A light drizzle fell steadily over the highway, which looked like a complete ruin. Zombies with rotting, pus-covered bodies wandered everywhere.
They clawed at the people trapped inside cars and tore into them in a frenzy. Amid the screams of terrified survivors, a slender young woman walked calmly through the chaos.
An umbrella concealed her unnaturally pale face. The zombies showed no interest in her whatsoever.
But there was always one that wasn’t very observant.
Perhaps it had been too busy chasing the people ahead, but one zombie suddenly lunged straight at Lin Buyu.
Holding the umbrella in her left hand, Lin Buyu extended her right hand and plunged it directly into the zombie’s head.
A mindless, walking corpse.
Time to put it to rest.
Bluish-green blood dripped from her fingers and splattered onto the ground.
The scene was witnessed by several people inside a military off-road vehicle behind her.
“R-Ran, Brother Ran… is that a human or a zombie?”
The man they called Brother Ran stared intently at the hand she had thrust out.
It was slender and pale, yet its movement had been swift and decisive.
She possessed human intelligence.
“An ultra-high-level zombie.”
The moment those words left his mouth, everyone inside the vehicle sucked in a breath.
How had they ended up encountering an ultra-high-level zombie?
The highway was packed with zombies. They had already been fighting for an entire day, and their supernatural abilities were nearly exhausted.
If they encountered an ultra-high-level zombie now, there was only one possible outcome—
Death.
Fortunately, their vehicle was sturdy enough that the zombies couldn’t break through it.
“What do we do now?” someone asked.
Jiang Ran’s dark eyes were as deep as an abyss. After taking one last look at the ultra-high-level zombie, he turned the steering wheel and said,
“Run.”
With their abilities nearly depleted, they could still deal with ordinary zombies. But against an ultra-high-level zombie, all they could do was escape.
And that zombie might not even be merely an ultra-high-level one.
It could be something even more terrifying—
An ultra-high-risk zombie.
The moment Jiang Ran started the vehicle, the engine attracted the attention of countless zombies.
In an instant, hordes of zombies charged after them.
They were packed so tightly together that they crawled over one another, climbing forward like a grotesque game of human—or rather, zombie—pyramid.
Lin Buyu glanced at them.
Oh.
That was probably the only group of living humans with a chance of escaping.
Using the last bit of mental power she had left, she controlled the horde of zombies chasing after them.
Because her crystal core had been taken away, she could only control the zombies for a few dozen seconds.
But those few dozen seconds were enough to give Jiang Ran and the others a chance to escape.
Jiang Ran was busy driving and didn’t look behind him, but the people inside the vehicle kept watching the situation behind them.
One of them said curiously,
“What happened? Why did all those zombies suddenly stop for so long?”
Jiang Ran’s mind immediately flashed back to the zombie in dirty clothes—the one that had casually punched its hand straight through a zombie’s head.
Lin Buyu watched as the vehicle successfully escaped.
She tilted her head and forced her stiff lips into a smile.
Even as a zombie, she really was still a kind-hearted one.
This was Lin Buyu’s second day since transmigrating into the novel.
She had somehow ended up inside an apocalyptic novel and had become a powerful Zombie King with extraordinary mental abilities.
But—
That had all been in the past.
Just yesterday, she had been replaced as the Zombie King by another zombie.
This was the world one year after the apocalypse began.
The zombies that had evolved to an extremely advanced level looked completely indistinguishable from ordinary humans, except for their excessively pale complexions.
In this apocalyptic world, all supernatural abilities and mental powers were tied to the crystal cores inside their brains.
For ordinary zombies, once their crystal core was removed, they would die without exception.
But the original owner of this body was different.
The person who had replaced her as the new Zombie King was the original owner’s younger stepsister.
Using a scheme, she had tricked the original owner into surrendering the crystal core inside her head and then chopped off her head.
However, the original owner’s stepsister couldn’t completely absorb her crystal core.
When Lin Buyu transmigrated into this world, her head and body had already been separated.
With the system’s help, she had managed to reconnect her head to her body. A bluish-green scar remained around her neck, because zombies had blue-green blood.
“Phew.”
Lin Buyu let out a long sigh.
Life was always full of unexpected surprises.
Fortunately, she had once been the captain of a special operations unit. Her ability to accept strange situations was still pretty good.
Ever since she transmigrated, that voice in her head had been incessantly going,
“Beep, beep, beep…”
In short, someone from the so-called Space-Time Bureau had made a deal with her.
As long as she agreed to save this world, they would awaken her younger brother, who was in a vegetative state, in her original world.
She had agreed.
The system then explained her mission.
After listening to everything…
“So, all I have to do is eliminate Jiang Ran and all the future villains under his command, and then this world won’t collapse, right?”
The system replied in a faint voice,
“Jiang Ran’s power is far too great. If he discovers that you’re targeting him and destroys the world ahead of schedule, you’ll only end up making things worse. The Space-Time Bureau’s recommendation is for you to eliminate his subordinates and then influence Jiang Ran, so that he won’t eventually reach the ending where he destroys the world.”
Lin Buyu understood.
A top-tier boss.
Of course he had to be handled differently.
However, if she wanted to influence him, she first had to gain his trust.
But how was she supposed to gain the trust of the big boss in her current condition?
Wasn’t it common knowledge that Jiang Ran absolutely hated zombies?
Although she looked somewhat like a normal human now, her corpse-pale complexion and bulging blue veins would definitely give her away.
Anyone could tell that she was an extremely evolved zombie.
The system communicated with her through her mind, so it naturally knew exactly what she was thinking.
“Don’t worry. Since we chose you, we’ll naturally provide you with assistance. All you need to do is consume more zombie crystal cores. Your complexion and appearance will gradually become indistinguishable from those of a normal human.”
Okay.
So all she had to do was kill zombies.
She could do that.
She had read plenty of apocalypse novels. She’d heard that zombies moved slowly and stiffly, practically like walking corpses.
Was she really supposed to be afraid of those stiff corpses?
After finishing its explanation, the system immediately entered sleep mode.
Unless something related to the core plot occurred, it absolutely refused to come out.
Lin Buyu asked it several more questions.
When she received no response, she almost wanted to spit in the system’s face.
It hadn’t even told her where to find Jiang Ran!
Still, her top priority now was to hurry up, kill zombies, and consume their crystal cores.
Even she couldn’t stand looking at this filthy appearance of hers anymore.
In this world, zombies had no concept of day or night. They didn’t need to sleep.
As long as they sensed the presence of humans, they would become restless.
Lin Buyu swung a stick as she slaughtered zombies along the highway.
Excitedly, she pried open their heads, only to find—
Nothing.
Lin Buyu stared at the empty skull in disbelief.
There wasn’t even a crystal core.
What useless pieces of trash!
Disappointed, she tossed the zombie’s head aside.
Then she tried a second one.
Then a third.
All useless zombies.
Furious, she kicked the guardrail beside her.
Bang!
The guardrail was sent flying.
Lin Buyu froze.
Huh?
This zombie body had quite a bit of strength.
After fighting zombies until she was exhausted, she eventually decided to lie down right there on the highway and rest.
And once she lay down—
She stayed there for three whole days.
Three days later, a thunderous explosion suddenly sounded in the distance.
“BOOM!”
Lin Buyu immediately sat up and looked toward the horizon.
That’s when she discovered that this zombie’s eyesight was excellent too.
The building was several kilometers away, yet she could see the person standing clearly on its rooftop.
The person raised one hand toward the ground, lightning crackling wildly from his palm.
He also seemed exceptionally handsome.
Dressed entirely in black, he had a sharp, energetic air about him.
An ability user.
Lin Buyu immediately became interested.
If an ability user had appeared there, there were bound to be plenty of high-level zombies nearby.
And high-level zombies had crystal cores.
Hahaha!
She was going to make a fortune!
(The female lead will spend the first few chapters lying low. She’ll become incredibly powerful later on.)