High-Value Criminal

"Left side is safe!"

"Right side is safe!"

"Keep moving! Watch your feet!"

The bright beam of the tactical flashlight cut through the darkness. The prison was already a complete mess. Bloodstains marked the walls, the floor was littered with dismembered bodies and blood, and even the ceiling was splattered with blood.

Kirk wondered how that stuff could fly so high.

"When people are exercising intensely and are overly stressed, blood flow can reach 10 meters per minute. Arterial rupture can spray up 3 to 4 meters. It's not strange here," Mori said, kicking a mangled male corpse with a sinister grin. "If the aorta in your neck were torn apart by a walker in terror, I believe it would spray just as high!"

The little fatty shivered, while Kirk, accustomed to Mori's dark humor, just smiled and said nothing.

The group had already passed the second row of cells in Zone B. Along the way, the walkers weren't as frenzied as they were at night, but their second mutation had still put considerable pressure on the team.

Even plot characters like T-Dog couldn't kill a walker with a single shot, even if they hit its head. Mori, however, was still relatively relaxed. Kirk guessed it had something to do with his high firearm skill.

Little Fatty still had only 5 Strength and was completely suppressed by the walkers. When he swung his shovel at a walker's neck, the walker simply pulled and broke free. Little Fatty's Stamina was only 6. If a walker got close, a single scratch would put him in critical condition. If he were bitten, Little Fatty would be immediately out of the game. Therefore, he had basically withdrawn from close combat, only daring to skirmish with the walkers at the edge of the shovel's attack range, hitting once and retreating, then hitting again.

Kirk also took significant risks fighting walkers in close combat. His Strength reached 7, Stamina reached 8, and Health was 80. After their second mutation, walkers had about 10 Stamina and their Strength soared to 10 at night. During the day, their Stamina was 8, and their Strength was between 7 and 8. Calculating it now, Kirk, as the attacker, had Strength only 1 point lower than the walkers' Stamina, allowing him to break through their defense with only a 5% negative adjustment. The walkers' Strength was 7-8, suppressed by Kirk's 8 Stamina. If they fought hand-to-hand, both sides were essentially on equal footing.

However, Kirk's current melee skills had already formed a system. [Basic Small Blade Mastery] increased the speed and damage of his dagger slashes and thrusts by 5%. The [Special Riot Police Bulletproof Vest] reduced physical damage by 10%. [Basic Physical Defense Mastery] further enhanced the defensive capabilities of the bulletproof vest he was wearing, adding another 5% damage reduction, suppressing damage by about 10%. [Basic Footwork Mastery] increased evasion and attack speed by 5%. [Basic Melee Combat] provided a 5% increase in melee weapon damage and improved his melee weapon mastery. The [Gonzalez's Feather Boots] on his feet could further increase Agility by 2 points, movement speed by 30%, and evasion by 5%. Combined with the Silver rank title [Walker King], which dealt 20% extra damage to walkers, Kirk's melee survivability and damage output had improved qualitatively.

Currently, facing walkers, his beneficial status buffs totaled: when using a dagger, damage increased by 30%, attack speed by 10%, damage taken reduced by 20%, evasion increased by 10%, and movement speed by 30%. Even though his dagger was a common weapon with only 5 base damage, with such high bonuses, and each hit to a walker's head being a critical hit with 2x damage, the damage could reach over 16 per hit! Ordinary walkers would fall after 5 hits. The dagger, being the fastest swinging weapon, traded low damage for high attack speed. As long as Kirk could bait a walker into lunging and becoming stunned, he could finish it off with a few rapid strikes.

Don't forget, Kirk had also learned an advanced skill, [Throat Cut]. Once this ultimate move was unleashed, walkers had a 90% chance of failing their toughness check. Even if they passed, their current Stamina of around 80 would definitely not withstand the 4x fatal damage and 30 points of bleeding damage.

Kirk truly felt like an elite special forces soldier, slaying demons and vanquishing Buddhas, leading the charge and engaging walkers in hit-and-run tactics, while Little Fatty, armed with his shovel, launched sneak attacks from behind. Both employed a cowardly fighting style, slippery and evasive, dodging as soon as a walker attacked, while the other launched fierce sneak attacks. Although their progress was slow, they were undefeated, having eliminated quite a few walkers. Combined with the gains from last night, Kirk's Gold rank title [Enemy of Walkers] had reached 1457/2000 progress. In truth, this title had a lot of "water" in it; he wouldn't have obtained it if he hadn't set fire to the adventure twice. The Space also knew Kirk was always playing with fire, so the drop rate for keys and treasures was incredibly low.

In the Space, risks were high, but so were rewards. The survival points awarded by the second mutation walkers had now reached 10 points! Therefore, Kirk and Little Fatty fought until they were in critical condition before reluctantly retreating to rest and recover. The two were quite pragmatic, unwilling to use any medicine and simply sitting there to slowly recover Stamina.

"Big brother, how many did you kill just now?"

"I killed about 12, how about you?"

"I picked up a lot of your leftovers and took down 4. Walkers are really hard to kill now. Even a slight touch makes my health drop to the bottom. It's good that you had foresight and trained your melee combat so well," Little Fatty panted.

"My melee combat isn't that strong. Look over there," Kirk gestured with his chin.

Little Fatty looked. Mori plunged a knife through the head of a walker, then, with the remaining force, pierced the eye of a walker behind it. He then lifted both walkers with his bayonet and threw them ferociously into the horde. The supporting gunmen from the nursing home, led by Guillermo, were greatly inspired and unleashed a barrage of gunfire, sending the walkers staggering.

Little Fatty stuck out his tongue. "That's not human, that's a monster more terrifying than a walker."

The most terrifying aspect of walkers was actually during the night when the zombie horde erupted. Their sheer numbers far exceeded the current human firepower coverage limit. In military terms, it was an "oversaturation attack," forcing humans to eventually engage in close combat, resulting in heavy casualties.

During the day, they were dispersed into small groups, serving as experience points for human warriors to farm. They couldn't pose an effective threat.

Mori looked over. "Ladies, are you rested? We're preparing to move to the next area. Otherwise, we won't finish the mission before sunset. I don't want to be known as incompetent."

Kirk nodded, and the two got up. The entire combat formation continued to advance.

As they walked, the appearance of the prison ahead gradually changed. Although the original prison was generally gloomy and terrifying, it always had a small ventilation shaft and skylight at the top, allowing a sliver of sunlight to filter down. Now, it had transformed into a world of concrete. The walls were thick and heavy, and from the corners, their thickness could be seen to be up to 20 centimeters, likely poured as a single unit with reinforced concrete. Each cell door was made of pure steel, sturdier than the reinforced iron doors they had seen before. There wasn't even a peep-hole, and food could only be delivered to the prisoners via a hanging basket from above.

"Is this Guantanamo or Fox River Prison? Why is it so heavily guarded?" Little Fatty began to complain.

Kirk noticed that Little Fatty had at least one thing in common with him: no matter how dire the crisis, he would always complain without restraint. This was a common trait of otaku.

Mori laughed heartily. "Ladies, welcome to America's maximum-security prison! If you were lucky enough to come here normally, you'd never see sunlight again in your life! Of course, you'd also say goodbye to big-booty chicks and thongs! You're lucky now, but whether you can get out depends on your performance later."

Little Fatty started to get nervous. Kirk said, "Fatty, don't be nervous."

"Big brother, you're truly a master strategist. How did you know I was nervous?"

"Because your tactical flashlight is already shaking like the opening lights of a 21st-century Fox company movie! Don't shine it in my face, pig head!"

"Brother Mori, you said this is a maximum-security prison?" Little Fatty's voice also wavered. "Then what's different about the prisoners here turning into walkers?"

"Why don't you go in and see for yourself?" Mori said with a smile, then kicked Little Fatty into a door behind them!

Screams echoed throughout the prison. Under the grip of terror, Little Fatty's high-pitched cries far surpassed the harmony of the world's three great tenors!

Kirk was more concerned about Little Fatty's well-being and rushed in with T-Dog.

Little Fatty was lying in the arms of a dead man, so scared he had lost control of his bladder and bowels. In reality, he had been in this hellish world for 5 days and shouldn't have been so terrified. However, being kicked into a dark room that might contain ferocious mutated walkers was beyond the courage of an ordinary otaku.

Kirk quickly pulled him up and said to Mori, "Can you stop scaring him like that?"

Mori burst into laughter. "You all looked so serious and tense, I just wanted to lighten the mood."

Little Fatty tremblingly took out a notebook. It was what he had accidentally grabbed while flailing his hands after being kicked into the dead man's embrace.

The American prisoners here were all serving life sentences, basically waiting to die in prison. With nothing to do every day, many went mad and developed the habit of keeping diaries or writing. It seemed that writing was a survival instinct for humans trapped in boredom.

Under the illumination of the tactical flashlight, Kirk flipped through the diary and read it carefully. This prisoner was actually named Outlaw. He wondered if his parents had foresight when naming him or deliberately cursed their son to go to prison. In any case, this unlucky child had fulfilled his wish and entered America's highest institution for criminals, no, the highest prison, to further his education and serve his sentence until the end of his days.

Outlaw was a man who enjoyed writing. In his boredom, he recorded all the ordinary yet extraordinary events happening around him. If he had lived in Kirk's era and could have gone to a magical website called "", he would likely have become a great author.

He flipped through several pages, recording many trivial matters, but none of them were valuable. Mori grew impatient. He raised his gun and said, "Let's go. Many of his fellow inmates are waiting for our 'favor.' Let's hurry." At this moment, Kirk suddenly exclaimed, finding a key that had fallen out of the diary!

"...I heard the sound, I don't know if it was gunshots or what. A key fell from a dead guard, bounced a few times on the ground, and then, as if guided by fate, entered my cell. God, could this be the cell door key? I clutched it tightly, just like I'd gripped the necks of those whores. It was the only metal I'd seen in over a decade, besides dog bowls. Many people came, they knocked down that powerful guy. Judging by the sound of his fall, he weighed at least 200 kilograms, and the ground trembled. I heard the guards say he was America's strongest and most dangerous heavy criminal! Then they started searching for this key. I hid it. They couldn't find it, so this treasure naturally became mine...

...It's a shame, I tried countless times, and the conclusion was that this treasure isn't the key to my cell door, but belongs to that most dangerous maximum-security prisoner. He's imprisoned in a special prison on the lowest level! He can never see the sun. The door there is a meter-thick steel hydraulic door, with an independent power system. Without this key, even with a nuclear bomb, you couldn't open that door!

...I heard the guards whispering privately that there's a secret the US government is desperately hiding. Even after the great catastrophe began, some people were still coming and going from the entrance. I think, perhaps, the reason our prison is so heavily guarded isn't because of us inmates..."