Zombies Keep Appearing / Black-helmet Football Zombie 1

Three or four sounds rang out in succession, as if someone had thrown several large rocks into the pool at once.

Cattail's tail spikes suddenly whipped back from the direction of the fifth lane, tracing a red arc through the curtain of rain before turning toward the pool.

Lin Yue glanced at the water in the fourth row. The rain and mist were too thick for him to see the pool clearly, but those blurred gray-green silhouettes stirring the water were converging on him.

Cattail's spikes shot out before the second wave of zombies entered the pool. A dense series of "pfft, pfft" sounds and splashing rang across the water. The first zombie slowly sank, while the second struggled toward the Lily Pad.

But it was still powerless. Cattail's next wave of attacks had already arrived.

Lin Yue was just pulling his gaze back from the pool when a stomp much heavier than any previous lane came from the second row. Feet trampled through the muddy water, heavy and dense, as though the steps of an entire squad had overlapped.

Snow Pea kept firing into the thick fog, spitting Snow Peas.

The moving bodies churned the fog from within, making it roil. Behind the mist, the gray-green shadows formed a scattered line that filled the entire passage of the second row.

Twenty seconds later, the first Buckethead Zombie emerged from the edge of the fog.

The battered bucket on its head had been crushed on one side. A section of the rim was dented inward, as though something had struck it.

(Snow Pea: Wasn't it obvious?)

The second Buckethead Zombie followed right behind. It was a head taller than the one in front. Its rim was intact but covered in rust, and its gray-white eyes stared straight toward Snow Pea.

Three Zombies followed behind the two Buckethead Zombies. Five bodies crowded onto the same narrow strip of lawn, with gaps so small that not even a normal arm could fit between them.

Snow Pea kept firing.

An ice-blue pea struck the center of the lead Buckethead Zombie's bucket. Frost patterns rapidly spread across the metal, reducing its pace from normal to seventy percent.

The second shot hit the second Buckethead Zombie in the right knee. Seeing the bucketheads slowed, the zombies behind them surged forward.

The slowing effect alternated among the zombies in front, forcibly pressing all five zombies' advance speed down to the same slow pace.

They were like a group of clumsy beasts crowded together while crossing a river. None could move faster or overtake another. Under the frost patterns, they could only inch toward Lin Yue at the same speed and rhythm, along the same narrow strip of lawn.

The first lane broke through the thick fog at almost the same time.

A Screen Door Zombie stepped out of the mist, holding up half a battered screen door. Two Conehead Zombies followed behind it, and the three figures were outlined in warm red by Torchwood's flames through the rain.

Most of the screen door's surface had been destroyed. Only a small patch in the center still retained its intact metal sheet, but that tiny patch happened to block the two fireballs fired straight at it by the Peashooter.

The fireballs exploded against the metal, sending sparks flying. The high heat burned a blackened dent into the screen door, but it did not break through.

The five zombies in the second row advanced slowly and evenly.

The slowing effect continued to hold. The five zombies' formation was kept extremely tight, their chests pressed against the backs in front of them.

The true killing move was still behind them... Potato Mine was crouching on that patch of lawn, its two large front teeth showing in the rain, its round white eyes fixed on the gray silhouette approaching it.

Potato Mine's smiling face was gone. It stared intently at the group of zombies before it.

"Those who want to win... don't wear smiles on their faces."

Lin Yue stood beneath the eaves, watching Potato Mine through the curtain of rain.

Its expression had changed.

Its mouth, which was usually stretched into a foolish, amiable grin, was now pressed tightly shut. Its two round white eyes narrowed slightly, as if taking aim, as if gathering strength.

Its entire body had sunk half an inch lower than usual. Its roots had drawn tight against the ground, like a spring compressed to its limit, waiting for the precise shortest moment.

The zombies from the first and second lanes stepped into Potato Mine's range almost simultaneously, around the seventh column.

The Screen Door Zombie in the first lane had just pulled the battered screen door back from in front of the Conehead Zombies and was preparing to adjust its defensive angle;

The five gray-green bodies packed together in the second row had already reached two squares from Potato Mine. The lead Buckethead Zombie's foot was about to step onto the wet soil of the seventh column—

"BOOM!!!!"

Chapter 38: Zombies That Kept Appearing

"BOOM!!!!"

A tremendous explosion rang out. This was the flash unique to the Ash Plant.

The explosion drowned out the rain.

The shock wave erupting from the soil spread upward from the ground like an inverted gray umbrella, carrying gravel, mud, and fragments of metal blown loose by the blast. It expanded in a semicircular area in all directions.

The Screen Door Zombie in the first lane was caught by the shock wave, and its already battered screen door instantly crumbled apart.

The two Conehead Zombies behind it were knocked backward at the same time. Their cone hats rolled off their heads, turning them into three Zombies.

The five zombies in the second row were at the center of the explosion and took a far greater impact than those in the first lane.

After the explosion, all five bodies lay sprawled across the patch of lawn.

Then they vanished.

In the first lane, the now defenseless basic zombie was climbing to its feet.

It had just propped up its upper body when a huge pea wrapped in purplish-red flames flew over Torchwood and slammed precisely into its face...

Its entire head was blown off by the fireball. The remaining half of its body swayed in place before falling backward into the muddy pit.

The two Conehead Zombies behind it had just recovered from the blast. Before the first could adjust its stance, the second fireball had already landed in the center of its chest;

The second Conehead Zombie was pierced through the left shoulder and waist by the Peashooter's follow-up barrage. When it toppled, its knees struck the ground first, then its entire upper body plunged forward into a puddle.

The first lane was clear.

The second row was clear.

The two defensive lines finished clearing their respective waves at almost the same time.

A wisp of white smoke rose from the Peashooter's barrel as it slowly lowered by half a degree. Snow Pea's ice-blue leaves trembled slightly in the rain before it stopped firing.

A full fifteen seconds of silence followed.

Only the rain and the sporadic sounds coming from the distant fog remained in the backyard.

"Splaaash—"

The sound of water from the pool coincided almost exactly with the end of the silence.

Cattail's tail spikes suddenly withdrew from the direction of the second row, curved through the air, and stabbed toward the water in the fourth row again.

New splashes sounded in the pool. More than one body had fallen in, and the splashes rang out one after another, as if someone were continuously throwing stone after stone into the water.

As soon as the splashes began, Cattail's spikes stabbed toward that murky surface. But the fog was too thick. Lin Yue could not see how many gray-green silhouettes were on the bottom of the pool. He could only hear the dense "pfft, pfft" of Cattail's spikes striking the water, along with the occasional muffled sound of something sinking below.

The stacked attack speed had turned it into a fixed turret that dealt continuous damage.

The only unfortunate thing was that once the cats lost all their targets in the six lanes, their stacked attack speed would return to its starting point.

It grew faster and faster, but the moment it was interrupted still left a gap in its damage output.

Lin Yue stared toward the pool. The water had been churning nonstop. From then until now, not a single zombie had successfully swum out of the pool's fog-covered area.

Cattail had held the line, but it had never gotten a chance to catch its breath.

"Creak... crunch..."

The sound Lin Yue least wanted to hear came from the direction of the sixth row.

It was the muffled sound of Wall-nut being gnawed, the creaking of teeth repeatedly scraping against its hard wooden shell, dry and continuous.

The rain and fog obscured Wall-nut's exact condition, but it remained on that patch of lawn, always standing in front of Chomper, never falling.

Chomper had just swallowed what was in its mouth.

Snap Pea had just emerged from underground, with half a shredded scrap of zombie clothing still clinging to the edge of its purple flower disk.

Toadstool's cap bulged slightly in the rain, as if digesting the last prey in its mouth.

The three devouring plants in the sixth row had taken turns fighting for nearly an hour. Each had maintained its combat state throughout, and the health value on each one's panel had been quietly rising.

But Wall-nut had always stood at the front, bearing the pressure of every close-range bite for them.

"Thud—"

After Chomper ate the zombie in its mouth, it spat the zombie's head like a pea toward the zombie gnawing on Wall-nut.

The gray-green head, coated in a layer of sticky plant fluid, traced a low arc through the air and struck the zombie's head with precision, knocking its teeth away from Wall-nut's shell for a moment.

Snap Pea seized the opening and moved underground. Its flower disk opened and swallowed the zombie, which had not yet turned around, shoulders and back together, before shrinking back into the ground.

The gnawing stopped for a few seconds, then started again from another direction.

Lin Yue stood beneath the eaves. Rainwater ran from his brow into his eyes, making them sting and forcing him to squint.

Listening to the continuous gnawing from the sixth row, he could not see Wall-nut's condition through the thick fog... How much longer could its shell hold? Could it keep up with the rate of damage? He knew none of it.

Fortunately, his Wall-nut had no other advantages... it was just hard!

Knowing that Wall-nut was still there—that little bunker that had silently stood at the front for him since the first night—still crouched in its original position and had not taken a single step back.

The battle in the backyard continued for nearly an hour.

The torrential rain did not weaken, and the thick fog did not disperse. Every five to ten minutes, a new batch of zombies surged in from different directions.

The third, fourth, first, second, fifth, and sixth lanes came in rotation, with no fixed order and no fixed interval.

Every so often, Lin Yue had to open the sunlight panel and replenish the withering plants' status. Fortunately, he had more than enough sunlight and was not worried at all.

There was no panic. He merely glanced at the system panel's "Happy Residential Community" chat group from time to time—but the messages had stopped for quite a while.

The last message had been twenty minutes ago, when Farmer said that Buckethead Zombies had filled the third row on his side. No one had sent another message since.

The "10 people" marker in the group now had only four illuminated avatars remaining.

Lin Yue's gaze lingered on those four avatars for a moment.

Everyone was fighting desperately.

After watching for two seconds, he closed the panel and turned his gaze back toward the depths of the gray-white rain and fog.

In the backyard, the fireballs in the first lane continued spraying. Snow Pea's second ice-blue projectile had just been fired. Cattail's tail spikes switched back and forth between the pool and the fifth lane, while Chomper swallowed the zombie in its mouth.

It began waiting for the next wave of zombies to arrive.

Behind it, Toadstool also swallowed a zombie, producing a huge sun at the same time. From the beginning until now, the sunlight produced by Toadstool alone had been enough to keep the entire backyard running.

The torrential rain that was fatal to everyone else did not have much effect on Lin Yue.

[ Ding... A large group of zombies is approaching your backyard. ]

Chapter 39: Black Olive Zombie 1

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..."

The wind changed.

Previously, the wind moving through the rain had been calm and steady. But now, the gusts pouring in from the western side of the backyard carried a layer of urgency, and a sudden, tremendous pressure slammed into him.

The wind pressed along the ground, blowing the rain at an angle. It struck the eaves with a dense series of crisp slaps.

Lin Yue's shoulders tensed.

His fingers tightened around the wooden mallet. His toes curled slightly inside his soaked shoes. Though he was drenched from head to toe, he continued staring fixedly into the thick fog.

He did not dare relax for even an instant.

Footsteps followed closely behind the howling wind... not the dull, halting stomps from before, but a hurried, dense rhythm, like running shoes with iron soles hammering continuously against hard ground: "Thud, thud, thud, thud..."

The intervals between each step grew shorter, and the sound drew closer, like an iron ball shot from a launcher hurtling toward him at high speed.

"It's coming."

The plants along all six lines reacted almost simultaneously.

The Peashooter's first fireball, wrapped in purple flames, plunged into the thick fog of the first lane. It exploded deep within the mist, casting an orange-red glow that illuminated several gray-green bodies slowly advancing through the area.

Snow Pea fired an ice-blue pea into the second row. The frost patterns activated in the fog, spreading into a ring of pale-blue light. Some zombies were even frozen directly into ice blocks.

At the same time, dense splashes came from the pool. "Splash" followed "splash" in rapid succession. Cattail let out a "ha," its tail spikes giving a brief, sharp whistle as they swiftly redirected their attacks from the other lines back above the pool.

The water in the fourth row churned with muddy waves beneath the rain.

Gray-green torsos rose from the bottom. Some still wore torn life jackets, while others had only half a shoulder above the surface. Three zombies emerged from the water at the same time, and the nearest was less than three squares from the Lily Pad in the fifth lane.

Cattail's tail spikes swept back and forth between the point where they surfaced and the center of the pool. The red needles stretched through the rain into a thin red wire, stabbing from one end of the pool to the other before curving back. Each return sent another body sinking beneath the water.

( Phoebe, no pulling electrical wires! )