Mutant

The collision they had imagined never happened.

Under their horrified gazes, Ye Lin forcibly twisted his body in midair, dodging the incoming giant fist at an almost impossible angle.

With a boom, the massive fist missed him and slammed into the ground!

The asphalt instantly caved in, cracks spreading rapidly like a spiderweb. The shock wave sent countless chunks of rubble shooting outward like bullets, shattering the surrounding glass curtain walls.

The shattering rang out sharply.

Fragments filled the air, reflecting Ye Lin's profile.

Having dodged the fist, he had already reached the mutant's flank.

The next second, his raised Cross Longsword shrieked downward like an executioner's blade!

Squelch!

Pus and blood burst out!

An arm as thick as a waist was severed in a single blow. Foul-smelling corpse blood spurted in a column, reaching halfway up a story.

Blood flames blazed. The weapon's blood-burning effect ignited the wound like fire eating into bone, producing a grating sizzling sound.

"ROAR!"

Wracked by agony, the mutant screamed. The incompletely fused human faces on its abdomen twisted and trembled in pain.

With his first strike landing, Ye Lin seized the moment as the monster reeled backward in pain. Without hesitation, he turned and thrust, driving the enlarged cross-shaped sword toward its lower jaw.

With a squelch, the blade pierced its jaw, wrapped in blood flames, and punched straight through the mutant's entire brain.

Like a steel spike driven through bone, a mass of blood flames erupted from its mouth. The mutant abruptly went rigid, then toppled forward with a heavy crash.

He Zheng had just jumped out of the vehicle. His mouth hung open, his mind utterly blank.

It... it was dead already!? I hadn't even joined the fight!

The monster was unquestionably powerful.

The force of that punch proved it. A single blow had cracked the ground, packing enough power to smash an armored vehicle apart.

Its muscle tissue was half a palm thick, dense enough to stop bullets. Even against a squad of special forces soldiers, it could have slaughtered them all in moments.

Even with the weapon's help, Ye Lin killing this monster in less than two seconds was simply absurd.

Beyond that, He Zheng knew he could never have reacted to that punch, let alone seized the instant the monster recoiled in pain to deliver a fatal strike.

If he hadn't been certain this was Ye Lin's first Death Exam, he would have suspected the kid was the real veteran hiding among them!

Before He Zheng could think any further, an urgent female voice rang out.

"Ye Lin! That monster isn't dead yet!"

Still in the vehicle, An Ke's expression changed drastically as she shouted.

Everyone jolted.

As the mutant fell, a huge fissure split open across its chest, and a human head covered in sharp teeth emerged, trailing slime.

A torrent of highly corrosive acid suddenly sprayed from its mouth!

After a shriek like an infant's wail, its enormous mouth lunged at Ye Lin, as though trying to swallow him whole.

Everyone was horrified. On the vehicle's roof, Huang Liang's expression changed sharply, and he instinctively raised his rifle to take the shot.

But the two were almost completely overlapping. He realized he had no clear shot at the creature.

"Ye Lin! Watch out!"

Shocked and furious, He Zheng roared and charged.

The distance was far too short. No matter how quickly Ye Lin reacted, he couldn't dodge the attack. Worse, the acid covered almost every possible escape route!

The stench of rot assaulted his nose. Drops of acid fell, instantly charring the combat uniform on Ye Lin's shoulder.

Yet faced with the huge, fanged maw descending on him, Ye Lin showed no trace of emotion. In a tenth of a second, he became an arc of flame and used Instant Teleportation to appear behind the mutant.

Flame flash!

Squelch!

Backstab!

In an instant, the sharp sword tip pierced straight through the second human head, emerging between its brows in a spray of blood. A twist of the blade shredded its brain.

The infant-like wailing in the monster's mouth stopped abruptly. Another burst of blood flames ignited, and towering fire engulfed its entire body.

Crackle, pop.

Perhaps because it was finally dead, the mutant's enormous body began to burn. Within a single breath, it crashed heavily to the ground, reduced to a charred corpse.

Watching Ye Lin turn around after finishing the fight, He Zheng stared with his mouth hanging open. He still held his charging posture, as though someone had pressed pause on him.

What... what ability was that?

Words failed to describe what he had just witnessed. He could roughly guess that the flame, almost indistinguishable from teleportation, was a weapon skill.

But Ye Lin's reaction and the sight of that kill made a few words rise unbidden in his mind.

What the fuck...

How was this kid so damn good at looking cool!?

"Why are you still standing there?"

"Get through these buildings first, then use the flight packs!"

Bang!

Seeing that the others still seemed stunned, Ye Lin frowned deeply and put his sword away. Without even looking back, he reached behind him and crushed the skull of a zombie lunging at him.

Brains burst out and slid between his fingers.

Although he had dealt with the mutant posing the greatest threat to them, more and more zombies were charging in from every direction, even dropping down from above. If they were pinned here, they would inevitably be worn down and killed! He could even vaguely sense large numbers of zombies nearby rapidly fusing and evolving. New mutants could appear at any moment!

Clearly, the current level of difficulty was only the beginning.

"Right!"

At Ye Lin's reminder, He Zheng hurriedly snapped out of his daze, grabbed both axes, and hacked at the surrounding zombies!

Huang Liang and Zhang Tie quickly jumped out of the vehicle as well. One fired controlled bursts with his rifle while the other held his shield in front of the others.

Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!

Gunfire swept out. With no time to conserve ammunition against the masses of charging zombies, the team formed a triangle and charged straight into the horde.

Like a sharp knife, they drove deep into the Zombie Horde.

"Go!"

"Run! Hurry!"

"More zombies are coming!"

He Zheng swung his axes furiously. Facing the seemingly endless zombies, he fought desperately alongside Ye Lin to break out of the Zombie Horde.

Ten minutes later.

All six were drenched in blood as they fought their way out of the Zombie Horde and passed through a commercial building.

A dense series of grenade blasts briefly halted the zombies lunging at them. The group pulled down the flight packs on their backs as quickly as possible and flew away at full speed amid endless howls.

Two hundred meters in the air, they gasped for breath and struggled to wipe the blood from their faces.

They looked back at the city behind them.

Half the setting sun had already sunk beneath the horizon.

The dim yellow light cast immense shadows across the city. Flames soared into the sky, and black specks kept leaping from high-rise buildings.

Distant alarms mingled with an English broadcast that seemed never to stop.

For a moment, they seemed to see the same scenes unfolding all over the world.

The White House was overrun by a boundless sea of zombies and engulfed in roaring flames. Countless black specks frantically climbed and fell from the towering Tokyo Tower.

Statues of gods were toppled and swallowed by the horde at Pashupatinath Temple. In the temples of the pharaohs, the undead climbed out of their coffins.

Night was approaching, and the human world had become a living hell.

"Ye Lin! The exam question is out! What do we do next!?"

Inside a highway gas station, He Zheng stared fixedly at his wristwatch. The bright red Grade A rating made it hard for him to breathe.

And in the system notification, the words "fight to the death" put everyone even further on edge.