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“How strange, we haven’t seen a single zombie on the road.” In the leading vehicle of the advancing convoy, a member of the Flying Dragon squad seemed to have noticed something amiss.
At his remark, the others also realized this peculiarity.
In such a vast city, it might be possible for one street to be free of zombies, but having traveled through several streets in a row without spotting even one was truly abnormal.
“Idiots! There’s a high-level zombie at our destination; do you think other zombies would dare show up here and court death?” Feng Leijie’s furious rebuke crackled over the walkie-talkie.
The members of the lead vehicle immediately fell silent, exchanging a glance before driving on in quietude.
In the second car, Luo Yesheng furrowed his brow. Although he hadn’t heard the conversation among the Feilong members, the unnerving silence of the surrounding streets filled him with an inexplicable sense of foreboding.
“Brother Luo, we’re almost there,” the walkie-talkie crackled, followed by Feng Leijie’s voice, barely concealing his excitement.
Luo Yesheng suppressed his uneasy feeling; after all, he had come seeking life-and-death thrills to advance his rank—the more dangerous, the better.
Besides, if they truly encountered the most dangerous situation, he still had a way to escape.
Thinking this, his tense body suddenly relaxed. Just as he was about to speak, the vehicle ahead slammed on its brakes, tires screeching harshly against the pavement. Forgetting to respond to Feng Leijie, Luo Yesheng lifted his foot off the accelerator.
“What’s going on!” Feng Leijie’s furious roar came from the car behind.
“It’s a corpse beast.” The driver of the lead vehicle spoke with unsteady breath. “It… it suddenly appeared.”
Just an ordinary Level One corpse beast. Because it emerged so abruptly, the driver of the lead vehicle caught sight of it unexpectedly, got startled, and instinctively slammed on the brakes.
Amid Feng Leijie’s relentless curses of “useless trash,” the two appearing corpse beasts were knocked flying by a burst of special ability, collapsing to the ground without a sound.
The convoy restarted. Luo Yesheng glanced through the window at the corpse beast carcasses nearby; their forms were so severely decomposed that their original bestial shapes were no longer recognizable.
However, along the next stretch of their journey, they encountered zombies and corpse beasts far more frequently. These creatures had been running forward relentlessly, but upon hearing the engine roar behind them, they halted and turned back to attack the humans.
These were ordinary zombies and corpse beasts, not particularly numerous in count, and the ability users could easily eliminate them.
“We didn’t encounter a single one earlier, and now they’re coming in groups,” muttered an earth-type ability user after crushing a zombie to death.
Luo Yesheng had just launched a condensed fireball into the mouth of a charging corpse beast, watching it explode apart. The words of the earth-type ability user drifted to his ears on the wind, causing his heart to skip a beat.
After this small group of zombies was eliminated, just as the convoy prepared to move forward again, Luo Yesheng shouted, “Stop.”
Feng Leijie had been sitting in the vehicle the entire time without ever taking action. While secretly observing Luo Yesheng, who occasionally released a fireball to kill zombies, he now narrowed his eyes upon hearing Luo’s command to halt and stuck his head out the window: “Brother Luo, what’s wrong?”
“Don’t tell me he’s gotten scared after encountering several waves of small zombie groups,” someone deliberately remarked. With so many people present, it was impossible to tell who had spoken.
Holding a map in his hand, Luo Yesheng glanced again at the zombie corpses on the ground, then looked up and said to Captain Feng, “Captain Feng, have you noticed the clothes on these zombies?”
Feng Leijie, noting the solemn tone in his voice, followed his gaze to scan the zombies littering the ground. His fleshy face then crumpled into a frown: “…Are you saying these zombies came from the prison?”
Though the clothes on the zombies scattered across the ground were tattered and torn, one could still make out that they were all of the same distinctive style—prison uniforms worn by inmates.
Luo Yesheng unfolded the map and moved closer to Feng Leijie, saying, “I just checked the map; there’s a prison nearby.”
“Right, there is indeed a prison,” said Tie Zhi. “We discovered it long ago. Everyone inside the prison has turned into zombies, and several have even evolved into Level Two zombies, each forming their own factions. When we first arrived in this city, Brother Jie planned to clear out this prison and use it as our temporary base.”
Feng Leijie looked as if he wanted to say something, but ultimately closed his mouth, his expression suddenly turning grim.
“However, there are too many zombies inside the prison; taking it down in a short time isn’t realistic,” Tie Zhi continued. “There’s a ring of iron walls surrounding the prison, tightly sealed. The zombies trapped inside couldn’t possibly get out.”
Luo Yesheng glanced at Tie Zhi with an expressionless face and said calmly, “But they have not only gotten out already; they’re heading this way.”
The faster-moving zombies happened to run right into them.
Feng Lejie said with some uncertainty, “Are you saying that the zombies in the prison are breaking out and heading here because someone is summoning them?”
Luo Yesheng folded the map and put it into his pocket, saying, “High-level zombies possess the ability to summon low-level ones.”
In other words, their target zombie was calling for reinforcements. It didn’t summon them earlier or later, but chose this exact moment, as if it knew they were coming to kill it.
Tie Zhi withdrew his gaze from Luo Yesheng, the scar on his face twitching slightly as he spoke with confidence: “I anticipated this long ago, Brother Jie. The remaining zombies in the entire city are likely just the batch in the prison. Even if they respond to the summons and head over, their speeds will vary, and since they’re all ordinary zombies, they pose no real threat. By the time they arrive, we’ll have already eliminated those two high-level zombies.”
“With you and Brother Luo joining forces, capturing that level-four zombie will be effortless; it won’t take much time at all.”
While flattering him, he subtly included Luo Yesheng in the praise without leaving any trace.
“If we keep delaying on the road, time will become tight.” Tie Zhi’s analysis made Feng Leijie’s expression shift from gloomy to bright, quickly improving his mood.
“Brother Luo, Tie Zhi is right. Even if a horde of zombies rushes out from the prison, it’s no big deal—they’re just ordinary zombies.” Believing Luo Yesheng wanted to back out, he offered words that were half comfort, half threat. “With so many brothers under my command, why should we fear a few common zombies? Let’s join forces and take down that Level 4 zombie as quickly as possible. We’re almost there; surely you don’t want to return empty-handed?”
“Of course not.” Luo Yesheng paused thoughtfully for a moment, said nothing more, and having already given his warning, climbed into his own vehicle.
“Brother Jie, this Luo Yesheng may be at the same level as you, yet he doesn’t possess even one-tenth of your courage.” After Feng Leijie got into the car, Zhang Wenxi, who had been crouched inside, leaned over disdainfully. “I saw it clearly myself; when he heard Brother Zhi mention the large number of zombies in the prison, his face turned pale.”
This statement was clearly an exaggeration; a high-tier Class B ability user would never turn pale over such trivial information. It was merely Zhang Wenxi’s deliberate attempt to enhance Feng Leijie’s image.
Feng Leijie, of course, knew this perfectly well, but it didn’t stop him from feeling thoroughly pleased hearing it.
A few minutes later, the lead vehicle turned right, steering into the street where the living room window faced. Before the driver could even make out the surroundings ahead, a powerful gust of wind flipped the car into midair. Immediately afterward, a thin metal slice whizzed past, splitting the airborne vehicle in two as if it were made of tofu, before it crashed heavily to the ground.
That slender metal fragment came to a halt right in front of Luo Yesheng’s car. His eyelid twitched; he clenched his fist tightly, and flames erupted skyward, blasting the metal slice apart.
Luo Yesheng knew all too well that no one had expected the zombies to attack so suddenly, as if they had calculated their exact arrival time. Even more unexpected was the fact that two high-level zombies would cooperate, catching them completely off guard.
The people in the lead vehicle were caught off guard by the attack, and nearly half of them perished.
As the smoke cleared, Luo Yesheng looked up.
Opposite them stood two zombies, one on the left and one on the right, heads tilted, their gray-white eyes fixed motionlessly upon the group.
The one on the left, seemingly catching the scent of blood, let out a guttural “huh-huh” roar toward a screaming member of the Flying Dragon lying on the ground; however, after being growled at by the noticeably emaciated elderly zombie on the right, it merely shifted its gaze and continued staring at them.
Under the gaze of the two high-level zombies, the blood within Luo Yesheng’s body ignited in that instant.
He licked his lips, ignoring whatever Feng Leijie in the car behind him was planning, pushed open the door, and stepped out with the lightness of a leopard.
Why haven’t these two zombies made their move yet?
This thought flashed through Luo Yesheng’s mind, followed by a voice trembling with extreme terror: “B-behind…”
What do you mean, “behind”?
Luo Yesheng kept an eye on the two high-level zombies ahead while turning his body slightly to glance backward with his peripheral vision.
That single glance made his rapidly pounding heart skip a beat.
On the street they had just come from, countless zombies clad in prison uniforms were swarming toward them in dense hordes.
In other words, they were surrounded by zombies.
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First update delivered; two more to follow. Da Wanzi will keep writing and post them as soon as they’re done.