Capture the Leader First

Behind the horde, a figure standing a little straighter, turning his head back and forth to look around, caught Zhao Jinghong's eye.

That wasn't how an ordinary walker or some small fry playing dead would act.

The leader! The commander of this small band of Whisperers!

Lynn's orders: kill all the walkers, take prisoners!

-rang through her mind.

Those "prisoners" certainly didn't mean the grunts wearing walker skins. He wanted someone whose mouth they could pry open, someone who could reveal the Whisperers' secrets.

This possible leader in front of her was too important.

A surge of ferocity suppressed her exhaustion.

Zhao Jinghong's gaze sharpened like a blade. She had only one thought-take him down.

"Jackal!"

Zhao Jinghong's voice cut through some of the walkers' roars over comms, directed toward the sniper position. "Behind the horde! One looks like the leader. Boss wants him alive. Clear me a path and suppress anyone beside him."

No wasted words, just the essential demand: clear the obstacles so she could charge through.

"Copy! Target locked! Suppression starting!"

The Jackal's voice was cold and steady, without a trace of hesitation.

The green circle of his night-vision scope locked firmly onto that suspicious figure. He adjusted the DMR's muzzle slightly and held his breath.

Zhao Jinghong drew a deep breath of putrid air, mustering the last of her strength and suppressing the aching tension in her muscles.

She wasn't defending anymore. She was charging.

"Awakening of Insects!"

A low shout!

Zhao Jinghong's entire bearing changed. Her spear was no longer a shield for blocking, but a battering ram thrusting forward.

Spear ahead, body behind!

The indigo silhouette plunged forward.

Awakening of Insects thrust and swept at high speed in her hands, forcibly carving a way through the mass of walkers.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

The ordinary walkers blocking her way burst open at the head and chest, blood and bone fragments flying everywhere.

The fast variants lunging at her either had their vital points pierced by the spearhead or were smashed aside by the shaft.

She couldn't spare the effort to kill them all. She had only one objective-to tear a bloody path through the tightly packed horde with the fiercest momentum she could muster and charge straight at her target.

The sudden rush threw the horde into greater chaos, howls erupting all around.

"Three o'clock! Brute walker!"

The Jackal's voice was ice-cold. His gun sounded right after it.

Bang!

A brute walker trying to ram her from the side had barely raised its thick arms when a bullet shattered its knee.

The hulking body crashed to its knees, temporarily blocking that side.

"Nine o'clock! Something thrown your way!"

Zhao Jinghong trusted the Jackal and veered aside.

Whoosh!

A rusty short spear skimmed past her back and buried itself in the head of a walker behind her.

"Target's right! Fast variant!"

Bang!

Another fast variant's head burst open.

"Behind the target, left side! One playing dead is sneaking up!"

Zhao Jinghong swept her spear backward in one fluid motion.

Clang!

It knocked aside a boning knife stabbing stealthily toward her.

The disguised man recoiled in fright, and the Jackal's bullet followed close behind.

Pfft!

It punched through his thigh, sending him rolling to the ground with a scream.

Every callout and every shot from the Jackal precisely eliminated the toughest obstacles in Zhao Jinghong's path and the sneak attacks from her flanks.

His suppression took out more than half the "guards" beside the leader and panicked the leader himself, making him try to retreat deeper into the horde.

"You're not getting away!"

Zhao Jinghong shouted fiercely!

She was less than ten meters away. She could even see, through the gaps in his walker skin, those living human eyes now filled with shock and anger.

Seeing that he couldn't escape, the leader suddenly let out a piercing, strange cry.

Several sluggish "walkers" beside him suddenly moved with terrifying speed, recklessly throwing themselves at Zhao Jinghong.

At the same time, he drew a bone knife shaped like a beast's fang from beneath his walker skin and hunched over, taking a stance to fight for his life. He wasn't just someone who gave orders; he could fight, too.

"Clear the way!"

Zhao Jinghong shouted to the Jackal, accelerating even more.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The Jackal fired his DMR in rapid succession, like a drumbeat of death.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

The heads of three "guards" lunging at Zhao Jinghong burst open almost simultaneously.

The fourth took a bullet to the shoulder, slowing its movements.

That brief slowdown was all it took!

Zhao Jinghong reached him.

"Drop it!"

The spear flashed!

Awakening of Insects whistled through the air. Rather than stabbing, it smashed down like an iron rod toward the leader's knife-wielding wrist.

Too fast, too vicious!

Crack!

With the sharp sound of cracking bone, the leader grunted in pain, and the bone knife flew from his hand.

Zhao Jinghong kept moving, drawing the spear back before driving it forward hard. The lump of iron at its butt slammed into the leader's solar plexus like a hammer.

"Urgh!"

The leader felt as though he had been hit by a car. His vision went dark, he couldn't draw breath, and he staggered backward.

Zhao Jinghong stayed on him. Her left hand shot out like lightning and clamped tightly around his other wrist, her fingers like iron pincers, while her right knee drove savagely into his soft belly.

"Aaagh!"

The leader doubled over like a shrimp in pain, completely incapacitated.

Zhao Jinghong braced herself with the spear in her right hand, then twisted and pressed down hard with her left.

"On your knees!"

Thud!

The Whisperer leader who had been issuing orders moments earlier was forced to his knees in the mud by Zhao Jinghong's strength and skill. A dagger smeared with rotten flesh immediately pressed against his throat.

From the charge to forcing him down, it had taken only a dozen seconds or so.

Fast and vicious!

It had taken Zhao Jinghong's all-out burst of strength, precise judgment, and the Jackal's deadly supporting shots.

The instant the leader was forced down-

"Roar-!"

The roar of engines drowned out the horde's howling.

Two brilliant beams of light cleaved through the darkness at the edge of the battlefield.

Daryl's motorcycle charged in first like a black shadow. He swung the front wheel around and knocked a walker out of the way.

Then Lynn's modified pickup and the vehicle Merle was crouching on roared into the edge of the horde, crushing walkers beneath them.

"Open fire! Clear a path! Pick them up!"

Lynn's icy voice blasted from the vehicle's loudspeaker, carrying the force of an ironclad command.

Ratatatat-!

Glenn and T-Dog stood in the pickup bed, their assault rifles spitting fire. Bullets swept out like a gale, instantly mowing down a swath of walkers trying to lunge at Zhao Jinghong and the leader.

Bang! Bang!

Merle stood on the roof of the vehicle, his shotgun booming. Every shot blasted apart a walker that came close.

Daryl circled the perimeter on his motorcycle, his crossbow sending bolts whizzing into those that slipped through and tried to lunge at Zhao Jinghong.

The moment the guns sounded, the battlefield changed.

The horde that had been suffocating them moments before fell like wheat under the ferocious firepower.

Walkers near the convoy were mowed down in swaths, forcibly clearing a space for Zhao Jinghong and her captive.

Zhao Jinghong breathed a sigh of relief, but the dagger against the leader's throat didn't ease in the slightest.

She looked up at the approaching convoy.

Lynn had already jumped down from the pickup's passenger seat. Holding his rifle, his gaze hawklike, he strode toward her.

Glenn, T-Dog, Daryl, and Merle quickly gathered around him, clearing away scattered walkers as they advanced.

"Well done!"

Lynn's gaze swept over the pinned leader, then settled on Zhao Jinghong, covered in blood, mud, and sweat, her eyes still cold and hard. He nodded.

He looked toward the distant office building and nodded again.

In the shadows on the rooftop, the Jackal's muzzle flashed once.

The searchlights from the base also held this area firmly in their beams.

The immediate crisis had been brought under control.

But everyone knew the hard fight had only just begun-pry this prisoner's mouth open, find their nest, and wipe it out.

This living captive pinned firmly beneath Zhao Jinghong was the crowbar that would pry open all their secrets.