This time, the tripwire did not ring from the northeast corner.
It came from due north.
And the cans were not clattering at the right rhythm.
A continuous string of jingling rang out, like something was moving sideways along the wire and setting off a whole row of cans at once.
Luke Li’s pupils narrowed.
This night raid was not just one or two walkers.
By the time he climbed out of the truck bed, Daryl was already standing outside his tent.
His hunting crossbow was in his hands.
The two of them exchanged a glance.
Shane rushed out of his tent, chambering his pistol.
“How many?”
“No idea,” Luke Li said.
“But from the sound of it, definitely not a small number.”
He strode to the lookout platform and climbed up in a few quick steps.
Under the moonlight, the tree line north of the camp was clearly visible.
The entire stretch of tripwire along the defensive line was shaking.
Then he saw what was pouring out from the edge of the woods.
Not a few of them.
A group of walkers.
Luke Li counted quickly.
More than twenty.
A small-scale walker surge.
“Shit,” Luke Li cursed under his breath and jumped down from the lookout platform.
“Shane!
More than twenty, due north.
Less than thirty meters from the tripwire.
They’ll reach the camp in two minutes!”
The camp instantly fell into chaos.
The women began pulling the children toward the cars and RV.
The men ran to grab weapons.
Shane stood at the front with his pistol.
T-Dog picked up his axe, and Danny pulled a shotgun from his tent.
Merle crawled out of his tent cursing, a short, heavy shotgun in his hands.
His mouth was filthy, but he moved fast.
Daryl said nothing.
He had already crouched on the hood of an SUV, looking down from above with his crossbow loaded.
Luke Li made a quick judgment.
More than twenty walkers.
Taking them head-on was not impossible, but it would be messy, and there were too many non-combatants in camp.
Gunfire would draw more of them.
He needed to cut their numbers down before they reached the camp.
“Shane!” Luke Li shouted.
“Take people and hold the camp entrance, but don’t shoot.
Gunfire will bring in more walkers!”
Shane hesitated for half a second.
“Then what are you planning to do?”
“I’ll meet them outside.
I’ll kill as many as I can before they get in.
You clean up whatever slips through.”
“By yourself?”
“Two of us.”
Luke Li looked at Daryl.
Daryl crouched on the SUV, moonlight glinting coldly off the limbs of his crossbow.
He felt Luke Li’s gaze and turned his head.
Their eyes met briefly.
Then Daryl jumped down from the hood and walked to Luke Li’s side.
He had agreed.
Luke Li carried his fire axe and crossbow, and the two of them moved quickly through the camp, rushing toward the tripwire.
Thirty seconds later, they reached the area near the tripwire.
The walker group had already hit the slowing barriers.
The first five or six had stepped into the stake trench.
Sharpened wooden stakes pierced through their feet and calves, leaving them struggling in the ditch.
The walkers behind them climbed over their fallen bodies.
The slowing barriers had bought them barely ten seconds.
Enough.
Luke Li raised his crossbow and aimed at the first walker climbing over the barrier.
One bolt to the head.
Down.
At almost the same time, another string snapped beside him.
Daryl’s crossbow bolt punched into the second walker’s eye socket.
His speed and accuracy were far above Luke Li’s.
Luke Li glanced at him.
That was Daryl.
Shooting Lv.3?
No, this had to be at least Lv.5.
The two began firing in a cross pattern, working together seamlessly.
Six crossbow bolts.
Six walkers down.
But crossbows were still too slow.
The walkers behind were already surging up.
About fifteen of them came forward in a dark mass, like a moving wall of rotting flesh under the moonlight.
“Melee!” Luke Li put down the crossbow and drew his fire axe.
Daryl slung his crossbow over his back and pulled out his hunting knife.
The two charged in at the same time.
Luke Li’s fighting style was wide and brutal.
The fire axe had weight, and every blow carried skull-splitting force.
He raised the axe high and brought the blade down from above, splitting the walker in front of him on the spot.
Luke Li swept the axe sideways.
The back of the axe smashed into the second walker’s temple, shattering its skull.
A third lunged in from the side.
He blocked with the axe handle, kicked the walker in the chest to force it back, then finished it with another chop.
With Strength 7, Luke Li had a crushing advantage.
An ordinary person might not even break through a skull with one swing.
He could split a head in two.
Daryl’s style was completely different.
His hunting knife was short, light, and fast.
He did not clash with the walkers head-on.
He moved like a hunting cat.
Dodge.
Cut.
Stab.
Every strike landed in the deadliest spots: the temple, the eye socket, the back of the skull.
Maximum result with minimal effort.
A hunter’s way of fighting.
Back to back, the two of them carved out a circle of empty ground inside the walker group.
Luke Li kept count.
Seven, eight, nine.
He had already killed nine.
His arms were starting to ache, and the blood and brain matter on the fire axe had made the grip slippery.
Daryl was about the same.
When he drove his hunting knife into the sixth walker’s eye socket, he stumbled and dropped to one knee.
A walker lunged from his blind spot, jaws open to bite.
Luke Li threw his axe.
The fire axe spun through the air and slammed into the walker’s face, caving it in completely.
Daryl rolled back to his feet and nodded at Luke Li.
Luke Li ran over and pulled the axe free.
The last three walkers were intercepted by Shane’s group at the edge of the camp.
T-Dog took one with each swing of his axe, and Danny fired a follow-up shot.
That was the only gunshot in the entire fight.
The battle was over.
From the moment the tripwire rang to the moment the last walker fell, less than ten minutes had passed.
Twenty-three walkers.
All dead.
A string of system notifications appeared.
[Walker Killed ×13.5 (crossbow kills split evenly), Total Kills: 42]
[Congratulations!
Total kills have reached 40, reward triggered: Walker Essence ×3]
Essence had finally dropped.
Luke Li accepted the reward without changing expression.
Total Essence: 4.
Still six short of the 10 needed to exchange for 1 attribute point.
People gradually came out of the camp, staring at the corpses scattered across the ground with different expressions.
Glenn stood beside the truck, his Glock 19 tucked behind his waist.
He had clearly been ready to shoot, but never got the chance.
He watched Luke Li walk back covered in blood.
His mouth opened, and after a long moment, he managed only one word.
“Fuck.”
Karen leaned against the pickup, not surprised by Luke Li’s combat power at all.
Dale climbed down from the lookout platform, his eyes fixed on the battlefield paved with corpses.
“More than twenty walkers…
If we hadn’t had the tripwires and slowing barriers…”
He did not finish, but everyone understood.
Without the defenses Luke Li had designed, those twenty-plus walkers would have rushed straight into the center of camp.
There were women, children, and elderly people in those tents.
The consequences did not bear thinking about.
Shane walked up to Luke Li.
He did not say thank you.
He only stood there silently for a moment, looking at the pile of corpses, then said, “Tomorrow, we push the defensive line another fifty meters out.”
“My suggestion is to add a trench,” Luke Li said.
“It doesn’t have to be too deep.
Three feet is enough.
Walkers can’t jump, and they can’t climb.
Once they fall in, they won’t get out.”
“How many people will it take?”
“All the men in camp.
At least a full day of work.”
Shane nodded.
This time, he did not hesitate at all.
The [Reliance: Preliminary] above his head upgraded to [Reliance: Solid].
Then there was Daryl.
The hunter stood five steps away, wiping the blood off his hunting knife with grass.
Luke Li walked over and scraped the brain matter from his fire axe against the ground.
The two stood side by side.
Neither spoke.
The silence lasted about ten seconds.
Then Daryl opened his mouth, his voice rough and hoarse, like sandpaper.
“Nice throw with that axe.”
That was the highest praise Crossbow Guy could give.
Luke Li glanced at the buffs above his head.
[Indifferent] was gone.
[Observing] was gone.
In their place were two new markers.
[Recognition: Combat Level]
[Kindred Awareness]
Kindred Awareness.
Daryl had classified him as the same kind of person.
Someone who could survive the apocalypse and carve a bloody path through a pile of walkers.
Luke Li rested the axe on his shoulder.
“Your knife work’s clean too.
Want to go hunting together sometime?”
Daryl did not answer right away.
He slid the hunting knife back into its sheath, took up his crossbow again, and turned toward his tent.
“We’ll see.”
The unspoken meaning was yes.
In the distance, Merle leaned against a tent pole, having watched the whole thing.
The buff above his head had changed.
[Hostility: Low] had not disappeared, but a new marker had appeared beside it.
[Wariness]
A man who could kill twelve walkers by himself in a horde of over twenty was not someone even Merle Dixon would provoke lightly.
Wariness was not respect, but for Luke Li, it was enough.
At least in the short term, Merle would not be picking a fight with him.
Luke Li returned to the pickup.
The blood all over him had started to dry, forming a hard crust against his skin.
He found a bottle of water and gave himself a quick rinse.
Before climbing into the truck bed, he opened the system panel for one last look.
[Luke Li]
[Strength 7 Agility 7 Constitution 6 Perception 7 Luck 3]
[Walker Essence: 4/10]
[Total Kills: 42]
Forty-two.
He had no idea how far away the next milestone reward was.
He closed the panel and lay down.
No more walkers would come tonight.
More than twenty had surged in all at once, which meant the wandering walkers in the nearby area had been drawn over together.
Most likely, the smell of roasted venison had attracted them.
Now, this area was actually safe.