Chapter 54 Level Two Deprivation

The air near the lumberyard was thick with a foul, rotting stench. A low, ambiguous growl echoed from the distance, followed closely by the increasingly clear, rustling sound of footsteps.

Jiang Qiyu frowned, quickly judging from experience that these were not just a few scattered zombies, but a massive wave.

"Zombies! Three o'clock direction!" Zhao Hu roared, his rifle pointing straight at the source of the noise. Before his voice even faded, dozens of zombies emerged from the dense bushes, their flesh torn open and their eyes gleaming with ferocity.

"Open fire! Protect the residents as they retreat!" Jiang Qiyu issued a swift command, her voice calm and resolute. Zhou Yun immediately pulled the residents closest to her, gesturing toward the evacuation route: "Follow me, everyone!"

Zhao Hu and Zhang Yu fired with swift, fierce precision. Their bullets pierced through the skulls of several zombies, bringing a brief moment of victorious joy. Yet this joy was instantly swallowed by a new terror—when bullets struck other parts near the tops of the zombies' heads, they produced a metallic clanging sound!

"What the hell!" Zhang Yu widened his eyes, stepping back two paces. He stared in disbelief at one of the zombies whose head had only been grazed by a bullet, leaving a shallow mark while green liquid continuously seeped out to cover the wound.

At that moment, the mutated zombie suddenly accelerated, lunging at Zhang Yu with the fierce claws and fangs of a hungry cheetah. Zhang Yu's hands trembled, nearly dropping his gun. Pale-faced, he fell backward onto the ground: "Holy shit! Help!"

"Get down!" Jiang Qiyu barked sternly, decisively raising her sniper rifle to take aim. The muzzle spat out a burst of flame, blowing the top of the zombie's head wide open. Foul-smelling brain matter splattered everywhere, leaving Zhang Yu drenched in cold sweat as he sprawled on the ground.

"Don't lower your guard! The skin of these zombies has hardened; they've mutated." Jiang Qiyu scanned the surroundings through her sniper scope and commanded once more, "Everyone focus on headshots! If textbook shooting fails, switch to melee weapons!"

Lu Yao rushed over from the other side of the lumberyard, a flash of scarlet in his eyes.

The dagger in his hand reflected a chilling light as he ferociously and precisely slashed open a zombie lunging at him. His seemingly innocent face was somewhat distorted by excitement. "Big sister, I'm here."

Jiang Qiyu fired while sparing a glance back at him, her tone casual yet filled with oppressive weight: "Don't overdo it. Control the exit over there and don't let them escape."

Lu Yao licked his lips, raised an eyebrow, and smiled like a mischievous child: "As you command, big sister!"

On the other side, Shi Chao was darting through the jungle. His movements were light and swift, every landing seemingly calculated to not make the slightest sound. His figure was like a phantom, occasionally vanishing among the tree shadows, only to reappear in another direction the next second, making his trajectory completely untraceable.

His mission was to lure the scattered squads of zombies into the encirclement of Jiang Qiyu and Lu Yao, but as he ran, he couldn't help muttering curses inwardly: "The speed of these mutated zombies is just too insane! They completely refuse to play by the rules!"

Zhao Hu and Zhang Yu were now pulling their triggers like madmen in the narrow gap between despair and survival. After a few explosive bangs, a sudden gun jam instantly stripped Zhang Yu of his last shred of confidence. He muttered incoherently, his voice trembling: "I'm dead, I'm dead! Boss, save me!"

Jiang Qiyu's gaze turned icy. Almost the moment she raised the muzzle, her finger had already steadily squeezed the trigger. With a swift bound closing in on Zhang Yu—she could almost feel the oncoming wave of the bloody stench—at the very nick of time, she dragged him aside. Simultaneously, a bullet pierced through the zombie's eye with the force of a thunderbolt.

In the air reeking of blood, Jiang Qiyu spoke coldly: "Stop fighting like a toothless dog. If you're that useless again, I'll throw you out to feed them."

Zhang Yu nodded repeatedly, as if fearing that the slightest hesitation would cost him his life. He scrambled up from the muddy ground using both hands and feet so clumsily that he almost lost his shoes. Raising his head, he stared fixedly at Jiang Qiyu's upright figure, his eyes filled with a complex mix of worship and terror, as if witnessing a miracle beyond description.

However, before anyone could catch their breath, that somewhat eerie silence was suddenly shattered. A deafening roar erupted from the direction of the defensive line like the roar of a giant beast, sweeping outward with an oppressive, suffocating force that caused everyone's heartbeat to skip a beat.

A giant zombie, as massive as an adult rhinoceros, had muscles bulging in a twisted and terrifying manner. Its skin displayed an unhealthy grayish-blue, with pulsing blood vessels faintly visible beneath its cracked epidermis. Violently swinging a deformed arm covered in a bony outer shell, and accompanied by the sound of tearing air, it easily smashed the temporary defensive barriers to pieces, sending debris flying in all directions.

"Oh my god, this thing..." Zhao Hu stuttered, his voice stuck in his throat.

Hearing that deafening roar, Zhao Hu was not the only one dumbfounded. The other team members also simultaneously halted their actions, turning their heads in shock toward the direction of the sound.

"Is... is this even a zombie?!" A young team member's voice was trembling as he stepped back a few steps in panic, his face ashen and pale as paper.

"Good lord, how tall is it? It's got to be nearly three meters!" Another team member's mouth hung wide open, as if he had forgotten how to scream. His hand slowly dropped, and his gun nearly slipped from his palm.

"Don't just stand there! Raise your guns!" Jiang Qiyu's reprimand was like a sudden clap of thunder, pulling them out of their daze back to reality. The team members hurriedly raised their weapons, but their limbs were stiff and their movements sluggish, as if they were encountering such a monster for the very first time.

"What do we do, Boss..." Zhao Hu's gaze instinctively drifted toward Jiang Qiyu. Despite being a burly man, at this moment he looked like a frightened child, his face horribly distorted with terror.

"Don't ask me what to do. Either kill it, or be smashed to pieces by it." Jiang Qiyu's cold, harsh voice was brimming with murderous intent, every word driving straight into people's hearts like molten iron.

Just then, an old team member who had collapsed to the ground in terror tried to stand up. But upon catching sight of that colossal monster taking its first stride, his legs turned to jelly again and he crashed back down to the earth with a dull thud. He muttered to himself, "It's over. This is practically a tank among zombies. We're dead for sure. With just one swipe of its paw, all of us will..."

Before he could finish, Shi Chao leaped out from the jungle, rushed over, and kicked the man heavily in the thigh: "Shut up! Are you screeching louder and more frighteningly than that beast?"

Zhao Hu stared blankly at Shi Chao, then glanced back at the "tank zombie," remaining completely speechless. Instead, a young team member weak-mindedly spoke with trembling lips: "It looks like... it's looking at us?"

Everyone swallowed hard in unison. True to form, the giant zombie stopped for a brief moment, its blood-red eyes sweeping across the direction of the temporary squad. It emitted a low roar from its throat, sounding like a provocation or an announcement of the arrival of a feast.

"Boss, Boss, it's moving!" A skinny team member standing in the back row screamed uncontrollably.

Breaking the silence was Jiang Qiyu's brief and resolute command: "Open fire."

Jiang Qiyu narrowed her eyes, her calm voice ringing out abruptly amidst the chaos: "Everyone fall back—prepare for battle!"

The time of zombie mutation had arrived... Jiang Qiyu's gaze darkened, a sharp and ruthless vigilance flashing through her mind as she raised her weapon. She understood what this meant far better than anyone else:

In the beginning, they were merely scattered level-one zombies, similar in size to ordinary people, slow-moving, with average attacking power, relying solely on numbers to win.

Yet further down the line, level-one zombies would shed that clumsy skin and evolve into far more terrifying level-two zombies. Their strength, speed, and intelligence would experience massive boosts, and they would even learn to command lower-tier zombies. And what was even more terrifying was that the zombies' rate of evolution would never stop at level two; they would grow stronger and faster, as if proclaiming the irreversible doom of humanity.

The endless evolution of the zombies reflected not only their spine-chilling adaptability, but also the steadily diminishing survival odds of humanity.

Every time the zombies evolved a tier, they claimed more lives and crushed more stubborn wills to resist. Jiang Qiyu remembered that that day would arrive sooner or later—the zombies would flood and cover the entire earth, fear and despair would devour mankind, countless once-towering orders and fortresses would collapse into ruin, and humanity would be reduced to nothing more than absolute prey.