Eclipse of Tomorrow

Chapter 7 Metamorphosed into a Frog?

"This is the tenth house," JOE muttered as he smashed a zombie's head with an axe. He had been searching for weapons and ammunition in ten different houses. While he hadn't come away empty-handed, he did manage to find a firewood axe, a Type 54 pistol, and twenty rounds of ammunition. As for a long-term shelter, he planned to clear out the Presidential Suite in a five-star hotel and use it as his base.But JOE's luck wasn't great, as in the twelfth house he cleared, he encountered a Crawler. When zombies evolved, they could become Agile Zombies, Crawlers, Brutes, or Zombie Lords.Agile Zombies were not as fast as Shadow Warriors, but they were still formidable. One Agile Zombie could easily outpace a speed-oriented Physical Evolver. Crawlers were categorized as regeneration types; bullets merely made them angrier. They possessed both a long tongue and sharp claws, which were powerful weapons. Crawlers could even create clones of themselves using their rapid cell regeneration ability. Brutes could effortlessly punch through steel plates, with their defenses making physical attacks almost ineffective. Zombie Lords, while not as intelligent as Controllers, could control other zombies and even arm them for enhanced defense and ranged attacks. If you ever noticed that most of the weapons in a police station or armory had disappeared, you needed to be cautious of your surroundings. In cramped spaces, Crawlers were more dangerous than Controllers because many Evolvers' abilities couldn't be fully utilized in such environments, making Crawlers' long tongues and claws deadly weapons.However, other Evolvers' inability to utilize their abilities didn't mean JOE couldn't. JOE immediately mutated his left hand, activating Data Copy. When the Crawler's long tongue attacked, JOE's own long tongue countered it.JOE swung his iron fists, showcasing the improvements he had made during his recent training. His iron fists had become much more powerful. Additionally, it seemed like his right fist was also starting to evolve, which was a positive sign. However, despite JOE's speed and strength, he couldn't harm the Crawler in the slightest.JOE grew desperate and activated the Black Hole Devourer. Surprisingly, the Crawler, although somewhat slippery, couldn't escape the Black Hole Devourer's pull. JOE smiled faintly and delivered a final blow to the Crawler. However, just as he was about to celebrate, a message from Number 10 arrived: "Acquired ability - Long Tongue Attack, Claw Ejection: Master acquired these abilities from the Crawler. They allow the Master to crawl on buildings and are highly lethal." Following that, JOE felt a burning sensation in his tongue and the back of his hand, but it subsided after three minutes. When he looked in the mirror, he saw that his tongue had forked, similar to a frog's tongue, with the base of the tongue reaching the front of his mouth and the tip of the tongue pointing inward. His hand could now shoot out sharp claws, similar to Wolverine's.JOE wrinkled his face even more: he didn't want to turn into a frog! Thinking about catching insects with his tongue and swallowing them, only to be caught and dissected by the government, JOE shouted, "Darn it, I'll hold this grudge against you forever, Universe!"After a while, JOE realized, "I can still speak? That's great! Oh, Almighty Universe, I admire you so much!" *Cough cough cough!* (JOE swallowed his own tongue...)It took a while for JOE to adapt to speaking this way. He thought about his future as a frog and how he could use his tongue to give someone a slap if he didn't like them, which made him grin in satisfaction. However, experiments were needed for everything, right? JOE attracted a zombie brother to test his long tongue. He flicked it, and the incredibly penetrating force pierced the zombie's head. However, JOE still felt disgusted; his tongue was covered in zombie brain matter! He knew he had to rinse his mouth thoroughly when he got back; after all, he couldn't retract that tongue once it came out.But reality often differed from imagination. When JOE tried to retract his tongue slowly, he realized that he couldn't pull it back. As a result, a peculiar scene unfolded on the roads of Northlin City at sunset: a man tied a rope to a zombie's head, and upon closer inspection, it turned out that the "rope" wasn't really a rope...JOE picked a random house, cleared out the zombies inside, and proceeded to rinse his tongue with water. As he cleaned off the mucous and brain matter from his tongue, the zombie finally slid off. Today, JOE had no intention of encountering Crawlers again. He planned to search for the Presidential Suite tomorrow, so he needed a good rest tonight.JOE locked all the doors and windows and fell into a deep sleep.JOE had his eye on the Eternal Grand Hotel. There were fewer zombies there, and with some reinforcement, it would make an excellent fortress. In recent days, Number 10 had introduced him to the field of magical engineering. This kind of magic could transform a small house into a fortress, but JOE didn't like the idea of turning a small house into a fortress. Such fortresses often couldn't carry many weapons and equipment, and attempting to fly out of the atmosphere with them could lead to an explosion.Moreover, fortresses could be further fortified with various minerals. Take Cybertron in the Transformers, for instance; it was a massive fortress. Engineering wasn't expensive either; it only required killing five hundred regular zombies. When JOE saw the exorbitant cost of manufacturing a fortress, there were at least forty or even thirty zeros behind it. And JOE planned to buy some energy-efficient tech weapons for slaughtering zombies. By calculation, it would take him only one week to complete the fortress.But reality didn't always cooperate with ideals. Tech weapons like the particle cannon were too heavy for him to carry alone. Moreover, there was so much work that even he wouldn't be able to finish it in a month working alone. He needed some laborers, but ordinary humans were not only useless but could also become a hindrance.JOE began to shout, and even he didn't realize it, but all the Crawlers in the entire city rushed to him at a sprint of a hundred meters, as if they were greeting their boss, just like humans greeting their boss.In reality, JOE was their boss as well. When JOE absorbed the DNA of that Crawler through the Black Hole Devourer, he integrated a fragment of the Crawler's DNA into his own genes, resulting in his current appearance of being half-human, half-frog.JOE observed the Crawlers closely. There were fifty-six of them in total, and they all looked fierce. JOE thought about the scene of going hunting and leveling up with these Crawlers in the future, and his blood began to boil. However, JOE's fortress hadn't been constructed yet, and these Crawlers, who knew nothing of life or death, could serve as excellent laborers. Moreover, if JOE ever ended up being treated as a guinea pig, these Crawlers would come to his aid.