Chapter 127 - 99: Ruins

Chapter 127: Chapter 99: Ruins

When they pushed the cart to the rear of the position, the sight before them made their hearts clench. Over the vast expanse of ruins ahead of the line, shadowy figures appeared in dense droves. A quick count suggested nearly a hundred zombies were surging toward their position.

The zombies came in all shapes and sizes. Most were slow-moving, shuffling common zombies. They struggled forward, stumbling through the rubble and rebar-strewn ruins at a very slow pace.

But mixed in among them were many noticeably faster zombies. Some scuttled on all fours, while others sprinted upright like the green zombies they had seen the night before, trying to use the cover of the ruins to quickly close in on the position.

Fortunately, the complex terrain hindered their advance to some extent, buying the defending soldiers precious reaction time.

On the line, the soldiers were clearly experienced, responding with calm composure. Snipers and skilled marksmen responsible for precision shots prioritized picking off the swift mutants, while heavy machine guns used short bursts to block their potential charge routes and clear out small clusters of common zombies.

The soldiers’ fire discipline was orderly and highly efficient.

The bare-handed zombies seemed so fragile in the face of a well-organized, heavily armed modern military force. Bullets were like the Grim Reaper’s scythe, mercilessly reaping them. The zombies fell in rows like harvested wheat, their broken bodies piling up amidst the ruins.

However, what was unsettling was that just as a clearing was made in the zombies ahead, only a few short minutes later, another wave of zombies emerged from deeper within the ruins—as if from thin air. They shambled out, some fast, some slow, and once again charged the position! They seemed endless, tireless, and fearless.

"What the hell is this creepy shit?" Feng Dayong couldn’t help but curse under his breath as he watched the bizarre scene, his face crinkling into a deep frown.

Xu Mo’s expression was just as grim. ’There’s definitely some kind of secret hidden beneath these ruins.’

"Ammo! Heavy machine gun ammo!" a soldier manning a heavy machine gun roared without turning his head. His assistant gunner was quickly swapping in the last ammo box.

"Coming!" Xu Mo and Feng Dayong snapped back to reality, realizing it wasn’t the time for investigation. They hurriedly carried over the heavy machine gun ammo.

"Thanks!" the assistant gunner said curtly before turning his gaze forward again.

"THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD—" The heavy machine gun once again let out a deep, continuous roar, tearing a group of newly emerged zombies to pieces.

The battle lasted for nearly an hour. The zombie assault only began to subside as darkness fell completely. A dead silence temporarily returned to the ruins ahead, leaving only a field of burning wreckage and the thick smell of cordite.

During that time, Xu Mo and Feng Dayong made another trip to resupply the line with rifle ammunition. Overall, their work wasn’t too strenuous. The soldiers on the line were well-trained and managed their ammunition consumption effectively.

But as the two pushed their empty cart back to the temporary ammo dump, there wasn’t a hint of relief on their faces.

"You saw that too, didn’t you, Xu?" Feng Dayong produced a half-smoked cigarette from somewhere, stuck it in his mouth, and took a hard drag. The smoke curled into the night air. "Had to be at least three or four hundred of ’em, right? All crawling out of that godforsaken pile of rocks? How the fuck is that possible!"

Xu Mo nodded silently, his gaze once again falling on the darkness-shrouded ruins. "Something’s definitely wrong," he said in a low voice.

Just then, they saw the NCO in charge of position C-07, the one with the dark complexion, pick up his radio and report something in a low voice.

About five or six minutes later, a faint WHIRRING sound came from behind them. Xu Mo looked up to see a medium-sized quadcopter drone flying toward the position, a square plastic container slung beneath it.

’They even have these?’ Xu Mo thought, surprised. For a drone to still be operational and used in combat in this post-apocalyptic world showed that the Jiang City Shelter had clearly invested significant effort into preserving and restoring technology.

The drone flew precisely over the area in front of the line where the zombie corpses were piled up and began to circle at a low altitude. At the same time, the bottom of the container opened, and a transparent liquid sprayed down in a mist, evenly coating the dismembered bodies.

’Gasoline, or some other flammable fuel.’ Xu Mo recognized the familiar smell spreading through the air.

Once the spraying was complete, the drone rapidly gained altitude and flew away. Immediately after, a soldier on the line raised his rifle and took aim at the pile of corpses—

BANG!

With the crack of a gunshot, a bullet struck a fuel-soaked piece of a corpse, instantly creating a spark.

WHOOSH—!

A raging fire erupted, spreading rapidly and engulfing the entire pile of bodies! The orange-red flames burned fiercely in the night, crackling and popping. An indescribable, nauseating stench—a mix of scorched flesh and fuel—filled the air.

The flames not only consumed the bodies but also illuminated the strange ruins ahead to some extent. However, the flickering light made the shadows seem even deeper and more inscrutable.

’This is to ensure a complete kill, to prevent the virus from spreading, or maybe to stop other living zombies from evolving by eating these corpses?’ Xu Mo understood the authorities’ intentions as he watched the towering blaze. This method of disposal was efficient and thorough. It also indirectly reflected the authorities’ deep-seated fear of zombie mutations and viral transmission.