Chapter 88: You're Tier 5!?
Two thousand zombies. Six people. Harvesting crystals was a monumental task.
This was when they truly felt the pain of being shorthanded.
While the team was diligently extracting crystals, a bus barreled down the main road.
No one paid it much attention-until it reversed and came back.
Forty or fifty people climbed off, armed with an assortment of weapons, and started walking toward them.
The team frowned. This had "trouble" written all over it.
The group arrived quickly. Their eyes lit up the moment they saw the massive carpet of zombie corpses spread across the ground.
"Brothers, you kill all these zombies?" The man at the front looked about thirty, addressing Yang Bin's group with forced friendliness.
"If we didn't kill them, what-you did?" Yang Bin rolled his eyes.
"Then your team must be pretty big. Where'd the rest go?"
"Cut the probing. There's six of us. Period. Just say it-you want these crystals or not?" Yang Bin said flatly.
"......"
Yang Bin's bluntness threw them completely off balance. They stood there, unsure whether to advance or retreat.
"Since you've got your eye on these crystals, go ahead. Pick them up." Yang Bin smiled.
That stunned the newcomers. It also confused the hell out of Chen Hao and the others-but they trusted Yang Bin, so no one said a word.
The man frowned, unable to figure out Yang Bin's angle.
"Brother Sen, I checked carefully-there's nobody else around. It's just these six," a young man behind him whispered.
Zhong Yuansen nodded. Probably some larger group had passed through, wiped out the zombies, and moved on without bothering to harvest. These six just stumbled onto the leftovers.
No way in hell two thousand zombies were the handiwork of six people.
"They saw how many of us there are and got scared. That's why they're handing them over," Zhong Yuansen concluded internally.
With that thought, he turned to Yang Bin with a smile.
"Since you're so generous, brother, it would be impolite to refuse. Boys-harvest time!"
His people surged forward, excitedly rifling through the zombie corpses.
Yang Bin watched them work with a pleasant smile on his face. Chen Hao and the others didn't understand the play, but they stood quietly behind him, waiting.
"Haha, I got a Tier-3 Crystal!"
One man held up his find, face beaming with excitement.
Brother Sen no longer needed Tier-3 Crystals. The team's rule was finders keepers.
Under the envious stares of his companions, the man raised the crystal to his mouth, ready to swallow it.
Then a Barbell Rod came whistling through the air and obliterated his arm.
"AAGH-!"
The scream cut through the air. Every single one of them turned toward Yang Bin, faces twisted with fury.
"What the fuck is your problem!?" Zhong Yuansen's expression went dark.
"You can pick them up. You can't eat them." Yang Bin's tone was utterly indifferent.
"Whether we eat them is our business! Who the hell are you to interfere!"
"No. You have the right to pick them up. You don't have the right to eat them."
"......"
"You're making us collect crystals for you!?" Zhong Yuansen wasn't stupid. It clicked fast.
"Mm-hm. Pretty sharp."
"......"
"You think you have the right to pull that!?"
"I do." Yang Bin nodded, perfectly serious.
"What the fuck-Brother Sen, waste these assholes!"
"Brother Sen, my arm's gone! You gotta avenge me!" The one-armed man wailed.
Zhong Yuansen drew a deep breath, his voice going cold. "You lay hands on my brother? Today, you're all dead."
"Kill them!"
The moment the words left his mouth, the already-furious mob grabbed their weapons and charged.
"Don't kill them. We still need them to pick up crystals," Yang Bin said, glancing at Chen Hao and the others.
"Got it, Boss!"
Chen Hao and the rest moved forward with cold grins.
The two sides collided. A chorus of screams later, bodies littered the ground-and only Chen Hao's group remained standing.
"!!!"
Zhong Yuansen's eyes went wide, disbelief plastered across his face.
"They're... all Tier 4!?"
"Heh. You can be Tier 4, but we can't?" Yang Bin smiled.
"How the fuck is that the same!?" Zhong Yuansen screamed internally. "Our team of a hundred fought until half of us were dead-went through absolute hell just to produce ONE Tier 4, me-and these motherfuckers have SIX!?"
Yang Bin hadn't even moved. If his subordinates were all Tier 4, the leader had to be even stronger.
Zhong Yuansen couldn't wrap his head around it. How? How was this possible?
His expression shifted rapidly. One or two Tier 4 fighters he could handle. Six would beat the absolute shit out of him.
"Stop overthinking it. Your people already threw down, so let's go too. Show me that Earth-Type Ability of yours." Yang Bin's voice cut through his spiraling thoughts.
"!!!"
"???"
"How do you know I have an ability!?" Zhong Yuansen blurted.
"Don't worry about how. You've got a chance to make a move-take it. Otherwise you won't get another one." Yang Bin said it like he was offering a courtesy.
"Hmph. Since you want to see it, fine. Let me show you-even among Tier 4 fighters, the gap between an Ability User and a normal person is enormous."
Zhong Yuansen snorted. He made no visible motion, but Yang Bin felt something shift beneath his feet. Instinct took over and he threw himself sideways.
The instant he moved, an earth spike punched up from exactly where he'd been standing. Given the height and angle-if he'd been a half-second slower, it would've gone straight up his ass.
Yang Bin and Chen Hao's group all sucked in a sharp breath.
"Motherfucker-I was just going to play around with you, and you try to impale my ass!?"
That crossed a line. Yang Bin's expression went cold. He snatched up the Barbell Rod and swung it at Zhong Yuansen with genuine force.
But the next instant, a massive boulder materialized in midair and hurtled straight at him.
Yang Bin's Barbell Rod smashed into the stone dead-center. The boulder exploded into fragments-but the recoil slammed through his arms like a shockwave.
That strike carried at least two thousand kilograms of force.
"Ability Users really are something else. Cross-tier combat isn't even a stretch for them," Yang Bin noted internally.
Meanwhile, watching Yang Bin shatter his Rock Fall Technique with a single swing, Zhong Yuansen's face drained of color.
He knew exactly how powerful that attack was. Back at Tier 3, that same technique had one-shot a Tier-4 Zombie-that kill was what pushed him into Tier 4 in the first place.
Now, at Tier 4, pouring everything he had into it-and this guy pulverized it with one hit. How could he not be shaken?
A terrible thought struck him. Zhong Yuansen stared at Yang Bin, eyes wide.
"You're Tier 5!!?"