Why Are You Killing My Zombies?

If I had been stronger back then, stronger still—strong enough for a Mortal Body to stand alongside gods—could the Empire have endured? Would the legions have escaped destruction at the hands of calamity?

The Silver-Haired Girl's pink-blue eyes seemed to reflect that terrifying, brutal, hopeless war.

Before true calamity, the resistance of conventional Cosmic Civilizations, no matter how much they gave, had been utterly futile.

The Concept God Annihilation had fallen silent, and its divided subordinate races had completely lost control.

Organic matter or inorganic matter, even a piece of scrap iron, a clump of dirt and stone, a grain of sand, a Water Droplet—all had their original concepts twisted and distorted by calamities bathed in the glory of an evil god, becoming breeding grounds for their endless division and replication.

In merely a few centuries, they had swept through two-thirds of the explored universe. The civilizations that perished were more numerous than grains of sand, and the lives lost could not be counted.

From the moment she received her "designation," her short life had been filled with bloodshed and war. She had fought on the front lines against calamity, shouting, "For the Empire!"

Her comrades were gone. Her legion was gone. The Empire was gone. Life itself had lost its meaning.

Perhaps the appearance of Evolution Paradise had brought a new turning point.

Meng Yi's words—"Weakness is the original sin"—had breathed new vitality into this weapon on the verge of being scrapped.

"Commander, I... can I follow you?"

"Although I'm very weak, I'll work hard!"

Commander?

The utterly unfamiliar form of address made Meng Yi, who was waiting for Luo Ji's answer, freeze in mild surprise for a moment.

Meng Yi turned his head. Unlike his earlier cursory glance, he now studied the girl who had climbed up from beside the window for quite a while with a scrutinizing gaze.

Within the detection range of his mental field, the target's ember, originally so faint it was nearly extinguished, had grown stronger by several degrees.

Meng Yi could tell that she was desperately squeezing out what remained of her "lamp oil." She was in a state of final radiance before death.

This was evident from the glowing patterns spreading across the target's neck and cheeks.

Her delicate features resembled a porcelain doll covered in cracks, only a hair's breadth away from being scrapped.

Strange. She has already burned herself out. What is the source of her power? It can actually defy the conservation of mass and energy to a certain extent.

Could it be a Worldview from some idealistic system? Or had she been contaminated by a certain conceptual higher life-form?

The girl, whose body was manifesting web-like emerald-green cracks, made Meng Yi's threat assessment rise exponentially. She was like a high-yield powder keg about to explode.

A Double-edged Sword that harms both enemy and wielder.

Meng Yi remained outwardly calm. With his Life Experience, it was Not Difficult to see that this child was in a confused stage of lost conviction. Soldiers needed orders to show them the direction forward.

"I am not your Commander, but of course you can act with me."

"Just call me White Devil. Can you tell me your name?"

Hearing this, the weapon-like girl's spirit stirred. She instinctively performed a salute Meng Yi had never seen before and answered loudly, "Yes! Commander!"

"Empire designation AR-26710, reporting to you!"

She had no name of her own. All that represented her was a string of cold numbers, perfectly confirming Meng Yi's suspicion that she was a "weapon."

At this, Luo Ji gave a bitter smile, vigorously raking his fingers through his still-damp hair. His mature face twisted slightly with ruthless resolve.

"Looks like I don't have any other choice either."

"Fine. Young Master Bai is right. Either move forward or die! Why the hell should I be afraid?"

Meng Yi did not fuss over the weapon girl's use of "Commander," nor did he conduct any Deep Inquiry into Luo Ji's complicated change of heart. Spreading his arms, he smiled. "Good. Welcome."

The three far-from-ordinary rookies in the Selection Dungeon reached an agreement.

The three came to the front door, which was piled high with heavy furniture.

The girl designated AR-26710 took the lead, nimbly moving the furniture blocking the way.

The strength erupting from her thin, frail body made Meng Yi and Luo Ji, two grown men, feel ashamed. They could only exchange awkward smiles.

Before long, the girl had cleared the obstacles, opened the solid wooden door covered in Foul Blood and cracks, then obediently stood to one side and waited for Meng Yi and Luo Ji to go first while vigilantly watching their surroundings.

A Gene Modification subject? AR-26710...

Meng Yi silently pondered the strange designation the girl had given during her introduction.

His mental detection field Opened. Following the route mapped out in his mind, he led his two "teammates" toward the Underground Train Track.

After Raccoon City went through the Biohazard Crisis and Blackwatch's purge of dangerous Infected, water and electricity outages were inevitable.

So forget about taking the elevator. They would have to climb the stairs properly.

There were not many remaining Infected in this building. The route Meng Yi had chosen was quite safe. Along the way, they encountered more corpses than anything else—corpses half-rotted by the scorching weather, serving as breeding grounds for mosquitoes and flies.

The smell was incredibly refreshing. Meng Yi missed the Hive City Bottom, where he had lived for over a decade, with its Simple folk customs and abundance of talent.

Not bad at all. It really felt like a second hometown, aow!

Meng Yi was used to it, and the girl who had seen plenty of death showed no reaction. Only Luo Ji knelt on the ground and vomited three times along the way.

"Young Master Bai, little girl, don't you two feel sick at all?"

Luo Ji's face had turned pale from vomiting. The repeated Toss Around of fever and vomiting had left this office worker in his thirties looking utterly wilted.

"This is nothing. Brother Luo, have you ever seen highly polluted acid corrode a corpse until it was pitted all over, only for A Group of People to snatch it back and divide it up for food?"

"Corpses are treasures in areas with severely scarce resources. They're processed into Corpse Starch with crudely made equipment, wrapped around a few chunks of rotten meat full of radiation and pollution, then deep-fried in gutter oil. Even the kids Next Door would cry from craving it."

"Bleurgh—bleurgh—!!!"

Meng Yi's utterly sincere examples made Luo Ji vomit his guts out, tears and snot streaming down his face as he emptied every last trace of stomach acid.

"Stop! Stop talking! I'm scared of you already!"

Luo Ji trembled as he braced himself against the wall and stood up, gritting his teeth while gripping the table leg he had picked up as a weapon.

After witnessing such horrifying sights and hearing Meng Yi's vivid examples, Luo Ji finally more or less understood what Evolution Paradise meant by a change in mindset.

Damn it, what kind of world could produce a "talent" like Young Brother White Devil?

After "sightseeing" their way down more than thirty flights of stairs, Meng Yi commented with great interest on the Unlucky Fellows who had died in all manner of bizarre ways.

The half-dead Luo Ji had run out of snark to spit.

Only when they reached the first-floor lobby, where there was truly no way around them, did the three encounter seven or eight scattered Infected.

Perceiving the scent of living humans, the aimlessly wandering Infected all turned their heads at once.

There was even a Heavyweight Contestant missing three out of two legs, its head drooping over its shoulder. With broken nails and severely twisted hand joints, it clawed at the floor just to crawl over and "have a taste."

"Impressive. What determination! What perseverance!"

Meng Yi, suddenly in a playful mood, looked on with solemn admiration and gave the crawling Zombie a thumbs-up.

Thanks to his interruption, the tension Luo Ji had just built up inexplicably eased a little. He quickly shook his head and cursed, "Stop screwing around! They're surrounding us! Should we retreat to the stairs and deal with them one by one?"

"No need to make it that troublesome."

Meng Yi lowered his raised Right Hand thumb and lightly lifted his index finger. A mental network controlling thought and logic quietly spread outward.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

The little girl, who had been silent the entire way, charged into the Zombie horde with a removed table leg. With nimble movements, she accurately smashed their heads one by one. None of the exploding brain matter touched her, and her actions were Free and Easy to the extreme. All that remained were Zombies with their heads burst open, sprawled all over the ground.

Luo Ji was stunned beyond belief. He opened his mouth blankly, held it in for ages, then finally uttered the East's most plain and honest praise: "Fucking awesome!"

Meng Yi's face darkened, his heart bleeding. His Zombie Tool Person had died before even achieving anything, and had actually been killed by friendly forces!

"Commander, did I... do something wrong?"

The girl, ruthless and sparing with words, held the table leg stained with red and white matter upside down. Shrinking her neck, she asked weakly.

Cultured Man Yi's Blood Pressure shot up.

"...You did Very Good. Next time, don't act without my orders."

"Yes! I guarantee the mission will be completed!"

The girl instinctively wanted to raise her hand in salute, only to realize that her Right Hand was holding the "murder weapon." In the end, she could only let it go.