Shi Tian remained still for a few minutes after the Tenceloras had long retreated. He had thought the Tenceloras were trying to play a trick and come back later to finish him off.
However, he was overthinking it and that the Tenceloras were indeed too lazy to kill him, almost as if he was going to dirty its metallic body.
With the outcome being set like this, Shi Tian exhaled and glanced back at Yolanda’s corpse.
Despite having an encounter for a brief moment, Shi Tian was still grateful for her help. Without her assistance, he was sure that the Tenceloras would have tortured him instead to pass time even if he was an ant in its eyes.
‘Thank you, Yolanda. You can rest assured that I’ll remember this debt and that I owe you one. I’ll get your revenge when I become stronger.’ Shi Tian swore inwardly, clenching his fist as if he would not forget this incident.
He then walked toward her and slowly used his left hand to close her open eyes, allowing her to rest easy. His action was similar to a superstitious method in which the corpse can only lay at rest when its eyes are shut.
Such action might seem ridiculous to some, but this was the least he could do for now.
Subsequently, Shi Tian was astonished to see her face rapidly decaying, almost as if it was indicating the body had been dead for weeks.
“What the-”
He couldn’t believe the scenes that his naked eyes were seeing as her corpse started to decompose rather quickly. It was almost as if the oxygen in her body was decreasing at a rate that the naked eye could see.
‘Is this the result of her broken mask?’ Shi Tian thought to himself.
He then recalled the moment when Yolanda would suddenly run toward him to throw him away. Apparently, it was when her mask was suddenly cut by the Tencelroas’ razor-sharp tentacles, causing her expression and action to change.
Realizing this moment, Shi Tian then glanced around his surroundings, only to see the atmosphere was quite different than the one he remembered. There was no clear blue sky, only a gloomy one, and the environment seemed to be filled with dust.
“This kind of atmosphere… The air pollution should be at the level of 350 or more.” He muttered in disbelief. Air pollution of this level was already hazardous and should have been impossible for anyone to survive, much less him right now.
Exposure to air pollution could affect everyone’s health.
When humans breathe in air pollutants of such hazardous levels, they would enter the bloodstream and contribute to coughing or itchy eyes. And in some of the worst-case scenarios, it could cause or worsen many breathing and lung diseases, leading to hospitalizations, cancer, or even premature death.
With this newfound knowledge, Shi Tian now understood why Yolanda and her so-called comrades were wearing masks. It was not for fashion or to look cool, but because they needed the mask to filter the hazardous air pollutant to even step foot here. .
However, that was not the main confusion he was having at the moment. It was the fact that he was able to survive in such pollution without requiring a mask whatsoever.
Even now, he still felt the oxygen in the atmosphere to be extremely clear and clean for his body. He had inhaled and exhaled too many times to count.
Staring at the broken mask, Shi Tian nearly stumbled as he wondered what was going on with his body. There was the mysterious holographic screen that showcased his stats and many different attribute points.
To make matters worse, he knew this wasn’t some kind of dream since the Armored Rats had truly dealt a lot of damage to him and caused him to suffer. Not to mention, those attribute points were real considering that he felt the change in his body.
“Let’s not think about it for now. I feel like my brain will be overloaded with all this information.” He murmured softly and began searching for a place to bury Yolanda. For someone that had sacrificed their life for him, the least he could do was bury her.
Of course, that was after looting everything possible within her, including some new high-technology stuff that he had never seen before. Since she had already died, he would be a retard to not loot her equipment which would only rust in place.
Searching her decomposed corpse, Shi Tian managed to gain quite a lot, including a device that contained numerous pieces of information.
The device required a password, but Shi Tian was able to use her finger to scan to log in. It was a good thing that her body may have decomposed, but the finger part was still clear enough to approve the scanning to log in.
Naturally, Shi Tian had changed the password to his right now, given that Yolanda would no longer be able to log in to her device.
Sometime later, Shi Tian found a decent spot and dug a hole slowly for Yolanda to rest in peace.
‘This is a good place to bury her.’ He exclaimed inwardly, making sure to use a cloth to wipe off the blood and give her a clean look before covering her with dirt, officially burying her corpse.
Once that was done, Shi Tian equipped himself with Yolanda’s gear, including the broken mask on his face. He was somehow different from others, so if he was to openly walk in the open despite the air pollutant being at such hazardous levels, then he would have attracted a lot of unnecessary attention.
After finishing changing his new look and having some great gear now, Shi Tian was ready to head toward a city occupied by humans in this new forbidden and apocalypse world.
The device from Yolanda stated that a city called Gearits was 35 kilometers away from his current location. Gearits was a safe zone city that had a method to filter the atmosphere, preventing hazardous air pollution from affecting its people.