The young man, upon hearing Mu Jinyu's question, quickly replied, "It's like this..."
He briefly recounted what he had just encountered in the underground storage room to Mu Jinyu.
After hearing the account, Mu Jinyu's brows furrowed as he said, "You're saying that the lid of the golden coffin looked to have been punctured by a finger?"
"Yes," the young man nodded.
Mu Jinyu immediately thought of the Tide of Chaos, which, besides the ever-present disaster, had not yet revealed its terrifying power.
This demon, according to Li Yaotong, could alter people's memories without them even realizing it.
Although he had been wary of this demon's methods before, he had not personally encountered any real cases, and in truth, he hadn't been very concerned about it—or rather, he hadn't considered its harmfulness on par with the ever-present disaster.
Now, he was beginning to sense the frightening abilities of this demon.
Moreover, he was uncertain whether the person whose blood had turned black among the dozen who had emerged from the underground passage was the Demon minion who had punctured the golden coffin.
If not, finding the real Demon minion would be even more troublesome.
The one thing that Mu Jinyu was relieved about now was that this incident had been discovered early on. Otherwise, if he had just decided to deal with the multiple demons one by one, fearing any unpredictable changes, and resolved to separate the two demons,
any delay could spell disaster. Once the Zombie Demon broke free, the headquarters of Dragon King Hall would turn into a living hell!
"Let's go, we have to take a look!!"
Mu Jinyu made up his mind to go down immediately, contain the Zombie Demon that couldn't yet break free, and revise the protocol to prevent too many people from accessing the area where the golden container was stored. Those allowed near it would have to be confirmed to have memories unaltered by the Tide of Chaos.
"Hm?!"
Just as Mu Jinyu was about to act, he suddenly caught a faint whiff of corpse odor. His brow furrowed, thinking that the Zombie Demon had already broken free.
He stopped in his tracks and prepared for a possible confrontation with the Zombie Demon at any moment.
"Dragon Master? What's wrong?"
The young man, seeing Mu Jinyu run a few steps and then stop, couldn't help turning back and looking at him with confusion.
"Sniff, sniff..."
Mu Jinyu's nostrils flared as he scented the faint smell of decay in the air and then determined that it was coming from the young man before him.
"Why is there a smell of decay on you?" Mu Jinyu asked directly.
At the same time, he prepared himself in case the young man's response seemed off. He wouldn't be polite then; he would take him down first and ask questions later.
"Ah? Is there? Do I smell like decay?"
The young man, startled by Mu Jinyu's words, turned even paler. He then glanced left and right, looking at his own clothes, and after a moment of thought, hastily said, "Dragon Master, it's like this. When I was about to run away just now, I slipped on a puddle of Corpse Water. Maybe that's when it got on me?"
"Hm? Don't move; I need to check you out!"
Mu Jinyu now dared not simply take someone's word for it. He picked up the Golden Dagger, first cutting the back of the young man's hand to see the fresh crimson blood and felt slightly relieved.
Then, he extended his Divine Sense to scan the young man thoroughly.
Eventually, he discovered something abnormal on his feet.
"Hm? Take off your right shoe!" Mu Jinyu eyed the young man warily and ordered.
"Ah?"
Startled, the young man quickly took off his right shoe.
After removing the shoe, he himself was shocked!
To his surprise, his right foot had already decayed severely, looking like the foot of a dead man.
It wasn't the kind that was dry and shriveled, covered in corpse spots, but rather the kind that had been soaked in corpse water for many years.
"My foot, how could my foot become like this?"
The young man saw his own right foot and stood thunderstruck on the spot, his complexion as pale as a dead man's.
Mu Jinyu said, "It must have happened when you touched the corpse water just now, right?"
"But…" he paused, Mu Jinyu stared at the young man and said, "Your own foot has turned like this, do you not feel anything at all?"
The young man shook his head stiffly, "I don't feel anything, my foot feels fine, as if nothing is wrong."
As he spoke, he tried to move his right foot.
Mu Jinyu then saw that his five toes were still quite flexibly twisting up and down at his will.
It didn't look like they were truly rotten and necrotized.
"Hmm?"
Mu Jinyu found this scene even more bizarre.
Initially, he thought the young man's foot had turned like that due purely to the corrosion of the corpse water, completely necrotized.
But now, it seemed it wasn't just that simple.
Then, Mu Jinyu thought back to the day when they were suppressing the Zombie Demon, several people went up and got touched by the corpse water, they turned directly into a puddle of corpse water, rather than being assimilated into a highly decomposed body.
'Could it be that this young man has gained some benefits, stealing some of the Zombie Demon's demonic power?'
Mu Jinyu was uncertain in his speculation.
Thinking this, Mu Jinyu temporarily suppressed the idea of severing his right foot with a single blow and thought that perhaps he could use the young man's situation for research...
Later, Mu Jinyu shared this speculation with the young man, letting him make his own decision, but he urged him not to delay for too long.
Because he noticed that the young man's right foot, which was being eroded and assimilated into a rotten corpse, was continuing to spread, and if he waited too long, it was likely that the whole right leg, or even the entire person, would turn into a demon with the appearance of a rotten corpse.
But this would be a demon with consciousness!
Should that be called…
A Human Demon?
Hearing Mu Jinyu's words, the young man's face grew dark and his expression fluctuated. Finally, he clenched his teeth and said, "I think my situation isn't that bad, my right foot is still flexible, and I don't want to cut it off just for safety!"
"Alright," Mu Jinyu nodded, not too surprised by the response.
After all, his current situation didn't seem life-threatening, and there was even the possibility of trying to control and harness the strength of the demon. It was natural that the young man would not want to amputate his right foot and end up disabled.
And if the attempt ultimately failed, with the speed of the spread of the corrosion, he would at most go from cutting off his right foot to cutting off his right lower leg.
Being disabled one way or another, losing a little more of the leg wasn't much different.
"Fine then, let's hurry up and deal with the Zombie Demon now!"
Mu Jinyu spoke gravely.
If there wasn't the crisis of the Zombie Demon trying to break free, he would indeed be very interested in going to a laboratory, or seeing Li Yaotong, to look into this young man's condition.
But the immediate priority was to suppress the real Zombie Demon at hand.
After that, Mu Jinyu and the young man rushed into the long, deep tunnel, which grew narrower and more oxygen-deprived the deeper they went until they reached the storeroom's door.
"Thud…"
"Thud…"
"Drip-drop…"
Upon reaching the doorway, Mu Jinyu heard a series of strange knocking sounds, as well as the sound of water droplets falling.