Chapter 89: Wei’s Demise
“Whoosh—”
Alian’s right fist whistled through the air, stopping just short of the mutated zombie’s maw. She leaned in, delivering a vicious elbow strike to the side of its head.
“Crack—”
The bone-spiked elbow connected.
The zombie’s jaw dislocated with a sickening crack, blood and teeth spraying, but the upper half of its face, still firmly attached to its neck, remained unmoved.
“Whirr…”
A whirring sound from beside her, and a spray of blood splattered her face.
Startled, Alian jumped back, rolled, and crouched down, touching her swollen cheek.
Blood… not mine?
She then noticed the mutated zombie’s hands; the grotesque chainsaw blades were spinning rapidly.
And the blood… had come from the zombie itself, the spinning blades having torn through the flesh and muscle at its elbows.
Seeing the whirring chainsaws, Alian instantly abandoned the idea of close combat. She would need weapons that could withstand those blades.
“Rat-tat-tat-tat—”
The Voodoo Cult warriors, having reloaded behind cover, emerged and fired at the mutated zombie’s head.
“Click—”
“Click—”
The first few bullets embedded themselves in the zombie’s bald head, but then it ducked and leaped towards the nearest shooter.
Its speed and agility were too much; they couldn’t track it with their rifles.
“Wei! Poison!” Alian shouted, after her men had bought her some time with their lives.
“Here!” Amidst the hail of bullets, Wei yelled, throwing a severed, green, bloody leg from behind his tire barricade.
As the leg flew through the air, Alian, flapping her vestigial bone wings, leaped and caught it. It was already starting to melt and soften like a green popsicle.
She shoved the entire leg into her distended mouth.
“Gulp—”
The moment her teeth pierced the skin, the leg exploded inside her mouth, the green pus and gore expanding her already swollen face and neck.
She looked at the mutated zombie, its chainsaws tearing apart one of her men, and charged.
The mutated zombie seemed to notice her heavy footsteps, but before it could turn, Alian opened her mouth slightly.
“Gulp—retch—”
A stream of green vomit erupted from her mouth, splattering the mutated zombie, which was still feasting on the corpse.
“Sizzle…”
Like concentrated sulfuric acid on tissue paper, the green vomit began to dissolve the zombie’s flesh and bone.
Yes!
Although Alian was thrilled, she couldn’t show it.
The force of her vomit had splattered some of the green blood onto her own face and chin.
It was burning her skin; she quickly ripped off her shirt, trying to wipe it away.
She hadn’t touched Wei’s severed arm directly. Consuming it earlier had not only healed her wounds but also coated her mouth and esophagus with a protective layer of green mucus, preventing the toxic blood from harming her.
But she still had some on her face. She could buy one of Wei’s fingers after the battle to heal it; she wouldn’t be disfigured.
She would just have to get the skin re-tattooed.
The bone wings and claws that had sprouted earlier were starting to recede; their duration was over.
But she didn’t care; the moment the toxic blood had connected, the battle was over.
Such a large amount of toxic blood would incapacitate even an Armored zombie, let alone this strange, Hunter-like mutated zombie.
As expected, the zombie’s flesh and bone began to rapidly dissolve, even its skull.
But it didn’t fall, its liquefied blood crystals working frantically to repair the damage, preventing the green blood from reaching its brain and spine.
“Whirr—”
One of the drivers, having recovered, had climbed into a pickup truck and started the engine.
The sound alerted the others. The survivors scrambled into the remaining two pickup trucks and manned the machine guns.
“Screech—”
The green pickup truck executed a perfect drift, its back now facing the mutated zombie, which was struggling to stand, and honked its horn.
“Beep, beep—”
“Hurry!!! That noise attracted the horde!” one of the Voodoo Cult members shouted.
The Biters, drawn by the earlier commotion, were shuffling towards them.
The faster ones had already been killed; the remaining ones were mostly smaller or had damaged legs.
But even the slowest had finally arrived.
And there were a lot of them, attracted by the dispersed teams. Normally, these slow, sun-weakened Biters would be easy targets.
But now they had a bigger problem to deal with.
“Rat-tat-tat-tat—Rat-tat-tat—Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—”
“Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang—”
The heavy machine gun mounted on the pickup truck roared, the spent casings clattering against the metal.
The barrage tore through the zombie’s three-meter-tall body, severing its neck and sending its head flying.
“Thump, thump!”
Alian slammed her fists against the side of the truck. After the gunfire stopped, she said, “Enough with the overkill, let’s deal with the newcomers!”
“Vroom—”
Following her command, the pickup truck reversed, heading towards the approaching horde.
The remaining Voodoo Cult warriors also grabbed their weapons and joined the fight.
If they could eliminate them all, they would get at least a dozen blood crystals, not counting the ones from the mutated zombie.
Alian, leaning against the car door, wincing slightly, watched the zombie’s mangled remains until she saw the telltale glint of blood crystals, then breathed a sigh of relief.
“Fucking hell… it’s finally dead…”
Although there weren’t as many crystals as she’d expected, their presence meant the zombie was truly dead.
She rested for a bit, the swelling on her face subsiding, the other mutations receding.
Except for a few bumps on her face where the green blood had burned her skin, she was almost back to her normal human appearance.
Glancing at her subordinates, who were efficiently dispatching the Biters, she wiped the blood from her lips and decided to check on Wei.
He was valuable to the Boss; they couldn’t afford to lose him… He had, after all, paid a heavy price for this battle, literally.
Reaching the SUV, she saw Wei struggling to stand, leaning against a tire.
His right arm and leg were missing, green, gel-like blood oozing from the wounds, slowly regenerating.
She envied his ability.
With enough blood crystals, he could keep tearing off his limbs, and the zombies would ignore him.
To them, he was probably like… human waste, highly corrosive waste.
She reached out to help him, but he flinched away.
“Lay off the drugs, you’re practically useless now,” he said calmly, his expression not betraying the agony of having his limbs torn off.
Hearing his words, Alian clenched and unclenched her fists.
“My fault, Brother Wei.” She lowered her head slightly and, after confirming he was alright, turned and walked towards the horde.
She couldn’t bear to face him.
They were both C-rank Awakened, but her mind had been ravaged by drugs, unable to fully utilize her abilities.
Although she could develop immunity to the physical effects of the drugs through evolution, the mental damage was unavoidable, except for a few mind-control type Awakened.
She had C-rank abilities, but to access them, she needed the drugs, a vicious cycle of dependence and increasing mental damage.
And she was addicted.
Wei’s green blood and flesh could restore some mental strength, a small amount, but even so, the Boss often had him accompany her on missions, hoping to help her recover.
If she hadn’t been impaired, if she’d been at full strength, she wouldn’t have needed Wei to sacrifice his leg. She could have easily taken down that mutated zombie with a few more doses of bone powder.
Sadly, even consuming a dozen Weis wouldn’t restore her now.
Perhaps reaching A-rank would offer some hope.
But she’d barely even seen a B-rank Awakened, let alone an A-rank. Those higher ranks were just theoretical.
“Sigh…”
Alian sighed, jumped onto the pickup truck, pushed aside the Voodoo Cult warrior manning the machine gun, took over, and started firing.
Another warrior beside her constantly poured water on the barrel to cool it down, the metal sizzling and steaming.
After firing for a while, Alian realized something was wrong.
Where was Wei?
He should have been here by now, directing the scavenging operation, but she hadn’t seen him since he’d stood up.
She jumped down from the pickup truck and ran back to where Wei had been, searching frantically among the vehicles.
She couldn’t find him… He couldn’t have been attacked by zombies; no zombie could sneak up on a C-rank Awakened undetected.
“Brother Wei!” she shouted, but there was no response.
Suddenly, a chilling thought, and goosebumps erupted on her skin.
She took a few vials of powder from her waist pouch and ran towards the mutated zombie’s remains.
The blood crystals… were gone…
The glittering crystals that had precipitated from the corpse had vanished. And as she approached, she heard another faint, sickening sound, besides the gunfire.
“Gurgle—”
“Crack—”
Like the sounds Wei made when using his ability, but that “crack” sounded like… chewing.
The sound came from behind an SUV, near the mutated zombie’s corpse.
“Brother Wei?”
She called out tentatively, but there was no response.
She took out three vials from her pouch and uncapped them.
Holding them in her mouth, ready to swallow, she cautiously peered under the SUV.
Her eyes widened.
What… what was she seeing?
The mutated zombie’s head, now with several half-meter-long bone spikes extending from it, was perched on a body, gnawing on a green, bloody figure.
Wei’s body. He hadn’t even had time to turn his green blood into its toxic form before being devoured.
And, fueled by Wei’s blood crystals, a thick, segmented, green, caterpillar-like body was growing from the head’s neck.
The grotesque, gelatinous green body pulsed, its vertebrae and the bone spikes within clearly visible.
Like a giant, fleshy caterpillar with a human head.
If Alian had to describe it with food, it would be a melting, moldy green popsicle, lying limply on the ground, the wooden stick replaced by a human head.
Suddenly, the head stopped eating, turned, and looked at her.
Its face, covered in green veins, was far more grotesque and terrifying than before.
Alian’s heart nearly stopped. She swallowed the bone powder and blood crystals, then took out several postage stamp-sized pieces of paper from her other pocket and stuffed them into her mouth.
This was no time for restraint.
She finally understood why the Boss had contacted them via radio code, demanding reinforcements, specifically those with explosives.
The Boss had known there was something dangerous in Fuzhou City, something that could survive with just a head…
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