Chapter 116: Rongcheng
Since leaving the in City, the convoy had been traveling southwest for over a week.
The opening stretch of the route had mapped out was, to a large extent, the same road he had taken when he first led the survivors in their escape.
Yet the world before him now was far more dangerous than in his memories.
The density of zombies wandering the roads was more than an order of magnitude higher than when he had passed through during his flight.
Rotten corpses and abandoned vehicles were tangled together, turning the once-smooth national highway into a rugged obstacle course.
Still, for the convoy as it stood now, these were hardly a serious problem.
Thanks to the 's effect, most zombies wouldn't pay much attention to the vehicles.
And the few zombies that did notice them posed almost no threat to the convoy members.
Besides zombies, the convoy also encountered many survivor groups on the road, fleeing from the southwest toward .
Most of them were in terrible shape—ragged clothes, gaunt faces, and eyes carrying the numbness of those who had struggled at the edge of despair for a long time.
And when they saw the convoy's military-like armored formation, their faces almost always wore the same complicated expression of surprise, joy, and fear of approaching.
For these people, the convoy would stop for brief contact, provide them with some food, drinking water, and basic medicine, tell them the location of and contact method for in , and give them a card printed with the 's coordinates.
Then, whether they continued on to the or, feeling too weak to head north, decided to follow the convoy, was up to them.
Of course, not everyone harbored good intentions.
On the evening of the third day after leaving the province, a group of about thirty people pretended to ask the convoy for help, then immediately turned hostile after got out of the vehicle.
A burly, bald-headed man with a submachine gun from who knows where pointed it at 's head, and, feeling quite pleased with himself, thought he could shout demands at the convoy members.
"Leave half your supplies, and I'll spare your—"
Before he could finish, the drone's laser had already burned through his skull.
Meanwhile, the team members in exoskeletons disarmed the rest within seconds.
They taught them what it meant to be faster than a gun within seven paces.
The outcome was simple: everyone involved in the robbery was executed on the spot, while the few survivors rescued from their hideout chose to follow the convoy.
This kind of thing could be encountered often after leaving the province.
had no extra emotion for it. His time with had shown him too many similar scenes.
In those war-torn places, human was just as cheap, and human nature just as unable to withstand the test.
The only difference was that the "scalpel" in his hand had changed from a lancet to an .
But the essence remained the same—cut out the lesion, preserve the healthy tissue.
***
Eight days after leaving .
On the outskirts of , atop the provincial road overpass.
As a concise command came through the communication channel, a vanguard squad of ten members ahead of the convoy silently blended into a small group of zombies, relying on the " " effect.
The lead member made a hand signal, and the ten instantly fanned out, their short blades tracing graceful arcs.
To conserve ammunition, there was not a single gunshot throughout—only the dull sounds of blades slicing through rotten flesh.
Bodies injected with agent, combined with the immense strength provided by the " " exoskeletons, gave them an overwhelming advantage against these ordinary zombies.
Even first-stage mutants were no match for them at all.
A that reacted charged out of the horde with a roar, but a team member sidestepped it, swung back with a knife, and cleanly sliced off half its head.
The entire operation was less a battle than an efficient slaughter.
Inside the command vehicle, unscrewed a bottle of iced black tea and took a contented sip. The ice-cold liquid slid down his throat, and he smacked his lips in satisfaction.
Smooth on the palate with a lingering aftertaste. Sure enough, it tasted better chilled (self-chilled).
A moment later, the door opened. took off his helmet and hopped in, bringing a chill with him, casually wiping the blood off his blade.
"Reporting: the road ahead is cleared. We can move on."
"Mm, good work," said, taking out another bottle from the storage box beside him. "Want a drink?"
's face instantly fell, and he rolled his eyes at him.
"Seriously, , it's snowing outside! Several degrees below zero! You're drinking cold drinks in the snow?"
"What, I think it's great!" shook the bottle in his hand with a carefree look, the ice shards clinking dully against the bottle wall. "Drinking cold drinks in winter is true love—drinking them in summer is too transactional."
"Heh!" waved his hand in disgust and sat down in the seat beside him, muttering under his breath, "So you awakened some ice-making , big deal. Showing off all day long."
"What do you know," gave him a sidelong glance and said slowly, "This is what I call keeping up with daily training."
In the compartment, , , and the others all laughed at that.
" 's got the wise take. Who's with me?" laughed.
"Truly wise! But , besides chilling drinks, what else can your do?" was even less polite, squinting as he teased.
"Last time I watched you freeze a for half the day, and all you managed was a layer of frost on its arm—it didn't even slow down."
"Scram!" cursed in exasperation.
The compartment immediately erupted in laughter, brimming with a lively atmosphere.
Just as everyone was laughing and joking, a steady electronic voice suddenly sounded from the speaker of the parked in the corner, instantly stifling all the noise.
[Stay alert. There's something strange in the city ahead.]
It was 's voice.
The atmosphere in the compartment instantly shifted from relaxed to serious, and everyone's expressions turned grim.
"What's going on?" sat up straight, his gaze fixed on the tactical tablet in front of him.
On the tablet, the footage sent back by the drone from high altitude was clearly displayed.
It was a half-ruined city, its outline somewhat blurred amid the wind and snow.
Countless unsteady figures wandered within, but judging by the degree of building damage, this city hadn't been destroyed as badly as many places in .
Yet everyone immediately spotted what was wrong.
"The density... is way too high!" frowned.
"If I'm not mistaken, this should be ahead, right?" pointed at the map. " is a satellite city of , with a permanent population of less than a fifth of 's. When we passed through last time, the density wasn't high either.
By all logic, should be the one with the higher population density, no?
So where did all these zombies come from?"
"Right," confirmed his words. "I also remember that when we passed through here last time, we encountered far fewer zombies than this."
"It seems that after we left, something we don't know about happened here." said in a low voice.
[That's not all.]
's voice sounded again as the drone feed rapidly zoomed in.
This time, the people in the compartment could see far more clearly.
Among the hordes wandering the streets, shockingly, more than half were in a form they had never seen before.
Their bodies were similar in build to ordinary zombies, but their heads had completely lost all facial features.
In their place were many eyeballs of varying sizes and colors, piled haphazardly together, spinning wildly, exuding a nauseating weirdness.
First-stage mutants: many-eyed zombies. A special variant had once observed and recorded, suspected to be a low-level evolutionary form of the .
And the facts did indeed seem to bear this out—in multiple areas of the city, the drone captured larger figures.
Huge spheres of flesh over three meters in diameter hung in midair, their surfaces covered with countless spinning eyeballs, supported by eight pale segmented limbs as they moved slowly— .
Dozens of !
Some crouched on the ruins of buildings, others sprawled across intersections where two streets crossed, voraciously devouring the hordes converging on them from all directions.
This place was practically a buffet for the " ."
" , what's the situation with that foggy area to the north? Any survivor signals?" 's gaze landed on the northern side of the city, very close to their planned route, where a region was shrouded in .
Within the fog, a huge silhouette dozens of meters tall was faintly visible, resembling both a tower and a small mound of earth.
[Scan results: no human signals.]
[Energy readings abnormal, unable to analyze.]
[It should be a third-stage or higher .]
"Understood. Then we'll take a detour." made the decision on the spot. "It'll add more than thirty kilometers, but it's still better than cutting straight through the fog area."
No one raised any objection. This was the operational policy set before departure: unless necessary, do not come into conflict with unknown mutants of the third stage or above.
Their primary task was reconnaissance and search-and-rescue, not assault.
The convoy immediately adjusted its direction, following 's outer ring road and looping around to the west.
The compartment was quiet for a while, then 's voice sounded again, his tone lighter.
[Still fixated on developing your own , huh?]
"What else would I do?" , who was freezing his second can of iced black tea, raised an eyebrow at this. "Isn't that how it works in comics? Use it more, and you get stronger."
He sighed. "Who made it so the zombies in this world don't drop crystal cores?"
[Even if they did, we wouldn't advise you to eat them, dear!]
"Then is there any other way?" changed the subject and turned serious. "For example, something like what Director has—have you found any equipment that suits me?"
"Even if it's not that over-the-top, anything would do!"
Although the convoy had long since left the , thanks to , they still had some idea of the 's recent situation.
They had also seen the battle footage of transforming into a three-meter giant and tearing apart flesh-and-blood mutants with his bare hands.
Upon learning this, the one who was most envious was probably .
After all, if there was anything in this world more disheartening than not having awakened a , it was probably watching others' abilities slaughter enemies left and right while your own could only be used to chill drinks!
[Unfortunately, there isn't.] However, 's answer was crisp and clean, leaving no room for illusions.
"I see... all right, then." 's tone carried obvious disappointment.
By this time, the convoy had already looped into the suburban area on the south side of .