Surrounded

Just one glance in that direction was enough to fill Xia Leng with an unprecedented sense of danger!

What kind of powerful monster was lurking inside that building?!

And those living corpses carrying food were probably heading straight there, too!

Had the living corpses here evolved a society with a sense of leadership?

Could the Living Corpse King ruling over these hordes be the one devising strategies for them, using bait to lure in enemies, then surrounding and hunting them down?

It was all still a mystery.

And in this bizarre world at the end of days, all kinds of strange things were possible.

This suddenly reminded Xia Leng of a story he had once heard from a wandering wilderness merchant.

The man had seen with his own eyes a strong zombie with relatively little skin decay and a straight back. It had stood on a mountaintop holding something like a pair of binoculars, apparently watching a makeshift refugee settlement below. Two lean zombies stood behind it like bodyguards.

Even stranger, the wilderness merchant later heard that the makeshift refugee settlement had been swept through by an exceptionally brutal force while its people slept, leaving it in ruins. Almost no one had survived. The entire camp was littered with tiny bone fragments and scraps of flesh left behind after the corpses had been devoured.

The camp had posted sentries in shifts after everyone went to sleep, but somehow that had been useless. It seemed the enemy had learned their defenses and taken out the sentries in advance.

The wilderness merchant had linked the massacre to that zombie, and began traveling around telling people that zombies were starting to evolve intelligence.

But everyone had just laughed it off and paid no attention.

After hearing the story, Xia Leng had also assumed the man had been mistaken—that he had seen a deformed refugee and thought it was a living corpse.

But now, it seemed that the wilderness merchant might not have been wrong. These living corpses had evolved intelligence and developed a society of their own...

The powerful, dangerous aura radiating from the Trade Tower ahead weighed heavily on Xia Leng.

His instincts kept telling him he wasn't yet a match for whatever was in there, while at the same time hinting that the mysterious powerhouse inside the building could greatly enhance his abilities!

These conflicting thoughts battled constantly in Xia Leng's mind!

But in the end, his more cautious side prevailed.

After all, the countless densely packed zombies filling the plaza alone might be enough to tear him to pieces.

Perhaps he could use the heavily armed mercenaries inside the Fortress to deal with this problem.

Earlier, Xia Leng had seen not only the heavy weapons set up at the entrance, but also what looked like a number of old-world armored vehicles and even tanks parked inside.

After the mercenaries had modified them, most of the vehicles seemed to be running again.

Zombies might have a vicious bite, but trying to chew through a tank weighing dozens of tons would be like an ant trying to stop a chariot.

As for why the Komodo Mercenary Company didn't simply send a large force to wipe out the zombies that had occupied the commercial street—

Ammunition and fuel were just as scarce in the apocalypse. Rather than waste them on a horde that posed no threat to the Fortress, it made more sense to save them for rival mercenary companies and shelters.

Still, Xia Leng guessed that the higher-ups at Komodo Corporation would be very interested in the evolution of mutated creatures in the apocalypse.

Virtually every organization was spending enormous resources to investigate the sudden collapse of the world and find ways to strengthen humanity.

They were doing everything they could to turn their ordinary mercenaries into powerful Baptized Ones and conquer this shattered world. That was how all kinds of human experiments had come about.

For example, they tried fusing the genes of mutated creatures with human genes, or forcibly digging the crystals out of their skulls and implanting them in their mercenaries' brains.

Although every attempt had ended in brutal, bloody failure, the research departments of the major organizations had never given up on creating Baptized Ones.

They were especially willing to pay a fortune for leads on new mutated creatures that the world had yet to discover.

That was why the apocalypse had given rise to a profession known as bounty hunter. These hunters specialized in hunting new mutated creatures and Baptized Ones with unrecorded abilities, hoping to make a fortune.

So Xia Leng decided he might as well use those mercenaries as pawns and take the opportunity to enter the ominously dangerous building ahead. The Komodo Mercenary Company would never pass up a chance to study the strange behavior of these zombies.

Just as he turned to head back for the time being—

A sharp gaze shot at his back from behind like a cold arrow, catching him completely off guard. Xia Leng sensed danger closing in on him once more!

He whipped around!

On one of the floors of the building ahead, a pair of deep purple lights filled with a cold, savage menace stared in his direction!

Were those the mysterious monster's eyes? Had it spotted him?!

Roar!!!!

The instant Xia Leng's gaze met those purple eyes, the massive horde of zombies resting with their eyes closed in the plaza suddenly let out a deafening roar as one. They all turned to look toward his hiding place!

The light from their crimson eyes turned Xia Leng's vision dark red!

"Damn it!"

The instant he realized the enemy had spotted him, the muscles in Xia Leng's legs swelled. He bent his knees as all the Blacklight Virus in his body surged toward his legs, then sprang forward like an arrow loosed from a bow!

In a single bound, he covered dozens of meters, leaving everything behind as he sprinted toward the exit of the Street of the Living Dead!

The zombies in the middle of the plaza seemed to have received some mysterious signal. Like a swarm of ants that had found food, they rushed madly toward the human intruder!

Xia Leng poured all his strength into his legs. He was running at nearly six seconds per hundred meters, far faster than a first-tier Agility-type Apocalypse Hunter, matching or even surpassing a second-tier one!

He left the horde far behind, listening to their furious, frustrated howls in the distance!

But Xia Leng didn't let his guard down. Even as he ran at full speed, he stayed alert to his surroundings.

Clang—

His caution had been justified. Just as he was about to cross the intersection ahead, the windows of the surrounding buildings suddenly shattered, and countless horrifying living corpses leaped out like raindrops!

After landing, the zombies that had been lying in ambush inside the buildings roared and charged at Xia Leng, forming a pincer attack with the horde behind him!

The deafening roars of the zombies seemed powerful enough to shatter the windows in the surrounding buildings!

Tens of thousands of living corpses—enough to drown any enemy in a sea of bodies!

And Xia Leng, caught in the middle of the horde, was the dumpling filling about to be surrounded!