Chapter 39: Escape from Death
, first-floor main entrance.
The three trucks were parked in a triangle on the plaza in front of the entrance, their engines still running.
A “ ” formation created a hemispherical defensive ring in the air, its lasers continuously reaping through the zombies flooding in from the surrounding streets.
A layer of charred corpses already covered the plaza, and the air reeked of burnt protein.
jumped out of the truck and looked up at the building.
. Twelve stories.
The gray-white facade was crawling with dark-red flesh, especially thick from the fifth floor downward. The pulsing sinews looked like blood vessels that had grown out of the building, slowly contracting in a steady rhythm.
“ , what’s the situation inside?”
[Floors one through six have extremely high density—rough estimate: over four hundred. The passage to the seventh floor is sealed. The area between the seventh floor and the roof is comparatively safe. Survivor heat sources are concentrated on the seventh floor and the roof.]
[Recommended route: fight up the fire stairwell to the seventh floor, with the Robots taking point.]
turned and swept his gaze over the twenty-seven team members already formed up.
“Squad One, follow me upstairs. Squad Two, hold the first-floor retreat route. Squad Three, stay with the vehicles.”
“Yes, sir!”
Two Robots pushed open the main doors first, the infrared sights on their muzzles glowing in the darkness.
The building’s interior was worse than it had appeared from outside. The first floor of the mall was almost entirely covered in flesh, like a soft, rotten carpet of meat; every step produced a sticky squelch.
Shelves had toppled, merchandise lay scattered everywhere, and a fine red network of flesh had grown over it all.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
The Robots opened fire. Six tongues of flame erupted at once, their sharp reports merging into a continuous roar.
Bullets poured down like a storm, mowing through swaths of the oncoming horde.
The zombies on the first floor seemed unusually sluggish. Most lay prone on the flesh covering the ground, as if feeding—or hibernating.
Only when the gunfire and footsteps startled them awake did they snarl, rise, and lunge toward the entrance.
The “ ” drones poured in through the main door, green lasers carving dense webs of light through the dim space.
A path was quickly cleared. and the others wasted no time. Stepping over corpses, they hurried into the fire stairwell.
The stairwell was narrower and darker, with only the emergency lights still flickering fitfully.
The Robots took point. Every time they rounded a corner, another violent burst of gunfire erupted.
Second floor. Third floor. Fourth floor.
There were more and more zombies—and more and more first-stage mutants.
joined his men in the fight, his assault rifle precisely headshotting every about to break through the Sentinels’ fire net.
“Reloading!” raised his rifle.
moved up from the side and shot dead a that had grabbed hold of one of the robots.
At the corner of the fifth floor, however, a with a distinctly different build appeared, crouching on the wall.
It was thinner than a normal . Its limb joints bent backward, and its exposed spine formed a row of serrated bone spurs.
The strangest part was its head—there were no eyes. In their place was a ring of gill-slit-like organs that kept opening and closing.
It did not screech and charge like the other zombies. Instead, it spread its “gill slits” and let out a high-frequency “squeal—”
The sound was so piercing that everyone felt a sharp sting in their temples.
The next second, dense footsteps came from upstairs and downstairs at the same time.
As if they had received a signal, large numbers of zombies began converging on this spot.
“No!” ’s pupils contracted, and he reacted instantly. “Take it out first!”
The swung its muzzle and fired several bursts.
But the thing reacted extremely fast. Its backward-bent limbs sprang violently, launching it from the wall to the ceiling, then to the opposite wall.
Two shots missed. The third grazed its shoulder, tearing away a hunk of black flesh—it had actually dodged the onslaught.
But caught it as it recovered and raised his rifle.
The armor-piercing round struck it in midair, piercing its chest cavity. As the fell, a shot it in the head.
[Ding! Detected killing first-stage special “ ” x1, gained : 70.]
[Ding! Gained special drop: Special x1.]
, however, paid no attention to the system notification. Through the Type 2’s perspective outside the building, he had detected an extremely massive heat source approaching.
The worst-case scenario had occurred. The commotion here had attracted a great danger.
[ , you need to speed up! A big one has set its sights on this place!]
“Understood!” also realized how dire the situation was and immediately ordered, “Everyone, listen up! Follow me—charge!”
Sixth floor.
The sealed-off stairway to the seventh floor was directly overhead.
Shelves, tables, chairs, and fire hydrants had been piled into a dense makeshift barrier, with faint light seeping through the gaps.
“People up there! Can you hear me?” called up. “We’re a rescue team from ! We’re here to get you out!”
After a brief silence, a hoarse voice came from above.
“A real rescue team? Great! The rescue team is here! The government sent people!”
“Cut the chatter! Move that stuff aside, and we’ll all leave together!”
The sound of clutter being shoved aside rang out. Trembling hands reached through the gaps, frantically moving the blockage away piece by piece.
The moment the passage opened, haggard, dirty faces appeared before .
These people were in better shape than he had imagined—at least they could still stand.
There were around a hundred of them, men and women, old and young. Their clothes were ragged, but there was still life in their eyes.
A man in his early thirties stood at the front, holding a sharpened mop handle.
“You... you finally came! That’s great!”
“Enough talk. We’re leaving now!” swept his gaze across the crowd. “Anyone who can walk, come downstairs with us right now. A few of you help carry the wounded. Everyone must be out of this building within ten minutes.”
The man froze for a moment, then nodded hard. He turned and shouted inside, “Did you all hear that?! Grab your things and follow them!”
The crowd stirred, sobs and shouts mixing with the sounds of people helping one another.
Just then, a dirty little girl squeezed through the crowd and tugged on ’s sleeve.
She was about eight or nine, with matted hair and dried tear tracks on her face.
“Uncle!” she cried anxiously. “Uncle Chen! Uncle Chen and the others are still upstairs!”
frowned and looked at the man holding the mop handle. “There are still people up there?”
“Yes, that’s right!” The man nodded hurriedly and explained in a rush, “My brothers are up there— and the others! To leave food for us, they ate those... those god-awful things growing out of the walls!”
The man pointed at the fist-sized red fruits hanging from the dark-red flesh on the surrounding walls and briefly explained the situation at breakneck speed.
“They were afraid of turning into monsters and hurting us, so they sealed off the passage above themselves.”
was silent for two seconds.
“ , are the heat sources on the top floor still there?”
[Yes! Thirty-four in total, but seven of them have abnormally rising body temperatures.]
“ , take two men and come with me to the top floor! Everyone else, work with the Sentinels to cover the survivors going downstairs.”
“Yes, sir!”
Rooftop terrace.
The sunlight was blinding, and the air carried an unidentifiable sweet rot.
More than thirty people were scattered across the terrace, most sitting or lying against the walls.
Their bellies were all swollen high, their skin so thin that the writhing things beneath were visible.
But apart from that, their minds were still clear.
A young man leaning against the railing looked up at the sudden appearance of the armed personnel and, after a long moment, forced out a single sentence.
“You... are you real?”
“Mm!” crouched down. “Can you walk?”
“Yes.” The young man pushed himself off the railing and stood.
“Good. We’re going home!”
Before he finished speaking, a sharp scream came from behind him.
spun around.
A middle-aged man lay on the ground, convulsing violently.
His belly looked as if something were churning inside it, and one after another, fist-sized lumps pushed up beneath his skin.
At the same time, the whites of his eyes rapidly reddened, and black, bloody foam began to seep from the corners of his mouth.
An unmistakable sign of zombification.
“ !”
The instant the mutation began, had already rushed over. He drew a preloaded syringe from his belt and drove it into the man in one motion.
After a dozen or so seconds, the convulsions gradually subsided.
The man’s eyes returned to normal, but his belly remained swollen high.
glanced at the other survivors with the same protruding bellies and made a snap decision.
“Everyone who ate the gets one shot. Do it now.”
pulled all the inhibitors out of his pack and injected them one by one.
At the same time, plucked several red fruits from the fleshy branches on the walls and sealed them in the metal canister he carried.
[ , speed it up.] ’s voice suddenly turned urgent.
[It’s coming!]
’s face darkened.
He felt it too. The ground beneath his feet was trembling, more and more noticeably.
In the distance, in the heart of District’s skyline, a clearly abnormal mass of white fog was churning upward, as if stirred by something enormous.
“Everyone evacuate! Now!”
More than 130 survivors were packed in batches into the cargo beds of the three trucks. and the other thirty-four “swollen-bellied patients” were placed in a separate compartment on the second truck, guarded the entire way by one squad and a .
The cleared the way ahead, the brought up the rear, and all the drones rose into the air, forming a laser net at the building’s exit.
The survivors ran toward the trucks over the corpses on the first floor. Many were so frightened that their legs gave out, and the people behind them had to push them forward.
The little girl held tightly to ’s hand, desperately stifling her sobs.
“Last batch! Get on board!”
jumped onto the tailgate and hauled the last old man into the cargo bed.
“Go!”
The three trucks started at once. Their wheels rolled over the corpses in the plaza and charged onto the main road.
But they had just passed two intersections when the glass curtain wall of an office building ahead suddenly burst apart.
A figure leaped through the shattered glass and slammed onto the road directly in front of the convoy, cracking the asphalt.
The thing straightened up. It was about two meters tall and lean, its entire body covered in a layer of pale-gray chitinous armor that hugged its skin.
Its limbs were long, and curved bone blades twenty centimeters long extended from the ends of its fingers.
The most unsettling part was its head.
It had no mouth and no nose—only a pair of huge, pitch-black compound eyes, like two black mirrors reflecting the convoy’s lights.
It tilted its head, as if sizing up its prey.
[Biological signature similar to a ! Stay alert!]
“Don’t stop! Ram it!” shouted.
floored the gas.
But the thing dodged sideways, and its bone blades slashed across the truck’s front armor, cutting a half-meter gash into the steel plate as sparks flew.
A jumped down from the truck roof. Its fire-control system locked onto the creature, but the bullets could barely penetrate that strange chitinous shell.
Fortunately, the “ ” formation locked on in time, and dozens of lasers struck simultaneously.
Charred burn marks appeared on the shell. The thing let out a piercing shriek, then, in the blink of an eye, shredded several drones—but even more drones had locked onto it.
Seeing the number of enemies increase, it backed up two steps, then turned and vanished into the depths of an alley at astonishing speed.
and the others naturally didn’t go after it; they simply kept their heads down and drove.
The shaking beneath them grew more violent.
As the convoy drove onto the bridge spanning the river toward , everyone could clearly feel the deck swaying.
In the rearview mirror, most of District’s skyline had been swallowed by the white fog. Within it, a silhouette too vast to comprehend moved slowly, faintly visible.
“Go, go, go, go, go!” floored the gas pedal while muttering under his breath.
The moment the convoy cleared the bridge, a dull, heavy boom sounded behind them.
looked in the rearview mirror.
A dark-red pillar of flesh, estimated to be more than ten meters in diameter, reached out from the white fog like a tentacle from the abyss and slammed straight down onto the deck of the river-crossing bridge.
Reinforced concrete shattered, fractured, and collapsed under the blow.
The entire rear half of the bridge, along with the hundreds of zombies still chasing across it, plunged into the surging river.
The wave it raised was dozens of meters high. It crashed against the road and soaked the rear of the last truck.
Everyone fell silent.
In the cargo beds, only the roar of the engines and the survivors’ suppressed breathing remained.
Then the pillar of flesh slowly drew back into the white fog, as if it had finally given up the chase.
stared at the spreading wall of white fog in the rearview mirror, his pupils contracting. “What the hell is that thing?!”
’s vibrated.
’s voice sounded.
[I don’t know... My drones’ scans can’t penetrate that fog at all. There’s strong electromagnetic interference.]
[But extrapolating from the vibration data, its size... a conservative estimate is over two hundred meters.]
fell silent. Were they supposed to fight a monster like that?
“Damn it, who cares how many meters it is!” cursed. “If we can’t take it head-on, we’ll get ourselves a nuke. I refuse to believe we can’t blow that thing up!”
“Right.” ’s attitude lifted ’s spirits, too. He glanced back at the cargo bed—at least they had brought the people back. “There will always be a way eventually.”
In a corner of the cargo bed, looked down at his swollen belly. Although he had received that pale blue serum, the writhing inside had slowed considerably, but it still had not stopped.
He raised his head and, through a gap in the cargo bed, looked back at the towers swallowed by the white fog.
For some reason, he suddenly had a strange feeling—
The thing inside his belly seemed to be “afraid” of that fog, too.