Otherworld Bone Dragon Operation Guide

Chapter 80 Zombies??
"This completely violates the normal predation logic of living organisms," the scholar murmured. "The ships are far larger than the animals themselves, yet they didn't even have the most basic probing process before launching a direct attack."

“This whole thing has never made any sense from the very beginning,” Su Ming said.

At the same time, Siwo seized the opportunity to detonate the explosives, and the violent explosion engulfed the ship and the sea monster in fire and sea.

Su Ming reached out to help Zi Jin remove her sonar headphones, but accidentally caught a strand of her hair. The girl cried out "Ouch!" and frowned.

"Sorry!" Su Ming hurriedly tried to untangle her tangled hair, but having never done this before, he only made it more messy. "The sonar will be giving off an explosion soon, so..."

"I know."

"Um, has your hair gotten longer?" he tried to shift the blame.

Zijin rolled her eyes at him, then untied it herself.

“Okay.” Su Ming awkwardly raised his hand.

Zijin walked to the sand table, wrote a brief report on a small flag, and placed it in the corresponding position. "This is the second one. I wonder what secrets these sea monsters hold."

“Perfect timing, we should also take a good look at those numbers on the tentacles,” Su Ming said.

After successfully eliminating the target, the White Triangle did not leave immediately but remained docked in its original location.

Sivor's timing in detonating the alchemical explosives was perfect—the instant the sea monster dragged the ship into the water. The explosion severely damaged the head of the Sea Monster III, leaving several intact tentacles floating on the surface.

He followed the example of the corydalis and froze them with floating ice, waiting for the White Triangle to arrive and retrieve the tentacles.

苏冥用手机对触手进行了全方位拍照，随后将照片导入便携电脑，拼接成完整的触手模型。触手上重复出现的数字变得清晰可辨：02-03-0006和1405 04 32 0634两组。

Based on this pattern, he deciphered the numbers on the remains of the Sea Monster No. 1, which were also two strings of numbers: 01-03-0003 and 1405 02 20 1551.

而那幅画上的海怪，字串是01-01-0001，1405 02 01 1115。

“It looks like just a regular serial number.” Siwo shook his head. “If we follow the meaning of Arabic numerals as you described, the first part should be the batch number, the batch number, and the overall serial number. The long string of numbers at the end is most likely the time, but the calendar system is unknown.”

"That means there are currently six sea monsters. The larger ones are from the first batch, and the slightly smaller ones are from the second batch," Su Ming said.

Zijin suddenly noticed something. She leaned closer to the computer screen to examine it carefully. "Su Ming, could you remove all these symbols and lines from the screen?"

"Which?"

"All."

Su Ming launched the image processing software, using filters to remove the identified symbols and then gradually erasing the remaining interfering patterns. After everything was cleaned up, some very faint marks on the tentacles became visible.

Even Siwo could see it this time, "These are... rune imprints?" Su Ming adjusted the image parameters, enhancing contrast, increasing sharpness, and changing monochrome saturation. With these operations, the patterns of the imprints became clearer and clearer.

“It is indeed a runic mark.” Violet nodded in confirmation. “The interference pattern on the sea monster’s body is very special and completely misled us.”

“It looks like it’s necromancy-based. Little Violet, that should be your forte,” Siwo said.

Zi Jin studied it carefully for a long time, and even examined the actual specimen herself, but in the end she still shook her head, "It is indeed a necromancy-type rune mark, but it is not any spell I know."

This answer greatly surprised Siwo. "You are the most outstanding scholar in the field of necromancy!"

“This is an extremely powerful enhancement technique, and I deduce that the side effects are also very significant,” Zi Jin said thoughtfully. “Its level is very high, reaching the limit of this type of craftsmanship. Logically, any technology that has developed to this extent should have undergone multiple iterations, leaving behind numerous pathways and products from different stages. But I can't see any trace of its origin, it's even like—”

Zijin glanced at Su Ming, "It's like technology from another world, appearing out of thin air."

Siwo pondered for a moment, "I have another guess. If even Xiaojin can't tell the difference, but it has undead characteristics, then it's very likely a forbidden area."

“Forbidden domain?” Zi Jin pondered for a moment. “There are only three undead domains that are called forbidden. Ghosts kill humans to steal their souls and then snowball to replicate themselves; plagues spread diseases on a large scale and kill living beings indiscriminately; and the rest are zombies that use living beings as targets for their spells.”

The skeleton servant brought over a book, which Violet opened and quickly flipped to the relevant chapter. "The first two can be ruled out; I know a little about them. But zombies are too ancient; they disappeared a hundred years before I was born."

“No wonder it looked familiar.” Siwo suddenly realized, “I personally experienced that war against the zombies.”

This history dates back to before the establishment of the Star Empire. A group of necromancers developed necromancy that could be used on living beings. The target would become extremely hungry and then grow into a gigantic, incredibly powerful monster in a short period of time.

However, this enhancement comes at the cost of violating biological principles and overdrawing cellular activity. The subjects will continuously mutate, even losing their human form. After about three months, they will gradually stiffen, their lungs will be unable to breathe, and they will suffocate to death.

This technique was eventually named the "Zombie Technique".

“It sounds like a perfect match,” Su Ming said. “The sea monster was originally just an ordinary deep-sea giant octopus. After being manipulated by the mastermind, it kept devouring other creatures in the sea and eventually grew into this giant monster.”

Sivor nodded. "Once they're cultivated, they're manipulated to attack ships. The whole process is seamless."

"It's not that easy," the scholar said, shaking his head, and added to the story.

The "Zombie Technique" is incredibly powerful, but the cost is equally high. It requires branding the target, and the target often becomes manic and loses their intelligence during development, frequently overgrowing and collapsing prematurely, which necessitates continuous and stable control over them.

“We don’t know how the mastermind did it, but we should be able to confirm that it is this kind of thing,” Siwo said.

“But there’s a problem,” Su Ming asked. “Shouldn’t zombified creatures carry undead energy? We’ve had close encounters with these sea monsters, and so many people participated in the hunt before, how come we didn’t realize they were giant zombified octopuses?”

“Under normal circumstances, there will indeed be undead fluctuations,” Violet replied. “However—.” She scorched a tentacle sample with flames. After the foul-smelling black smoke dissipated, a charred residue remained.

(End of this chapter)