Feng Chen’s body was immobilized for less than half a second. He immediately snapped to attention and grabbed Yan Bubu before he hit the ground.
Chu Shi and his subordinates also stopped moving, like someone had pressed pause. It was an incomparably strange sight.
Lin Fen was already in motion, his fist fiercely slamming into the chest of a subordinate.
That man flew backwards like a puppet with its strings cut. He hit the tunnel wall hard, blood spraying from his mouth as he slid down to the ground. He gasped for air before getting up.
Chu Shi and the others had already recovered by then and took a few steps backwards.
“Deacon, Yu Yuan has also arrived.” The subordinate with the weasel sounded a little scared.
“He doesn’t have that much mental power to spare. A-Dai, go and cut him off. Everyone else, keep dealing with Lin Fen.” Chu Shi bellowed, “Finish them off within ten minutes. Go!”
Feng Chen stood in the shadows in the distance with Yan Bubu in his arms. He saw A-Dai rushing towards Colonel Yu with a dagger in hand. The two of them instantly tangled. The remaining eight subordinates surrounded Major General Lin as the white crane and vulture swooped down and squabbled with the other animals.
Lin Fen’s vulture kept swooping down from the tunnel’s ceiling, using its sharp beak and claws to attack that wolf. Each time its claws struck, a wisp of black smoke would rise from the wolf.
The wolf was unusually fierce, baring its snow-white sharp teeth as it kept launching itself into the air. Black smoke rose from the vulture’s black feathers as well.
With blows being exchanged and animals hissing everywhere, the scene was unusually chaotic.
Yu Yuan wasn’t as strong as A-Dai physically. He was at a disadvantage in close combat, but ADai would always stall slightly whenever she was about to hit him, allowing Yu Yuan to strike instead.
Although there were many people surrounding Lin Fen, they would also always suddenly pause in unison for half a second, allowing Lin Fen to slip out of danger several times and even gain the upper hand.
One of the subordinates picked up a steel bar from somewhere and smashed it down, but Lin Fen didn’t even try to block. He directly swung his fist at it. As they collided, the metal bar fell to the ground, bent in the middle.
Feng Chen’s heart skipped a beat as he took this in from a distance. By his estimates, Major General Lin’s instantaneous explosive power has already exceeded 600 SJ. His rapid force was around 140 kN/s.
These values were already out of the realm of human possibility.
Yan Bubu was also very tense. Although he didn’t like Major General Lin, compared to Chu Shi, he was still rooting for him to win.
After all, although Major General Lin ate children (perhaps just dead ones?), Chu Shi tried to kill him before. He tried to kill living children.
Compared to eating dead children, going after live ones was was significantly more horrific.
A few minutes ago.
When the sound of loud gunfire came from the direction of the entrance, the people inside the passage stopped and looked back, asking each other in disbelief.
“What’s going on? That was gunfire, right? Did I hear right?”
“Yeah it was. Why is there gunfire? Did something happen at the entrance?”
“I heard that there were people shooting at Hive A when the water was rising. Maybe those people are catching up.”
……
The soldiers immediately drew their guns and became alert. A junior officer barked, “Teams 4 and 5 will follow me back. Everyone else, continue to run forward and don’t stop.”
“Understood.”
More than twenty soldiers immediately turned and ran towards the tunnel entrance. Just then, a woman’s scream suddenly came out from in front.
The scream was so sudden and shrill that it overpowered the gunfire behind them. Others terrified cries soon joined in, “Zombies, there are zombies biting people!”
The crowd scattered in all directions, revealing a small opening in the middle. There was a man crouched on the ground with his back arched. In front of him lay a woman with her legs twitching and a cloud of dark blood slowly spreading beneath her.
The man slowly raised his head, his eyes having turned pure black. A morsel of torn off flesh still dangled at the corner of his mouth.
The crowd that used to be moving forward in an orderly fashion erupted into chaos. Countless screams and cries mingled in unholy harmony.
The man proceeded to pounce on the nearest person, tearing at them like a wild beast. The bitten woman lying on the ground also got up, her throat gurgling. Half of her face was already gone, and the remaining half quickly became pale blue.
“Shoot, shoot! Shoot to kill!” The junior officer fired at the man and screamed. The tunnel entrance was the last thing on his mind right now.
The man was about to bite an old woman when a bullet penetrated his temple. He fell straight to the ground.
Yet screams also began to come from even further in front.
Some of the people were running away one moment, and them opened their mouths to reveal hideously sharp teeth and turn on those around them. One blood-soaked victim got up from the ground and staggered forward, reaching out and crying, “Save me…”
Seconds later, he too roared like a wild animal and pounced on someone else.
The emergency passage was a closed tunnel. There was nowhere to run except forward if you wanted to survive. However, the most despair-inducing thing was luckily slipping past a zombie, only for more screams to come from ahead before you even get to breathe a sigh of relief.
The heavy scent of blood filled the confined space. There were screams and wails all around, mixed with the terrified cries of children.
This emergency passage meant to save lives became hell itself.
“Keep shooting! Kill all those who have been bitten too!” The junior officer stumbled as someone running away bumped into him. He brought his gun up again and continued to shout, “Everyone, keep to either side of the passage! Stay clear of the middle–”
The junior officer’s body suddenly trembled, his words cutting off abruptly. He touched his lower back with his left hand before slowly bringing it to his eyes.
–His palm was stained with blood.
“Officer Liu, what should we do now? More zombies keep popping up.” A soldier next to him asked fearfully, “Kill one and two take its place. We can’t even kill all the bitten.”
The junior officer didn’t reply. His arm slowly dropped, the gun in his right hand falling to the ground. The very next moment, he suddenly whirled around and lunged at the soldiers behind him with bulging, furious eyes.
……
Although everything was chaotic, there was one squad of soldiers killing those ‘people’, while directing others to leave.
They who possessed superhuman strength remained calm and composed in this confined space full of blood and fear, carving out a bloody path for others to survive.
Under their command, the people who were running for their lives were no longer like headless flies. Their rampant despair quelled a bit.
Not one of them could see the quantum beast beside every member of this squad.
Lin Fen and Yu Yuan were still fighting with Chu Shi. Although they now held the upper hand, Chu Shi had numbers on his side, preventing them from finishing the battle anytime soon.
Water was about to flood in behind them and there was continuous gunfire further ahead. Lin Fen seemed calm, continuing to methodically fight, but Yu Yuan seemed a little frustrated. He started to make mistakes while exchanging blows with A-Dai, almost getting stabbed several times.
Feng Chen held Yan Bubu somewhere far away as he looked over. He was worried about the eventual flood while speculating on what was happening ahead.
The sounds of gunfire were never-ending. Either a mutant species had entered from the other side of the passage or someone had just mutated and become a zombie.
Feng Chen very much hoped the latter wasn’t the case.
They could just kill the mutant species and be done with it. Though there might be some casualties, it wouldn’t lead to a massacre. However, if someone became a zombie in this kind of closed tunnel, the consequences were simply unimaginable…
Yan Bubu wasn’t thinking that deeply. He just nervously stared at the people fighting.
When Chu Shi’s side took damage, he would sigh out of relief. If Lin Fen’s side took a hit, he would suck a sharp breath in.
Feng Chen suddenly sensed something move at the edge of his vision. He turned and saw A-Dai’s snake.
Surprisingly enough, instead of continuing to tango with the white crane, the snake quietly weaved its way along the dim tunnel ground to Yu Yuan’s blindspot.
Yan Bubu started to whisper the magic spell.
It didn’t seem to work when he tried to use it back at Medical to open the door, but his hope had rekindled with time. Just in case it worked, he repeated it under his breath like a mantra.
It felt like his magic was hit or miss at times, but overall it was quite effective. Just look at the number of times Chu Shi got hit versus the number of times Major General Lin did!
“Hide here and don’t move. I’ll be right back.” Yan Bubu was set down on the ground by Feng Chen.
He stood in the shadows without moving, watching nervously as Feng Chen sprinted towards the left front tunnel wall, holding the dagger Yan Bubu had bought for him.
Yan Bubu didn’t know what Feng Chen was going to do. His heart rose into his throat as he watched the teen get closer and closer to the fighting people.
A split second later, he realized what Feng Chen was up to.
Because Feng Chen suddenly dashed behind Colonel Yu, raised his dagger high and ruthlessly stabbed the stone floor behind the colonel.
Yan Bubu: ???
Yan Bubu was confused for a moment, but rationalized it away immediately.
His big brother was always right in everything he did. He must have a good reason for stabbing the stone floor, just as he did when he suddenly went to stab that power pole during a fight. He could never be wrong.
When A-Dai’s snake raised its head to strike at Yu Yuan from behind, Feng Chen grabbed it with one hand and brought his dagger down with the other.
Black smoke came from the area the dagger penetrated. The snake hissed and struggled. Feng Chen didn’t let it escape, stabbing again.
A-Dai, who was fighting with Yu Yuan, suddenly let out a miserable scream and staggered back holding her head. The half of her face not covered by her mask quickly paled. Even her lips went white.
How could Yu Yuan let such an opportunity go to waste? He immediately molded his mental power into vector-like projections and forcefully invaded her mental domain.
When Feng Chen looked up again, he saw that A-Dai suddenly stopped screaming in pain and was staring blankly ahead. The dagger in her hand clattered to the ground.
After Yu Yuan invaded A-Dai’s mental domain, he instantly created an illusion there, trapping her inside temporarily before swinging his dagger forward.
Chu Shi, who had just dodged Lin Fen’s attack, noticed that something was wrong. He glanced over and suddenly shouted, “A-Dai!”
A-Dai was still immersed in the illusion Yu Yuan created. She stood still, but her expression changed from bewilderment to fear and grief. She was now somewhere Chu Shi’s bellows could not reach.
Seeing that A-Dai was about to get stabbed by Yu Yuan, Chu Shi could only lunge forward and raise his metal arm to block the blow. But because of his sudden departure, one of his other subordinates was punched in the face by Lin Fen. His nose bone immediately broke into several pieces, as a handful of teeth flew out of his mouth. His face looked as flat as a pancake.
Chu Shi tumbled on the ground with A-Dai in his arms. He climbed up and loudly shouted: “Retreat!”
Some of his men had already collapsed. The wolf, scorpion and weasel were also giving off black smoke all over from being pecked by the two large birds.
Chu Shi knew very well that there was no point in continuing this fight. He would only lose more men by trying to delay the inevitable. The gate of the emergency passage couldn’t be closed anyway, and something also seemed to have happened further ahead. These people would eventually die in here, so there’s no need to engage in a wasteful battle of attrition right now.
Heeding Chu Shi’s command, the quantum beasts suddenly pounced on Lin Fen in unison. As Lin Fen fought them off, the subordinates who were still alive rushed in the direction of the tunnel entrance.
Chu Shi didn’t notice Feng Chen behind Yu Yuan, but a little boy on the side caught his eye as he rushed to the entrance with his men.
The little boy was close to the tunnel wall, standing motionless. Although he was in the shadows, Chu Shi was close enough to clearly see his face.
Chu Shi’s heart skipped a beat. The ecstasy of getting a sitting duck overwhelmed him. He immediately turned to look back, indeed spotting Feng Chen standing behind Yu Yuan.
“Catch.” Chu Shi threw A-Dai into the arms of the nearest subordinate as he went to grab Yan Bubu.
Yan Bubu was as tense as a taut bowstring the moment Chu Shi looked at him. When he saw Chu Shi empty his hands and charge at him, he immediately turned and ran in the direction of Feng Chen.
Feng Chen knew that Chu Shi was trying to get Yan Bubu to threaten him into handing over the cipher box, but he also knew that Yan Bubu could not outrun him. He wouldn’t be able to reach him in time either.
The gears in his mind turned. He removed the backpack that had the fleece blankets and lunchboxes on his back, and tossed it towards Chu Shi when the man’s fingertips were about to touch Yan Bubu’s shirt.
“Here.”
Chu Shi immediately abandoned Yan Bubu for the backpack Feng Chen tossed in front of him. Seeing that Yu Yuan was about to arrive, he rushed towards the tunnel entrance with his men without even looking back.
The mental avatars entangled with Lin Fen also vanished into thin air with a whoosh.
“Leave them be. There’s a situation in the tunnel right now.” Lin Fen halted Yu Yuan.
Yu Yuan came to a sharp stop. He just said to Feng Chen, “Quickly run, the water is about to flood in. No matter what’s up ahead, don’t stop.” With that, he darted ahead.
“Big Brother!”
Yan Bubu rushed over then, his legs a blur as he stretched out his arms. The next moment, his vision turned upside down as Feng Chen picked him up in a familiar fashion.
Feng Chen grabbed the straps of Yan Bubu’s overalls and ran with all his mights deeper into the tunnel. He knew that in less than ten minutes, this place would be completely flooded. They had to get out of the passage before then.
Gunshots continue to come from the front. Feng Chen ran faster than he ever had before, zooming past like a whirlwind. Soon, he spotted two figures also running up ahead.
“Is that Colonel Yu and the major general?” Having seen no one else on the way, Yan Bubu pointed ahead with pleasant surprise. “Look, there’s someone there.”
“I know.”
Those two were also running forward, but not as fast as Feng Chen. As the distance between them decreased, Feng Chen’s heart sank sharply.
That wasn’t Colonel Yu and Major General Lin.
From their clothing, the man on the left was an old man with only skin and bones left. One of his arms was gone from the shoulder down. Pale blue skin and rended flesh peeked out of the severed joint, along with a length of gruesomely broken bone. The old man didn’t seem to feel the slightest bit of pain, running forward swiftly.
On the right was an old woman. Her head was skewed at a strange angle, as if her neck was bent as she ran. When they were even closer, Feng Chen saw that the right side of her neck had been broken. That was why her head tilted to the left to lean on her shoulder.
They were clearly no longer living humans, but two zombies!
Yan Bubu also saw their strange appearance and almost screamed in fright. Fortunately he managed to hold back. Although Feng Chen held him in midair, he involuntarily curled up into a little ball.
Feng Chen knew that Major General Lin and Colonel Yu had just run past here. These two zombies should be trying to go after them.
Corpses also started to appear in the passage.
Some of them have been mutilated to the point of no longer resembling human beings. They were those who were bitten to death before they had time to mutate. Others had obviously mutated into zombies. Each of their hideous faces were adorned with a bullet hole still dripping black blood. Apparently they had just been killed by either of the senior officers.
The zombies running in front now were the lucky stragglers.
The two elderly zombies didn’t run too fast and weren’t particularly agile either. Feng Chen wasn’t deliberately running quietly, but neither of them noticed him and continued to blindly run forwards. It seemed that the amount of danger a zombie posed was related to their state before mutating.
There were more and more corpses coming into view, to the point where there were almost no spots to step. One could only imagine how brutal the recent slaughter here was.
Feng Chen stepped on those corpses and ran forward without thinking too much about what was under his feet. He ran for his life.
Because of the uneven surfaces, he had to work hard to keep his balance and not suddenly trip and fall.
Yet this left Yan Bubu facing down in midair, coming face to face with those corpses at close range.
Terribly maimed faces passed by one by one. He hurriedly closed his eyes in fear, his teeth clattering.
Even though there was still some distance between him and the dead, he desperately tried to tilt his head back, afraid to touch them.
Feng Chen finally caught up with those two running two zombies. There were piles of corpses on both sides of the passage. If he wanted to continue forward, he had to crawl over those corpses or go directly through the middle where the two zombies were.
Floods waited for no one. He couldn’t just stay behind them forever or he wouldn’t make it out in time. Feng Chen took a deep breath and quietly said, “I’m going to charge now. Be careful and don’t let them grab you.”
“T-they can grab people too?” Yan Bubu’s eyes snapped wide open. He stared down at the corpse glaring angrily at him.
“Not the ones on the ground. Those are down for good. I’m talking about the two in front of us.”
“Okay, got it.”
As soon as Yan Bubu’s words fell, Feng Chen charged over.
His footsteps finally caught the attention of the two zombies. They stopped running forward and turned back.
The broken neck zombie’s head actually wobbled twice due to this, hanging onto its shoulder by a thread.
Feng Chen suppressed his fear and hugged Yan Bubu to his chest as he yelled, “Get ready, I’m going to charge now!”
“Okay–”
With Yan Bubu’s loud response, Feng Chen charged forward like a shot cannonball.
The two zombies just opened their mouths to lunge when he bowled them over and continued on.
By the time the zombies regained their balance and continued to chase after them, Feng Chen and Yan Bubu had left them in the dust.
