Where the Spear Pointed

The Vulture's Claw had just been wiped out, and the prisoners were still being interrogated, but no one at the zoo base could relax.

The wall at the southeast corner, which Old Joey had hastily reinforced with steel, concrete, and scrap vehicle frames, weighed heavily on Lynn and the core members.

Lynn had sent Zhao Jinghong, the quiet girl who carried a spear, to strengthen perimeter security, especially to the southeast.

Night had fallen completely.

Inside the base, the survivors shared simple food, their exhaustion mixed with a little relief. They had survived another day.

On the wall, sentries watched the darkness outside as searchlight beams swept over dead woods and piles of wrecked vehicles.

Zhao Jinghong was not patrolling the wall.

She had chosen a pitch-black corner beneath the southeast watchtower, formed by the tower's foundation and stacks of reinforcement materials.

The view here was narrow, but she could clearly sense movement in certain directions beyond the wall.

Dressed in dark blue cloth, she almost blended into the shadows. Her spear, Awakening of Insects, rested beside her, its butt planted on the ground and its point raised slightly toward the outside of the wall.

Her eyes were closed, her breathing light and slow. In a state of intense concentration, she stretched her senses to their limits, picking up the slightest irregularities beyond the wall.

Time passed in silence.

There was only the wind, occasionally mingled with the howls of distant walking corpses, which soon faded again.

The sentries on the wall changed shifts once, speaking in low voices.

Suddenly!

Zhao Jinghong's eyes snapped open.

In the darkness, her sharp gaze instantly locked onto a direction just south of southeast.

It was not a sound, but a faint, continuous vibration traveling through the ground beneath her feet and the concrete wall against her back, as though something heavy were striking the ground repeatedly in the distance.

These were not scattered walking corpses.

This vibration... had a direction.

She turned her head and pressed her ear against the cold wall. The vibrations became clearer-dull, dragging, and densely packed.

A horde!

Quite a few of them!

Zhao Jinghong frowned slightly. Something was wrong.

The Ash Squad had repeatedly cleared the area southeast of the base. Large hordes had long since been eliminated.

There might be stragglers, but so many corpses moving with such clear direction should not have appeared here suddenly.

A trace of doubt flashed through her mind, then was immediately suppressed.

She knew her own abilities.

No matter how this horde had come here, no matter whether anything lay behind it, a hundred or so walking corpses could not stand against her spear.

Notify the base? I could.

But sounding the alarm now would cause panic, disrupt Lynn's plans, and might expose my concealed sentry position.

More importantly, she was certain she could deal with these things before they truly threatened the wall, and perhaps even discover why they had come.

Zhao Jinghong moved without warning, slipping out of the darkness like a shadow.

She neither alerted the sentry in the tower a few steps away nor made a sound.

She lifted Awakening of Insects in one hand, holding the spear steady. With a few taps of her toes against the reinforcement materials, she vaulted lightly over the nearly four-meter-high wall.

When she landed, the dry grass sank slightly beneath her, and she barely stirred any dust.

Her movements were clean and efficient, making full use of the terrain.

Outside the wall, cold, dry air struck her face, mixed with the stench of decay and the smell of dust.

The dull vibrations grew louder, accompanied by a strong corpse stench, rapidly approaching from just south of southeast.

Zhao Jinghong did not stop. Her figure flickered as she rushed toward the source of the vibrations.

She moved fast, but her footsteps were light. The sounds of her treading over gravel and dead branches were almost swallowed by the wind.

Her dark blue figure darted through the sparse dead trees.

In less than two minutes, she approached the edge of the horde.

The sight before her confirmed her judgment: more than a hundred walking corpses were shuffling stiffly but purposefully toward the southeast corner of the zoo base.

Most were ragged and rotting, with hollow eyes and low, hoarse rasps coming from their throats.

Beneath the night sky, the silently moving procession of corpses carried a chill.

Zhao Jinghong stopped behind a thick dead tree, pressed her back against its trunk, held her breath, and calmly observed.

Number: roughly a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty.

Not an especially large horde, but dangerous to an ordinary stronghold.

Composition: mostly ordinary walking corpses, slow-moving.

Several were particularly tall and brawny, while a few fast-moving ones with twisted limbs roamed the edges.

Movement: straight toward the base's southeast corner.

They were not scattered at all, as though something were leading them along, completely unlike the usual aimless wandering of walking corpses.

Something's wrong... Zhao Jinghong thought.

This was unnatural. The horde's objective was far too clear.

It was as though something were attracting them, or... driving them?

But now was not the time to investigate the cause.

Deal with the threat first.

She could lure the horde away. With her speed, these slow-moving corpses posed no threat.

Zhao Jinghong's gaze sharpened, and she tightened her grip on Awakening of Insects.

She adjusted her breathing, dispelling the chill and readying her body.

She did not charge straight in. Fighting with a spear required control over distance and rhythm; charging into the center of the horde was too dangerous.

Her gaze locked onto a brawny corpse at the very front of the horde, roughly thirty meters away.

The thing walked with heavy steps that thudded against the ground.

That one!

Zhao Jinghong moved!

No sound, no warning.

She burst out from behind the tree, her dark blue figure blurring with speed in the dim light.

She covered thirty meters in an instant.

The brawny corpse seemed to sense her and sluggishly turned its head, a gurgle rising from its rotten throat.

Too late.

Zhao Jinghong twisted as she charged, channeling the strength of her entire body into her arm. Awakening of Insects thrust out like a black line with a rush of air.

Squelch!

A muffled sound.

The spear point pierced precisely through the brawny corpse's hollow eye socket, driving deep into its skull, all the way to the shaft.

The brawny corpse's massive body abruptly stopped, then toppled forward like a puppet with cut strings, crashing to the ground and throwing up a cloud of dust.

The sudden strike was like stirring up a hornet's nest.

Dozens of pairs of rotting eyes at the front of the horde whipped toward Zhao Jinghong. Their rasping rose sharply into hungry, frenzied snarls.

"Roar!"

The horde erupted!

They immediately forgot their original objective and surged madly toward the living person who had suddenly appeared, rotten arms clawing wildly, twisted legs churning, the stench of decay rushing toward her.

Zhao Jinghong's eyes were cold, without the slightest panic.

This was exactly what she wanted-to lure them away and disrupt their course.

Having landed her strike, she did not linger.

With a flick of her wrist, she pulled Awakening of Insects from the corpse, bringing blood and brain matter with it.

She pushed off with her toes and swiftly retreated several meters, opening up the distance.

Facing the charging vanguard, Zhao Jinghong planted her feet, her spear angled toward the ground before her, its point trembling slightly.

Here, with this spear, she would build a defensive line for the base behind her.

The horde's first wave surged forward.