Wang Moning stared in shock as more than a dozen people simply swung themselves down.
The crystal hunters wore black tactical masks that revealed only their sharp, piercing eyes. Their combat uniforms clung tightly to their lean, agile bodies.
As they descended, the sounds of crashing and banging never stopped.
Inside the building, the zombies had sensed the people outside through the glass. Some smashed through windows, while others burst out from balconies and lunged toward them.
The crystal hunters were well prepared. Gripping their ropes, they used the momentum of their swings to kick the airborne zombies away in midair.
But some zombies fell from above, and one even dropped directly toward Song Xi.
Wang Moning’s heart jolted. She shouted, “Captain! Watch your head!”
Song Xi seemed to have eyes on top of her head. She tightened her core and, without any foothold beneath her, flipped her body a full 180 degrees in midair. From below, she kicked upward at the zombie falling from above, then used the force to swing herself upside down toward the left.
At the same time, she even turned toward Wang Moning on the rooftop and tapped her chest with her right hand, signaling that she was fine.
It was too far away and already getting dark, and Song Xi was wearing a mask, so Wang Moning couldn’t see her expression.
But somehow, she felt that Song Xi looked completely at ease.
Wang Moning watched several ferocious zombies continue dropping past her, right beside her: “……”
She had already thought the crystal hunters were impressive enough.
When Song Xi had first taken her along, using a single rope to climb from one skyscraper rooftop to another like a spider, Wang Moning had already thought that was the limit.
Later, trembling with fear, she had tried copying the others and climbing ropes herself, and had even gained a little confidence.
But now she realized that what she had seen before—jumping between rooftops and climbing around—was nothing more than child’s play compared to simply “jumping off a building.”
Sure enough… are they really aliens?
Even though they looked exactly the same on the outside, their strength, speed, and nearly reckless fearlessness completely surpassed her.
—Bang! Bang! Bang!
The zombies that fell from the high-rise crashed onto the ground, smashing some of the zombies below in the process.
Everything happened quickly. In just about two minutes, the crystal hunters had already swung themselves to the front-left side of the trapped vehicles.
The people inside the cars were pleasantly surprised to discover that, thanks to their appearance, a large number of zombies that had originally surrounded the vehicles were drawn toward the front.
But when they looked at the number of crystal hunters—and then at the dense, overwhelming swarm of zombies—their hearts tightened again.
So many zombies… could they really handle them?
Song Xi and the others didn’t even have the concept of “can we win this.” Their only considerations were “how many can we kill, and how long can we hold out.”
She directly opened her bag and began throwing Molotov cocktails downward.
After most of the bottles had been thrown, flames rose among the zombies. The heat even forced her to relocate. She fired her grappling rope toward another window frame and swung over.
Because they were in the middle of battle, there was no time to carefully search for secure footholds. Song Xi fell twice, and each time, Wang Moning’s heart nearly stopped.
That was a straight drop from the sky into a horde of zombies!
But every time, Song Xi was able to control her muscles with astonishing precision. Her feet would land on a zombie’s head, and she would immediately grab onto a seemingly flat wall that looked as though there was nowhere to grip, then climb back up at high speed.
The other crystal hunters moved in similar ways. To anyone watching, it looked as though they were constantly dancing on the edge of death—yet somehow, every single time, they narrowly avoided disaster.
Their bodies were so flexible they almost surpassed cats.
Aside from throwing Molotov cocktails everywhere, the crystal hunters also coordinated with one another on both sides of the street. Using grappling hooks, they latched onto nearby vehicles, and with five people pulling together, they dragged an entire car over.
Although the people of Blue Sea looked like the type to charge headfirst into battle, they actually weren’t.
The five crystal hunters continued like this, pulling one vehicle after another over and blocking both sides of the street, effectively sealing the entire road.
Although scattered zombies still managed to squeeze through the gaps here and there, at the very least, they no longer had to worry about an endless, unkillable tide of zombies pouring into the area.
Next, all the crystal hunters found stable footholds, put down their large backpacks, took out firearms, quickly assembled them with practiced ease, and opened heavy fire directly into the zombie horde.
Song Xi’s exploration team was no exception.
Wang Moning watched the teammates she had spent half a month with now firing their weapons with fierce, relentless precision: “……”
What?!
So you’ve all been carrying guns this entire time?!
Over the past half month, how many times had they been on the verge of death? How many times had they been surrounded by zombies? She had always thought everyone had only barely survived through sheer desperation.
And now they were pulling out guns.
Not just ordinary guns, either—ones she didn’t recognize, capable of firing multiple rounds at once with terrifying power.
Wang Moning could only tell herself that perhaps they had been afraid the gunfire would attract even more zombies.
After all, hadn’t they blocked off the road before they opened fire?
The battle continued into the night.
When it finally ended, the survivors trapped inside the vehicles let out a breath of relief. Looking at the entire street covered in zombie corpses, they felt both excited and overwhelmingly grateful.
Song Xi used grappling hooks to climb back up the high-rise step by step and brought the translator, Wang Moning, back down.
“Are you with the government?”
“You have guns! Guns that still work!”
“You must be government troops, right?! You’re still here! That’s great!! Can we go with you to an official base? We’ll do any kind of work!”
Six people climbed out of the vehicle—four men and two women.
All of them looked dazed. Their bodies were covered in dried blood and unknown grime. Their eyes were numb, yet filled with pain. They immediately dropped to their knees in front of the crystal hunters, desperately kowtowing and begging to be taken with them. They rambled about every kind of work they could do, and among those desperate offers were even mentions of sex work, regardless of gender.
Wang Moning felt deeply uncomfortable watching them.
Although she had also lived through dark times, she had spent most of that period hiding inside a storage room. Aside from the constant fear that her food and water would eventually run out, and the psychological torment of remaining beside the rotting corpses of her classmates, she hadn’t really experienced much of what the apocalypse truly meant.
In fact, Wang Moning didn’t even know why the apocalypse had happened.
All she knew was that her classmates had suddenly turned into zombies, phone lines had suddenly stopped working, there had been no military rescue, and no survivor bases had appeared.
When she was on the verge of starving to death, she had been rescued by aliens—and ever since then, she had lived under the protection of Song Xi’s group.
She had been told that she was there to serve as a translator, but because their route likely took them across the rooftops of high-rise buildings, she hadn’t encountered another survivor in half a month.
She had always wanted to meet other survivors, but she had never imagined they would be in a state like this.
She didn’t know what to say and couldn’t help but look back at Song Xi.
Song Xi stood with the other crystal hunters. Their masks were still on, revealing only calm eyes.
They looked as though they were waiting for her to communicate with the locals.
Wang Moning had no choice but to speak on her own.
“Please get up. We are not an official military unit. We are… a private armed group.”
Hearing that they were private, the group became even more unwilling to stand up.
“Please take us with you!”
“I’ll be obedient!”
“Right, right! We eat very little and can do lots of work! Just give us a bite of food!”
Wang Moning realized that telling them to stand up was useless. They simply couldn’t hear her anymore—they were completely consumed by pleading.
It wasn’t coercion or anything of the sort. Rather, it was as though they had realized Wang Moning was approachable and were clinging to her as their final lifeline.
The only good news was that she caught a crucial piece of information in one of the women’s pleas.
“We really don’t want to go back there anymore. They don’t treat us like human beings at all. It’s one thing if we don’t get enough food—we’re beaten every day and forced to lure zombies. Please, take me with you. I can do a lot of work! If you can’t take me with you, then you don’t even have to—just drop me off in another city. Anywhere is fine, as long as it’s not here!”
Wang Moning’s expression sharpened. She stepped forward and pulled the woman to her feet.
“Explain clearly. What place are you talking about? Where is it?”
The woman slowly stood up, glancing cautiously at Wang Moning, then at the crystal hunters’ equipment, before speaking carefully.
“You… you’re from outside, aren’t you?”
Wang Moning noticed her hesitation.
“Yes. We came from outside. What’s going on with Qianli City? Why can’t we find a single survivor?”
The woman lowered her voice.
“All the survivors around here are in that city that suddenly appeared. We barely managed to escape from there.”
So that must be the city their captain was looking for.
Wang Moning took a deep breath. Only now did it finally feel real to her—there truly was such a city.
At that moment, Cheng Qisheng, who had been in the middle of working, picked up on the keyword.
She immediately shifted part of her attention toward the crystal hunters’ side.
According to the woman, in her family’s remote mountain village, when the zombie outbreak first began, many people had survived because the population was small, there were wild animals in the mountains, and the village was already surrounded by fences. With everyone cooperating, they managed to survive.
They became self-sufficient, reinforced the fences, and lived by farming and hunting.
But a month ago, a group of blue-skinned aliens attacked their village, captured them, and brought them to a city that had suddenly appeared in a nearby town. Everyone there was turned into slaves.
There were many slaves in that city, but not all of them came from this world. Some had rabbit ears, some had horns on their foreheads. No one could understand each other’s languages, and there was no time to learn—everyone was constantly forced to work themselves to the bone, and some were even sent outside to cut themselves and use their blood to lure zombies.
“We originally had more than a hundred people. After only one month, just six of us are still alive.”
The woman didn’t cry.
She simply said it in a numb voice.
“There are also people from Qianli City in that city. Someone said that on the night the zombie outbreak began, all military personnel simultaneously turned into zombies, and all guns, weapons, and technological devices stopped working at the same time. It was as though… as though the heavens themselves wanted to destroy us.”
“Even with too many zombies and too few humans—and no firearms—that was already hard enough. And now there’s even an alien city?!”
Wang Moning stood there, frozen.
She had always believed that the military must have established some kind of survivor base somewhere—perhaps farther away for safety, maybe deep in the desert or somewhere similar.
And once the military recovered, civilization would surely be rebuilt.
But now… was she hearing that the very first institution to disappear after the apocalypse had been the military?
***
Cheng Qisheng slowly removed her hand from the mouse.
A zombie outbreak could still be explained as a viral crisis.
But the entire military becoming infected, while all local firearms and advanced weapons simultaneously became unusable?
That was simply absurd.
She immediately contacted Coriander Safe City. Although this guy was only Tier 1 and wasn’t very strong, he was extremely good at making connections and was very well-informed. He might know some inside information.
Sure enough, Coriander replied quickly.
[Yes, yes. Worlds on the verge of destruction do have this kind of trait—they tend to eliminate their strongest forces first. But no one knows where that trait comes from. Some say it’s more like a kind of “world-ending rule.”]
[Actually, this world is relatively lucky. In disasters like this, although all military forces are wiped out, at least some people survive. The zombies aren’t truly invincible either. They might even make it through this disaster and survive for another generation or two before the world finally ends.]
[Boss, let me tell you, worlds with viruses or natural disasters are actually on the better side. There are some unlucky ones where a black hole simply appears beside the planet and swallows both the planet and everyone on it—no chance of survival at all. Now that is real bad luck.]
Cheng Qisheng, one of those “unlucky people” whose planet had been swallowed by a black hole: “……”