were staying in today were arranged in a circular layout, forming a ring where looking down from the railing provided a clear view of the hotel lobby.

At this moment, the front doors of the hotel were smashed to pieces.

Seventy or eighty people, terror etched across their faces, came stumbling and crawling inside.