Steve performed a perfect water bucket landing to reach the road outside the wall.
With a Netherite Pickaxe in his left hand and a Diamond Axe in his right, he dashed toward the Zombie army on his two blocky legs!
The reason he held the Netherite Pickaxe was to absorb experience orbs, as the pickaxe had the [Mending] enchantment.
Its durability was nearly depleted from repairing the camp walls, and absorbing the experience orbs dropped by killed Zombies would restore it.
And the reason he held the Diamond Axe was because of a crucial enchantment—
[Smite V]!
Zombies are undead creatures, and a Diamond Axe with the [Smite V] enchantment deals even more damage to them than a Netherite Sword with [Sharpness V].
Steve stood in the middle of the street over two hundred meters from the wall.
With a ‘do-do-do’ sound, he pillared up three blocks of stone beneath his feet.
Then, he waited for the Zombie army to arrive.
On the camp’s wall, everyone was stunned.
The scalp-tingling roars grew clearer.
Captain America was the first to snap out of it: “Prepare to fire!! Be careful not to hit Block Hero!!!”
In an instant, the sound of gunfire erupted from the wall like popping beans, deafeningly loud!
Black blood burst from the front row of Zombies.
Their bodies swayed, but they didn’t fall; those behind pushed them forward, fearless of death.
The bullets soon tore the first row to pieces and hit the second.
The third row continued to surge forward, stepping over the remains of the first two.
The Zombie tide’s attention was drawn by Steve, and they drew closer and closer to that solitary three-meter stone pillar.
“Reloading!”
Just as someone finished shouting, a Zombie lunged at the base of the stone pillar, its hands clawing frantically at the stone surface, trying to climb up.
Steve remained expressionless, staring straight at that mangled, bloody face.
More and more Zombies gathered under the stone pillar, stepping on each other’s corpses to reach higher and higher.
Seeing a Zombie about to touch his blocky foot, Steve gave a light hop and swung his axe!
The axe blade sliced through the air with a dull thud!
Steve felt almost no resistance from the axe handle.
The Zombie’s head had already been split in two, and it let go and fell.
This sensation was indeed smoother and more fluid than using a Netherite Sword without the [Smite V] enchantment.
A second one climbed up.
Its chest was split halfway open, spraying black blood onto Steve’s face.
He felt a bit of an addiction kicking in.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw several yellow-green light orbs squeeze out from the Zombie crowd.
Only then did Steve realize a major problem.
Only Zombies he killed dropped experience; those killed by the villagers didn’t!!
“Stop—it!” Steve shouted, simultaneously swinging his axe to kill a third Zombie.
The people on the wall were taken aback by the shout, and their firepower diminished significantly.
“Leave! Them! All! To! Me!” Steve said each word with absolute determination, his hands never stopping for a moment.
Captain America noticed those experience orbs popping out from the Zombie tide, his brow furrowed.
“You saw that too?” Hawkeye stowed his weapon and gestured toward Captain America with his chin.
Captain America nodded.
“What are those things? It seems… those light orbs only appear from Zombies killed by Block Hero.”
“The point is, this guy can handle it completely.”
And he certainly could.
The Zombies let out roars as they climbed frantically:
“Guuuuu…”
“Guu!”
“Gah!!!”
“Gahhhhh…”
However, Steve’s axe never missed.
A single swing took down a Zombie.
In the blink of an eye, at least a dozen had been split in two and piled up at the base of the pillar.
Seeing the pile of corpses getting higher and making it easier for the Zombies to climb, Steve ‘du-ed’ and pillared up another block, and the same scene repeated.
“Captain…” a member of the Security Team asked hesitantly, “should we keep firing?”
“…” Captain America took a deep breath.
“Let’s stop for now. Tell the Engineering Team to shut down the Defense Turrets too to save ammo. Only fire if Block Hero gets into trouble.”
“Copy that, Captain.”
And so, the Zombie tide became Steve’s solo stage.
The atmosphere on the wall had been tense for the first half-hour, but later, everyone relaxed.
Block Hero wasn’t afraid at all.
Every time it looked like he was about to be hit by a Zombie, he would either pillar up a meter or place a stone block on the edge of the pillar to block their path, occasionally taking a few bites of his homemade specialty bread.
Hours later, the stone pillar was nearly as high as the wall.
The debris below had piled into a high mountain, covered in a dense layer of yellow-green light orbs and a heap of rotating paper items.
Initially, when Captain America saw Steve might be in danger, he would occasionally order everyone to fire to help clear the climbing Zombies, but he was sternly stopped by Steve.
What else could they do?
They just ate and drank while keeping an eye on him.
Steve hacked from morning until noon, then until the sun set.
By dusk, his [Unbreaking II] Diamond Axe’s durability was nearly gone, forcing him to switch to his Netherite Sword.
He was almost entirely covered in black sludge.
Fortunately, he couldn’t smell; the people on the wall could smell the stench from a great distance.
Until 19:43 in the evening, the remaining Zombies suddenly all seemed to have been paused, standing perfectly still.
Steve swung his axe and missed, standing there in a daze with his head down.
Captain America’s brow furrowed slightly as he raised his gun alertly.
What’s the situation?
However, a few seconds later, all the Zombies suddenly retreated.
They came like a surging tide and retreated just as swiftly.
Steve: ◨▂◧?
Everyone was stunned.
It wasn’t until the Zombie tide returned the way it came and disappeared around the corner of 8th Avenue that a sudden cheer erupted from the wall.
Steve didn’t feel much, only a bit of disappointment; he was just getting into the groove.
Why is there no notification?
Steve opened his inventory page and saw that there was indeed a [Hero of the Village] buff on the right, with a duration of 40 minutes.
“Come back! Block Hero!!” someone shouted.
Hearing this, Steve stood on top of the stone pillar and crouched rapidly to show friendliness, and the wall was instantly filled with a joyful atmosphere.
Then, Steve jumped onto the corpse pile and began dashing around to absorb the experience orbs, picking up useful drops along the way.
For a while, “ding-ling-ding” and “pop-pop-pop” sounds rang out incessantly.
People put down their guns with a sigh of relief, hugging each other and cheering for Block Hero, who had perfectly resolved the crisis.
However, out of everyone present, only two people had no smiles on their faces.
Captain America and Hawkeye.
The two looked at each other, both seeing the worry in the other’s eyes.
…
As night fell, another celebration was held in the camp.
The star was, of course, the Block Hero, Steve.
However, in the tent below the apartment building, Captain America, Hawkeye, and Professor X sat together with solemn expressions.
The current survivors in the camp were all ordinary civilians before the Zombie virus outbreak and knew almost nothing about superpowered individuals, but they were different.
They were all too familiar with things like superpowers.
The Zombies had never shown a collective consciousness before.
Today, the appearance of a “Shepherd,” unified gathering, taking a longer but faster route, and a collective retreat… there was likely only one possibility.
“So… is it really mind control?” Captain America pinched his brow in worry.
Professor X nodded.
“Exactly. And at that time, I’m certain I felt a psychic power. Though it was faint, it was definitely there.”
“Could it be Wanda… has she come out from there?” Hawkeye clenched his fist.
Professor X slowly shook his head.
“Impossible. Her ability doesn’t have such an effect. Besides, if it were her, would she need these low-level individuals to come and die?”
Hawkeye breathed a slight sigh of relief upon hearing that.
It was true.
The witch named Wanda had terrifying and extremely uncontrollable abilities.
When she was alive, her humanity could still somewhat suppress her power, but after being infected, she became a demon capable of destroying the world.
If it were her, there would be no need to have a group of low-level Zombies attack the camp.
She would only need to raise her hand to turn everyone in the camp into a Zombie buffet.
Captain America paced in the tent, rubbing his chin.
“Commanding Zombies is one thing, but commanding so many at once and with such coordination… who exactly has that level of mind control ability?”
Professor X leaned back in his wheelchair.
After a few seconds of silence, he spoke slowly:
“…It’s probably Emma.”
“Emma?” Hawkeye was taken aback.
“Which Emma?”
“Emma Frost.” Professor X’s voice was low.
“‘White Queen’.”