AFTCKCTCKATD - Chapter 78

Chapter 78

The Entire Devil City’s Was Wiped Out?

---

Hearing those three words, Ji Yanqing’s breath hitched.

He wanted to ask if Feng Yimo knew what those words meant, but meeting his steady, dark gaze, the question died in his throat.

Feng Yimo wasn’t joking.

Realizing this, Ji Yanqing looked away. He hugged the two little ones in his arms and showered them with kisses.

Kissed, the two little ones stopped being sad and leaned contentedly into his embrace.

“I love you too, Dad.”

“Me too, me too!”

“I know. Dad loves you both too,” Ji Yanqing said, holding them tight.

Feeling their warmth, he looked at Feng Yimo again.

Feng Yimo’s gaze lingered on him and the children. He could see that Ji Yanqing loved Ji An and Ji Le, and it made his heart ache with jealousy. Ji Yanqing said he loved them, but he hadn’t said he loved him.

For a moment, he even suspected that Ji Yanqing was only with him because of the children.

“You—” He started to speak, but a knock at the door interrupted him.

They all looked toward the entrance.

It was Tong Yue.

The door was open, and Tong Yue stood there alone. Seeing Ji Yanqing holding the children, with Feng Yimo beside him, his expression was subtle.

Ji Yanqing wasn’t surprised. He gave the children an apologetic pat on the head and stood up under their pouty gazes.

“What is it?” he asked, walking to the door.

“Can we talk alone?” Tong Yue asked.

“Let’s go to the roof. There’s no one there.” Ji Yanqing led the way upstairs. He didn’t bring his axe.

The building was full; Xia Shen Shu, Lan Zi, and Li Pingsen all lived here. But during the day, they were busy in the county, so the building was quiet.

Ji Yanqing led the way to the roof, and Tong Yue closed the door behind them.

The building was six stories high, and the flat roof was spacious, like a basketball court. From there, they could see everything: the busy people in the county, the new lake beside it, and the vegetable fields filled with hundreds of trucks.

Looking around, Tong Yue turned to Ji Yanqing and got straight to the point. “Are you a Corpse King?”

Ji Yanqing was stunned. He had known Tong Yue was coming to ask about the lake, but he hadn’t expected him to suspect him.

“I’m not. If you don’t believe me, I can prove it,” he said.

Surprise flashed in Tong Yue’s eyes.

Ji Yanqing took a small knife from his pocket, rolled up his left sleeve to reveal his pale wrist, and made a cut. Bright red blood immediately welled up.

“Then who is?” Tong Yue frowned.

The lake was clearly not man-made. In this world, only one thing could create something like that: a Corpse King. He had noticed something was wrong back then, but Ji Yanqing had insisted it was a natural fissure. The other six major team leaders probably suspected the same thing, but they had all chosen to remain silent because the implications were too terrifying to contemplate.

“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you,” Ji Yanqing said, lowering his sleeve. He didn’t put the knife back in his pocket, but threw it far away.

Tong Yue watched the knife fall, his expression shifting rapidly. Ji Yanqing’s refusal was a tacit admission that there was indeed a Corpse King hiding in the county.

A Corpse King. A man-eating monster.

Thinking of the unfamiliar faces around him, imagining the hideous monsters hiding beneath them, goosebumps rose on Tong Yue’s skin, and a chill ran down his spine.

“Are you crazy?” his voice rasped. “Do you know what you’re doing? There are over ten thousand people in this city. You’re going to get everyone killed.”

Ji Yanqing looked at the lake. After the sediment had settled and the water cleared, they had used it to wash the entire county. They had limited fuel, so they had carried water bucket by bucket. It was exhausting, boring work, but everyone had done it with enthusiasm. This alliance wasn’t just important to him; it was important to everyone in this city.

“I won’t,” he said with certainty.

He looked at Tong Yue. “If I hadn’t said anything, you might never have noticed.”

Having Feng Yimo dig the lake had been impulsive, but it was also a calculated move.

“You set me up?” Tong Yue realized.

During the formation of the alliance, they had poured all their energy into building trust and developing weapons. Just as they were about to succeed, the lake appeared. He had noticed something was wrong immediately, but he hadn’t confronted Ji Yanqing because he felt the priority was the weapon. Only with a weapon could they deal with a Corpse King. Even in the worst-case scenario, they would at least have a means of self-defense.

He hadn’t expected his silence to be exactly what Ji Yanqing had planned.

“If I hadn’t done that, would you have been willing to talk to me before taking action?” Ji Yanqing countered.

Tong Yue was silent.

“I can’t tell you who they are, but I can tell you that the reason I knew the flower field was effective against Corpse Kings is because of them.”

“Them?” Tong Yue’s face was a picture of shock. Plural?

Ji Yanqing didn’t answer directly. “Have you ever wondered why intelligence-type, thrice-evolved Corpse Kings take on human form?”

“…What do you mean?”

Ji Yanqing looked down at the busy crowd. “I don’t know what the future holds anymore. At first, I thought this was the end, that humanity would die out. But we found a way to fight back.”

“I thought the mutated plants were caused by magnetic disruptions from nuclear explosions or something similar. But thinking about it now, they started growing wildly the moment the virus broke out, and they’re everywhere.”

Tong Yue frowned. “What are you trying to say?”

Ji Yanqing continued to watch the crowd. “Those Corpse Kings… they speak our language, they look just like us. Have you ever considered the possibility that one day, this world will be full of ‘people’?”

Tong Yue’s lips parted, but no sound came out. The idea was insane, but he couldn’t find the words to refute it. He truly couldn’t explain why thrice-evolved Corpse Kings looked human. When he had first learned of it, his reaction had been horror, because he had felt…

“It feels like the old humanity is being replaced,” Ji Yanqing said.

Tong Yue swallowed hard, a chilling cold enveloping him. The vague discomfort he had felt before now seemed to take on a solid form, cold and pressing.

“Maybe one day, Corpse Kings will be a part of our lives,” Ji Yanqing said. “They’ll be our teammates, fighting alongside us. Squads made up of New Humans with superior strength and Old Humans with their own survival skills…”

Tong Yue was silent. He couldn’t imagine such a day.

“After the third evolution, Corpse Kings seem to diverge into two extremes,” Ji Yanqing said. “Some are consumed by bloodlust and continue to kill, while others… seem to develop emotions.”

“Emotions?” Tong Yue sneered. “I don’t believe monsters like that can have emotions.” If they did, then either the Corpse King was crazy, or Ji Yanqing was.

“Then why do you think the Corpse Kings I’m hiding haven’t killed us?” Ji Yanqing asked. “Was it for fun that they told us what could kill them? Now that we’ve developed the weapon, shouldn’t they have made their move?”

He stared straight into Tong Yue’s eyes. “They haven’t made a move. Is it because they think we don’t have enough weapons to kill them yet, and they’re waiting for us to make more?”

One of those “monsters” had even had a nightmare because he was scared of their enthusiasm, and had needed to cry in his father’s arms to feel better. Tong Yue said Ji An and the others had no emotions. Ji Yanqing didn’t believe it.

Tong Yue was silent. He had a thousand arguments—Corpse Kings were cruel, vicious monsters, that was a fact—but he couldn’t refute this. They could have killed them all at the start, but they hadn’t. If it was for fun, they could have struck now, but they hadn’t.

A shout came from downstairs. Someone was looking for Ji Yanqing again. Everyone in the county was working hard, striving to make the alliance better.

“I’m going to take everyone to the Devil’s City, and we will proceed according to plan,” Ji Yanqing said softly. “If you don’t believe me, then just watch. See how things turn out.”

With that, he walked over, picked up the knife he had thrown, and went downstairs.

The theory he had presented to Tong Yue wasn’t just a story; he truly believed it. He didn’t know when that harmonious future would arrive, but he didn’t want to hide Feng Yimo and the children forever. Some things couldn’t be hidden, and besides, it wasn’t fair to them.

Setting up Tong Yue might have been despicable, but it was the best way he could think of. Xia Shen Shu and the others didn’t mind because they trusted him implicitly. Tong Yue was a leader; even if he trusted him, he had to consider the lives of his own people. Trust alone wasn’t enough.

On the roof, Tong Yue took a voice recorder from his pocket and stopped the recording.

He stared at the door where Ji Yanqing had exited, unable to recover for a long time. Knowing his guess was right, that there was more than one Corpse King in the county, every instinct screamed at him to take his people and run. But Ji Yanqing’s words echoed in his mind, refusing to fade.

He wasn’t without hope for the future, but every future he could envision was filled with despair. The future Ji Yanqing described was bizarre, yet it was the most ideal version of any future he had ever imagined. It was so perfect it felt fake.

And to reach that future, they couldn’t just sit in this county and wait. It would be a hard road, and they might all die halfway.

Accepting Corpse Kings, gambling everyone’s lives on a future so unlikely it might not even exist…

Ji Yanqing was a complete and utter madman.

Tong Yue looked at the recorder in his hand, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it.

Crunch.

He didn’t stop until it was smashed to pieces, then clicked his tongue in frustration.

If Ji Yanqing lost this bet, he would haunt him as a ghost. He would crawl out of hell to eat his flesh, drink his blood, and grind his bones to dust!

---

Downstairs, Ji Yanqing had just reached the ground floor when he was caught by the lookout who had been shouting his lungs out searching for him in the complex.

“Captain Ji, there are new arrivals.”

Ji Yanqing turned and headed toward the county gate.

After reorganizing the teams, he had given everyone a task: spread the word about their alliance as far and wide as possible. With forty squads, their message had long since spread to all the nearby cities. As a result, new teams arrived from time to time. However, most of the large teams in the vicinity had already joined, so the newcomers were mostly small groups, the largest numbering only three hundred.

The complex was close to the main gate, so he soon left the buildings behind and saw several vehicles parked on the road outside. There were ten vehicles in total, carrying over three hundred people, all looking around curiously.

The main gate had been modified, surrounded by a wooden and wire fence nearly three meters high, with defensive iron spikes flanking the entrance.

“Captain Ji!”

As soon as he arrived, two or three people from the crowd ran out excitedly to greet him.

Ji Yanqing looked at them, confused. Did they know each other?

“Captain, he’s the Ji Yanqing we told you about, the one who saved us,” one of them shouted back to the group.

Ji Yanqing followed his gaze. The moment he saw the man, his grip tightened on his axe handle, his muscles tensed, and he felt as if he had been plunged into an ice bath.

It was a man of about twenty-five or six, with average looks. Or rather, it wasn’t a man, but a Corpse King. An intelligence-type, thrice-evolved, human-form Corpse King.

Approaching Ji Yanqing, the man looked at him. The moment their eyes met, he seemed to sense the killing intent deep in Ji Yanqing’s gaze. He paused for a moment, then smiled.

“Don’t you remember us?” one of the greeters asked. “Wu Shangyou’s group.”

Hearing the name, Ji Yanqing remembered. Looking at them again, they did look familiar.

His gaze swept over their faces, then returned to the Corpse King. “Your captain?”

“His name is Kang Xiaodong.”

“After you saved us, we met him as soon as we entered the city. We’ve been with him ever since.”

“Our captain is a really good person.”

Kang Xiaodong smiled. “Thank you for saving my people.”

Ji Yanqing looked at the group. “You’ve been together this whole time?” He had separated Wu Shangyou and his team into two different cities. If they had been together since then, it meant they had been following a Corpse King for two or three months?

“Yeah, why?” They sensed something was off.

“Nothing.” Ji Yanqing paused. “I’ll have someone take the rest of you to find a place to stay. I’d like to have a chat with your captain alone.” He looked at the people behind Kang Xiaodong.

“No need,” Kang Xiaodong refused. “We just came to look around. We’re leaving right away.”

Ji Yanqing frowned.

“Eh?”

“But Captain…”

“Didn’t we agree to join?”

The group started chattering in confusion.

Ji Yanqing listened to their confusion and looked at Kang Xiaodong again. He didn’t know what Kang Xiaodong was playing at, but his team clearly didn’t fear him.

He turned to the lookout who had brought him the message. “Go get Feng Yimo. He’s at my place.”

The lookout nodded and ran toward the complex. It was close by, so Feng Yimo soon appeared with Ji An and Ji Le.

The moment they appeared, Kang Xiaodong, who was explaining himself to his team, looked over. Seeing Ji An and Ji Le, seeing the three ropes in Feng Yimo’s hand and the Corpse Kings at the end of them, his face became increasingly complicated.

“They are…” His gaze lingered on the black beast and the others.

“Mutated animals,” Ji Yanqing explained unhurriedly. “He caught them to help till the land … or something.”

“…Till the land?”

“Yes.”

The corner of Kang Xiaodong’s mouth twitched.

“I’ll have him take you inside,” Ji Yanqing said, looking at Feng Yimo.

Feng Yimo turned to head into the county.

The lookout’s mouth twitched violently. Feng Yimo leading the way?

“No need…”

“Since you’re here, don’t be in such a hurry to leave,” Ji Yanqing said to Kang Xiaodong.

Kang Xiaodong’s mouth twitched again.

Knowing Feng Yimo was unreliable, Ji Yanqing gave the lookout the address of an empty complex. The lookout looked at him strangely, then at Feng Yimo who had been specifically summoned, and led the way into the county.

“I…” Kang Xiaodong tried to say something, but his team members were already following excitedly. They really weren’t afraid of their captain.

He looked at the three roped beasts. They were looking back at him with sympathetic, complex eyes, as if looking at a giant idiot. Meeting their gaze, a chill ran down his spine. He had the distinct feeling he had just walked into a trap.

“Please.” Ji Yanqing was expressionless.

Kang Xiaodong looked at Feng Yimo, then at Ji Yanqing, and bit the bullet, following the crowd through the gate.

Watching them go in, Ji Yanqing looked at Feng Yimo and the children. “Keep an eye on him,” he whispered.

A seriousness entered their eyes. At Feng Yimo’s feet, the gaze of the three beasts grew even more sympathetic.

Ahead, following the crowd, Kang Xiaodong looked back. Feng Yimo and the children approached. As they got close, the four of them sized each other up.

“Can you dig?” Feng Yimo asked.

“No,” Kang Xiaodong answered without thinking.

Watching them leave, Ji Yanqing frowned. He insisted on personally greeting every new team precisely to check for Corpse Kings hiding among them. He had considered many possibilities, but he hadn’t expected a “Captain” Corpse King.

What was Kang Xiaodong trying to do?

Unable to figure it out, he went to see Huang Rongyue and told her about the new team. She was in charge of organizing supplies. Besides the supplies handed over by the teams initially, she also managed everything brought back from scavenging runs. It was a lot of stuff, messy and varied, and she had to handle it all personally. When he arrived, she was sweating from the effort.

He simply told her that the supplies from Kang Xiaodong’s team needed to be stored separately, not eaten, and kept secret from everyone. Then, not daring to delay, he left quickly.

By the time he returned home, it was already dark, and snow was falling. Entering the apartment, still pondering the Kang Xiaodong situation, he looked up to see Feng Yimo, Ji An, and Ji Le already back.

“Dad…” The two little ones, who had cried that afternoon, rushed towards him.

Didn’t I tell Feng Yimo to watch Kang Xiaodong?

Before he could ask, Feng Yimo walked over to the shoe cabinet in the entryway and pulled it open.

The moment the door opened, Ji Yanqing saw a familiar face. Kang Xiaodong was tied up like a dumpling, gagged, and stuffed into the cabinet. Seeing Ji Yanqing, he immediately started struggling and making muffled noises. “Mmph mmph…”

Ji Yanqing rubbed his forehead. “Why did you tie him up and bring him back?”

Ji An’s wide eyes were round and innocent. “It was almost time for bed.”

“Yeah,” Ji Le added sweetly.

Ji Yanqing looked at Feng Yimo. He nodded seriously. Everyone else went home to sleep, so naturally, they had to go home too. And if Ji Yanqing wasn’t there at night, they wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Ji Yanqing was speechless. He looked at the struggling Kang Xiaodong in the cabinet and silently closed the door. Out of sight, out of mind.

“Mmph mmph…” Suspicious noises came from the cabinet.

The muscle near Ji Yanqing’s eye twitched violently. “When did you catch him?”

“After he went to his room,” Ji Le answered immediately.

“No one saw,” Ji An added.

They were so clever.

Feng Yimo’s dark eyes were serene. “Don’t worry.”

Ji Yanqing had the urge to facepalm again. Thinking for a moment, he said, “Let him go tomorrow during the day. Don’t let anyone see you.”

“Okay.” They answered in unison.

“Mmph! Mmph!…” The struggling in the cabinet intensified.

Ji Yanqing walked over and thoughtfully closed the metal security door as well. If anyone found out, he would never be able to explain this, not even if he jumped into the new river…

“Sleep,” he said, leading the way to the bedroom.

“Mmph mmph!”

Before closing the bedroom door, he glanced at the three Corpse Kings curled up in a ball on the living room rug. “Watch him. Don’t let him run away.”

They looked at him, then at the noisy cabinet, and didn’t dare make a sound. Feng Yimo was scary, but Ji Yanqing was scarier, because Feng Yimo obviously listened to everything he said.

The next day, Ji Yanqing had intended to talk to Kang Xiaodong, but he was called away as soon as he got up. Since the bullets had been confirmed effective, Lu Qing and his team had accelerated the refinement of the three plant compounds, and mass production of the bullets was put on the schedule. With materials in hand, production was fast; they made a pile of bullets in just one afternoon.

Lu Qing also had a crazier idea: to make more powerful throwing grenades. However, those consumed more materials. After looking at the blueprints, Ji Yanqing only allowed him to make twenty for now. The grenades were effective, but due to the nature of the materials, they couldn’t be used at range and had to be thrown within ten meters. Even with a way to immobilize Corpse Kings, that distance was too dangerous.

The gruff-voiced man, who had been sent to scout the Devil’s City, returned seven days later.

They all knew the area behind them was Devil’s City territory, but they hadn’t known exactly where it started. During this time, he and his team had searched along the route and finally pinpointed the location. The Devil’s City was only two cities away from them, just over a day’s travel.

Learning this, Ji Yanqing felt a chill down his spine. It was closer than he had expected, and the Devil’s City’s territory was much larger than he had anticipated.

“We didn’t dare go deep, just confirmed the situation in the city and came back,” the man said, his face grim. “There are seven Corpse Kings in the city, and at least ten Awakened Zombies. And that’s not ruling out ones we didn’t see.”

In the cafeteria-office, the gathered leaders all looked serious.

“That many…” Huang Rongyue sucked in a cold breath. One Corpse King in a city was surprising enough, but seven? Plus a bunch of Awakened Zombies?

The gruff-voiced man hesitated. “I think something might have happened in the Devil’s City. Those Corpse Kings seemed very tense.” He paused, then added, “Or maybe they’re already preparing to attack, so they’re all in a state of excitement.”

---

No one spoke.

Seven Corpse Kings and over ten Awakened Zombies in a single city. And the ‘Devil’s City’ was comprised of ten to twenty cities. They were looking at hundreds of Corpse Kings, and that wasn’t even counting the likelihood of a higher concentration of Corpse Kings in the central areas.

“We leave in three days,” Ji Yanqing said.

Everyone looked at him.

“Since this battle is unavoidable, we will strike first.”

The leaders exchanged glances, took deep breaths, and then exhaled slowly.

With the decision made, everyone quickly gathered around the map brought by the gruff-voiced man to discuss how to fight their first battle.

There was another city not far behind the first one. If they made too much noise, there was a chance they would alert the city behind it. Furthermore, the city wasn’t just filled with Corpse Kings and Awakened Zombies; there were also countless ordinary zombies. Despite the breakthroughs in strategy and weapons, being bitten by one of them would result in infection just the same.

Beyond that, they had another important mission: scavenging for supplies. In fact, half the reason they were doing this was for the resources.

The discussion lasted for over two days, until they were sure their plan was foolproof.

The day before departure, all the division leaders met with their squad leaders to brief them on the specific plan. That night, the entire county fell silent before six o’clock. Except for the night watch, everyone went to bed early.

The next day, as the first light of dawn touched the horizon, the snow-covered county began to stir. Everyone ate early, checked their equipment, and confirmed their positions and tasks.

As soon as the snow melted enough for travel, thirty-nine combat squads boarded their vehicles, leaving one squad behind to guard the base. Thirty-nine squads, nearly eight thousand people, packed into close to two hundred vehicles. The convoy was like a long dragon, winding its way through the snow-white landscape, an imposing sight.

It took over a day to travel from the county to the target city. They drove at full speed during the day, and by the time they camped for the night, they were only a three-hour drive away.

That night, everyone went to bed early again. But unlike the excitement back at the camp, this night was filled with tension. Many lay awake, unable to sleep.

They arrived at the mountains two li outside the city at ten in the morning, the hottest part of the day. The weather here was much hotter than in the north, forcing them to rest in the forest for an extra hour.

The fourteen squads assigned to deal with the Corpse Kings and Awakened Zombies had already deployed, infiltrating the city ahead of time to scout and set up. Once they had each confirmed their targets, they coordinated over the radio to strike simultaneously.

The moment the first shots rang out, the people waiting in the forest outside began to count the seconds.

Ten minutes later, as the gunfire gradually died down, the remaining twenty-five squads quickly entered the city. They didn’t go to the left side of the city where the fighting had occurred, but instead moved rapidly into the city center to search for supplies.

Ji Yanqing didn’t go in. He stayed at the camp to oversee the operation.

Watching the supply teams disappear into the city, he held his breath and stared at the radio beside him. It crackled with static occasionally, but no one reported in. As the minutes ticked by, he grabbed his axe, debating whether to go in and check, when the radio finally came to life.

“Status?” he asked immediately.

“Done. All known Corpse Kings and Awakened Zombies have been eliminated.”

He let out a breath, his tense muscles relaxing.

“…There was a bit of trouble just now. One Corpse King was smart and tried to run right at the start, but someone shot the agent right into its eye…”

Ji Yanqing frowned.

“It was Team Leader Lan. Besides that Corpse King, she also took down four Awakened Zombies.” The voice paused, the tone turning subtle. “Her squad had the highest kill count, too. Two Corpse Kings and four Awakened Zombies in total.”

Lan Zi’s squad was mostly female, which made them famous in the county. Many people had a good impression of them, largely because they were women. But after witnessing their fearless combat style, the men who had planned to show off in front of them were silenced.

Two Corpse Kings and four Awakened Zombies—that was nearly half the total. A bunch of burly men put together couldn’t even match Lan Zi’s squad.

Ji Yanqing imagined the scene, his feelings complex. But Lan Zi had always been far ahead of the others in marksmanship, and once the Corpse Kings were down, shooting them was purely a matter of skill, eliminating any physical strength disparity. So the result wasn’t entirely unexpected.

“Is everyone okay?” he asked.

“One Corpse King knocked down a building and injured quite a few people, but it’s not serious.”

“Send the injured back first.”

“Roger.”

Cutting the connection, Ji Yanqing looked toward the edge of the city. Seeing the injured being helped out, he quickly went to help. The gunfire had alerted the entire city, and many ordinary zombies were chasing them. He helped clear them out so the injured could get back to camp quickly.

There were nearly a hundred injured, all from the same squad. Because of the injuries, the Awakened Zombie they were supposed to kill had escaped, and Lan Zi had to step in to finish it off. This left the whole squad looking dejected.

Not long after they were evacuated, teams began to stream out carrying supplies. Ji Yanqing immediately ordered trucks to go meet them.

Just as they had predicted, almost no one had entered this part of the Devil’s City territory before. They found a massive amount of supplies. Leaving aside the odds and ends, they found enough rice and flour to fill twenty trucks—thousands of kilograms. For a smaller team, that alone would be enough to feed them for years.

In addition, they found plenty of wild-growing bok choy in the vegetable fields at the edge of the city, along with five or six other types of edible plants. These added up to nearly another twenty truckloads.

People kept carrying supplies out, and trucks kept moving up to be loaded. The process lasted nearly seven or eight hours. By the time everyone withdrew from the city, only about sixty of the two hundred vehicles they had brought were still empty.

Looking at the bountiful harvest, far exceeding their expectations, everyone in the camp behind the forest beamed with excitement.

The team members gathered in groups of twos and threes to discuss the hunt, while Ji Yanqing and the division leaders sat together to discuss their next move.

“How about we check out the city behind this one?” Li Pingsen suggested.

His words immediately drew agreement from the group. Flushed with their first victory and the unexpected haul, everyone was feeling a bit high on success.

“How much ammo do we have left?” Lan Zi asked.

“Enough. We brought double the amount we needed,” another leader said with a smile, looking at Ji Yanqing. “Captain?”

Ji Yanqing looked at Tong Yue and the others, their eyes shining with the same excitement.

“I think it’s worth considering,” Huang Rongyue said.

“That city isn’t far, just a few hours away. The ones further in are much farther. We’ve already taken this one out; we might as well sweep the next one too, to prevent any news from leaking,” the gruff-voiced man said excitedly. They didn’t know how Corpse Kings communicated, but his argument was persuasive.

Ji Yanqing’s gaze swept over their faces again, finally landing on the gruff man. “You go scout the situation first. If we have enough ammo, we’ll go.”

“Why me again?” The man’s happy face instantly turned black. “What do you mean? Do you have a problem with me?”

Ji Yanqing looked at him calmly. “Yeah, a little.”

“Pfft…” Huang Rongyue turned her head away, her shoulders shaking.

Qin Yue, Tong Yue, and the others exchanged glances and turned away as well.

Seeing this, the man’s face turned a shiny black. He wanted to slam the table and demand to know what they meant, but he swallowed the words. He glared viciously at Ji Yanqing, then stormed off with his men, radiating killing intent.

Watching him leave, the camp erupted in laughter.

Ji Yanqing did have a problem with him. The man was a walking powder keg, exploding at the slightest touch, ten times a day. In a collective living situation, such a person was universally disliked. If he didn’t change his temper, something bad would happen sooner or later. Sending him away wasn’t exactly targeting him, but it certainly saved them a lot of arguments. The alliance had just started; endless quarreling was the last thing they needed.

“Mmph mmph…”

As Huang Rongyue and the others were laughing, a strange noise came from the crate Ji Yanqing was sitting on.

Everyone looked down. It was a wooden shipping crate, about the size of a person, nailed shut tightly so the inside wasn’t visible. Feng Yimo, Ji An, and Ji Le were also sitting on it. Feng Yimo was expressionless, while Ji An and Ji Le swung little legs that didn’t reach the ground.

“Mmph.” Something bumped against the inside of the crate.

Ji Yanqing ignored it. “If we can enter the city, let the squad that searched for supplies this time take the lead in the next hunt.”

“We’re still at the edge of the Devil’s City. The cities further in will have more Corpse Kings. Everyone needs to get a taste of it.” Experience couldn’t be taught; it had to be lived.

“Mmph mmph…” The crate shook again.

Ji An and Ji Le swung their legs, looking as innocent as ever.

Huang Rongyue looked at the crate, then at the nonchalant Ji Yanqing. She wanted to ask who was inside, but decided against it. “Okay.”

Who didn’t have at least one or two people they wanted to knock out and stuff in a box?

“That sounds good,” Qin Yue agreed, the corner of his mouth twitching. The longer he spent with Ji Yanqing, the more he felt the man was different from his initial impression.

“Mmm…” Finding no one paying attention, the person in the box started cursing muffledly.

According to the gruff man, a single trip to the next city would take several hours. A round trip plus scouting time meant he wouldn’t be back until nightfall.

But less than four hours later, Ji Yanqing, who was resting in a vehicle, was informed by a sentry that the man’s group had returned.

He got out and saw the man’s dark face from a distance. “What’s wrong?”

“Did something happen?” Huang Rongyue came over, hearing the commotion.

“Did they spot us?” Tong Yue guessed.

“No.” The gruff man paused. “All of the Corpse Kings in that city … are dead.”

---

“What?” Ji Yanqing hadn’t heard clearly.

Qin Yue looked equally surprised.

“The Corpse Kings in that city are all dead.” Before anyone could ask, the gruff-voiced man blurted out everything he had seen. “When we arrived, the city was very quiet. We were careful, but not long after we entered, we saw twenty-something rotting Corpse Kings.”

“The bodies were already stinking.”

“They were all killed with a single blow, heads cut clean off. And judging by the wounds, it was done by the same thing.”

Hearing his words, shock and gravity filled the eyes of Ji Yanqing and his group.

Twenty-something Corpse Kings, beheaded by the same weapon?

Twenty Corpse Kings, together unable to beat one enemy?

How was that possible?

They had struggled so desperately just to deal with one Corpse King. What kind of thing could take on twenty at once and win?

If such a thing really existed, then they—

“Death…” The name instantly surfaced in Ji Yanqing’s mind.

Huang Rongyue, Qin Yue, and the others all looked at him.

“Death?” Tong Yue’s face changed rapidly.

He didn’t know why Ji Yanqing thought of that monster, but if it was Death, it was indeed possible. After all, Death had existed since the beginning of the outbreak and had single-handedly slaughtered all the Corpse Kings in the north, and most of the west as well.

“Death… is in the Devil’s City?” Goosebumps rose on Huang Rongyue’s skin.

Death’s power was completely beyond that of an ordinary Corpse King. She even doubted if their drugs would work on him.

“Then…”

“Ji Yanqing…” Xia Shen Shu immediately turned towards him, gaze serious.

Lan Zi, Li Pingsen, and the others who had gathered to watch also looked at him.

“Wake everyone up. We return to the base immediately,” Ji Yanqing said.

Lan Zi and the others quickly scattered to notify everyone.

Ji Yanqing looked in the direction of the Devil’s City.

“Who do you think would win?” Huang Rongyue asked.

Everyone looked at him, but no one spoke.

Though silent, they all had an answer in their hearts.

Twenty-plus Corpse Kings, even if they weren’t thrice-evolved, were a massive force capable of leveling a city in an instant. But numbers meant nothing to Death, unless the Lord of the Devil’s City was a force beyond all other Corpse Kings.

Feng Yimo gripped his longsword tightly. His gaze followed Ji Yanqing’s into the distance, seeing only endless mountains and plains, but the gravity etched onto his face didn’t lift. He took a deep breath, his heart heavier than ever before.

He didn’t know if he could win.

Thinking of something, he looked at Ji An and Ji Le beside him. “If we encounter Death, take Ji Yanqing to a safe place immediately.”

The enemy was a terrifying force. Once the fighting started, he wasn’t sure he could protect Ji Yanqing.

Ji An and Ji Le’s small faces were already drained of blood. They quickly jumped off the crate and ran to Ji Yanqing’s feet, clutching his pant legs. But they would protect him, even if they were scared!

“…Squeak?” The Lord of the Devil’s City, who had been dragged out of his hole and leashed even after his city was destroyed, looked vacantly at the black beast beside him.

Is he always like this?

“Grrr.”

…

“Roar?”

Is it possible something went wrong during his evolution? The Pangolin Corpse King offered a possibility.

“Mmph mmph…” Inside the crate, Kang Xiaodong made noises different from before, reminding everyone of his existence.

Ji Yanqing looked over.

“Mmph mmph…”

Ji Yanqing walked over and pried open the lid with his axe. He was just considering knocking Kang Xiaodong out when the man quickly lifted his chin. “Mmph! Yo-”

He had something to say.

Ji Yanqing hesitated for a moment, then used his axe to dislodge the cloth gagging the captive captain Corpse King.

Kang Xiaodong immediately leaned back and spat the cloth out. It was huge, making his jaws ache. As soon as it was out, his face twisted in pain.

Ji Yanqing raised his axe, ready to strike.

Still squinting from the pain, Kang Xiaodong roared in a low voice, “Death’s forces are nearby!”

“What?” Huang Rongyue, who had been wondering why Ji Yanqing kept a bound man in a box, spoke up.

The other leaders who saw the trussed-up Kang Xiaodong were also surprised. But ignoring the reason, they all spoke at once.

“How do you know?”

“What are they doing here?”

Without waiting for them to ask individually, Kang Xiaodong said quickly, “News spread a while ago that traces of Death were found in the Devil’s City. So the Corpse Kings from Death’s faction who have been looking for him all came here. They should be searching the Devil’s City right now.”

Tong Yue’s face turned black. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” They were in the Devil’s City right now, even if only on the edge.

Kang Xiaodong looked at Ji Yanqing and Feng Yimo, feeling wronged but not daring to say it. “I didn’t expect Death to wipe out the entire Devil’s City either. I just heard there were traces of him here.”

Humans like Huang Rongyue might not understand, but how could he not know? Twenty Corpse Kings weren’t something you could just kill easily. Even a thrice-evolved Corpse King couldn’t do it. As far as he knew, the Lord of the Devil’s City was the closest among them to a reaching a fourth evolution, but even he was only close. He had never heard of any Corpse King successfully breaking through.

But Death…

Death might have already broken through.

“We need to leave immediately—” Ji Yanqing started.

“ROAR!”

“GRRR!”

“AWOOO!”

A series of beastly roars, each louder than the last, echoed through the sky. The ground shook, and the trees in the forest swayed.

---

An old man with white hair and a scar running across his face sat on the back of a black Corpse King. Surrounded by nearly twenty approaching figures, he patted the back of the black Corpse King beneath him, urging it forward. The Corpse King was his subordinate.

“The gunfire came from the city ahead?” the old man asked.

“Grrr…” A still-monstrous thrice-evolved Corpse King beside him responded. Yes.

The old man looked at the city, now close at hand. “Move faster.”

The black Corpse King beneath him and the twenty-odd figures around him accelerated, turning into streaks of lightning as they rushed into the city.

Speeding through the streets, the old man reminded them, “Remember what I said before? What do we do if we see the King?”

“Grrr.”

“Roar…”

First run. Then hide.

Hearing their agreement, the old man breathed a sigh of relief.

“Grrr?”

Is the King really here?

“We have to look, even if he isn’t. Do you have a better idea?” the old man said.

The twenty figures scattered, searching every corner of the city. There were many of them, and they were fast. In just ten minutes, they had turned the entire city upside down.

When they finished, they gathered around the old man.

He stared silently at the corpse of the Corpse King in front of him, its brain destroyed. A faint surprise touched his eyes. “Humans?”

“Grrr…”

Didn’t find any.

The old man looked outside the city. Spotting a mountain range nearby, he patted his subordinate, and the black Corpse King immediately headed toward it. Those humans always hid in the nearest forest or behind the nearest mountain. That little trick worked on mindless ordinary zombies, but it was useless against them. In fact, it made them easier to catch.

Leaving the city quickly and circling behind the mountains, the old man wasn’t surprised to see rows of vehicles parked there.

The mountains were silent.

---

“Ji Yanqing…” Xia Shen Shu tried to grab him but was too late.

Dodging his hand, Ji Yanqing gripped his axe tightly and looked back at the people hiding in the trees. “…Run into the mountains.”

No one spoke. Everyone was quiet.

Xia Shen Shu, Lan Zi, Li Pingsen, and the others exchanged glances. They weren’t going to run. They gripped their guns steadfastedly.

Seeing this, the others hiding behind the trees broke out into cold sweats. They only had enough ammo for maybe ten more Corpse Kings, and there were no buildings nearby to hide in.

“You can’t win,” the bound Kang Xiaodong said. “They are all thrice-evolved Corpse Kings.”

Ji Yanqing walked out of the forest. He knew he couldn’t win, but they hadn’t attacked yet. If he didn’t go out, they definitely would.

“You can’t win… why won’t you listen!?” Seeing him about to leave the forest, Kang Xiaodong gritted his teeth and hopped after him.

Just as he was hopping, a figure passed Ji Yanqing.

Feng Yimo drew his longsword as stepped out of the forest ahead of him.

Ji An and Ji Le’s faces were pale, but they held hands and followed. They were Corpse Kings too. They were strong. They would absolutely not let anyone hurt Ji Yanqing.

“Squeak?” The Lord of the Devil’s City, who had been looking for a chance to escape, looked anxiously at his two fellow captives.

“Roar?” The pangolin ran a few steps, then looked back at the black beast.

The black beast’s gaze remained fixed on the pale faces of the people in the forest. Those are Corpse Kings from Death’s faction, and they’re all thrice-evolved. We’re dead…

“Squeak!” The Lord turned and ran deep into the mountains.

The pangolin ran a distance aways, then ran back, biting the black beast’s tail and trying to drag it away.

“Come out. Don’t make me say it a third time,” the old man said.

Behind him, the throats of the Corpse Kings rumbled with impatience.

“Roar?”

They didn’t think the humans would know. They had asked many humans along the way, and it had been a waste of time every single time.

The old man’s expression became quite colorful. “Do you think we haven’t found him before?”

Many of the Corpse Kings looked at him. If we found him, why did we lose him again?

The old man beat his chest in frustration, finally choking out a sentence. “He cut us all down. Didn’t leave a single one.”

…

A dead silence fell over the area.

Hearing movement, the old man looked toward the edge of the forest.

“Finally decided to—” The words died in his throat.

Seeing the long hair, the longsword in his hand, and that familiar face, the old man instantly let out a full-throated roar that echoed through the mountains.

“RUN!”

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