"That's right!"

Li Yunshan nodded, "Before, you were always moving around the city, so your route was easy to predict. And every so often, Shi Mo arranged for enhanced zombies to watch you. To keep an eye on you, he even altered those enhanced zombies, making them act like robots, only knowing how to execute tasks according to a program. As for how he did it, I have no idea."

As he spoke, Li Yunshan pointed to a church in the distance and said, "See that? Right there. If your team hadn't suddenly stopped to attack the zombie horde and had continued forward, you would have encountered them in that church. There are about two hundred of them.

"Based on your previous actions of rescuing people in the city, it's unlikely you would have left them behind. So, they would have successfully blended in with you.

"And among those people, there are at least a dozen evolved individuals. If they suddenly launched an attack, I think they could either kill or capture you."

"That's unlikely!"

Hearing this, Li Chenzhou suddenly smiled.

Indeed, Shi Mo's plan was quite ruthless. After all, those people were also human, and the evolved individuals among them wouldn't reveal their identities. Normally, once accepted into the team, like before, and even taken along, these people could easily kill Li Chenzhou and his team with a calculated move against the unsuspecting.

But that's just the normal situation. Would Li Chenzhou and his team be afraid of that?

With Duan Lei around, anyone harboring ill intentions towards Li Chenzhou and his team couldn't hide it from them. Plus, Li Chenzhou and his team had the Dark Blood War Chariot. The relatively defenseless Xiaoya and Xiaoyu'er were both in Xiaoya's room. It could be said that their only weakness was well-protected.

So, scheming against them was simply impossible!

However, Li Chenzhou didn't explain anything. Instead, he asked again, "Does that Shi Mo have any interest in ordinary people? I mean... in us humans?"

"It doesn't seem like it!"

Li Yunshan shook his head. "Whether it's humans or zombies, that guy doesn't care at all. Even Leopard, who has been diligently helping him, is always ordered around and never gets a kind look.

"Moreover, I can sense that the way he looks at us is like... like humans looking at chickens, ducks, geese, and dogs, or even with some disgust."

"Yes! Maybe, in his eyes, we are like pigs and dogs. We treat pigs and dogs as food, and they treat us as food!"

Li Chenzhou sighed, a faint glint of coldness flickering in his eyes.

"Oh! Right, speaking of food..."

Li Chenzhou's words seemed to remind Li Yunshan of something. He suddenly frowned and said, "I did hear extremely shrill screams coming from his residence occasionally, and Leopard also carried out several corpses. Those corpses were quite strange, all extremely old!"

"Old?"

Li Chenzhou was taken aback, not quite understanding Li Yunshan's meaning. What was strange about old people's corpses?

"Yes! Old!"

Li Yunshan nodded. "Very old. And I secretly looked at these corpses. The expressions on their faces were quite terrifying, mixed with extreme pain, as if they had seen something extremely terrifying and suffered extreme pain before they died!

"The strangest thing is..."

At this point, Li Yunshan suddenly hesitated.

"What's wrong?"

Li Chenzhou quickly asked.

"I always feel like I'm familiar with some of the corpses, as if I've seen them before, but I can be sure that there are no elderly people that old among the humans there. And one of them looks a lot like someone who was turned into an evolved individual by Shi Mo before."

Li Yunshan said, "But that guy is quite young, probably only a teenager. By the way, Shi Mo chooses young people to help him strengthen, mostly around twenty years old at most!"

"Young, old, strengthen..."

Li Chenzhou couldn't help but frown. It seemed... this sounded familiar?

Suddenly, his body shook, and he blurted out, "Life force!!!"

"Life force?"

This time, it was Li Yunshan's turn to be stunned.

"Yes! Life force!"

Li Chenzhou suddenly remembered that Instructor Li Yingning had told him that Devourers feed on all living things and do so by extracting their life force.

Humans eat food by directly consuming the corpses of animals, including organs and the like. After cooking, the corpses are turned into delicious meals.

The Devourers, however, apparently have different eating habits than humans. They probably don't cook, but directly extract your life force.

With a large loss of life force, humans would naturally become old. This would match what Li Yunshan said.

Since there were no elderly people there, where did those old corpses come from? Of course, they were corpses that had their life force sucked away by the Devourers, which is why the corpses looked extremely old. And it was precisely for this reason that Li Yunshan found those old people familiar.

Because he had originally seen those people, but what he saw then was their young selves!!!

However, weren't the Devourers supposed to come in five years? Why did they appear now?

Li Chenzhou's expression suddenly turned serious.

"What exactly is going on?"

Seeing Li Chenzhou's ugly expression, Li Yunshan also asked with a serious face.

"Huff!"

Li Chenzhou let out a long breath, looked at Li Yunshan, and said, "Maybe I know what that Shi Mo really is!"

Then, Li Chenzhou told Li Yunshan about the existence of the Devourers. He didn't think there was anything to hide. Now that the Devourers had arrived, Li Chenzhou felt that he should even publicize their existence, so that every survivor would know that humanity's great enemy had arrived!

"They can extract human life force?"

After hearing Li Chenzhou's words, Li Yunshan was somewhat incredulous. But Li Chenzhou had no reason to lie to him. And, thinking back carefully, the corpses of those old men were really the same people he had seen before, those who had been strengthened by Shi Mo.

So, there was also a reason why Shi Mo only strengthened young people, because the life force of young people is more vigorous. After strengthening them, they would taste better when "eaten"!

"So... this apocalypse was created by the Devourers. The purpose is to make us stronger, just like we raise pigs. After we become strong enough, they will come to harvest us?"

Li Yunshan looked at Li Chenzhou and asked.

"That's right! That's how it is!"

Li Chenzhou replied. At the same time, an idea suddenly flashed through his mind, that is, what Li Yunshan had said before, that he overheard Shi Mo saying something about upgrading...