Chapter 45: Advancing to the Iron Bone Realm

Clang!

The steel whip collided with the zombie's arm, driving the diamond-hard limbs directly downward.

Amidst the roar of a dragon, Ao Xin lunged forward, raising his steel whip once again. With immense force, he brought it crashing down onto the zombie's forehead.

Bang!

The steel whip crackled with arcs of electricity as it shattered the zombie's skull.

Roar!

The zombie slammed its arms together in a desperate attempt to crush this strange human.

However, Ao Xin thrust out his left hand, grabbing the zombie's right arm. His overwhelming strength held the limb firmly in place, unable to advance even an inch.

His right hand swung the steel whip once more, battering the zombie's left arm aside.

The flesh on its arm burst open, and the bone fractured.

At this moment, Ao Xin’s combat power was vastly superior to when he had first fought the zombie.

A blast of scorching thermal breath spewed from the dragon's maw. With barely thirty centimeters between them, the zombie had no room to dodge at all.

The intense flames washed over its face, charring its flesh to a crisp.

"Bad Wind!"

Following the flames came countless blade-like gusts of wind, instantly shearing away all the charred flesh from the zombie.

Nothing remained but a bare, gleaming skull.

Fandible cracks were clearly visible across the bone—the devastating result of the steel whip's relentless blows.

Boom!

The steel whip struck once more, landing precisely on the fracture it had created earlier. The zombie's skull burst apart, scattering its brains across the ground.

The entire battle had lasted a mere three seconds!

Not far away, a survivor on a rooftop witnessed the battle below.

The invincible zombie had been instantly annihilated in the blink of an eye, delivering a massive shock to his worldview.

"So, so strong!"

"The Azure Dragon's hybrid human-beast form... It's that legendary Azure Dragon overlord!"

"What a pity I didn't record this battle!"

Down on the street, Yuan Fei was equally dumbfounded as he watched from afar. He had known Ao Xin was powerful, but he had never imagined he could be *this* powerful.

Admiration welled up in the young man's eyes. In this apocalyptic world, a true man should strive to be just like him!

"How about that? My brother is amazing, right?"

Ao Chen boasted to Yuan Fei with a smug expression, as if she were the one who had just obliterated the zombie.

"Incredible! One day, I'm going to become a powerhouse just like big brother Ao Xin!"

The young man silently swore an oath to himself.

Ao Xin walked over from a distance, having already reverted from his dragon transformation.

At the very final moment of the battle, he had felt his Haki completely merge with his bones. In that instant, his physical strength had multiplied tenfold, if not more!

He had crossed the threshold into the second realm of Body Refining: the "Iron Bone Realm"!

Having entered the Iron Bone Realm, combined with the Azure Dragon Fruit, he was now fully capable of fighting a three-star Hairy Zombie!

However, there were no Hairy Zombies in Biancheng right now. There might be some in the neighboring provincial capital, but he wasn't going to travel all the way there just to hunt one down.

Over in the West City villa district, Liu Xiyao had also arrived after receiving Ao Xin's orders.

Along the way, she had rendezvoused with Meng Kui, and the two of them proceeded together toward the villa area.

Inside the residential compound, Feng Kun and the others stared at the woman accompanying Meng Kui, feeling as though a celestial being had descended before them.

They had thought the women they imprisoned were already beautiful, but compared to this tall beauty, those women were nothing more than trash!

One of them swallowed hard involuntarily, only for Meng Kui to deliver a swift kick straight to his chest.

"This is the Boss's woman! Wipe that filthy look off your faces!"

Despite this, a short man continued to steal glances at Liu Xiyao, his eyes repeatedly scanning her exquisitely proportioned figure.

Furious, Meng Kui drew his blade and brought it down. A head rolled onto the ground, instantly snapping the rest of the laborers back to reality.

"M-Meng, Brother Meng, I'm sorry! My fault!"

Zhou Xiang slammed a vicious backhand across his own face, striking with such force that his cheek swelled visibly within seconds.

Seeing this, Feng Kun cursed inwardly and slapped himself hard across the mouth as well.

"Brother Meng, I'm sorry!"

The other laborers hastily followed suit, and a barrage of slapping sounds echoed through the courtyard.

Once finished, Zhou Xiang and Feng Kun even checked each other to ensure their faces were sufficiently swollen.

"Your attitude in apologizing is terrible, and you showed disrespect to Brother Meng and the Boss! Brother Meng, should we kill him?"

Zhou Xiang's words terrified the man who had stared. He immediately began slapping both sides of his face left and right, and soon his cheeks were puffed up high.

Meng Kui watched the spectacle with cold indifference.

He only called a halt when blood began to stream from the man's nose and the corners of his mouth.

"That's enough. Any next time, execution without mercy!"

"Y-Yes, sir!"

The laborers lowered their heads and answered submissively.

Once the farce came to an end, Liu Xiyao finally spoke:

"Where are those women? Bring them all out!"

Her voice was cool and crisp, yet even such a stern command carried an alluring, captivating quality.

Yet Feng Kun and his men no longer dared to harbor any improper thoughts.

They hurriedly rushed off to bring out all the women trapped inside the villas.

These women wore numb, vacant expressions. They had no idea what fate awaited them, but as long as they were still breathing, could any fate possibly be worse than the one they had just endured?

Outside, they stood in three staggered rows. Upon emerging, they saw not only the man who had forced even Feng Kun to bow and scrape, but also an exceptionally stunning woman standing beside him.

The woman was tall and slender with delicate curves, flawless fair skin, and a petite, alluring face.

She was the kind of woman who could make other women's hearts skip a beat.

Her aura alone made one feel entirely inferior—confident, noble, and graceful. A long saber hung at her waist, and even Feng Kun’s lackeys kept their heads lowered, not daring to look her in the eyes.

Even the muscular man seemed to implicitly defer to her.

Could she be the leader of this formidable man?

The women wondered to themselves.

They were all women, yet the gap between them was truly staggering!

"Lift your heads!"

Liu Xiyao commanded coldly, prompting the women to raise their gazes involuntarily.

Their mental state was visibly poor, and some of them were even coughing.

This was not a good sign.

Liu Xiyao had already learned from Ao Xin that biting was not the only way to be infected.

A high concentration of zombie virus lingered in the air, capable of directly infecting organisms with weak constitutions.

"My name is Liu Xiyao. From today onward, you belong to my command!"

Liu Xiyao stated bluntly. "Fight alongside me, and you will never have to endure this kind of humiliation again!"

However, the women were far from appreciative. One of them scoffed and sneered:

"Fight? Fight against zombies? I'd rather sleep with men!"

As she spoke, she gave a weak cough, her complexion somewhat pale.

Quite a few of them shared this exact sentiment.

"Yeah, why should we fight? That's just throwing our lives away!"

"Weren't you just listening to the commotion in the courtyard? Aren't you just some powerful man's toy yourself? What's with the fake righteousness?"

"Heh, you think carrying a sword makes you a female warrior? Why on earth should we listen to you?"

The women chimed in one after another, starting from whispered murmurs to hurling the most venomous abuses they could muster.

Liu Xiyao's eyebrows arched in anger. Golden flames of the True Sun flared in her palm as she lunged forward, grabbing the most vocal woman by the throat. In the blink of an eye, the woman was incinerated into charcoal.

As the ash fluttered to the ground, it struck absolute terror into the remaining women.

They instantly clamped their mouths shut, daring not utter another word.

They were even too frightened to scream.

Terrified that if they angered Liu Xiyao, they would suffer the exact same fiery end.

"Go on, curse! Why aren't you cursing anymore?"

The flames on Liu Xiyao's hand extinguished as she swept her cold, piercing gaze across them.