Chapter 110 – Life-and-Death Marathon (1)
◎ S-Level Mission: Guarding Tongwan ◎
Three days later, as the situation in Mu City stabilized slightly, the newly appointed official assigned by the Alliance took office. After completing the handover with Park Jae-woo, they officially set off and departed.
Shortly after the majestic fleet of starships flew out, an old civilian model starship slowly ascended from the Shaye Base, entered orbit, and under Lu Xiaoyu’s command, set its course for Tongwan in the District C60, engaging the autopilot.
The return journey seemed particularly relaxed. Lin Youyou hummed a tune, applying makeup in front of the mirror after a long time. After outlining her eyebrows, she admired herself satisfactorily for a moment, casually remarking, “Park Jae-woo surprisingly didn’t cause trouble for us. Quite unexpected.”
“No need to be surprised. After all, Great Benefactor Zhuang gifted him a big favor,” Lu Xiaoyu commented solemnly.
Zhuang Qingyan glanced at him, indifferent to his sarcastic tone, “Park Jae-woo is an official fanatic. You should be glad it was him who came. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have ended so well. Without him holding the scene that night at the Reunification Palace, the remaining S-levels wouldn’t have let us off.”
If a fight really broke out, the other side still possessed heavy weaponry and over a hundred A-level awakeners, making casualties in Shaye inevitable.
Speaking of the Reunification Palace, Song Ke remembered another matter, “Punk is dead. Will anyone come to cause trouble for us?”
Zhuang Qingyan curved his lips slightly, but there was little amusement in his eyes, “Don’t worry, Park Jae-woo will handle these loopholes. He’s been given credit for nothing, but he needs to handle it well. If he can’t even control the mouths of those around him, he won’t be fit for his special envoy role.”
When Zhuang Qingyan said to relax, Song Ke felt at ease. She lowered her head to tinker with the terminal for a while, then suddenly exclaimed in surprise, “We’re becoming famous, huh?”
The headlines across Mu City were split. Half discussed the changes the new official would bring, while the other half speculated on the identity of the V587 squad that assassinated Nai Kang due to “personal grudges.” Because all visual data had been burned in a large fire, some unofficial media described V587 as a burly man and exaggeratedly boasted that all of them were S-levels.
After skimming through the reports, everyone found it utterly absurd and simply laughed it off.
But speaking of fame, Lin Youyou raised her terminal, pulling up another article, “Ferrara isn’t doing too bad either. Look at this video, ‘Detailed Analysis of the Underdog V587’s Road to Championship,’ with over sixty million views. Our popularity now exceeds ‘Shunxing Tea House’ and is second only to ‘Three Grandsons and One Grandpa.'”
“Tongwan as well. You gained a lot of fame after repelling the zombie tide,” Fang Zhixu mentioned when he found a moment.
“And there’s the Sin City. The legend of ‘My name is Su Cha, remember it’ is still circulating,” Lu Xiaoyu finished his last attack.
Su Cha was unexpectedly called out and suddenly froze, recalling the embarrassing slogan he once shouted.
Song Ke puffed her cheeks, a bit annoyed, “Grandpa used to say, ‘Be humble in life, being too famous isn’t good.'”
Zhuang Qingyan comforted her, “With the star network disconnected now and slow communication between regions, even if you’re famous, it’s only within a small scope, so you…”
As he spoke, he suddenly hissed in pain.
Fang Zhixu swiftly pressed on his pressure point, stimulating the numbed nerves with his ability. Despite the pain, Zhuang Qingyan managed to joke, but having spent an extra day in Shaye, his left hand gradually lost sensation. He couldn’t even complete simple grip exercises now.
Song Ke stared intently at Zhuang Qingyan’s legs. He hadn’t followed the doctor’s advice and had two consecutive seal injections due to helping her.
“When we return to Tongwan, we’ll… undergo surgery,” she said, poking him, completely serious.
“Yeah, undergo surgery,” Zhuang Qingyan smiled.
“Some people, their abilities aren’t enough but they insist on showing off. They swear they don’t want their legs, but deep down, they regret it so much,” Lu Xiaoyu multitasked, coding while controlling the starship, managing to slip in a few sarcastic comments to taunt Zhuang Qingyan.
Zhuang Qingyan smirked, “Because I’ve thought about it, there’s already one useless person in the team. It’s not suitable to cause more trouble for everyone.”
Lu Xiaoyu’s movements halted, struck right in the heart. His mechanical arm was damaged, severely reducing his combat effectiveness. Even his coding speed had slowed down, something Lu Xiaoyu couldn’t bear.
Lu Xiaoyu looked at Song Ke, speaking seriously, “Captain, I request a replacement for a new mechanical arm.”
“Approved,” Song Ke nodded promptly. It was the least she could do; Lu Xiaoyu’s mechanical arm had broken because he shielded her from harm.
“This is the material list,” Lu Xiaoyu shared a super long list with her, looking serious.
Song Ke’s eyes spun, she sucked in a breath of cold air—why was it twice as much as last time? How much money would this… cost?
Zhuang Qingyan took the terminal and glanced at it, sneering lightly, “Don’t be outrageous. You dared to put 98% purity rhenium on here. Do you know how much rhenium is worth?”
“Rhenium is a necessary material, and I calculated the minimum usage,” Lu Xiaoyu maintained seriousness, arguing logically.
“What necessity? It could be replaced with carbon steel or alloy steel.”
“You could use a bicycle too, why did humans invent starships?”
“With our current conditions, all you can ride is a bicycle,” Zhuang Qingyan bluntly crossed it off and handed it back to Song Ke. “Don’t spoil him.”
Lu Xiaoyu clicked his tongue, shrugged his shoulders. His serious expression relaxed; he had wanted to bluff through it, and being exposed by Zhuang Qingyan didn’t embarrass him at all.
Ever since arriving in Mu City, V587 had been entirely focused on assassinating Nai Kang, not taking on missions for a long time, and therefore, not earning any income.
Song Ke sighed softly, feeling the weight of needing to make money and shoulder the responsibilities of a captain.
“Sister!” Xu Xing, who had been leaning against the railing, suddenly exclaimed, “Come and see this.”
Song Ke looked in the direction he pointed, where a modern and futuristic city should have been below them. However, at this moment, thick black smoke billowed from the top of skyscrapers, a bridge across the river was snapped in the middle, and the surface of ring roads and flyovers was covered in a heavy black layer.
“Slow down, something’s not right,” Zhuang Qingyan frowned.
Lu Xiaoyu reduced the speed of the starship and instinctively activated the control panel. The map navigation showed they were directly above the District C74, and through the hazy clouds, that pervasive blackness seemed to be in motion.
“Should I go and take a look?” Song Ke asked.
“Wait,” Lu Xiaoyu released a drone, and the external camera zoomed in continuously, gradually approaching the airspace above the city. The group witnessed an unbelievable sight—the entire layer of blackness was actually densely packed with zombies!
“This is a dead city,” Lu Xiaoyu said.
The drone was equipped with a thermal imaging detector, yet within a radius of several kilometers, there were no signs of any life.
Song Ke looked at Zhuang Qingyan, asking, “District C74, where is that?”
Zhuang Qingyan’s expression turned serious, “Rongzhou.”
Rongzhou (District C74) was renowned as the design capital of the Alliance due to its bold and magical architectural style. Despite being numbered towards the end of the C districts, designers from Rongzhou were highly praised for their exceptional skills.
Such a once bustling and famous C-level city had now become a playground for zombies.
“Rongzhou is still a C-level city after all, what could have happened?” Lin Youyou asked, puzzled.
“It’s a zombie tide,” Zhuang Qingyan sketched out Rongzhou’s terrain and analyzed, “Rongzhou has a dense population, with a terrain mostly composed of mountains and basins. If a continuous zombie tide occurs, it’s easy to get trapped in multiple layers of encirclement, making it difficult to escape.”
“A continuous zombie tide…” everyone fell silent.
“Hopefully, the tragedy in Rongzhou is an isolated case,” Lin Youyou murmured.
However, things didn’t unfold as they hoped. After Rongzhou, they passed through another C-level city filled with zombies, followed by several D-level cities destroyed one after another. The situation was getting worse.
“When we arrived in Mu City, these cities were fine. Just half a month, and how did they get overrun by zombies?” Lin Youyou couldn’t make sense of the current scene. “Even if the number of zombies is increasing, there should be more ways to deal with them. Logically, it shouldn’t be like this.”
“Over there, there are people,” Song Ke pointed in a certain direction.
An empty highway, a supermarket at a gas station, a few figures were busy moving things around.
“They’re humans,” Zhuang Qingyan affirmed, “ordinary people.”
“I’ll go and ask. Xiao Xing, come with me,” Song Ke said.
Lu Xiaoyu switched to low-orbit mode. Song Ke and Xu Xing jumped off the starship and quickly moved towards the gas station.
There were seven or eight individuals in the group, two keeping watch while the others swiftly cleared the shelves in the supermarket. When Song Ke approached, she made some noise deliberately, a sort of warning.
“Who’s there?!” The two on lookout immediately raised their weapons, shouting in panic, “Don’t come any closer! We found this place first!”
Xu Xing stepped forward politely, trying to start a conversation. “Uncle, Auntie, we won’t come closer, we just want to ask something.”
As the commotion arose, more people from the supermarket rushed out. Thin and pale from hunger, they eyed Song Ke and Xu Xing cautiously, even though there were only two of them. “Ask your questions but then leave quickly!” they demanded.
Xu Xing stood still obediently. “Uncle, Auntie, why are there zombies everywhere here? It wasn’t like this the last time my sister and I came.”
“You don’t know?” The person replied with some surprise. “A zombie king has appeared nearby, capable of commanding zombies of all levels. Many cities have been destroyed by it.”
Song Ke was startled. Capable of commanding… a zombie king?
In Xiangang, they had fought against a level-3 zombie once. Though that monster was huge and formidable, it didn’t have the ability to command other zombies. Could this zombie king possibly be a level-4 zombie?
After returning to the starship, V587 held an emergency meeting.
“From the current information, we deduce that the zombie king was born near Rongzhou. After destroying that C-level city, it moved eastward,” Zhuang Qingyan analyzed.
“Tongwan is also in the east,” Fang Zhixu’s voice turned anxious, “Considering its trajectory, could it pose a threat to Tongwan?”
Mu City was situated in the southwest of the Alliance. Lu Xiaoyu had set the return route northeastward, passing through Ferrara and eventually reaching Tongwan.
Tongwan’s outpost, the Luojia Shelter, had survived a major zombie tide with the support of V587. As a medical hub, Tongwan had relatively weak military strength; otherwise, it wouldn’t have been surrounded by Nai Kang’s troops back then. If they encountered the zombie king leading a massive army, the crisis they’d face wouldn’t be lighter than Rongzhou’s.
Zhuang Qingyan’s finger followed the path of destruction on the map until it stopped just inches away from Tongwan.
“Based on the zombie king’s current trajectory, it will just narrowly miss Tongwan.”
Just as the group breathed a sigh of relief, Zhuang Qingyan’s fingertip suddenly slid left by one grid.
“But, what if it changes course midway? Looking at this intersection, the cities in the left section are obviously more densely populated. We can’t determine the extent of intelligence a level-4 zombie has,” he explained.
“Hurry, let’s get back to Tongwan,” Song Ke urged.
Tongwan couldn’t have any trouble, not just because it could heal Zhuang Qingyan’s legs, but also because it housed millions of doctors similar to Lu Ning, willing to risk their lives to save others. If Tongwan fell, the impact on the entire Alliance would be catastrophic.
Lu Xiaoyu switched to manual mode, and the starship accelerated sharply, streaking across the sky.
Lin Youyou tried to reassure everyone, “There seem to be fewer zombies here than before. Maybe the zombie king followed its original route.”
Before she could finish her sentence, the terminals of the group suddenly flashed with an urgent message: “The Alliance Supernatural Ability Headquarters has issued an emergency announcement: ‘A series of zombie tides have emerged in Tongwan (District C62). Known zombie numbers are as follows: Level 4: 1, Level 3: 167, Level 2: xxxx, Detected mutant zombie count: 1257. All district awakeners are requested to provide immediate support. Depending on the number of zombies killed, different amounts of points and Alliance Coins will be rewarded.'”
Damn it, Zhuang Qingyan was right—the intelligence of that zombie king is exceptionally high! It actually changed its path!
The swiftly moving starship rushed to Tongwan in the shortest time possible. However, the scene before them left everyone horrified. The ground was devastated, and the horde of zombies, densely packed and black, was more terrifying than the insect tide Song Ke had experienced in Hua City. Compared to Luojia Shelter’s previous large-scale zombie tide, the number had almost increased tenfold. Even from high altitude, the end of the horde was nowhere in sight.
The three outposts serving as the vanguard seemed on the brink of collapse. Once the defense lines were breached, Tongwan would have no buffer zone and would be exposed to the zombies.
At the forefront of the battle lines, numerous awakeners were fighting desperately. However, despite killing one wave, new zombies surged forward incessantly.
Song Ke opened the hatch, anxiously seeking a place to land. At that moment, the Luojia Shelter, overwhelmed, had its defense lines breached. As if receiving some command, the zombie horde surged over the walls in unison, heading relentlessly towards Tongwan, several kilometers away.
“No!!” Fang Zhixu grabbed the railing and shouted.
The air seemed to freeze, everyone’s heart stuck in their throats, and Tongwan seemed to resonate with a mournful cry.
At the very moment when the first wave of zombies was about to breach the gates, a golden light suddenly shimmered above Tongwan. It flashed and, in an instant, the zombies “thudded” against an invisible barrier. Some were flung away, others fell to the ground, piling up in layers, unable to move forward.
This… was Domain-type supernatural ability?
Song Ke, Zhuang Qingyan, Lin Youyou, and the others exchanged astonished looks. In their minds, a name suddenly appeared.
Almost forgot, Tongwan still had a Domain-type awakener.
Wait, strictly speaking, it should be a Domain-type mutant dog.
