Having faced the Stone Skin technique once before, three months were more than enough for Mi You to come up with a countermeasure for it. In fact, he came up with the countermeasure for Stone Skin during the very night he faced it.
Tai Shan strike, an attack that used high-speed oscillation to cause discoordination between the skin and flesh, causing the skin to crack and break away from the flesh underneath. While the undead had living statue abilities, they were still creatures of flesh and blood.
Being essentially skinned alive, even an undead wouldn't be able to endure that type of suffering. The undead blood aura would quickly allow her to regenerate, but Mi You would simply use Aura Summation to petrify her skin, then break it off once again. This was nothing short of the cruellest method of torture, but to Mi You, there was no need to empathize with an undead, especially not one whose mouth stunk of human blood.
"Speak, why did all of you gather at the Central tribe?" once again, Mi You curtly broke her skin off, causing her blood aura to decrease significantly. Continuing like this would only cause her to fully petrify and die, so Mi You began forcing the answers he wanted from her.
The undeads were always in hiding since every Mi tribe person who reached adulthood would go on their journey to hunt the undead without fail. If the undead didn't have a way to create offspring as well as a decent means of remaining concealed, they would have already gone extinct long ago. Most of the time, the undead disguised themselves as humans to draw as little attention as possible.
However, the situation this time was unique. Mi You had noticed quite a few undead gathering towards the Central tribe for the last few days, at the same time, their strength had also grown unusually during the past while.
The female undead's eyes were opened wide, which were completely bloodshot, coupled with the tattered appearance of being repeatedly skinned alive, she no longer carried anything that resembled beauty.
"What a terrible way to treat a beautiful woman, even if she is an undead" at some unknown point, Huo had already been watching them from a short distance away. He wasn't at all fearful of the female undead's bloody appearance and instead slowly approached her.
Mi You glanced at Huo, his eyes flickered a bit, but didn't stop him.
"Please save me, I'm innocent. I've never hurt a human before, I was forcefully converted into an undead" the female undead lowered her head, weakly and sorrowfully begging: "Please let me go"
Huo casually came closer and closer. Sensing the approaching human and Mi You who was staying completely still behind her, the female undead exerted her acting skills to their limits, trying to appeal her weakness to make these humans lower their guards.
"There's no need to be alarmed, miss" as soon as Huo opened his mouth, the female undead explosively exerted herself. Her seemingly weakened body contained an inhuman level of strength, both of her hands grabbing Huo mercilessly. If she succeeded, not only would she be able to consume Huo's flesh to replenish herself, but she might even be able to use him as a hostage to suppress Mi You.
"Because I'm a terrible person as well" Huo's next words caused the female undead to be stunned briefly before his fist connected with her face. As sparks appeared from Huo's fist, they entered the female undead's head and completely melted it.
"Sure enough, you wield the Divine flame. Perhaps I should be calling you young master Huo"
Mi You wasn't particularly surprised about this. Although Huo didn't openly flaunt his identity, he wasn't purposely hiding it either, from his gestures and way of dressing, it wasn't hard to infer his background. Furthermore, while the name Huo wasn't uncommon in other regions, it was common knowledge that this was a taboo name in the Central tribe, as the heir of the Divine flame during this generation of the Central clan was named Huo.
Huo closed his eyes, seemingly digesting something. By the time he opened his eyes again, he frowned a bit before putting his arm around Mi You in a highly acquainted manner, then almost jokingly said: "It seems there's quite a bit of trouble in my house this time around, I'll need your help, Mi You"
"If it's related to the undead, no problem" Mi You's expression became serious. One of the Divine flame's functions was aiding digestion, the first humans used the Divine flame to digest a large number of other races to gain their power and knowledge, but by this point in time, the only humans who still wielded the Divine flame were the Central clan who had the bloodline of God flowing through their veins.
Central Huo's punch didn't burn the female undead's head, it digested it. This digestion included even memories, and despite how easy-going Huo appeared, the 'trouble' he was talking about was most likely not simple.
"Then I'm glad" Huo sighed: "There are a lot of enemies this time. Some of the bigger tribes, the undead, and even other races are going to be our enemies this time around"
"Has the situation really gotten that serious?" Mi You narrowed his eyes.
He naturally understood the reason for this, as there simply wasn't enough space for humans to live. If not for the other races that threatened humanity as a whole, a great war would have already occurred between humans in the struggle for resources.
Naturally, the fact that the Central tribe wielded something capable of ascending someone to the rank of God like the Divine flame roused the greed of many.
If the Central tribe still held absolute authority and strength like 100 years ago, the other tribes would be able to suppress this greed, but that wasn't the case. As tribes grew over the years, the control of the Central tribe over the others had slowly but surely slipped. The other tribes had also managed to collect wondrous items for themselves, their ambitions increasing over time with their strength. Over the years, their resentment towards the ruler-in-name that was the Central tribe reached a tipping point.
Wondrous items were objects powerful enough for a tribe to completely remake themselves, even becoming a God. The Divine flame that granted the apes their intelligence and helped them evolve into humans was one such wondrous item, and so was the stone demon mask that created the undead tribe. Even a minor wondrous item would have inexplicable, near-miraculous abilities.
Ever since observing the Divine flame's unbelievable power, every tribe began to collect wondrous items for themselves, attempting to take them over their control and use them as weapons in combat.
Mi You wasn't interested in humanity's in-fighting, but since this was related to the undead, the Mi tribe must get involved. It wasn't a joke or coincidence that they were called the nemesis of the undead. Every member of the Mi tribe adhered closely to their vow of dedicating themselves to eradicating all undead for the greater good.
Mi You was also the same, it was the vow carved into his bloodline from the moment of his birth. It could even be said that the very meaning of his birth was to eradicate the undead from this world.
"Their goal is the Divine flame, quite a few of them have also hidden within the city" Central Huo finally stopped his easy-going demeanour, finally displaying his aura as young master Huo: "It was because I noticed that the population flow of the Central tribe had been unusual recently that I've been staying at the city gates to observe everyone"
"We need to find the ones hiding in the city. There is definitely some sort of unknown plot being hatched, so find them, and stop them" Huo didn't even manage to maintain his image for even 3 seconds before he returned to his usual self: "It's unforgivable for them to ruin my fun watching girls"
"I'll find the hidden undead in this city, but I won't be able to help you with the others" Mi You didn't care for Huo's joke, he simply left right away.
Humanity's in-fighting didn't matter to the Mi tribe, the Mi tribe simply didn't care who the ruling power was. But the undeads were something they could never forgive, enemies that they must eliminate, and if the undead's recent increase in strength had anything to do with these other people, they would simply be eliminated together.
