If there was any bright side to this, Althea’s experience points had soared since coming here. She reckoned that, at this rate, she’d level up within a day or two. This was something that would usually take her weeks if she focused on training, let alone if she was doing other tasks.

After resting a bit, they descended once more to do another batch. They saw that some more Undead were being attracted over even if they were careful, so they knew that they had to start scanning soon, so they could move on to another area.

While the experience points were attractive, they were not there just to grind.

They decided to quickly finish off this batch, clean up the place, so Althea could start scanning the ground with her earth ability.

Garan moved his wall horizontally. The current ’play area’ was littered with corpses, so their strategy of imbalancing the Undead stopped working just before they rested.

With a larger walled area, they also added another gap that the Undead would target. It wasn’t big enough to fit them, but they didn’t care. The aether and scent of the humans was stronger within the gap, so the Undead head there by instinct, regardless of whether they could fit.

Once again, they squeezed into these specific spots and started to pile up again. While this was happening, the group also sent out long-ranged attacks against the Undead.

People with decent level had stronger instincts than others, especially Garan and Althea. After killing hundreds, they had initiated to familiarize themselves with the energy signature this race emitted.

In time, their accuracy of pinpointing where the cores were had shot up, incomparable to how it was when they first initiated dealing with them. After all, to neutralize an undead from afar, one had to detach the core’s connection to the active ’blood’ source, which was their heart.

The Undead were technically dead, but their bodies were still working, including their heart, which were bigger and located in the middle of their bodies, like where the human lungs were.

This meant that, ironically, it was easier to kill them if the cores were in the appendages. With their increased accuracy and sensitivity, their kill rates had indeed shot up.

Garan’s metal spikes flew all over. They could also be reused by him or Sinnan.

Sinnan, although his level was a lot higher than Garan’s, wouldn’t dare say he had the same level of control and ability as Garan.

Medusa was also trained to be an archer. While she hadn’t awakened as a system archer, her aim was not bad. The two women then focused on shooting their bows, targeting the undead whose cores could be pushed out or separated with their arrows.

Anyway, the nuclear cores themselves were sturdy. A single attack wouldn’t destroy them.

Soon, the number of Undead entering the temporary walls had decreased by a lot, with most of them taken down before they could approach the walls, while the rest were blocked by carcasses.

To scan the place, Althea had to go down, so they took this chance to clear the carcasses within the walls. However, it needed to be cleared first.

Althea summoned her wood friends again, and they crawled towards the small hill of Undead bodies. The vines wrapped around the bodies, searching for the cores, and they took all of them close to her. When they got close enough, she put them all into her space.

After this, it was okay to burn them to ashes. She took out a flamethrower from her space (available for purchase in the Specialty Store!) and burned the small hill.

Medusa seemed to be fascinated and volunteered to do the rest. Sinnan looked curious, too, but was a bit embarrassed to ask.

They burned the corpses to ashes, making sure to stand high and upwind. Unexpectedly, a gust of wind below carried over a burning chunk of flesh towards the ’live’ ones.

The men immediately headed down to control it. After all, if the flame spread among the live ones, even if the cores wouldn’t get destroyed quickly, once it did, it would emit lingering radiation which no one wanted. Fire also had a special penetrating effect on nuclear cores, so there was more damage than others.

Althea was also really afraid that it would spread and ruin their plans, so she instinctively summoned some of the grey water in her space, splashing it in the direction of the fire.

It killed the fire and splattered a bit of water over three or four undead.

For a moment, she felt a little pity for the lost water, until she saw the splattered undead shiver a little—

SCREEEECHHH!

They looked like they’d been hit by acid.

"Eh?"

.

.

The three undead seemed to freeze in place, seemingly disgusted by the fluid, but did not have the flexibility to wipe it off. They were alive, but they seemed partially neutralized. They looked like they had also been weakened, to a degree.

Curious, Althea took a bit more grey water and splattered it on a different group of undead.

SCREEEECHHH!

The reaction was the same.

It was then that they found out that the Undead were weak against water.

As mentioned, it was not enough to kill them. Even if she poured (heart pained) a liter over one undead’s head, they could still move and eat people. As long as the core was intact, the ending was still unknown.

However, it seemed like it greatly affected their mobility, and they looked permanently shriveled, like a snail sprinkled with salt.

Who’d have thought?

No one noticed the effect of water because no one would waste precious water on Undead. Even water elementalist would struggle to condense water in this place.

Even if anyone did notice, it probably didn’t spread out, considering how information traveled around here.

It was also probably why this race flourished so much in the desert.

Hey. One could learn something new every day, indeed.