At the critical moment, a sharp wooden spike appeared out of thin air, traversing through the air with a pfft to cleanly pierce the zombie’s head. The zombie’s movement froze, and it slumped dead onto the ground.
Pei Huaiye didn’t even turn his head, as if he had merely swatted away a fly.
“Th-Thank you, benefactor,” Xiao Jinyang said, still shaken as he hurriedly expressed his gratitude.
“Stay sharp!” Pei Huaiye replied in a distant voice, quickening his pace. Ning Ran had to practically jog behind him just to keep up.
“Boss, the road ahead is completely blocked,” Han Chao, who was leading the way, doubled back with a grim tone.
The alley exit was thoroughly sealed off by the ruins of a collapsed residential building, with rubble and twisted rebar piled up into a small mountain—it was virtually impossible to climb over.
“Han Chao, left wall. Blast it open.” Pei Huaiye pointed at a brick wall on the left covered in cracks. It was the back wall of a street-facing shop and didn’t look particularly sturdy.
Han Chao nodded, channeling his Lightning superpower to blast the wall, blowing out a large hole big enough for an adult to pass through.
“Get in!”
As Pei Huaiye’s voice fell, everyone filed inside one by one.
Inside was the back warehouse of a clothing store, filled with swirling dust and collapsed shelves, with no sign of zombies for the time being.
Pei Huaiye entered last, casually using vines to temporarily seal the hole to block the view from outside.
“Damn it, we’re finally temporarily safe.” Han Chao kicked a collapsed shelf, the sound sounding exceptionally harsh in the quiet space.
The warehouse was dimly lit, with only a few rays of light filtering in through the breach and crevices.
Everyone sat down against the wall to rest, calming the palpitations of surviving a near-death situation.
Ning Ran still held tightly onto Pei Huaiye’s hem, following him step by step. Pei Huaiye found a relatively clean spot to sit down, and she immediately sat down beside him, resting her head against his arm.
“You certainly know how to find a cozy spot.” Pei Huaiye reached out to pick off a small speck of dust from her hair.
Seeing this scene, Lin Yao felt green with jealousy.
She admitted Ning Ran was pretty, but to think someone was actually willing to pamper her even when she was this brainless—it was truly unfair.
After resting in the store’s back warehouse for a dozen minutes, the group stood up again to hit the road.
Crossing the broken streets, the afterglow of the setting sun coated this dead city in a eerie golden hue.
In the distance, dark zombie figures stumbled around, looking spine-chilling.
“Boss, that office building ahead looks relatively intact. Should we check it out?” Han Chao pointed to a building not far away.
Pei Huaiye looked up. A twenty-plus-story office building stood amongst the ruins, its exterior relatively intact.
“Be careful, let me take a look over there.” As he spoke, he took Ning Ran’s hand and walked toward the building.
Han Chao and Xu Sui entered the building first to scout. The first-floor lobby was covered in a thick layer of dust everywhere, with furniture knocked over all over the place, though there were no zombies around—they had likely all run out during the earthquake. As for whether there were any on the upper floors, that remained unknown.
“Boss, the first floor is safe. No zombies spotted for now, all clear.” Han Chao contacted Pei Huaiye using the walkie-talkie.
“Keep heading up,” Pei Huaiye’s voice came through the radio.
“Tch, Boss really doesn’t treat us like human beings, making us trek up to the tenth floor on foot…” Xu Sui complained while grabbing a handy weapon as he walked upstairs.
Bare-handed as they were, if they ran into zombies, having a weapon would at least buy them some time to save themselves.
“Old Xu, complain less. Maybe if the Boss is in a good mood, he’ll give you a treat. My loyalty to the Boss is because he saved my life—your family is so rich, why are you still so obedient?” Han Chao chatted as they walked.
Xu Sui’s family was quite wealthy, yet for some reason, he was still remarkably obedient to Pei Huaiye.
“If I say he’s my blood brother, would you believe it?” Xu Sui spun a random lie.
“Believe my ass! You think your Chao-ge is a three-year-old kid?” Just as Han Chao finished his sentence, five or six zombies rushed down from above. His pupils shrank, and he immediately unleashed his superpower. Those zombies were instantly blasted into nothingness without a trace remaining.
“Honest talk, is there something I don’t know?”
“What are you overthinking,” Xu Sui didn’t answer, waving the weapon in his hand as he continued up the stairs.
The tenth floor was a corporate office space. The moment the two pushed open the safety door, zombies that heard the commotion lunged right at them.
“Fuck, Boss is making us use these for target practice!” Han Chao dodged while unleashing his superpower. Xu Sui followed behind him, faring relatively better as he threw out ice cones like they cost nothing.
When the apocalypse struck, many wage slaves didn’t have time to escape, especially in densely populated places, turning them into a living hell in an instant.
Consequently, the entire tenth floor was packed with an exceptionally large number of zombies.
“I severely suspect the Boss sent us up here to die!” Xu Sui leaned against a somewhat clean wall, gasping for air.
“So my painstaking intentions are understood like this?” Unnoticed, Pei Huaiye had walked up with the little idiot in tow.
The few others behind him looked utterly wretched.
“They cleared from the first floor all the way up to the ninth; the remaining tenth floor and up are your assignment,” Pei Huaiye said as he unleashed his Wood superpower, purifying the air across the entire tenth floor.
Faint green energy scattered throughout the entire floor, wiping away even the various unpleasant odors cleanly.
The reason he sent them to the tenth floor was that it offered a wide field of view, making it easy to defend and hard to attack. At the end of the corridor was a single passage leading inside.
One could say that as long as that door at the end was blocked off, it would truly be a case of “one man holding the pass, ten thousand cannot break through.”
“Boss, we still have to keep clearing?” Xu Sui complained.
“Haven’t you noticed that the more zombies you kill, the more flexible your superpower usage becomes?” Only by killing more zombies could their abilities improve to a much greater extent.
“So that’s why benefactor made us kill our way up all the way—I see now.” Xiao Jinyang felt his superpower becoming smoother and smoother to use, no wonder.
“I also feel like my power has grown stronger,” Wu Ci grinned happily.
“Right now, I’m the only one steady as an old dog,” Ji Hengyuan chuckled. He possessed a Metal superpower, which currently wasn’t of much use.
Lin Yao in the team had a Speed-type superpower, which was useful when running away, but amounted to nothing when facing zombies head-on.
“Boss, then should I go up and clear a wave first?” Han Chao raised his finger and pointed toward the upper floors.
“Mm, go ahead. Wishing you a victorious start!” Pei Huaiye didn’t stop him for even a second.
The apocalypse had only just begun. In the later stages, not only would zombies, plants, and animals mutate, but various resource depletions would also occur. Earthquakes, heavy rain, blizzards, extreme cold, and extreme heat would all become completely normal occurrences.
Today’s earthquake, placed a few years into the future, was merely an appetizer—hardly even worth mentioning.
In his past life, Pei Huaiye had relied on his superpowers to survive through those natural disasters, yet he couldn’t escape his own love-brain. Wholeheartedly considering Shen Shuhe’s needs, he ended up with nothing to show for it.
Therefore, in this lifetime, he intended to live according to his own heart, living for as long as he could.
The moment Han Chao stepped out, the other few anxiously rushed to follow close behind. Killing zombies could enhance superpowers—only a fool wouldn’t seize this opportunity!