'Just my luck...to meet an abomination before the blood moon shows.' Lu Xing thought darkly as he clawed frantically at its hands.

His flames sputtered back to life, and with as much strength as he could muster, he gripped the hands choking him...

Instantly the smell of burning flesh a.s.saulted his nose, as the vicious hands holding him by the neck let go. He landed on his knees, coughing but alive. That abomination on the other hand...

It gave out a bloodcurling scream as it found itself unable to put out the growing flames...

"Mu..tant..!" It rasped out as it fell to the floor writhing in pain.

Suddenly its eyes filled with a hunger it was only to familiar with.

"Are there anymore of your kind? Were you alone?" Lu Xing asked getting near it.

"This...one...alone...only.....Chu...." It moaned out its hand weakly reaching out as its last hope of salvation stood before it, "Hau...alone...refuse...to come...searching..."

It finally breathed its last as its body curled up into a fetal position, the flame burning it to cinders.

Lu Xing sighed in relief.

With a complicated expression, he reached out with a flame covered hand towards the things skull. He dug in, and searched around for something... Finally, he found what he wanted, so he got up, and thanks to his flame, everything except for the bright purple crystal core had been turned to cinders.

So he finally walked back to his car, and then sat there for a moment as the information sunk in.

"Chu Hau..?" Lu Xing said as though it were an alien name.

The fact was...he knew the person to who the name belonged to. Friend...or foe? He's never known for what it's worth. The person behind the name was insane, but maybe...

'Forget it...as long as their the only ghoul right now. It's no big deal.' Lu Xing started up the car and continued down the road.

This time he turned on the radio, and kept the music playing.

Meanwhile his thoughts continued going back on the incident from earlier...

"So...I'm really not the only one who's come here..." Lu Xing finally admitted to himself outloud.

At least he had managed to kill the one that could've turned into a real nuisance.

'Ghouls instinctively feel one another like ants in a colony would...or something more advanced than that.' Lu Xing gathered his thoughts, 'So what that thing said is probably true.'

'Hmmm...I hope no troublesome Evolutionary a.s.sholes came too.' Lu Xing thought, 'Then I'd be in deep trouble with how bad my const.i.tution is...'

He glanced at the core he had placed down...it was about the size of a chicken egg, much bigger than the average core.

'Should take me a day or two too absorb.' Lu Xing mused, 'I should be thankful...a ghouls core is mainly for physical strengthening, its exactly what I need right now.'

☆☆☆

About two hours and a quarter later during the darkest hours, in Qianbei Village, Lu Xing pulled into the outskirts of it and parked on the empty roadside.

"They won't just trust me, my best bet is to wait till the roosters morning call." Lu Xing muttered to himself as he got out of the car with the core in hand.

He walked to the nearest patch of gra.s.s and sat down cross-legged. His left hand laid on his left knee, palm face up, as for his right arm, it was lifted up with a small blue flame softly dancing around the core seating in his palm. His eyes closed, he concentrated on the absorption process as the Chi within the core began leaking out and very slowly...

It began to meld with his own Chi.

After several hours...the streak of lights entering the night sky became the first tattletale sign of dawn.

Soon, anyone walking upon the scene, it would very much resemble a scene off of some anime fantasy genre movie where the character is in the middle of powering up.

"I've gotten better at this since then." Lu Xing said, his eyes opening to reveal bright golden eyes.

He closed his eyes and began a breathing technique that could halt the absorption process...the flame in his palm that had slowly melded the two Chi's halted.

It took a few breaths.

This time when his eyes opened they were back to being a normal brown color.

"Good." Lu Xing said, his left hand raised up to lightly touch his eyes.

'Thank G.o.d.' Lu Xing thought, the urge to grieve came again. 'Thank you...mentor.'

Maybe Zombies killed people at the start, then mutant animals did the same...evolved plants...but when Evolutionary human's discovered cores in Mutant human's...

It was the Evolutionary human's who hunted them down. Since Evolutionary human's kept their own eye colors, Ghouls had purple eyes, and Mutants...had golden eyes.

Just like mutant animals, the golden eyes were.

That's what Mutant people were considered, they were hunted much like animals for their cores. How many friends and innocent people had Lu Xing had to watch get slaughtered just to have their core harvested. So many...so that...thirteen years into the Apocalypse, Mutants were rarely ever heard of.

Almost like they had been hunted to near extinction.

'Perhaps because we Mutants had been so naive at the start.' Lu Xing thought, a frown playing on his lips, 'We had been to easily lured by lies that had led to so many deaths.'

That's why...if an Evolutionary from that lifetime, with that ideology, has shown up now...then there was no way Lu Xing could ever allow them to live. This lifetime, he would not stand idly by, hiding himself from discovery as he watched people similar to him get killed... Or get forced into going so far as to live in the mountains like fugitives.

'Thanks to this rare breathing technique, I've been able to manage.' Lu Xing thought grateful, he got up and pocketed the core.

Right then the crowing of a rooster could be heard in the distance.

'Now the last day of peace and tranquility truly begins.' Lu Xing thought as he got onto his car.

"Now to convince the Peng Family that they'll need to come back with me." Lu Xing sighed.

'Easier said than done.' Lu Xing thought as he started up the car.