Soon, Corpse Monsters nearly three meters tall emerged from the horde. They sprinted with extreme speed, leaped fiercely, and directly jumped across the four-meter-wide chasm.
“Bang—!”
The first Corpse Monster to jump over was struck square in the forehead by a sniper round. The tremendous kinetic energy forcibly ripped its head from its body, exploding it midair. The headless corpse landed at the cliff’s edge due to inertia, tumbling down.
That shot officially sounded the death charge.
More Corpse Monsters followed and leaped over. Two armored soldiers immediately swiveled their machine guns and swept wildly, turning the foremost few Corpse Monsters into sieves. The machine gunner beside them also set up heavy firepower, bullets pouring like a rainstorm, intertwining with the riflemen’s precision shots into a net that firmly suppressed the momentum of the corpse tide.
But under the frenzied battering of the Corpse Monsters, the iron-sheeted wooden door emitted groans of unbearable strain. The already tottering door panels completely shattered, caving in and deforming.
“Boom—!”
The corpse tide flooded into the cave like a burst dam. The Red Corpse Birds circling the cave ceiling also found a breakthrough, shrieking as they dove down.
“Watch the sky!” Hui Yan’s tone was urgent.
The flock of Corpse Birds used the strange fog as cover, surging like a tide and launching a wave of suicide charges. The flamethrower soldiers immediately raised their weapons, erupting with terrifying flames that formed a dense, airtight wall of fire, nearly igniting the air. Large numbers of Red Corpse Birds fell to the ground scorched, quickly piling into charred slopes of corpses. Zhuang Fan was witnessing this kind of scene for the first time; the visual impact was extremely intense.
Two armored soldiers held the very front line. The barrels of their rotary machine guns had already been fired red-hot, tongues of fire unceasing, shell casings falling everywhere.
Hui Yan fired while glaring at Du Li’an. “At a time like this, your people are still slacking?”
“They’ve done their best.” Du Li’an’s tone was very innocent. “You know, they’re just militiamen. Their quality is far below yours.”
Zhuang Fan watched coldly from the sidelines. He realized this Du Li’an was particularly cunning, the very picture of intentional foot-dragging—likely wanting to whittle down Hui Yan’s team's overall strength.
Hui Yan couldn’t be bothered to waste words with him. She directly pulled out a fire control button and activated two high-explosive charges. “If you won’t put in effort, I’ll blow up our escape route. We’ll all die together.”
The air fell instantly silent.
Du Li’an was used to life-and-death threats, but he could distinguish the fatal resolve in Hui Yan’s words. She really wasn’t joking. His pupils contracted violently, and he finally changed expression, roaring at his own men: “Everyone get up here and do your damn jobs! Hurry up and bring the ammo boxes! You two are responsible for changing the ammo belts! Whoever slacks off, I’ll shoot them myself!”
After both sides joined forces, for a time flames shot to the sky and gunfire rained like a storm. Relying on the narrow tunnel, the defensive line’s pressure was instantly alleviated. The mechanic Mo Lei went to set explosives at designated points, but because the rock walls were so hard, he needed more explosives and time. Zhuang Fan stayed alone in a corner, quietly watching the battlefield, doing his best to lower his presence.
To speed up the corrosion of the steel hoop, he had already taken the risk of compressing the strange fog into black mist. In a few more minutes, he would be able to break free with ease.
At this moment, right at the very center of the corpse tide, a small patch of ground began to sink, then collapse, revealing a bottomless black hole. Immediately after, a proportionally balanced, even beautiful woman’s head and upper body emerged first. But from her waist down, she was connected to a massive, bloated abdomen fifteen meters long and three meters in both height and width. The ash-gray abdominal skin was layered and folded, like a rotting, diseased silkworm pupa. Below it grew dense rows of segmented limbs, supporting it as it squirmed and crawled in a nauseating manner.
Everyone present felt their pupils shrink, their minds briefly blank. That was a physiological rejection stemming from biological instinct, a shudder at the utter distortion of the human form.
An ancient word from seven hundred years ago popped out of Zhuang Fan’s mouth:
“Holy shit.”
The battlefield gunfire was noisy, and this mutter was nearly inaudible, yet Hui Yan happened to hear it. Beneath her mask, her eyebrows imperceptibly furrowed as she suppressed the shock in her heart.
Chinese. What he just said was definitely Chinese. I didn’t mishear.
“All units attention! The Corpse Queen has appeared!” Her voice transmitted through the tactical mask, carrying a hint of gravity.
At this moment, Zhuang Fan’s thoughts were immersed in the old man’s memories.
[Corpse Queen: human upper body, insect abdomen, many legs, a pupae-producing machine. The wasteland is estimated to have over a hundred Corpse Queens. A single one can produce over ten thousand pupa clusters daily. Each pupa cluster contains 200 pupa sacs, hatching two million walking corpses per day.]
[Its habits are like those of a termite queen. Walking corpses (worker ants) are responsible for transporting and storing pupa clusters. Corpse Monsters (soldier ants) are responsible for defending the pupa nest. Corpse People (servants) are responsible for attending to the Corpse Queen.]
The old man’s memories could provide no further information.
Compared to the others, Zhuang Fan could observe more of the situation within the strange fog. He strained to look into the distance. Sure enough, he discovered over a dozen special figures beside the Corpse Queen—those were the “Corpse People.” They appeared human in shape, but their skin was tinged with a deathly gray, their eyes scarlet red, and segments of spinal bones pierced through the skin of their backs, protruding hideously. Unlike the other walking corpses that only knew how to roar and charge, they had specific divisions of labor: Some held rusty firearms and machetes, forcing back any walking corpses that dared approach; others shouted loudly, as if advising the Corpse Queen, indirectly directing Corpse Monsters to launch new waves of assault. Apparently, the Corpse People served as tacticians, yet their status among the corpse hordes was the lowest, akin to slaves. If they left the Corpse Queen without permission, they would be surrounded and devoured by other walking corpses.
Human society could not accept the Corpse People either. This was a race abandoned by both worlds simultaneously. Looking at those numb-eyed Corpse People, Zhuang Fan actually felt a trace of inexplicable familiarity. Those abandoned by both worlds at the same time were far more than just them.
His gaze casually swept over the walking corpse horde, then he suddenly sat straight up, thinking his eyes were playing tricks on him. Under the shroud of strange fog, the torn and rotting wounds of the Corpse Monsters were recovering bit by bit at a speed visible to the naked eye. Some walking corpses that had been blasted into pieces were actually reassembling into new “shattered corpses” under the strange fog’s cover, like building blocks, slowly walking onward, neither dying nor being destroyed. Zhuang Fan finally realized where humanity’s trouble lay.
“Hey, you’re the most idle one here!”
Ha Li’s gun muzzle pressed directly against Zhuang Fan. “Get up front and do your part!”
“Sending a tied-up person to their death? Meaningless.” Hui Yan didn’t turn her head. Her sniper rifle remained locked on the distance, trying to aim at the Corpse Queen.
“Then untie him! More people means more strength!” Ha Li shouted stubbornly.
Hui Yan’s tone was without ripple: “I’ll say it again. It’s meaningless. Just mind yourself.”
Ha Li, whose face had been publicly slapped, flushed red. With nowhere to vent his rage, he kicked Zhuang Fan in the abdomen instead. “I just don’t like your face.”
Zhuang Fan looked at him coldly.
Ha Li looked around again, pulling away a tattered hemp cloth in the corner to reveal a large iron cage inside. There were only two dying refugees in the cage, their flesh split open, blood pooling on the floor. Ha Li pointed at the soldiers nearby: “You guys, put him inside!”
But the soldiers were all busy fighting the enemy on the front lines; no one paid him any mind. Feeling his face lost yet again, Ha Li grabbed Zhuang Fan by the neck, opened the cage door, and kicked him inside bodily.
Zhuang Fan had already sentenced him to death. If he hadn’t just managed with great difficulty to condense that small wisp of strange fog, he would definitely have sent it into Ha Li’s body and let the other taste the flavor of mutation. The refugees in the iron cage trembled all over, both terrified and despairing. Zhuang Fan leaned against the cold iron bars, calmly observing Du Li’an’s group’s movements through the gaps in the railing. Although they were also firing, they were more occupied with carrying some heavy boxes stuffed with smoked jerky, the boxes stained with dark red blotches.
Something wasn’t right.
He turned to an old man shivering beside him and lowered his voice: “What’s in those boxes?”
The old man looked at him fearfully, his lips trembling. Only after a long while did he squeeze out a few words: “My old wife...”
Zhuang Fan’s heart sank. As expected, Du Li’an’s group was eating people.
He asked again, “Du Li’an is your leader? What did you do?”
“He’s not the leader... Our leader is called Pi’ersi...” The old man spoke with a slight sob, stammeringly recounting the massacre from two weeks prior. It turned out Du Li’an’s group had been roving everywhere to commit crimes. After hijacking a supply transport squad, they used threats and bribes to learn that a mysterious shelter had been newly discovered at Grotesque Rock Hill. Afterward, they stuffed bombs inside five hostages and forced them to return to the base. The instant the base gate opened, Du Li’an detonated the bombs, killing fifteen guards on the spot and wounding countless others. What followed was a completely one-sided slaughter and looting. The originally 150-person base was left with fewer than 60. But despite exhausting all his tricks, Du Li’an still couldn’t open that shelter door, wasting two weeks back and forth.
Zhuang Fan listened silently, already having formed a plan in his heart. He knew Hui Yan was cautious enough. The “Leader Batu” she mentioned before was just a test. It was impossible that she hadn’t discovered Du Li’an was an impostor. The trust between both sides was already fragile beyond compare; he could completely exploit this point to balance them against each other.
On the battlefield, snipers basically couldn’t function. She had aimed at the Corpse Queen several times, but her line of sight was blocked by strange shadows, rendering the night vision equipment useless.
Du Li’an looked at that moving fortress of flesh and blood in the distance and roared in anger: “Even the Corpse Queen was drawn here! It must be you mercenaries’ doing!”
Hui Yan calmly refuted: “Look carefully. The Corpse Queen looks more like it’s fleeing from disaster. We just happen to be on its route.”
Fleeing from disaster...
Among everyone present, only Zhuang Fan detected something slightly off. He focused and looked. Sure enough, around the Corpse Queen, a small mass of dense black fog was churning. Although its shape was vague, he was almost certain it was that strange demon encountered at the XR-662 Shelter. It was like an invisible puppeteer, controlling this massive killing machine that was the Corpse Queen. So this was no coincidence. That strange demon was driving the corpse tide to hunt him down. First the sand worms, now the Corpse Queen—his hatred value was completely maxed out.
Obviously, the Corpse Queen was also struggling to resist. Its bloated body occasionally sprayed high-pressure air currents, and the Corpse People beside it even raised torches, trying to disperse this mass of black fog. That mass of black fog was unstable in form. After a slight hesitation, it gave up and silently faded, disappearing from the battlefield. Having lost control, the Corpse Queen indeed began to slowly distance itself from the main battlefield—after all, its massive body was a sniper’s perfect target. But even if it was retreating, the current corpse tide offensive had already formed, enough to completely submerge Grotesque Rock Hill.
“Roar—”
The corpse tide’s numbers were too massive. The subsequent Corpse Monsters stepped on their companions’ corpses, forcibly raising the corpse slope by nearly three meters. One of Du Li’an’s subordinates had just poked his head out when a Corpse Monster burrowed out from the corpse pile and bit his neck. His scream was quickly drowned out.
“Mo Lei, hurry up!”
The gap in the defensive line grew larger and larger. More Corpse Monsters tried to surge in, frantically clawing at the soldiers.
“Hold the line!”
Hui Yan personally filled that gap.
One flamethrower soldier’s fuel tank was pierced by a Red Corpse Bird’s sharp talons. The high-pressure fuel instantly combusted, swallowing his whole body in flames like a torch.
“Ahhhh!”
He let out a final roar within the blaze and charged toward the densest part of the corpse horde.
One armored soldier’s rotary machine gun had been fired for so long that the barrel was completely red and ruined.
“Shot to hell.”
He directly used the heavy metal hunk as a war hammer, viciously smashing it into a Corpse Monster’s skull. The rotting flesh was seared by the red-hot barrel, emitting a clear “sizzling” sound.
“No one retreats!” Du Li’an personally supervised the battle, the vicious scar on his face extremely savage.
At this moment, everyone was killing until their eyes were red. Bullet casings carpeted the ground, mixed with putrid blood and minced flesh, severed limbs everywhere. The air was permeated with the smells of gunpowder, charred rot, and death. The defensive line was in imminent peril, on the verge of collapse at any moment.
Mo Lei ran over sweating profusely. “Boss, the charges are all set.”
“Retreat!”
Du Li’an was the first to turn and run back, simultaneously pointing his gun at those civilians and roaring: “What are you staring for? Everyone get inside!”
Hui Yan’s team covered each other in retreat, but when she saw those crates of bloody meat stores, flames of rage ignited behind her mask. She fired several shots at the iron cages imprisoning the civilians, breaking the locks and releasing Zhuang Fan.
“Open all the cages! Everyone!”
Du Li’an was stunned, then also realized—these were all reserve meat. So he had his men release all the prisoners.
The rescued civilians and prisoners screamed and fled in all directions, colliding with the surging corpse tide. The scene grew increasingly chaotic.
The armored soldier bringing up the rear was like a maddened bull. He forcibly rammed aside three Corpse Monsters and used his mechanical arm to smash them against the rock wall, bursting their brains.
“Boss, you guys go, don’t mind me!”
Soon, the armor on his arm was also torn open by a Corpse Monster, a hideous gash exposing metal parts and flesh twisted together. Hui Yan couldn’t save him in time and watched helplessly as that armored soldier was devoured by Corpse Monsters.
Her mind went briefly blank, then a scene flashed past. That was his first mission with the team. By the campfire at night, this usually somewhat wooden young man was using his clumsy armored gloves to carefully hold a rusty music box picked up from the ruins. At that time, he had grinned, showing a mouthful of white teeth, and asked good-naturedly, “Boss, do you think people in the past all slept while listening to this thing?”
This armored soldier was called Shi Tou. His parents had died, a refugee, only twenty-one years old this year. He had already followed her through life and death on twenty missions, the team’s most reliable heavy firepower operator.
Hui Yan’s eyes turned slightly red, but her hands didn’t tremble in the slightest. She resolutely pressed the detonator.
“Boom—!”
Amidst the chain of explosions, the entire cave shook violently. Countless boulders crashed down from the ceiling, completely sealing the entrance.
The dust settled.
The cave fell into a deathly silence, leaving only coughing sounds and dust floating everywhere.
After Hui Yan composed herself, she turned on her shoulder lamp to count heads. As she counted, grief welled up again—her team was down to ten people. Du Li’an still had twenty bandits on his side, plus thirty civilians still in shock. The medic was urgently treating the wounded.
Mo Lei looked everywhere but couldn’t find an exit. His expression was ugly. “We’re completely trapped.”
Hui Yan looked at the shelter door. “We can only try that door again, or we’ll all die here.”
Du Li’an shook his head, somewhat mockingly: “We’ve been at it for two weeks. This damn door doesn’t even have a scratch. What kind of splash can you make?”
Hui Yan fell silent. She too was thinking of a way to break the deadlock.
The dark mist within Zhuang Fan’s body had already completely corroded the steel hoop. He flexed his wrist, stood up from the corner, and walked straight toward that silver-gray alloy door. He pressed his palm against the cold door. A familiar sensation transmitted through. Xu Renyi’s memories clearly told him that the voice-activated password to open the door was a poem that only he himself would know. There was no other way.
“Hey kid, what are you doing?” Du Li’an frowned.
Zhuang Fan turned around, meeting the astonished gazes of the crowd.
“I can open this door.” His voice was especially clear in the silent cave.