Cooperation

"Haha! It's mine!"

The fastest-running drifter was the first to reach the corpse of the Apocalypse Warrior who had been shot dead. He picked up the gray crystal lying on the ground.

"You son of a bitch, let go!! It belongs to me!!"

But he had barely held it in his palm for a few seconds before the other drifters caught up. They beat him with fists and kicks, then snatched the crystal away.

In the end, the group that was supposed to hunt the living dead together descended into utter chaos. Everyone started fighting the people around them over the crystal.

The gray crystal was like Pandora's box, tempting people to slaughter one another...

The ticket to a better life was within reach, and it swept away everyone's reason. They completely forgot that they were still in the dark Street of the Living Dead, even if only at its outskirts.

The screams and stench of blood from their mutual slaughter soon spread through the block!

At the back, Xia Leng quietly drew his dagger and watched the chaos with cold eyes, waiting to see which "mantis" would seize the crystal and break free from the crowd. He would be the oriole.

The drifter group had started with over twenty people. Now, after fighting over a single stone, only around ten men were still able to move.

Aaargh!!!

Just then, a piercing roar rang out from a nearby corner. The familiar sound instantly drowned out the noise of the brawl!

The crowd heard it and realized at once that another living dead had appeared!

But their first reaction wasn't to work together to hunt the second one or turn and run.

Instead, they fought even harder over the crystal, hoping to grab it and flee before the living dead could attack them.

As the drawn-out roars grew closer, a living dead with rotting skin but intact legs slowly emerged from the street's black fog.

Everyone stared at it in terror, yet they still clutched at one another's hands, refusing to let go of the crystal. The scene was almost absurd.

Aaargh!!!

Perhaps the zombies were bewildered by the drifters fighting among themselves without fearing them. After a brief pause, they sprang into action, charging on all fours like cheetahs. They were nearly twice as fast as the limping living dead from before!

In the blink of an eye, it covered the few dozen meters between them and pounced on a drifter. It opened its enormous, fang-filled maw, saliva thick with poison, and bit down on the man's neck!

Crunch. Like chewing the gristle between ribs, the living dead tore a huge chunk of flesh and bone from the drifter's neck in one bite. It chewed happily, bones cracking crisply in its mouth.

Only a thin strip of skin still connected the unlucky drifter's head to his body. His eyes wide and his face full of unwillingness, he collapsed to the ground and departed for the "afterlife"...

At last, after witnessing the horrifying scene, the terror carved into these people's bones was awakened once more!

Some finally remembered the old wisdom that you had to give something up to gain something. They abandoned the crystal and turned to run!

Just as they were about to reach the safe area bathed in sunlight—

Crash~

Suddenly!

The windows of the towering buildings on both sides of the street shattered one after another. Amid a chorus of roars, more than a dozen gaunt black figures smashed through the glass and leaped down at once!!

Aaargh!!!

One drifter was just about to step into the blazing sunlight when a black figure leaped out of a building and knocked him to the ground before he could react.

When he realized what had happened and looked closely, his eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets!

A living dead with a rotting body and bones faintly visible was straddling him. He was about to let out a woman's scream when the creature swung its sharp claws viciously at his head...

The others fleeing alongside him fared no better. The zombies that had dropped from above pounced on them and knocked them to the ground. In front of the living dead, their bodies were torn apart like cabbages being ripped by hand...

Perhaps the will to survive had awakened one drifter's potential. He ran faster than he ever had in his life and actually made it into the blazing sunlight. The living dead stopped at the edge of the ultraviolet rays, howling in frustration at the "fresh meat" just beyond their reach!

The drifter reached the "safe zone" and immediately collapsed, his legs giving way. The terrifying scene he had just lived through still played before his eyes, and he couldn't help shouting, "I made it out alive!!"

But as soon as the words left his mouth, he suddenly felt a tight grip around his ankle. Then an irresistible force dragged him backward!

The drifter looked back in shock. A hideous living dead with no skull and its brain exposed had spat out a long, slender tongue lined with barbs. From the shadows, it had lashed out several meters and wrapped around his foot, dragging his whole body toward the bloodthirsty monsters...

"No!!!!"

The drifter's despairing cry rang over the street, then faded amid the sounds of flesh being devoured...

As for the drifters still fighting over the crystal, they realized something was wrong and tried to flee, but it was too late. The living dead that had suddenly leaped down from the buildings had already blocked the way to the sunlight.

And there was no escape deeper in the street, either. More and more living dead kept emerging from the darkness!

Attacked from both sides, the dozen or so remaining drifters were surrounded...

In the end, an endless chorus of screams mingled with the living dead's excited roars, forming a cacophony they would never forget for the rest of their lives.

The ticket into the Fortress still lay where it had fallen, its surface spattered with blood, as if mocking the people's greed...

Xia Leng had watched it all from behind the car. His expression was just as shocked as anyone's.

Were these living dead hunting together?!!

So that increasingly intense sense of danger had come from the living dead in the buildings quietly gathering, ready to block the drifters' escape from behind and wipe them all out...

Just like a group of dolphins skillfully surrounding a school of fish, picking them off one by one from the outer edge until the circle tightened to a point, leaving no fish behind.

Xia Leng also more or less understood why only one frail, elderly living dead had appeared at first. It must have been bait, meant to lure the entire group of drifters into the sunless street so the living dead could form a ring around them.

It seemed these living dead understood just how greedy and selfish people could be...

The living dead Xia Leng had encountered before had never acted like this. They were just as quick and vicious, but they had never shown this kind of social cooperation. Before, they had even fought one another over food.

Could the brains of these living dead, which should have had only the instincts of wild beasts, have evolved too?!

Imagining a group of man-eating monsters with humanlike intelligence, and an ability to work together even more seamlessly than humans, made the consequences unthinkable...

But the even stranger sight that came next shattered Xia Leng's worldview once more...