Chapter 13: The Strange Zombies
1413 Words
Standing on the rooftop of the five-story building, Lin Yuan carefully surveyed the surroundings. Everywhere he looked, the roads had turned red, and in some places, the crimson substance was even creeping up the sides of buildings. In the distance, the rescue zone, crowded with survivors, looked like a scene from hell. The survivors, trapped in the red blood blanket, struggled on the surface, and those who were still alive could be seen desperately trying to free themselves.
"This is brutal!" Lin Yuan muttered to himself. He had thought that the appearance of mutated zombies was already a huge disaster, but this—this kind of creature that defied all reason—was something far worse.
Suddenly, a voice called out from the opposite building: "Brother Lin!"
Turning his head, Lin Yuan saw that the rescue team had somehow made their way to the rooftop of the building across from him. He raised his hand to acknowledge them but remained silent. After all, he was just a survivor, and if they couldn't offer him help, they probably didn’t expect him to assist them either.
As expected, Chen Yang, after greeting him, scratched his helmet awkwardly. "Brother Lin, I'm really sorry. This rescue mission has failed, and we may not be able to help you anymore." The rescue team had received new orders: they were to abandon the rescue of ordinary survivors and instead focus on retrieving specific individuals. Chen Yang and the others had now become part of Jian Ning's squad.
"No problem. You guys do what you need to do. I can survive on my own." Lin Yuan didn’t hold it against them. They were being polite, and he felt it was only right to reassure them. After all, venturing deeper into the city center was a near-suicidal mission. By tomorrow, it was likely they'd never see each other again.
"Your name is Lin Yuan, right? And you're a former soldier. I'd like to invite you to join our squad and take part in the rescue mission," Jian Ning said, stepping forward. She had noticed Lin Yuan's potential earlier. It was only the seventh day of the apocalypse, and without any formal training or guidance, Lin Yuan already possessed such explosive strength. This indicated that his genetic enhancement far exceeded that of normal humans. Jian Ning was one of the elites among their group, but compared to Lin Yuan, there was still a clear gap.
"You want me to follow you to my death?" Lin Yuan replied skeptically. Even a well-equipped, highly trained team like theirs could be wiped out, so what chance did an ordinary person like him have?
"No," Jian Ning responded calmly, "if you stay here, it's certain death. But if you follow us, there's at least a slim chance of survival."
She took a step closer and glanced at the rapidly advancing blood blanket on the street below. It had already climbed almost a meter up the buildings. "At the rate these blood threads are spreading, by tomorrow morning, they will have reached this floor. Even if you're skilled, how do you expect to escape from such an eerie, deadly creature?"
Jian Ning wasn't just making idle threats. Earlier, she had used the zoom feature on her helmet to observe the distant survivors stuck in the blood blanket. Their bodies were already showing signs of melting. As they were absorbed, the blood blanket became even more active. For survivors without protective gear, these blood threads were almost instantly lethal upon contact.
Lin Yuan hesitated. There was a genuine sincerity in Jian Ning's words, direct and without any pretense. Lin Yuan had always responded with honesty to those who were sincere with him.
"Sorry, I don't want to go."
Following the rescue team would only add unnecessary trouble, not to mention the burden of protecting survivors. Lin Yuan had no such sense of altruism. Wasting energy on that wouldn't yield him any benefits. If he focused that energy on Shen Rong, at least he could expect a few calls of "daddy" in return. Saving those survivors? What would he get out of it? Nothing. He might even be blamed for arriving too late.
Jian Ning, seeing that Lin Yuan wasn’t going to budge, didn’t press further. She turned and was about to leave when the door to the staircase behind Lin Yuan swung open. Shen Rong rushed up, out of breath.
"Lin... Lin Yuan! There's a strange zombie climbing up!"
Shen Rong’s face was full of panic, holding a half-burnt piece of cardboard in her hand. The moment she noticed the rescue soldiers on the opposite building, her panicked expression disappeared, and she straightened up, standing a bit taller.
"A strange zombie? How strange?" Lin Yuan asked.
Shen Rong had seen her fair share of zombies, so if she called one strange, it had to be something new even to her.
"You turned down my offer to protect her, didn’t you?"
Jian Ning, who had been about to leave, stopped and turned back, carefully observing Shen Rong. Though most people looked a bit disheveled in the apocalypse, beautiful women like Shen Rong still retained their charm.
"Yeah, what else?" Lin Yuan lifted his hand, and Shen Rong, understanding his gesture, leaned her head toward him.
"If you survive, I hope you'll come to the rescue base and find me. My name is Jian Ning."
With that, Jian Ning turned and headed downstairs once more.
"Brother Lin, stay alive!" Chen Yang waved at him before following the command to leave. He had no choice but to offer a final farewell.
"These guys are really mysterious. With those helmets, who will recognize them the next time we meet?" Lin Yuan muttered. He hadn’t seen any of their faces the entire time, so he didn’t particularly look forward to any future encounters.
"Let's go. Let’s check out that strange zombie you mentioned."
After the rescue team left, Lin Yuan prepared to head downstairs to take a look at the strange zombie Shen Rong had encountered.
From the fifth floor, they descended the stairs and finally spotted the strange zombie at the second-floor landing. Lin Yuan’s life sense indicated that this zombie had the same energy signature as a level-one zombie, but it was much weaker than usual.
The strange zombie was crawling up the stairs, its body wrapped in red blood threads, with only a prominent head raised. Its limbs and torso were entangled in the crimson blanket, and the red threads twisted and writhed, acting as a replacement for its body. Behind it, a thick blood vessel trailed along the staircase, as wide as a finger, stretching down the stairs.
"I tried burning it earlier, but it wouldn’t die!" Shen Rong said from behind Lin Yuan, unable to resist another glance at the writhing zombie. The sight gave her goosebumps all over again.
"That little fire wasn’t enough to warm it up." Lin Yuan crouched down, poking the strange zombie's head with his axe. After flipping it over, he recognized it.
"Isn't this the bio-nerd from earlier?"
The bio-nerd was now nothing more than a head, growling mindlessly, with a crimson tongue extending from its mouth. As soon as the tongue emerged, Lin Yuan smashed it into the ground with one swing of his axe. Despite the blow, the zombie ignored him, still trying to bite at Shen Rong behind him. Even after taking a hit, it showed no reaction.
"Why isn't it biting you?" Shen Rong asked, puzzled by the bizarre situation.
"It's a pervy zombie. It has its sights set on you and won't easily change targets," Lin Yuan joked with a straight face. He wasn’t a scientist, so no matter how strange the zombie was, to him, it was just another source of evolution points. He brought his axe down once more.
"Sure enough, ten evolution points. Zombies born from the blood blanket start at a higher level than regular ones."
Where there was one, there had to be more. The blood blanket had devoured many survivors earlier, after all. Expanding his life sense, Lin Yuan quickly detected several similar life signatures nearby.
"We need to find a taller building to stay in. Otherwise, these zombies might crawl into bed with us while we sleep tonight."
Even though Lin Yuan wasn’t afraid, he wasn’t eager to turn into a real zombie either. With his current human body, getting infected by the virus would almost certainly lead to mutation.
- Writer
