The squad’s reaction time was lightning-fast. Su Ya and Nie Fei were the first to bolt toward the rear exit, with Xiao Jingcheng keeping pace right behind them.
Jiang Ran grabbed Lin Buyu’s hand and sprinted at full speed.
Huh?
Sprinting?
Why aren’t you flying?
Couldn’t he use his power to levitate his body and zip far away like a flash of lightning?
Behind them, the speed-type zombies leapt and bounded like overgrown fleas, lunging wildly in their direction.
Lin Buyu stole a quick glance backward. The numbers were staggering—there had to be several hundred mutated zombies swarming after them.
“Jiang Ran, why aren’t you using your powers?” A deeply unsettling feeling began to gnaw at her.
Jiang Ran tucked her against his side with one arm, using his momentum to kick off a nearby wall and swing them across to the other side of the corridor. Calmly, he replied, “I’ll tell you a secret.”
“What secret?”
“Your wish is about to come true.”
Before Lin Buyu could even process what wish he was referring to, Jiang Ran added smoothly, “You might get to die together with me. Happy?”
Happy my foot! Is that something a sane person says?!
Lin Buyu’s eyes went wide as saucers as she stared at him. “Are you… almost out of power?!”
Jiang Ran offered her a faint, wry smile. Reaching out with his bare fist, he slammed it directly into the head of a lunging zombie, shattering its skull in a single blow. “Worse than that. My body is about to be completely paralyzed for an hour—and I won’t be able to use any powers at all.”
Ever since he had awakened his ability, his body carried a fatal flaw—a secret known to no one else.
At completely unpredictable moments, his powers would abruptly cut out, leaving him entirely immobile.
It was a nightmare scenario.
Lin Buyu glanced back at the relentless swarm of zombies. Oh, fantastic. They’re like a plague of locusts.
Down below, Xiao Jingcheng, Su Ya, and Nie Fei had already vaulted straight over the second-floor railing.
They scrambled into the vehicle, fired up the engine, and slammed on the gas.
Su Ya leaned out the window, her voice laced with unprecedented panic: “Ran-ge! Get down here, quick!”
This was, without a doubt, the single worst crisis they had ever encountered.
Under normal circumstances, their combined strength could easily handle a dozen mutated zombies.
Moreover, mutated zombies rarely traveled in packs due to their fierce territorial instincts. No one could have anticipated encountering a massive horde like this—the shear volume was nightmare fuel.
Jiang Ran was fast, but no matter how quickly he moved on foot, he couldn’t outrun speed-type mutants. The two of them had barely reached the second-story window frame when the first wave of zombies closed in.
Normally, the raw physical force of Lin Buyu’s zombie body was utterly terrifying; if she actually exerted herself, even a strength-type user like Su Ya wouldn’t possess half her power.
Lin Buyu knew better than anyone that Jiang Ran, the story’s ultimate villain, wasn’t destined to die here.
However, in moments of extreme peril, the dark, terrifying power dormant within him would trigger—and according to the System, if that happened, it could easily destroy the entire world.
So, he absolutely CANNOT be pushed into a life-or-death corner.
Without a second thought, Lin Buyu grabbed Jiang Ran’s arm with a vice-like grip, spun around, and hurled him straight out the window with immense force, screaming at the top of her lungs: “Su Ya! Catch him!”
The instant Lin Buyu seized his arm with that unnatural strength, a dark, suffocating wave of world-weary despair flared in Jiang Ran’s eyes.
He thought the mask had finally slipped—that she was throwing him into the zombie horde to save herself, just like every member of his family had done before.
Yet, what happened next was the exact opposite of what he expected.
The moment she tossed him clear of the window, she reached up, ripped the hairpin from her hair, and slashed it viciously across her own palm. Bleeding freely, she turned and sprinted toward the far end of the corridor.
She’s… drawing them away?
Jiang Ran’s pupils dilated in absolute shock. It was an outcome he had never, in his wild fantasies, anticipated.
He tried to force his body to move, but his limbs were completely paralyzed.
Su Ya reacted instantly, catching Jiang Ran midair and hauling him into the vehicle with one strong arm.
Nie Fei spun the steering wheel, preparing to step on the gas and haul ass out of there, but Jiang Ran growled, “Wait for her.”
Nie Fei, Su Ya, and Xiao Jingcheng had all witnessed Lin Buyu luring the swarm away. None of them had expected her to be so fearless—much less that she was truly so head-over-heels in love with him.
She was genuinely willing to lay down her life for Jiang Ran.
When she said she’d give him her life, she actually meant it.
Yet, as much as they admired her sacrifice, they couldn’t afford to idle there waiting for her. It was simply too late.
There were far too many mutated zombies.
If they stayed any longer, death was the only thing awaiting them.
In the front car, Xiao Jingcheng swung his steering wheel around and leaned out his window, frantically slamming on the horn and shouting toward Nie Fei, “What are you waiting for?! Move!”
Nie Fei’s foot hovered over the accelerator, but Jiang Ran’s voice echoed from the back seat, dark and menacing: “I said wait for her!”
Su Ya glanced toward the hospital, her voice thick with panic. “Ran-ge, it’s not that we don’t want to wait—it’s just that Lin Buyu might already be—”
“If any of you drive off before she gets back, I’ll take your lives first.”
He uttered the cold threat with absolute gravity. None of them had any idea that he was currently paralyzed and unable to channel a single drop of his powers.
Fortunately, his long-standing reputation as an unpredictable, dangerous force was enough to hold them in check.
Knowing Jiang Ran was a man of his word, Nie Fei had no choice but to slam on the brakes.
This was the wasteland. One year of surviving the apocalypse had taught him that refraining from shoving someone else into danger as a meat shield was already the pinnacle of human morality. He simply couldn’t bring himself to risk everyone’s neck for someone who had zero chance of survival.
There was no deep bond between them, and certainly no hope.
They had always assumed Jiang Ran would be the most cold-blooded of them all.
Minutes ticked by, each second stretched excruciatingly thin. From deep inside the building, the terrifying, guttural snarls of the horde echoed outward, sending chills down their spines.
Unable to move a muscle, Jiang Ran strained his gaze toward the hospital entrance, his dark eyes swirling with a complex mix of unreadable emotions.
Meanwhile, inside the hospital…
Lin Buyu knew that her blood was an irresistible temptation to zombies. The moment it hit the air, the scent alone would drive them into a bloodthirsty frenzy.
If she still had her energy core intact, controlling a horde like this would be child’s play.
Unfortunately, without her core and with her mental energy severely drained, she lacked the strength to command such a massive swarm of high-tier mutants.
While zombies generally didn’t feast on their own kind, mutated zombies were notorious for consuming the cores of lower-grade infected.
Her situation, truth be told, was hardly any safer.
However, she did have one ace up her sleeve: she could gain absolute control over any zombie that swallowed her blood.
As she ran, Lin Buyu stole quick glances over her shoulder, her sharp eyes scanning the horde to single out a few prime candidates.
Without hesitation, she flicked the blood dripping from her hand backward into the oncoming wave. The flying droplets landed squarely inside the gaping mouths of five specific zombies she had targeted.
Thanks to the System’s concealment, her blood appeared perfectly red.
The instant those blood droplets hit their throats, the five creatures began to twist, bulge, and mutate at an alarming rate.
In the zombie hierarchy, the lowest tier possessed milky-white eyes. Mutated zombies, on the other hand, ranked by eye color along a spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple.
The weakest mutants in this pursuing swarm were already red-eyed.
And Lin Buyu’s blood had the terrifying power to elevate a basic white-eyed zombie straight to a high-tier green-eyed variant.
The five she had chosen were already green-eyed mutants. After absorbing her blood, they instantaneously vaulted into blue-eyed rank—ultra-high-tier mutants.
Five blue-eyed monsters, born in a heartbeat.
Having reached a dead-end corner, Lin Buyu pressed her back flat against the wall. Eyes flashing, she issued a crisp command to her newly forged minions: “Kill them all.”
The instant her command was given, the high-tier mutants moved.
With blinding speed, they turned and began relentlessly slaughtering the endless waves of zombies behind them.
Lin Buyu felt a splitting headache tear through her mind.
The high-tier mutants that had consumed her blood were carrying out her orders, but they were also actively trying to break free. Her mental energy wasn’t strong enough to completely suppress them, and they were fighting back.
Zombies operated like wild beasts—the leader they followed had to be the strongest among them. Right now, without her energy core, her overall power was weak, yet her pure bloodline still held dominance over them. As a result, their mental force was rebelling against her control.
With these five mutants holding the line, Lin Buyu was temporarily safe. She hurriedly picked up the severed zombie heads scattered across the floor.
Then, she started digging around inside them with her bare hands.
Forgetting all about how disgusting it was, she hastily stuffed the retrieved energy cores straight into her mouth.
She needed to consume cores. She needed to grow stronger.
In this world, as long as she wasn’t bleeding, ordinary zombies wouldn’t actively attack her.
But what if?
What if she ran into that new Zombie King—the very one who had killed her in her previous life?
If that bastard realized she wasn’t dead yet and rallied every zombie in existence to hunt her down, what would she do then?
Lin Buyu swallowed core after core until she almost threw up.
Without even taking the time to digest them, she felt the five mutants under her control reaching their breaking point. Knowing they were about to shatter her mental hold, she didn’t hesitate for a second—she turned on her heel and bolted.
She had to get out of there before they broke free completely.
Retracing her steps, she pressed one hand against the window frame and vaulted out into the open air.
As she plummeted, she was stunned to realize that Jiang Ran and the others were actually still waiting for her below.
Damn. There really is true affection in this world!
Nie Fei and the rest were equally dumbfounded to see her emerge alive and completely unscathed.
She had actually managed to escape a massive horde of mutated zombies!
Su Ya and Nie Fei exchanged bewildered glances.
Even Xiao Jingcheng, who usually kept a cool head, couldn’t help but let out a low curse: “Holy crap… she really is a man-eating flower, isn’t she?”
No one who saw her escape that horde would ever mistake her for a delicate, helpless vine again.
Only Jiang Ran, the moment he saw her land safely, tightly shut his eyes.
Lin Buyu yanked the car door open, scrambled inside, and slammed herself down next to Jiang Ran.
“Drive! What are you waiting for?! If we don’t leave now, we’re dead!”
Jolted back to reality, Nie Fei realized the horde would be pouring out any second. He spun the steering wheel so fast sparks nearly flew.
Xiao Jingcheng was already in full getaway mode, tearing down the street like a bolt of lightning.
Sure enough, the five mutants Lin Buyu had controlled soon came surging out after them, having completely shattered her mental hold.
Alongside them, dozens of surviving mutated zombies joined the chase. Like grotesque alien beasts with misshapen bodies, they pursued the vehicles at terrifying speeds.
Even with Nie Fei and Xiao Jingcheng slamming their gas pedals flat against the floorboards, the horde caught up to them within a matter of minutes.
Worse, several managed to leap ahead and cut off the road.
Staring at the blue-eyed zombies standing merely ten meters away, Xiao Jingcheng muttered in disbelief, “What kind of rotten luck is this?”
It was truly a case of wolves in front and tigers behind.
Nie Fei pulled his vehicle up alongside Xiao Jingcheng’s and caught sight of the ultra-high-tier mutants blocking their path.
Holy hell—blue-eyed ones! And more than one!
“Ran-ge, have you ever fought blue-eyed zombies before?”
The tension in the air was suffocating. No one was in the mood to crack jokes.
Every single person in the car felt that today was likely their final day on Earth.
Suddenly, Lin Buyu heard the System’s emergency alarm blaring in her head, warning her that Jiang Ran was gathering his inner reserves and was about to trigger the terrifying, hidden power dormant within his body. Hearing this, she nearly leaped out of her skin and bolted straight through the window.
She quickly scrambled over to soothe the big boss: “Jiang Ran, don’t be scared! I’ll protect you—really, don’t worry! Trust me, I can handle this!”
She was practically on her knees, begging him not to blow up the world.