Chapter Thirty-Two: Surrounded by the Tide of Corpses

In front of the car, Old Four licked his lips, drool ceaselessly dripping from his canine mouth. He looked as if he’d just digested something or… perhaps he simply hadn’t eaten his fill? I watched, eyes wide open, as the grinning corpse monster charged toward us, brimming with murderous intent. In the next instant, it would surely leap onto the car, and I’d have no choice but to engage it in a desperate struggle.

Yet, in a way I never expected, Old Four leapt from the car and with a single motion opened his massive maw, swallowing the thing whole. It was so clean, so swift, it defied belief—his head was only so big, yet when he opened his jaws, he could devour a grown man in one gulp.

I shuddered, recalling how he’d lain at my bedside that night, drooling as he watched me. Good heavens, this creature was a monster! I tiptoed out of the car and approached Old Four, eyeing his 24-karat titanium alloy dog eyes, which now glowed with an eerie red light. By rights, he should have been a variant, but he didn’t seem quite like one.

All the variants shared a common trait: their bodies would grow enormous. This fellow, though, only had an abnormally large mouth—nothing else about him seemed out of the ordinary. Could he be a variant among variants?

When Old Four saw me, the red glow in his eyes vanished at once. He affectionately nuzzled my pant leg, and I tentatively reached down to rub his head. Thankfully, he didn’t resist. He was still the dog I knew.

“You really surprised me,” I said with a wry smile, stroking his fur. “With strength like yours, why do you stick by my side? No wonder you’ve been wandering the city alone for so long without trouble. Turns out, you’re the real hidden boss.” Old Four gave a couple of soft grunts in response.

I suspected he was trying to say something, but I truly couldn’t understand dog language. Still, he seemed to understand me—not just a wild guess, but something I’d noticed in the short day we’d spent together. Whenever I spoke, he always reacted, whether with a grunt or a bark.

I brought Old Four back into the car and reported to Huo Bing, saying that the enhanced corpse monster had been dealt with. There was a long silence on the other end of the radio.

“Huo Bing? Let’s go.”

“Ah? Oh, all right.”

We set out again in two vehicles. Thankfully, this time, no more corpse monsters pursued us. With no further incident, we reached the outskirts of ZM City.

Once inside the city, there were no signs of recent vehicle tracks. Shen Dong’s team had left twenty or thirty minutes before us; at the same speed, it would be difficult to catch up.

“What now, Brother Cao?” Huo Bing’s voice came through once more. Sitting in the car, I gazed at the moonlit, shadowy road ahead. It was clear that searching for traces of Shen Dong now was futile.

ZM City was a proper city, after all. Wandering around like a headless chicken, not to mention whether we’d find Shen Dong, we might well get ourselves killed.

Looking at the city now, I felt an increasing sense of unease—as if the entire city was a giant web. Under the moonlight, all the corpse monsters had gained the ability to run and climb, and that was only low-level monsters. If we ran into something more advanced, there was no guarantee we’d survive. No matter how formidable Old Four was, he was still just a dog—he could eat one, but could he eat them all? If we were truly surrounded, even he would be in trouble.

“In the moonlight, with just the two of us, I say we don’t enter the city. Let’s go to the munitions depot in the outskirts I mentioned before. Stay close behind my car. We’ll take the long way around and avoid the city center,” I advised Huo Bing over the radio, then started the engine and turned off the main road.

“Got it.”

My original plan had been to visit the munitions depot last. The darkness made visibility poor, but monsters were relatively easier to handle. Searching for a pharmacy in the city to help Shen Dong would not have posed much difficulty.

But things had changed. To recklessly enter the city—by foot or by car—was to court disaster. After nearly being killed by a nightmare creature last time, I had no desire to experience mutation or being devoured to the bone ever again.

Relying on memories from before, I led Huo Bing’s vehicle as we sped along, one after the other. With Old Four serving as a living early warning system, I only had to steer away from wherever he grunted a warning—he was almost too useful. If he ever found out I was using him as a radar, he might just bite me.

According to my recollections, the munitions depot was in Manstone Town, within ZM City’s outskirts, and further up into the hills. The drive from the city to the town would take nearly an hour, and the journey was anything but simple.

“Snort… snort…”

“Woof…”

Old Four paced restlessly in the passenger seat, whining softly and staring intently ahead with round eyes. I followed his gaze and saw the approaching corpse horde; my fingers trembled slightly on the wheel. This narrow road was the only route out of the suburbs, but now the entire road was choked with corpse monsters.

From what I could see, there were at least several hundred, scattered densely across the center of the road.

“Huo Bing, stop the car—make no noise,” I whispered into the radio. She was behind me and surely couldn’t see what lay ahead.

“Brother Cao… there’s a problem… a lot of corpse monsters are coming up behind my car. They haven’t noticed us yet—they’re just wandering.”

Hearing her reply, a chill ran through my mind. We were on the verge of being caught in a pincer attack. Thank goodness the horde hadn’t sensed us yet—otherwise, we’d be done for.

I exhaled slowly. The corpse horde ahead was only thirty or forty meters away, just close enough for me to see them in the moonlight. Without that, not even my advanced eyesight would have caught anything further than twenty meters.

“How far behind are they?” I asked.

“Looks like less than fifty meters.”

I didn’t answer immediately. The situation was dire: waiting here might mean death, but making any noise would bring the horde upon us.

Damn it! We had to reach the munitions depot—if the cars stalled here, the entire journey would be for nothing, and turning back might be impossible.

“Huo Bing, activate your vehicle’s weapon systems. We’re going to break through! Remember, do not use the roof-mounted automatic guns,” I said urgently into the radio, sweat running down my forehead.

The horde was about to reach us. Once they got closer, they’d see us for sure. Low-level monsters had poor vision compared to humans, but close enough, they could see perfectly well.

As for the roof guns, their noise would travel too far, and who knew what else it might attract.

I pressed the scanner button and the system immediately responded.

“Retina scan in progress… please wait…”

“Scan complete… Authorized user: Cao Fusheng.”

“Activating all onboard weapon systems except roof-mounted guns.”

“Lateral spinning blades activated…”

“Body electrical grid activated…”

“Front-end obstacle pusher activated…”