The blade in her hand gleamed under the moonlight.
Lin Buyu was skilled with a gun, but she was equally lethal with a knife or dagger.
Dr. Yang was furiously ringing his little silver bell. The zombies grew increasingly restless, letting out guttural, rasping growls at the oncoming Lin Buyu.
She assumed they would immediately pounce and attack her.
Except they didn’t. The lead zombie took one look at her, whirled around on its heels, and bolted in the opposite direction.
The two zombies behind it followed suit, fleeing right after their leader.
Can’t let them escape. That was Lin Buyu’s immediate thought.
These zombies were clearly not under Dr. Yang’s control at all—their obedience had been a complete act.
Without hesitation, she gave chase.
Jiang Ran was never one to drag things out on the battlefield. Since Lin Buyu had gone after the fleeing zombies, his choice was simple: trust her completely.
He turned toward Jiang Congwen without a moment’s delay. This time, he held nothing back. The crackling purple lightning, which had previously manifested in only a dozen arcs, erupted into dozens more.
Every single bolt struck down with terrifying precision, shattering the ice blooms shot from Jiang Congwen’s hands into dust.
Meanwhile, Lin Buyu had already cornered the three fleeing zombies. The fastest one swiveled around to face her, while the other two instinctively ducked behind its back.
Lin Buyu gathered that this was a zombie capable of actual thought.
The two sides stood locked in a silent standoff. The lead creature’s eyes shone with a brilliant sapphire blue—a sign that it was on the verge of evolving into the highest tier: a violet-eyed, ultra-hazard zombie.
The exact same level as the Zombie King’s sister.
The creature stared at her, yet made no move to attack.
Lin Buyu issued a direct command through her mind: Come here.
The zombie did not obey. Its jaws split open, producing a harsh, rasping growl, but its voice echoed clearly back in her head: “I am an artificially modified ultra-high-tier zombie. You cannot control me.”
Tsk. Exactly as she suspected.
At least they could communicate.
“Why are you working for humans?” Lin Buyu asked.
A look of intense hatred flickered in its sapphire-blue eyes. “Could it be that you are controlled by humans as well?”
Lin Buyu shook her head at the creature. “No one can control me. Since you can think for yourself, you ought to realize that we were all human once. Slaughtering humanity shouldn’t be our goal.”
The moment those words left her mouth, the zombie erupted into a furious, deafening roar. The harsh, raspy sound echoed so violently that Lin Buyu instinctively clapped her hands over her ears.
It couldn’t speak aloud, but its consciousness thundered directly inside Lin Buyu’s mind:
“Not a single human is good! It was humans who threw me into the jaws of a zombie and turned me into this monster! Even if we were human once, we are not anymore! They hunt down anything different from them—the moment we became zombies, even our closest blood relatives wouldn’t accept us! They would point a gun straight at our heads without a second thought! Come with me! Partner with me, and we can wipe out every human on this earth and rule the world!”
Rule the world, my ass.
These days, it wasn’t just humans trying to conquer the world during the apocalypse—even the zombies were vying for world domination.
Every single one of them was a hardcore careerist.
Lin Buyu flipped her right wrist outward, her dagger glinting cold and sharp under the night sky. “Since our paths don’t align, we’ll just have to stand on opposite sides. If you want to wipe out humanity, you’ll have to go through me first.”
“Grrr… Growl…”
All three zombies bared their teeth and snarled at her in unison. The sapphire-eyed leader cast a deep, lingering gaze upon Lin Buyu.
“We are not like ordinary zombies. With your current level, you cannot kill me—and I cannot kill you.”
“Oh? What, were you expecting us to part on good terms and catch up next time?” Lin Buyu tightened her grip on the dagger and flashed forward like lightning, closing the distance in the blink of an eye. “Keep dreaming. I’m putting an end to you right here.”
She moved so fast that the three creatures couldn’t react in time, genuine astonishment flitting through the lead zombie’s sapphire-blue eyes.
A flash of steel, a swift arc down—and one zombie’s head was already airborne.
She executed the strike cleanly, without a fraction of a second’s hesitation. Right after decapitating the first creature, she spun on her heel and unleashed a whip-like roundhouse kick directly into the chest of the sapphire-eyed leader, blasting him a good dozen meters backward.
This was the terrifying reality of an elite special forces operative wielding the powers of a Zombie King.
Lin Buyu’s movements carried zero wasted motion—every stroke went straight for the kill.
The moment the sapphire-eyed zombie was kicked away, the other creature lunged at her, only for Lin Buyu to slice its neck cleanly in two.
Having disposed of the pair, Lin Buyu sprinted straight toward the one she had kicked back.
Truth be told, these artificially created ultra-high-tier zombies were nowhere near as dangerous as those evolved naturally.
They couldn’t even match the strength of the high-tier zombies she had forcibly upgraded with her own blood earlier.
Just as she was about to close the distance on the talking zombie, sharp lightning suddenly cracked across the dark sky.
The system’s anxious voice rang out inside her head: “Host, bad news! A viral rainstorm is about to hit! Get back to Jiang Ran and get him under cover right now! If he gets caught in the rain and turns into a zombie, his path toward total destruction will become completely uncontrollable!”
Lin Buyu slammed on the brakes. “Wait, isn’t Jiang Ran supposed to survive all the way to the final showdown with the male lead and almost destroy the world? How could he turn into a zombie now?!”
The system couldn’t give a clear answer—it had only just received the update itself: “This world seems to be fluid and doesn’t follow the original plot script strictly! Even this viral rainstorm is a newly generated event! Hurry back to him!”
“Fuck!” Lin Buyu cursed under her breath. A dynamic plot update? What kind of trash story is this?
Still, with the last artificial zombie right in front of her, she was loath to let it go.
She trusted that Jiang Ran, having survived an entire year in the apocalypse, was far from a fool—he would naturally seek shelter from a sudden downpour, even if he didn’t know the rain was toxic.
Besides, her instincts told her that if this zombie escaped, it would cause endless trouble down the line. She was never one to leave loose ends behind.
Instead of turning back immediately, she pushed herself to her absolute limit, sprinting forward at breakneck speed.
She caught up to the sapphire-eyed zombie in a split second.
Realizing escape was impossible, the creature abruptly swiveled around, digging its feet into the dirt and lunging at Lin Buyu with its jaws stretched wide, aiming straight for her throat.
As if she would ever give it the chance.
The dagger in her grip blurred faster than the eye could follow. The moment they crossed paths, she deftly passed the blade from her right hand to her left, slashing standard-reverse right through the monster’s throat.
Staring into the zombie’s horror-filled, indignant eyes, Lin Buyu’s clear gaze showed not a single trace of mercy. “The moment you decided to turn the human world into a haven for zombies, we were never on the same side.”
The head hit the ground with a dull thud, blood splattering across the dirt.
Lin Buyu had always viewed herself as human.
No matter the time, no matter the circumstance.
If she ever lost her mind and degraded into a mindless beast that devoured human flesh, she would want someone to slice her head off immediately—to preserve her last shred of human dignity.
With the final target eliminated, Lin Buyu didn’t linger for a second. She turned around and sprinted at top speed back toward Jiang Ran.
A gentle rain began to fall from the dark sky.
As the raindrops landed on her skin, Lin Buyu was struck by a strange sense of familiarity. She looked down at the exposed back of her hand.
The rainwater is actually absorbing into my skin?!
She immediately pressed the system for answers.
The system offered a hesitant guess: “It might be because the viral rain shares the same origin as the virus inside your body, so it has no adverse effect on you.”
“Will it intensify the virus in me and turn me into a mindless zombie?” Lin Buyu asked urgently as she sprinted forward.
The system was completely sure about this point: “Rest assured, with me here, you will retain your human sanity forever.”
Nice. Now that was a solid perk.
Her speed was incredible—in less than a minute, she was back at the battlefield where Jiang Ran and the others had been fighting.
A single glance at the scene made her freeze in her tracks.
Snarls, hysterical shrieks, and violent clashes bled together, making her realize that this world was getting completely out of hand.
The infection spread terrifyingly fast!
Turning into flesh-craving zombies the moment the rain touched them was a nightmare beyond comprehension.
She scanned the courtyard and realized that almost everyone who had turned was among the power-users who had encircled Jiang Ran’s group moments ago.
A shadowy figure charged straight toward her, issuing raspy growls as it ran. Yet the instant it closed the distance and realized she wasn’t human, it bypassed her entirely and bolted past her shoulder.
Lin Buyu whipped around.
“AH! HELP ME!” a young girl shrieked in sheer terror, staring wide-eyed at the oncoming monster.
Lin Buyu rushed forward, intending to save her, only to watch the girl’s neck twist with a sickening stiffness. In under a second, she transformed into a zombie herself, wildly sprinting off toward another direction.
She had gone off to join the horrific feast.
Lin Buyu halted her steps, her eyes sweeping over the chaos. Jiang Ran, Xiao Jingcheng, and the others were nowhere to be seen.