Cooperation

"Haha! It's mine!"

The fastest scavenger among the group rushed to the side of the fallen Apocalypse Warrior, snatching up the gray crystal that had dropped to the ground.

"Let go, you motherfucker!! It belongs to me!!"

However, he had barely held it for a few seconds before the other scavengers caught up, raining kicks and punches down on him until they wrestled the crystal away.

In the end, the team that was supposed to be hunting the living dead together descended into total chaos, everyone turning on each other to fight for the stone.

The gray crystal was like an opened Pandora's box, luring them into a mutual slaughter...

The ticket to a better life was within reach, shattering their reason and making them completely forget that they were still standing in the dark Street of the Living Dead, even if only on its outskirts.

The screams from their infighting and the stench of blood instantly permeated the entire block!

Xia Leng quietly drew his dagger from the rear, watching the chaotic scene with cold eyes, waiting to see which "mantis" would emerge from the crowd with the crystal so he could be the oriole.

By the time the group of twenty-odd scavengers had fought over the stone until only about a dozen men were left standing, ROAR!!!

Suddenly, a sharp, piercing howl erupted from a corner, a familiar sound that instantly drowned out the noise of the brawl!

Hearing this, everyone knew that a new living corpse had appeared!

But their first reaction wasn't to cooperate to hunt the second creature, nor was it to turn and run.

Instead, they fought even more fiercely for the crystal, desperate to secure the stone and escape before the living corpse could attack them.

As the approaching roar grew louder, a living corpse with rotting skin but perfectly functional limbs slowly emerged from the black mist of the street.

Everyone stared at it in terror, yet they kept their hands locked onto each other, refusing to let go of the crystal—a truly absurd sight.

ROAR!!!

Perhaps confused by the fact that these scavengers were fighting each other instead of fearing it, the zombie paused for a brief moment. Once it reacted, it charged forward on all fours like a cheetah, moving nearly twice as fast as the previous limping corpse!

In the blink of an eye, it covered the few dozen meters and lunged at a scavenger, its maw filled with toxic saliva snapping onto the man's neck!

Crunch. Like biting through cartilage, the living corpse tore a massive chunk of bone and flesh from the man's neck, chewing happily with a crisp, bone-cracking sound.

The unlucky scavenger fell to the ground with his head hanging by a mere strip of skin, his eyes wide with resentment as he departed for the "afterlife"...

Finally, seeing this horrific scene, the fear etched into their bones was reignited!

Some finally remembered the philosophy that "to gain, one must give," and abandoning the crystal, they turned and bolted!

Just as this group was about to reach the safety of the sun-drenched area, CLANG~

Suddenly!

The windows of the high-rises on both sides of the street shattered one after another, and accompanied by a dense chorus of roars, over a dozen gaunt, dark shadows burst through the glass and pounced down!!

ROAR!!!

One scavenger was just about to step into the sunlight when a shadow leaping from the building caught him off guard and tackled him to the ground.

When he looked up to see what had hit him, his eyes widened until they nearly split!

A living corpse, its body so rotten that white bone was visible, was straddling him. Just as he was about to let out a high-pitched scream, the creature's sharp claws swung down viciously toward his head...

The others fleeing with him fared no better; they were tackled by the zombies falling from above, their bodies torn to shreds like cabbage in the hands of the living dead...

Perhaps driven by a desperate will to survive, one scavenger pushed his potential to the limit, running faster than he ever had in his life. He actually made it into the sunlight, forcing the zombies to stop at the edge of the ultraviolet rays, where they hissed in frustration at the "fresh meat" just inches away!

Once the scavenger reached the "safe zone," his legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground. The harrowing scene he had just witnessed still played before his eyes, and he couldn't help but shout, "I survived!!"

However, the moment he finished speaking, he felt his ankle tighten, followed by an irresistible force dragging him backward!

The scavenger looked back in horror to see a living corpse with no skull, its brain exposed, spitting a long, barbed tongue from its mouth. The tongue had lashed out several meters from the shadows, wrapping around his foot and dragging his entire body toward the bloodthirsty monsters...

"NO!!!!"

The scavenger's desperate cry echoed over the street before being extinguished by the sound of tearing flesh...

As for the scavengers still fighting over the crystal, it was too late to run; the path to the sunlight had already been blocked by the zombies that had jumped from the buildings.

Deep in the street, even more living corpses surged out from the darkness!

With enemies inside and out, the remaining dozen desperate scavengers were surrounded in the center...

In the end, the continuous screams and the excited roars of the living corpses blended together, composing a symphony that one would never forget for the rest of their life.

As for that ticket into the Fortress, it still lay where it had fallen, splattered with blood, as if mocking the greed of men...

Xia Leng, who had watched the entire scene from behind his vehicle, was equally shocked.

These living corpses... were they hunting in coordination?!!

The growing sense of danger he had felt earlier was because the living corpses in the buildings had been quietly gathering, waiting to cut off the scavengers' retreat from the rear and wipe them all out...

It was just like a pod of dolphins skillfully surrounding a school of fish, picking them off from the outer layer until they were squeezed into a tight point, leaving no fish behind.

Xia Leng finally understood why only one old, weak, and crippled corpse had appeared at the start. It was a lure, designed to draw the entire group of scavengers into the shade of the street to form a perimeter.

It seemed these living corpses understood human greed and selfishness all too well...

The living corpses Xia Leng had encountered in the past had never exhibited a situation like the one before him; although their mobility remained just as swift and ferocious.

Yet, they had never displayed this kind of cooperative social structure before; in the past, they would even slaughter one another just to fight over food.

Could it be that these living corpses, which should have possessed nothing more than the instincts of beasts, had also evolved in terms of cerebral intelligence?!

When imagining a group of man-eating monsters possessing the same intelligence as humans, or even a level of cooperative synergy that surpassed them, the consequences were unthinkable...

However, the even more bizarre scene that followed caused Xia Leng's worldview to collapse once again...