Chapter 13: Deserved Deaths
“Talk.”
Lin Jiayao’s voice turned cold.
She couldn’t speak directly through Mask.
The severed neck meant Mask lacked vocal cords and lungs.
But the good news was that after connecting to another zombie’s spine, she could control certain parts of the body, including the vocal cords and lungs.
She could use someone else’s vocal cords to vibrate and then use her own vocal tract to produce sound.
The three men in front of her were clearly stunned by Lin Jiayao, unable to react for a long time.
A bone spike from the back of Lin Jiayao’s neck, extending past her white hair, pierced directly through the heart of the man holding her former body’s hand.
After withdrawing the bone spike, Lin Jiayao didn’t retract it, but kept it extended.
As the body fell to the ground with an expression of disbelief, Lin Jiayao turned her gaze to the remaining two.
“Talk.”
Lin Jiayao clearly didn’t want to waste any more time.
Seeing their two companions die so gruesomely, the remaining men quickly understood their situation.
They had no power to resist and could only answer any questions asked.
“You… Do you want to know about that exploration team?” one of the men, with dreadlocks, asked, throwing down his hand crossbow. “That exploration team arrived in Haixin District about a week ago…”
Lin Jiayao didn’t speak, but raised her gun slightly, signaling him to continue.
She pierced the other man, who hadn’t spoken, with a bone spike. He didn’t even have time to scream.
“Gulp—” The dreadlocked man swallowed nervously, quickly lowering his head to hide his fear. His back was soaked with cold sweat, darkening his green vest.
“We’d been keeping a close eye on that exploration team since they arrived. They seemed to be from another district, not like those from the highway…”
“They scavenged for supplies in Haixin District for a few days and killed a few Nest Zombies. Because there were two Awakened among them, we didn’t act rashly…”
“Later, the bridge connecting Haixin District to Xiaowan District was blocked by a few wandering Wailers, and that’s when we found an opportunity to approach them.”
“We tricked them into going to Yangzhou Tower under the guise of cooperation, and then ambushed them with arrows. But when we checked the bodies later, we found one Awakened missing. I was out scavenging for supplies at the time. When I returned, they sent me out to look for her.”
The dreadlocked man carefully chose his words, relaying the news of the team.
He specifically mentioned his absence, trying to appear innocent.
He didn’t dare mention that besides the blood crystals, their motive for robbing the team was also the only woman in the group.
Their leader had seen her through binoculars from Yangzhou Tower and had given the order to bring her back, dead or alive. Everyone knew what the leader was thinking.
Having survived in the apocalypse for so many years, no one could resist the primal urge upon seeing such a beautiful woman—without any legal constraints, if you injured her severely enough, she was yours. The logic was more primitive than that of animals in the jungle.
The dreadlocked man knew that the head in front of him wasn’t a zombie; it must be controlled by an Awakened with strange abilities.
Perhaps it was a relative or close friend of someone from that team, who had come to Haixin District to look for them.
If he cooperated, he might be spared.
“Did you find her?” Lin Jiayao asked.
“No, not yet. But she was seriously injured. We’ve narrowed the search area down to this block. Maybe she’s already…”
The dreadlocked man stopped abruptly.
“Hmm.”
“Shhh—”
The dreadlocked man watched as the grotesque head pressed a bone spike against Brother Fei’s corpse’s shoulder and, with a pull, ripped off the head.
The spraying blood splattered across his face, but he didn’t dare raise a hand to wipe it off.
He was afraid any unnecessary movement would anger the eerie head.
Then he saw the head, supported by bone spikes, use one of them to take the gun from Brother Fei’s dead hand, lower its posture, and crawl under a nearby car like a head-spider.
“It’s… gone?”
After confirming the grotesque head was gone, the dreadlocked man’s hands trembled uncontrollably, his legs giving way, and he knelt on the ground.
He could feel a warm flow down his legs, but he didn’t care. Surviving was all that mattered.
The pistol that head had been holding… Was the thing that killed the Nest Zombie in Xingyue Building controlled by that unknown Awakened?
He had only heard about Awakened who could control zombies on Survivor’s Light radio, but he hadn’t expected it to be so horrifying.
Just as he was about to push himself off the ground, his head suddenly lost control and slammed into the ground. After rolling a few times, he saw his kneeling body and the bone shears made of crossed bone spikes at his neck.
His expression was forever frozen in bewilderment.
“Whoosh—”
Lin Jiayao flicked the blood off her bone spike and retracted it.
The corpses hanging on the fence of Yangzhou Tower Park weren’t just from her sister’s team. Every person in there deserved to die.
Mask’s existence could be seen, but the fact that it was sentient and capable of communication couldn’t be known by anyone.
As for whether the dreadlocked man was good or bad? Lin Jiayao didn’t want to judge.
He had cooperated and answered her questions, so she granted him a painless death. It was that simple.
Perhaps the zombie perspective had desensitized her, or perhaps she had witnessed too much bloodshed over the years, but Lin Jiayao felt no adverse reaction to killing.
No nausea, no dizziness, no urge to vomit.
Having finally found a way to become stronger, Lin Jiayao wouldn’t let any weakness interfere.
Besides, finding her sister was the most important thing now.
Lin Jiayao looked at the extraction time.
Ten minutes left.
But the building at the extraction point was very close. Lin Jiayao decided to search this street.
She had to find her sister before the people from Yangzhou Tower camp did.
Lin Jiayao extended her bone spikes, crawling rapidly across the ground, like flying close to the earth.
Every time her bone spikes touched the ground, she received a wealth of sound and vibration information from the surroundings. For searching for people, she was far superior to ordinary Awakened.
Especially for finding living people; the beating of a heart was particularly noticeable to her Lurker hearing.
Half a block later, and still no sign of a heartbeat.
With only ten minutes left until extraction, Lin Jiayao had to head towards the extraction point.
She would upgrade her Lurker ability to Lv.2 and then log back into Mask to find her sister.
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