Chapter 37: Letian District
At exactly six o'clock in the morning, three modified trucks fitted with improvised armor roared through the gates of into the light of dawn.
sat in the front passenger seat of the lead truck, his gaze calm as he watched the road ahead, which had been cleared with unusual thoroughness.
The ID card in his pocket vibrated faintly, and 's voice sounded directly in his ear.
[Route planned. Total distance: 62 kilometers. Estimated travel time: three hours.]
[The " " will handle high-altitude reconnaissance. The " " formation has taken off and is standing by.]
"Copy," replied briefly.
This time, he was leading all of —twenty-seven members in total—with District as their objective.
As the capital of , was a major city in the central region, consisting of four districts and five counties.
They were , , , and District, along with the five county towns of , , , , and .
sat on the outskirts of , at the edge of the city.
District, where and the others were headed today, was already part of the economically developed, densely populated urban center.
, driving beside him, gripped the steering wheel, a barely concealed mix of excitement and tension on his face.
He was now the captain of . Though the pressure was heavy, the drone swarm flying alongside the convoy gave him immense confidence.
For the first ten kilometers, the road conditions were surprisingly good.
The led by had done remarkably effective work. Not only had they cleared away the corpses, they had even covered the bloodstains on the road.
Apart from the occasional abandoned vehicle, there was almost no trace of the apocalypse to be seen.
But after they passed the twenty-kilometer mark, the scene began to change.
Scattered wandering zombies started appearing on the road. Drawn by the sound of the engines, they howled and lunged at the convoy.
didn't need to give any orders. The drones escorting each vehicle automatically locked onto their targets.
"Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh!"
Streak after streak of green laser light pierced the zombies' skulls with pinpoint precision, killing them before they could get anywhere near the vehicles.
The convoy didn't slow down in the slightest, driving straight past the fallen bodies.
"That's awesome!" a new team member murmured, unable to contain his admiration.
Watching the intermittent rain of lasers outside, the other team members felt the same way, and their confidence in the mission rose considerably.
The closer they got to the city, the more abandoned vehicles littered the road. Several times, they blocked the entire roadway.
The convoy had no choice but to slow down and detour onto side roads under 's guidance.
The number of zombies also grew from a scattered few to small packs of a dozen or several dozen.
The moment they heard the engines, the zombies poured out of the shops and residential buildings lining the streets, converging into murky streams that chased after the convoy.
This time, the carried on each vehicle also joined the fight, the crisp crackle of gunfire forming an unbroken chain.
[Attention. One kilometer ahead, an intersection is completely blocked by a traffic accident. pack density is increasing. Estimated count exceeds two hundred.]
's voice sounded at just the right moment.
[Detouring would cost too much time. I will clear the area with micro-missiles. Prepare to break through.]
"Understood!"
picked up his ID card and said calmly, "Truck One opens the way. Trucks Two and Three, follow. Prepare to force a breakthrough."
"BOOM!"
After a burst of flame, the vehicles blocking the road blew apart, opening a gap in the horde.
But the explosion also attracted more zombies. The moment the three trucks charged through the gap, countless zombies swarmed over them. Their claws scraped shrill sounds across the bulletproof glass, rotting faces pressed against the windows, and hollow black eye sockets stared fixedly at the people inside.
"Open fire!"
The firing ports in the cargo compartments were pushed open, and the team members raised their guns, blasting furiously at the zombies outside the windows.
[Third floor of the building on the left. detected.]
had barely finished speaking when a monster noticeably larger and bulkier than an ordinary leaped out of the third-floor window and crashed onto the roof of an abandoned bus, smashing a huge dent into it.
Throwing back its head, it let out a roar that sounded nothing like a human voice, then charged at the convoy like a runaway truck.
"Damn it, this thing again!" swore.
"Focus on your driving. I'll deal with it." With that, picked up his gun and rolled down the window.
"Understood!"
"BANG!"
's marksmanship was excellent, and the 7.62mm armor-piercing rounds were more than up to the task, punching straight through the 's skull.
At the same time, the laser rain from the 100 drones newly launched into the battle briefly "washed clean" the horde around the vehicles.
Seizing the moment, the convoy picked up speed once more, leaving the howling horde far behind.
And so, after a series of scares but without encountering any real danger, they drove out of .
But when the huge road sign reading "Welcome to District" came into view, everyone fell silent.
Here, the environment had undergone yet another change visible to the naked eye.
The air was saturated with a thick, cloying stench of blood and decay that made people gag.
The sky seemed to be shrouded in a film of gray haze, gloomy and oppressive.
The most unsettling thing of all was the sound.
From every direction—from every window of the high-rises, from every dark alleyway, from the very edge of sight—came unending howls and roars that merged into a single overwhelming chorus.
The sound almost seemed to take on substance, turning into an invisible tide that ceaselessly battered everyone's eardrums and made them feel like insects that had stumbled into hell—tiny and helpless.
"Everyone, stay on maximum alert." 's voice broke the deathly silence inside the truck.
's hands, gripping the steering wheel, were already slick with sweat. He could see that District was nothing like the bustling commercial area he remembered.
In his field of vision, the towering high-rises that had once blazed with lights now looked utterly desolate and ruined.
What's more, many buildings were wrapped in a layer of dark red, muscle-like flesh. The flesh continued to writhe and pulse faintly, while countless thick, vein-like tendrils had burrowed deep into the buildings' walls.
It looked as if they had walked straight onto the set of some splatter film.
[High-intensity biological energy reaction detected. Unknown . Recommend keeping your distance.]
Even without the warning, and the others wouldn't have dared drive too close to that bizarre flesh. Fortunately, it didn't seem inclined to hunt them actively.
As the convoy turned onto another street, the scene before them grew even more horrifying.
The street was packed solid with zombies, so numerous that they nearly covered the ground completely.
What's more, the number of mutants, such as brute zombies and Climbers, had also increased dramatically.
The number of first-stage mutants here had already reached a level that made one's scalp crawl.
Even stranger, some zombies had flesh tissue growing on their bodies similar to what covered the building—some with twisted tumors sprouting from their backs, others from the tops of their heads.
At the same time—and this was the strangest part—everyone in the vehicles felt a strange, inexplicable shudder.
It was as if something extremely dangerous had fixed its gaze upon them. As if, in the shadows of the high-rises and the dark corners, countless pairs of ill-intentioned eyes were coldly examining this group of intruders.
" , are there any high-threat targets nearby?" asked hurriedly.
[Apart from the tide right in front of you, I haven't detected any high-threat mutants.]
[Why do you ask all of a sudden?]
While bombing the street ahead to draw away the horde and clear a path for the convoy, used the drones to scan the surroundings once more.
But he truly hadn't found anything. The first-stage mutants here were intimidating, but thankfully, there were no higher-stage mutants present.
"I feel like I'm being watched by something," calmly told , describing the feeling.
"That's right!" barked, forcing himself to stay calm. "I feel it too."
[But I haven't detected anything. There shouldn't be any high-threat mutants in the area.]
"Then maybe we're just too tense? After all, the environment here is pretty oppressive." didn't dwell on it, simply raising his guard inwardly.
If the source of a danger couldn't be traced, there was no point in thinking about it too much.
Otherwise, it would only waste time. After all, if something really was going to stir up trouble, it would inevitably expose itself sooner or later.
" , can you find any survivors?" asked, shifting his attention back to their original objective.
[Scanning... Thermal imaging signals are heavily interfered with. The internal structures of many buildings have undergone unknown changes... No clear survivor gathering point found for now.]
This result made everyone's heart sink.
Could the entire District really have fallen, without a single living person left?
Emotionally, they found it hard to believe. After all, they knew exactly how large the area's permanent population had been before the disaster.
But faced with reality, with the hellish scene before them, their conviction inevitably wavered. Had everyone really died?
The convoy advanced with difficulty through the tide, Robots and " " drones weaving a dense web of fire through the air as they ceaselessly cleared the road ahead.
But the zombies and mutants seemed endless. Kill one batch, and more immediately surged in from every direction.
The vehicles' fuel and ammunition were draining rapidly.
"Captain Zhang, we can't go any deeper!" shouted. "If we push any farther in, we might not be able to get out!"
stared at the endless sea of corpses stretching before him, his brow tightly furrowed.
Just as he was about to order a retreat, 's voice sounded again—this time with a barely perceptible ripple.
[Wait.]
[Northeast, one o'clock position, 1.7 kilometers from you—on the rooftop of a department store, I've detected activity signals resembling humans!]
The discovery was like a shot of adrenaline, surging through everyone's hearts in an instant.
"Move out now!" made the split-second decision and issued a new order. "Everyone, attention! Target: the northeast, ! Repeat, target: !"
In the sky, the " " UAV, which had been circling all along, abruptly changed direction.
The next moment, hundreds of " " miniature bombing drones poured out of the " " mother unit, diving like a swarm of furious wasps toward the densest part of the tide ahead.
Violent explosions rang out one after another, and in an instant, flames and shockwaves carved a charred-black passage through the horde.
"Push through!"
The three trucks' engines roared as they charged onward through the aftershocks of the explosions and the flying gore, rushing straight toward the department store that loomed indistinctly amid the tide.
Meanwhile, on the pitch-black rooftop of , several ragged, gaunt people huddled around a campfire on the verge of dying out, shivering.
Suddenly, a young man seemed to hear something. He jerked his head up and looked toward the direction from which the explosions had come.
Fear flickered through his eyes at first, but then it was replaced by a faint glimmer of hope.
"Outside... It sounds like something's happening outside!"