Chapter 118

Chapter 118: Rescue – The Door of Rebirth in the Apocalypse

The endless horde of zombies surged like a tide, filling the entire street. Their rotting faces with gray, lifeless eyes stared straight ahead. Over a dozen wind blades swept through, cutting down the zombies like a scythe through wheat, their heads rolling off their necks. But as soon as one wave was killed, another stepped over the corpses and continued forward, driven solely by their instinct to feed. It seemed like an endless cycle.

“If this keeps up, our special abilities will run out sooner or later,” Zhuang Chen muttered, swallowing a crystal core to replenish her energy. Her usually vibrant face now showed a rare trace of exhaustion. Her red hair, tied back, dripped with water, and her body was covered in zombie blood and brain matter, making her look quite disheveled. Beside her, the wind howled as she stood at the center of a hurricane, conjuring dozens of wind blades every second, slicing through the rain and cutting into the zombie horde.

At the same time, her energy pool was depleting at an alarming rate. The crystal core she had just swallowed couldn’t keep up with the speed of her energy consumption.

“It’s been sixteen hours since last night! Why hasn’t rescue arrived yet?” Zhuang Chen wiped the rain from her face, her voice filled with frustration.

“Maybe they’re looking for us too,” Yi Shaoqing said, soaked to the bone, his lips blue from the cold. He leaned against a wall, biting one end of a bandage as he wrapped his injured arm. He let out a muffled groan as he tightened the bandage, his face paling further. His right arm was covered in blood, and next to him was a box, a syringe, and an empty vial. He had just injected himself with Vaccine No. 01, which could kill the initial zombie virus if administered within half an hour of infection.

Director Zhong’s information was wrong. The vaccine had actually been developed, but it could only combat the virus from ordinary zombies. If it was an evolved zombie, there was no hope.

Picking up the box, Yi Shaoqing glanced at the arrow he had drawn on the wall with a piece of limestone he had found earlier. He cursed his luck—everyone in the team had evolved special abilities except him, and now he felt like a burden. It was frustrating.

As he backed away with the box, he said, “Zhuang Chen, if we really can’t escape later, don’t worry about me. Take this box back. It’s not as important as my life, but you’ll be faster without me. Just take the box and run.”

Zhuang Chen’s veins bulged in anger as she continued to control the wind blades, blocking the zombie horde. “Shut the hell up! Can you just stop talking?!”

Yi Shaoqing wanted to say more but suddenly let out a bitter laugh. “Zhuang Chen, don’t call me a pessimist, but it looks like we’re going to be a pair of doomed lovers.” He looked toward the other end of the street, where at least a dozen zombies were approaching. Normally, that would be manageable, but after a whole night of running, they were exhausted. Zhuang Chen followed his gaze and her face immediately changed.

“Upstairs!” Zhuang Chen shouted.

Yi Shaoqing quickly grabbed the box and ran toward the staircase next to the internet café. Zhuang Chen unleashed one last wave of wind blades before following him.

The zombies from both ends of the street converged and chased after them.

Their footsteps clanged loudly on the metal staircase. As Zhuang Chen ran up, she reached into her pocket for more crystal cores, only to find it empty. Her heart sank—she was out of cores!

The staircase behind them clanged as zombies pursued. A small blade popped out from her armored glove, and Zhuang Chen spun around, her ponytail whipping through the air like a red streak. She plunged the blade into the skull of an evolved zombie and kicked its chest with all her might, sending it and the zombies behind it tumbling down the stairs, temporarily blocking their advance.

The building was only five stories tall, and the external metal staircase only went up to the third floor. Yi Shaoqing kicked open the door to the third floor and rushed in with the box, followed closely by Zhuang Chen. Just as she was about to close the door, two evolved zombies lunged at it, their hands gripping the door, preventing her from shutting it.

“Help!” Zhuang Chen yelled at Yi Shaoqing in frustration.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Yi Shaoqing set the box down and rushed over, pulling out a retractable knife from his thigh and slicing off the hands gripping the door.

Zhuang Chen slammed the door shut and leaned her back against it, shouting at Yi Shaoqing, “Come here!” The door shook violently as zombies pounded on it, causing Zhuang Chen’s entire body to tremble.

Yi Shaoqing hurried over to help hold the door.

“Hold it!” Zhuang Chen shouted, then dashed to a nearby room. As soon as she opened the door, a zombie roared and lunged at her. She drove her knife into its throat and yanked it sideways, leaving the zombie with only half a neck and a dangling head.

Zhuang Chen struggled to drag a long table from the room and quickly pushed it toward the door.

“Careful, careful, careful!” Yi Shaoqing panicked, jumping aside as the table narrowly missed his toes and slammed into the door.

“Go!” Zhuang Chen grabbed the box and yanked Yi Shaoqing’s hand, pulling him toward the stairs.

Yi Shaoqing winced as the bite wound on his arm tore open, but he gritted his teeth and followed Zhuang Chen upstairs.

When they reached the fifth floor, Zhuang Chen kicked open a door, sending a zombie crashing into the wall. Yi Shaoqing swung his knife, cutting off half of its head, while Zhuang Chen kicked another female zombie, snapping its neck. She rushed to the window and immediately cursed, “Damn it! These goddamn security bars!”

Her energy was still recovering, and if it ran out completely, she would lose consciousness. In his current state, Yi Shaoqing couldn’t possibly carry her out of here if she passed out. But if he were alone…

Yi Shaoqing noticed the look in Zhuang Chen’s eyes and immediately understood what she was thinking. “I’ll check if there’s another exit!” he said, rushing out of the room before she could say anything.

Meanwhile, Gu Ning’s team had entered another street less than 500 meters from the building. They had been following the marks left by Yi Shaoqing and Zhuang Chen but lost track after a kilometer.

Zhang Xiaobai zapped a zombie that charged out of a nearby shop with a bolt of lightning. “We’ve been searching for almost two hours. Did they really make it back to the base?”

“Unlikely,” Third Brother said. “This is the most densely populated zombie area. Even if the plane was full of ability users, they would have taken heavy losses fighting that mutated zombie. Plus, it’s been so long, their energy must be nearly depleted. The chances of escaping this area are slim. And the marks they left point this way.”

Method chimed in, “What if those marks weren’t left by them? Maybe it’s another survivor in need of rescue.”

“No, it has to be them,” Gu Ning said with certainty. She had a strong intuition, and it had saved her from death many times before.

Third Brother wasn’t sure where Gu Ning’s confidence came from, but he turned to Xiang Xu. “We’ll have to rely on Xiang Xu now.”

Xiang Xu’s face was expressionless, her eyes glazed over—a sign that she was using her spiritual power to search.

“Found them!” Xiang Xu’s eyes suddenly lit up, and she pointed in a direction. “Over there!”

“Let’s go!” Gu Ning didn’t hesitate, gripping her knife and running in the direction Xiang Xu pointed.

“Move, move, move!” Third Brother urged, and the rest of the team quickly followed Gu Ning, who seemed unusually urgent.

“There’s a mark here!” Cheng Ming called out.

Gu Ning’s heart raced as she saw the mark on the wall. The pile of zombie corpses on the ground confirmed that Yi Shaoqing and Zhuang Chen had passed through here.

Gao Yue, carrying a medical kit, crouched to examine the neatly severed necks of the zombies. “The wounds are clean, likely caused by wind blades.”

Third Brother smiled. “It’s them!”

The group moved forward, and after less than 200 meters, Huang Mengyao shouted, “So many zombies!” Her hand was simply bandaged with a wooden splint, and she had firmly refused Gu Ning’s offer to heal it with her ability, saying it didn’t affect her power usage.

The others saw the massive horde of zombies ahead, crowding around the metal staircase next to the internet café. There were at least six or seven hundred, including many evolved zombies. The door at the top of the staircase had been broken down.

At that moment, Xiang Xu spoke again, “I ‘see’ them! They’re upstairs, in a room on the fifth floor! Zombies are banging on the door! I can’t sense any energy fluctuations!”

Before Xiang Xu could finish, Gu Ning was already charging toward the zombie horde with her knife in hand.

The zombies at the back of the horde caught the scent of the newcomers and immediately turned to attack.

Gu Ning’s energy surged within her, roaring with fury.

Vines burst from the ground on either side of her, growing rapidly and lashing out at the fastest evolved zombies. The vines, as thick as a forearm but tapering to needle-like points, pierced through the skulls of the charging zombies, impaling them one after another. The vines skewered four zombies in a row, like meat on a skewer, before yanking back, causing the zombies to collapse.

In the blink of an eye, Gu Ning’s vines had taken out the first three or four dozen zombies. Meanwhile, Gu Ning herself charged into the horde, her knife moving like a living thing in her hands. Two cold arcs of light cut through the rain, leaving a trail of death in her wake. Every zombie in her path fell, and she carved a bloody path through the dense horde.

The rest of the team was only a step behind. Method rushed to Gu Ning’s back, cutting down a zombie that tried to attack her from behind. “Gu Ning, I’ve got your back!”

Zhang Xiaobai, usually the strongest attacker, was hindered by the rain. His powerful abilities were too risky to use in such conditions, so he resorted to using his knife like Gu Ning. It felt awkward at first, but after a few kills, he got the hang of it.

Cheng Ming stood beside Xiang Xu and Gao Yue, sending wind blades ahead of Gu Ning to clear the path.

Xiang Xu was also on high alert, her spiritual power covering the entire area, ready to act at any moment.

With the full support of her team, Gu Ning fought her way up the staircase using only her two knives.

Meanwhile, Yi Shaoqing and Zhuang Chen, still unaware of the rescue team below, were trapped in the room on the fifth floor. The door was being pounded by zombies, and the once-sturdy lock now looked like it could give way at any moment.

Zhuang Chen glanced at Yi Shaoqing’s pale face and said, “We’re out of time.”

She yanked the wet bedsheet off the bed and cut it into strips, tying them together. It wasn’t long enough to reach from the fifth floor to the ground, so she grabbed some clothes from the wardrobe, choosing the sturdiest ones and quickly tying them to the sheet. “Yi Shaoqing, you have to survive this. I have to admit, you’re a genius. Given more time, you could develop an even more powerful vaccine.” She smiled. “Saving the world will be up to you.”

As Yi Shaoqing moved to hug and kiss her, she pushed him away. “Damn it! Now’s not the time for that!” Yi Shaoqing was stunned—this wasn’t how it happened in the movies!

Zhuang Chen worked quickly, tying the makeshift rope to the windowsill. “Yi Shaoqing, if this doesn’t hold and you fall halfway, don’t blame me.” She tugged on it. “Seems sturdy enough.”

Outside, the zombies continued to pound on the door like a death knell.

Without wasting any more time, Zhuang Chen mustered the last of her energy. The wind howled, and the seemingly sturdy security bars were instantly torn apart.

The exhaustion from depleting her energy was overwhelming, and Zhuang Chen could barely stand. She gripped the windowsill and shouted at Yi Shaoqing, “Go!” She held her knife tightly, ready to plunge it into her own heart if the zombies broke in.

Yi Shaoqing had already strapped the box to his back. Instead of climbing out the window, he grabbed Zhuang Chen’s hand and pulled her onto his back. Before she could react, he tied her securely to him. “If we fall halfway, maybe having you as a cushion will save me.”

Zhuang Chen wanted to curse but couldn’t. She let out a bitter laugh and stopped struggling, resting her head on Yi Shaoqing’s broad shoulders. Fine, if they were going to die, they’d die together. Arguing in the afterlife didn’t sound so bad.

Yi Shaoqing made sure Zhuang Chen was securely tied to his back and gave her a little shake to test the bindings. Just as he was about to climb out the window, the door finally gave way.

With a loud crash, the door burst open, and the zombies surged into the room.

Both Zhuang Chen and Yi Shaoqing’s faces turned pale.

The room was small, and the zombies were quickly upon them. Yi Shaoqing kicked one with all his strength, sending it and a few others tumbling back.

He scrambled to climb out the window, but with the box on his waist and Zhuang Chen on his back, he couldn’t move freely. Before he could get out, a zombie grabbed him. Panicking, Zhuang Chen mustered the last of her strength and drove her knife into the zombie’s forehead. Yi Shaoqing kicked the corpse away, but with so many zombies, there was no way they could fight them all off. The exit was right there, but they couldn’t reach it.

Zhuang Chen’s voice was weak but calm, as if she wasn’t facing certain death. “I’m out of strength. When the time comes, kill me first, then yourself.”

Yi Shaoqing fought off two zombies at once, choking one with one hand and stabbing the other with his knife. He twisted the blade and yanked it sideways, severing the zombie’s head. His expression was grim, almost resigned, but his voice was light, as if he were bantering with Zhuang Chen. “Why are you always thinking about dying? Maybe rescue will come out of nowhere!”

Zhuang Chen smiled weakly, too exhausted to lift her arm. She closed her eyes, waiting for the cold blade to end her life. The sounds of zombie growls, fighting, and Yi Shaoqing’s chatter faded away.

After what felt like an eternity, the world fell silent.

She couldn’t even feel Yi Shaoqing moving.

Curious, Zhuang Chen opened her eyes. Instead of the rotting faces of zombies, she saw them all lying at the feet of a girl. The girl had golden hair plastered to her head, holding two knives covered in zombie gore. Her face was streaked with rain and what might have been brain matter, but her eyes—usually cold and distant—were now filled with intense emotion and relief.

It took Zhuang Chen a moment to recognize the face, and even longer to find her voice. “Gu Ning…?”

The girl’s tense face broke into a relieved smile, and she nodded gently. “It’s me.”