Encounter

Zombies were only attracted by loud noises and human scent, but their sense of smell was limited. Beyond a hundred meters, they could detect nothing.

So Liu Feng rode his bicycle north, encountering few zombies along the way. Of course, he saw no living people either.

"How much longer do I have to ride?"

After another two hours or so on his bicycle, Liu Feng had made it from the city center to the outskirts.

He was panting with exhaustion and ravenous with hunger. His clothes were drenched in sweat; a quick twist would have wrung water out of them.

Along the way, he passed schools, hospitals, government offices, supermarkets, gas stations, and more...

Liu Feng searched almost every place that might have held food, but found absolutely nothing.

"There aren't many zombies around here. The survivors have probably stripped every place clean. If I want to stay alive, I'll have to go somewhere more dangerous."

Liu Feng wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Just as he was about to sit down and rest, he heard a massive explosion from a distant building.

It must be other survivors!

"How much experience have I accumulated?"

[Host's current level: LV1 (800/1000)]

"Use five hundred experience to upgrade the Iron-toothed Insects!"

Survivors meant food and water, and Liu Feng wanted to investigate.

But to be safe, he would upgrade the Iron-toothed Insects first, improving his ability to defend himself.

[Upgrade complete!]

[Iron-toothed Insect level: LV2]

As the system's voice faded, Liu Feng carefully examined the Iron-toothed Insects. Their appearance had not changed much; it seemed only their two rows of teeth had grown sharper.

About five minutes later, Liu Feng arrived outside the building.

It was a three-story building surrounded by walls on all four sides.

Outside the walls stood numerous wooden barricades. Dozens of zombies were impaled on them, their bodies pierced with bloody holes, yet they still flailed, roared, and snapped their teeth.

The main gate was a two-meter-tall iron grille. Its screws had rusted, allowing the zombies to shove it down and swarm inside.

Standing at the entrance, Liu Feng could see zombies moving inside the building.

"Iron-toothed Insects! Go!"

The Iron-toothed Insects cleared the way ahead. Like a plague of locusts, they effortlessly disposed of dozens of zombies!

This time, the Iron-toothed Insects were far more powerful. They did not leave even a scrap of bone behind!

When Liu Feng reached the second floor, he spotted half a mangled, bloody arm at his feet.

Moving farther inside, Liu Feng found more bloodied limbs.

The bedroom was a wreck, with clear signs of a struggle. An explosion had blasted through the floor, and blood spattered all four walls.

Clearly, a survivor had realized there was no hope of survival and detonated a bomb, taking the zombies down with them.

Sure enough, Liu Feng found a rifle, a dozen or so rounds, and two grenades beneath the bed!

Liu Feng turned the place upside down again, but still failed to find any survival supplies.

Finally, when he opened a wardrobe door, a smile appeared on his face.

"Bread, nuts, instant noodles, canned meat, compressed rations, a case of bottled water..."

Liu Feng carefully took stock of all the survival supplies in the wardrobe.

In this apocalyptic world, he could do without anything except food and water!

With food and drink taken care of, his next concern was shelter.

Liu Feng certainly did not want zombies biting him in his sleep before he even knew what was happening.

The building was well situated, with walls on three sides that the previous survivor had reinforced.

The zombies inside had already been cleared out. Once he dealt with the iron gate, the place could hold off ordinary zombies.

Liu Feng put the iron gate back in place, but its rusted screws left it rather unstable.

So he found two steel pipes inside the building.

He braced one end of each against the iron gate and the other against the steps.

Liu Feng tested it himself. Even with all his strength, he could not budge it.

Even so, Liu Feng remained uneasy. He fetched some bricks and built an entire wall behind the iron gate!

Only with these two layers of protection did Liu Feng feel at ease.

Rumble!

Rumble!

Just then, the roar of engines suddenly came from the street outside.

"Who's being this brazen while out looking for supplies?"

Loud noises were one of the things that attracted zombies.

The earlier explosion had already drawn quite a few. The engines roaring now would undoubtedly draw even more.

Liu Feng climbed onto the wall and looked outside.

A man in a leather jacket led the way on a motorcycle, with a pickup truck following behind him.

Four burly men sat in the back of the pickup, their faces menacing and weapons in their hands.

Liu Feng saw them, and they saw him too.

"Boss, it's just a kid. Do we make a move?"

"Do we have any choice? If we don't bring back more supplies today, Long Tai will kill every last one of us!"

"Boss! Stop going soft. If you can't do it, I will!"

His men spoke up.

Han Bing's brow furrowed deeply. Living in this rotten world, he no longer had a choice.

Either he robbed others!

Or others robbed him!

"Hey, kid. My name's Han Bing. We're from nearby, out looking for supplies. It's dangerous here. Are you alone?"

Sitting on his motorcycle, Han Bing looked up at Liu Feng.

Liu Feng stared at them without a word.

"Would you consider joining us? We humans have to help each other if we want to survive this apocalypse."

Han Bing offered a friendly invitation.

If they could join forces, there would be no need for violence, and they could still get their hands on Liu Feng's survival supplies.

"No need!"

Liu Feng's reply was cool. Then he returned to his room on the second floor.

Liu Feng could not tell whether they were sincere, but there was nothing wrong with being careful!

He could survive without joining any group!

"Boss, Long Tai didn't give us much time. Being merciful will get us all killed!"

"All right, then!"

Han Bing finally waved his hand. Several men carried a speaker over and placed it at the gate. Then they drove away and hid in a nearby building.

Soon, the blaring music attracted most of the zombies within several kilometers.

They came from every direction, almost surrounding Liu Feng's building.

"Those bastards!"

Liu Feng cursed furiously. Now he had truly seen how vicious people could be.

An ordinary person would surely have died because of them.

But a smile appeared on Liu Feng's face. "This works too. I was just worrying about finding enough zombies to level up!"

Some zombies had already been attracted by the explosion and were wandering nearby.

Now, with the speaker blaring, a huge wave of zombies soon appeared before Liu Feng.

Small zombie hordes formed on all four sides.

Walls like these could stop a few zombies, but they stood no chance against a massive horde.

Before the hordes could close in, Liu Feng summoned his entire swarm—a total of ten thousand LV2 Iron-toothed Insects!

"Go!"

Liu Feng swept his hand forward. Ten thousand LV2 Iron-toothed Insects flew over the walls like a terrifying silver net.

Hundreds of zombies poured in from every direction, yet once they entered the swarm, they vanished without a trace within minutes. Not even scraps of bone remained.

It was as though they had never appeared at all!

The power of the LV2 Iron-toothed Insects far exceeded Liu Feng's expectations.

If he could upgrade them to LV3 or LV4, chewing through concrete and steel reinforcement would be no problem!

About half an hour later, every zombie had been devoured.

Within a kilometer of Liu Feng's room, not a blade of grass remained.

The ground was so clean that not even a fallen leaf could be seen!

"How much experience have I accumulated now?"

[Current experience: 2500! Level up?]

"Level up!"

[Level up successful! Host level: LV2 (1800/5000)]

[New swarm unlocked: Parasitic Insects. They reproduce in large numbers by consuming their hosts' nutrients. Once reproduction is complete, the hosts die.]

As the system's voice faded, Liu Feng felt his connection to the swarm grow stronger.

The maximum number of Iron-toothed Insects he could summon also rose from ten thousand to a hundred thousand.

The summoning interval shortened from once a minute to once every thirty seconds!

Meanwhile, in a three-story building not far from Liu Feng's.

Han Bing and his men stood on the rooftop, where they had a clear view of everything that had just happened!

"Boss, unless my eyes are broken, he just summoned a massive swarm of insects, right?"

"I saw it too! Could that kid be a Gene Warrior?"

"We've really messed with the wrong person this time. Let's get out of here!"

Several of his men looked deeply shaken by their narrow escape.

(End of chapter)