Combat Training

June 20, afternoon.

Leon led the Combat Team to assemble in the small square outside the CDC.

"All hands, fall in. Prepare for training exercises."

Aside from Glenn and Daryl, who were out on missions, the group here included T-Dog and Merle, plus Aji and the six young men from the Nursing Home Camp he brought along—nine people in total. This was the entire staff of Umbrella Corporation's Security Department.

At this moment, everyone wore a set of black heavy full-body leather armor reinforced with iron plates, modified from motorcycle jackets and pants. Six of them carried metal spears made from steel pipes and daggers, while three held police riot shields and gleaming bayonets, standing in groups of three.

This set of armor was developed through joint discussion by the five technicians in the Engineering Department. Leon named it the Black Bear Armor 1.0.

It used existing materials from the warehouse, imitating ancient knight leather armor. Multiple layers of thick cowhide were stacked and reinforced, with metal armor plates sewn into the joints, paired with copper-wire gloves, metal combat boots, steel shoulder guards, and an integrated combat helmet modified from a motorcycle helmet. Weighing nine kilograms in total, it effectively defended against slashing and piercing from cold weapons, and naturally, it was more than enough to withstand the zombies' most primitive scratching and biting.

This was also something Leon found very strange in his past life. The characters in the story were all educated people, yet when facing zombies that could only use teeth and fingernails, they were foolish enough to fight them with bare flesh. Couldn't they imitate ancient warriors and make themselves a set of armor?

Even without armor, wearing several layers of high-quality leather clothes could block many zombie bites.

With just their teeth, could they really bite through steel plates or thick leather? Leon silently mocked.

He could only say the writers were brain-dead, making everyone's intelligence drop off a cliff.

As for the Black Bear Armor Leon named, the Combat Team members were also very satisfied. They felt that having a wise leader was great—far better than fighting alone.

With this equipment, their survival rate against zombies had increased by at least 90%.

Due to ammunition reserves, survivors had to resort to the most primitive cold weapons to deal with zombies.

Even with Leon's deep pockets, he didn't have enough ammunition to supply the Combat Team for daily consumption.

Thus, the training exercises were born.

Training exercises targeted small numbers of zombies, with multiple people cooperating, focusing on combat skills and teamwork.

This was also the Security Department's first time carrying out a training exercise. To be safe, Leon decided to lead personally and protect his subordinates.

A few days earlier, he had sent Glenn to carefully scout all buildings within a three-kilometer radius of the CDC and create a simple map. After multiple checks, he found a good target: a private apartment complex called Maple Leaf Apartments.

That place was a real estate rental project run by some property company, responsible for providing high-quality private villa rentals to workers in this industrial zone.

It had about eighty small villas, with a pleasant environment, each with its own yard. There was no risk of dense population leading to encountering a large horde of zombies at once.

This was also Leon's future goal. When he expanded his territory here, this villa complex could serve as a very practical residential area.

It was perfect for this kind of combat training exercise.

Leon got into his sports car and spoke into the walkie-talkie.

"Target: Maple Leaf Apartments. Everyone get in the vehicles. Prepare to move out!"

Behind him, the team members climbed into three medium-sized pickup trucks in groups of three, all responding to his order.

"Yes, sir, Boss."

Ten minutes later, the four vehicles arrived at the villa complex called Maple Leaf Apartments.

Leon got out first, holding a brand-new Compound Metal Crossbow in his hands, and looked around.

He saw about eight zombies scattered outside the apartment gate a hundred meters away. They seemed to have heard the vehicles' noise and were staggering toward them.

Leon thought for a moment, put down the crossbow, gestured to Aji beside him, took the metal spear from his hand, and said to the combatants nearby:

"The spear is an excellent polearm. It can accurately pierce a zombie's skull, push away and block enemies, provide us with a good safe distance, and in critical moments, be thrown as a ranged weapon to finish off an enemy in one hit."

"Follow me and see how a spear is used."

Leon held the spear, struck a few poses he remembered from using spears, and walked steadily toward the zombie group.

His gaze was calm, without a ripple. Facing enemies far outnumbering him, he felt no fear. In his heart, there was a strange sense of having everything under control.

It had been over ten days since he came to this world. Leon gradually realized that the special energy in his body didn't just grant him powerful physical attributes.

It also provided him with an invisible and intangible strength—combat wisdom that greatly influenced his fighting performance, which many called combat instinct.

Any weapon, any enemy—as long as he observed for a while and got a feel for it in his hand, his mind would automatically simulate many ways to use that weapon and techniques to deal with that enemy.

It wasn't an illusion. It was this feeling that had turned him from a past-life fat executive into the powerful warrior many now admired.

Combat instinct made him increasingly adept at fighting, which had originally been very unfamiliar to him.

Take the spear in his hand. He simply swung it lightly a few times. In just a few dozen seconds, he felt he had become very familiar with this weapon, knowing how to use it, how to master it, like a veteran who had practiced for years.

Scenes from various movies and shows of martial arts masters using spears flashed through his mind.

The Combat Team members clearly had great confidence in their boss's combat ability. They held their breath, following silently a few meters behind, carefully observing his movements.

When the fastest zombie stepped within two meters of Leon, following the feeling in his mind, he gripped the spear's tail end with his left hand, tucked it under his ribs as a pivot, and swept hard with his right hand.

The sharp spearhead drew an arc, swish, slicing off that zombie's skull. The immense force splattered white brain matter.

Leon lifted his right hand, pulled his left hand back, flicked the blood off the spearhead, and miraculously spun it in a half-arc back to its original position.

Spotting the second zombie's position, he didn't stop. He stepped forward with his right foot, slightly bent his left leg, used his waist strength, and thrust the spear forward with both hands. The spearhead, driven by force, pierced through the second zombie's forehead like a bullet.

And so, Leon moved with his waist and legs unified, his arms swinging wildly. The sharp metal spear was like a dancing viper—thrusting, lifting, sweeping, smashing—each strike accurately hitting a zombie's head, shattering their brains, draining all their life force.

When Leon calmly withdrew the spear, squinting as he savored his own battle, eight corpses with pierced heads lay before him.

This is just too good. I suddenly feel like an absolute beast.

The Combat Team members behind me were already stunned. They had never underestimated the Boss's combat ability—after all, not long ago, he had demonstrated the strength to single-handedly kill thirty zombies right before their eyes.

But they never expected that, in just ten short days, the Boss's combat power seemed to have increased by a huge margin. They hadn't seen him before able to withstand a siege of eight zombies head-on, taking them down one by one with ease, not even letting them get within a meter of him.

A member from the Nursing Home stared blankly, muttering with a hint of smugness:

"I told you all long ago—the Boss isn't an ordinary person. He knows Chinese Kung Fu."