Chapter 88: A Perfect Body
“Go, go, go!”
The woman quickly retreated, ignoring the pursuing Biters, and climbed back into the SUV.
Both drivers, without a word, started their engines and sped towards the source of the signal flare.
Under the harsh sunlight, the already slow Biters were even slower, unable to keep up with the modified SUVs, left in their dust.
The convoy hadn’t dispersed far, and soon, the scattered vehicles regrouped.
“Faster! Faster!” The mohawked woman, perhaps due to the bone fragments she had consumed, was even more agitated.
She tugged at the driver’s braid, urging him to accelerate.
“Screech—”
The SUV stopped in front of an underground parking lot beneath a large shopping mall.
The underground parking lot was pitch black, but a single green glow stick, a Voodoo Cult item, was visible.
The woman jumped out and was about to enter the parking lot when the other vehicles arrived.
“Wait, Alian,” Wei’s voice called out from the second vehicle. “Don’t rush. Turn off the music and the engines.”
His orders were relayed quickly, and even the arrogant mohawked woman stopped.
It seemed that in situations like this, Wei was in charge.
With the music silenced and the engines off, an eerie quiet settled over the area.
“Crunch, crunch—”
“Growl… gurgle…”
The chilling sounds of chewing and guttural growls echoed from the dark parking lot.
It seemed the Voodoo Cult members who had foolishly driven into the basement hadn’t fared well.
“Start your engines, set the traps, prepare the machine guns and grenades! Move! Move! Move!”
“Whirr—”
The engines roared to life. Following their practiced routine, four men carried two large coils of barbed wire, each attached to a pickup truck, and laid the wire across the parking lot entrance.
If any zombies came running out, they would be tripped and then dragged down by the trucks.
This was just their last line of defense. The other combat vehicles had already formed a semi-circle around the entrance.
Any zombie emerging would first face six light machine guns.
“Damn it… is all this really necessary…?” the woman muttered, looking at the preparations.
In her opinion, this city barely had any mutated zombies; it was too easy.
She was a C-rank physical enhancement Awakened. Upon reaching C-rank, she had also gained the ability to temporarily absorb the bone structures of other creatures, further enhancing her strength.
And there was another C-rank Awakened in their team. Even without him, she alone could probably handle most mutated zombies.
So, she was impatient with Wei’s caution; it seemed excessive.
But all the members were diligently preparing; she couldn’t complain openly.
When everything was ready, one of the men near the parking lot entrance looked at Wei.
Seeing Wei nod, he took out a flashbang grenade.
To the Voodoo Cult, flashbangs were the perfect zombie lure.
Both the bright flash and the loud bang would drive them straight into their traps.
“Whoosh—”
Pulling the pin, he tossed the grenade into the dark parking lot.
It bounced off a wall, rolled down a slope, and then exploded with a loud “BOOM.”
The man who had thrown it had already retreated behind the convoy.
Now, everyone stared intently at the parking lot entrance, not daring to move.
But strangely, after the initial explosion, there was no sound from the parking lot.
Even the earlier chewing and growls had stopped; it was as if there were no zombies inside.
Normally, zombies would have charged out at the sound of the flashbang. This was the first time they’d encountered such silence.
After waiting for about thirty seconds, the mohawked woman, Alian, said, “Did… did the flashbang kill them all?”
“Uh…” Even Wei was puzzled. He’d never encountered this in all his years in the apocalypse.
It didn’t fit the usual zombie behavior patterns.
Ignoring Alian’s absurd question, a flashbang couldn’t kill zombies, not unless it was Russian-made.
And any zombie capable of taking down a Voodoo Cult team wouldn’t be killed by a flashbang.
Perhaps because his years of experience seemed useless now, Wei felt a surge of irritation.
He loosened his black polo shirt collar, took a deep breath, and tried to calm down.
As he looked up, something flickered in the corner of his eye, seemingly a reflection from the shopping mall’s windows above…
No! There was something up there!
“Above!” Wei shouted, slapping the driver’s head and diving into the back seat, grabbing his rifle.
“Roar—”
“Crash—”
From the shopping mall above, a roar and the sound of shattering glass, followed by a slender figure, lunging downwards like a praying mantis.
A mutated zombie!
Likely the one from the basement!
Wei didn’t even have time to chamber a round before tumbling out of the car.
The driver, still inside, was instantly killed, his head bitten off by the falling zombie.
“Fuck! It’s Awakened-controlled! It’s from a camp!” Alian was the first to react, besides Wei.
The machine guns on the pickup trucks were aimed at the basement entrance; they couldn’t turn them around in time, they had to turn the vehicles.
“Fire!” She snatched the rifle from the driver beside her and fired a burst at the mutated zombie.
Only then did she see it clearly.
What… what the hell was that? A Lurker-Hunter-Sprinter-Biter hybrid?
And it seemed to be growing skin, the thin layer covering its exposed muscles, seemingly no longer vulnerable to sunlight.
It was evolving… right after feeding…
What kind of monster was this?!
Seeing the zombie, both of them remembered the Boss’s words.
Something’s wrong in Fuzhou… something’s trying to kill me…
“Crack—”
Another sickening crunch of bone snapped them out of their stupor.
“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang—”
“Rat-tat-tat-tat—”
Recovering from their initial shock, everyone opened fire.
Even Wei, still on the ground, rolled away from the car, chambered a round, and fired at the mutated zombie from a half-lying position.
“Thud—”
“Roar—”
Bullets hit the zombie, splattering blood, but it simply roared, seemingly unaffected, its increased weight from the embedded bullets the only sign of damage.
Before the Voodoo Cult warriors could deploy their RPG, the mutated zombie threw the corpse it held towards them and then, leaping from the car roof, lunged at Wei, who was reloading on the ground.
“Fuck… Alian!!!”
Wei threw his rifle, still without a magazine, at the zombie’s face, then rolled out of the way.
It’s targeting me! It’s trying to kill me!
Instantly understanding, Wei called for backup.
Alian, hearing her name, had already taken a test tube from her special pouch.
It contained a powder and a 10g blood crystal, a “Wow” written on the glass.
She quickly uncapped it and swallowed the contents.
“Ugh—”
She gagged but swallowed it all.
Her jaw and neck swelled grotesquely. She opened her distended mouth and, extending an abnormally long tongue towards Wei, wrapped it around his throat and yanked him towards her.
The mutated zombie, instead of being pinned down by the gunfire, rolled expertly, its bone spikes hooking onto Wei’s discarded rifle and magazine, reloading and chambering a round mid-roll.
When it stopped rolling, now in a half-kneeling position, it held the rifle with its bone spikes, its posture perfect.
Don’t tell me it’s going to…
“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang…”
Short, controlled bursts. With each shot, a Voodoo Cult member fell, a bloody hole in their forehead.
Holy shit!
Wei stared in disbelief.
Perfect headshots, every single one!
Did this zombie have fucking aimbot?
“Take cover!” Wei shouted, rolling under a car, his back against a tire, and quickly taking out a blood crystal from his pocket.
The other Voodoo Cult members also scrambled for cover. The mutated zombie’s field of vision was now clear.
The only one remaining in the open was Alian, four small test tubes clutched in her hand.
Without time to uncap them, she shoved them all into her mouth and bit down.
“Crack—”
The glass shattered in her mouth, and her body began to transform even more drastically.
A horn sprouted from her forehead, fangs erupted from her mouth, piercing her lips, and her skin was now covered in gleaming scales.
Seemingly noticing the commotion, the mutated zombie instantly turned, its rifle aimed at Alian’s head.
“Bang—”
A single shot, the moment it acquired its target.
The bullet hit the horn on her forehead, chipping off a small piece of bone, then ricocheted off a scale on her face with a “ding” and fell to the ground.
Wei, hidden behind the tire, closed his eyes, the blood crystal in his hand.
He didn’t want to use this life-shortening ability unless absolutely necessary.
“Gulp—”
He swallowed the thumb-sized, 50g blood crystal.
His vision turned a sickly green.
“AAAAAH—”
He grabbed his right arm and ripped it off. The arm, stretching like rubber, came off easily, viscous green blood dripping from the wound.
A green gel-like substance oozed from the stump, forming a new arm.
He threw the severed arm towards the green-haired woman.
“Alian!!!”
Hearing him, Alian quickly caught the now completely green arm and bit into the severed end.
“Chomp—”
Green blood and bone fragments sprayed.
Her strength and injuries rapidly recovered. She swallowed the limb and charged towards the mutated zombie.
The mutated zombie discarded the empty rifle. The liquefied blood crystals within its body, its reserve for emergencies, were rapidly repairing its flesh and bones.
“Roar—”
Looking at the approaching woman, a perfect match for its newly acquired abilities, it grinned, a grotesque, almost inhuman expression, and then, catching her punch with its face, opened its maw, revealing the spiraling bone teeth within.
It knew that after absorbing this body, gaining her abilities, its own incomplete evolution would be complete.
It would surprise that system-reliant weakling, make her regret underestimating it.
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