A piercing shrill buzz suddenly rang out.
The zombies that had been tearing at the corpses abruptly raised their heads and charged toward them in a swarm.
“Damn!”
The old driver yanked the steering wheel hard, and the minibus tilted to one side as its tires screeched black marks onto the ground.
However, countless zombies suddenly surged out from the residential buildings on both sides, roaring as they lunged at them with uncanny unison.
Wang Wei broke down and roared, “You fucking poked a zombie nest!”
The lone minibus raced wildly down the road, pursued by a surging zombie tide, like a small boat adrift in an ocean of the living dead.
Mu Shan glanced at the fork ahead and spoke before the old driver could, “Head northwest!”
Without a word, he floored the accelerator. The minibus roared forward, smashing through zombies and splattering a window with bloody flesh.
They headed toward an area with fewer buildings—no residential blocks meant no zombie sources—which bought the group some time.
“Watch out!!!” The fortune teller, clinging to his seat, suddenly bellowed.
Under the traffic light ahead stood a little girl in red clothes with disheveled hair, stiffly planted in the middle of the road.
The old driver instinctively swerved to avoid her, but Mu Shan yelled from behind the driver’s seat, “Hit her!”
“You’re crazy—!”
“Listen to me!!!”
The old driver gritted his teeth and slammed the accelerator, speeding straight toward the obviously unnatural red-clothed girl.
With a “bang—” the minibus didn’t hit the girl. Instead, several zombies leaped out from the roadside in a suicide attack, blocking their path.
The zombies were smashed to pulp by the front of the vehicle, but their flesh smeared the windshield.
The old driver couldn’t see a thing. He cursed nonstop, furiously spraying windshield washer fluid.
They brushed past her. Mu Shan turned and glared at the red-clothed little girl, who stared back just the same.
In the instant their gazes met, she saw the girl’s face clearly: a pallid zombie visage with round eyes that were blank white, devoid of pupils.
Its expression was calm, utterly unlike the surrounding zombies roaring in pursuit of the living.
Mu Shan felt the hairs on her arms stand on end, a chill creeping up her spine, as if she’d been marked by some advanced predator.
She turned back around, her trembling hands gripping the axe handle tightly to muster some courage.
“Grr.”
“Awooo—”
The zombies lagging behind clustered together and rapidly closed in.
“Drive faster! Can’t you find a path?!”
“I can’t fucking charge into a zombie horde!”
The minibus resumed its desperate flight. Mu Shan sat quietly in her seat and flipped open her card album.
【Environment Cards: An empty office, A zombie-packed classroom】
【Item Cards: A tube of zombie serum, A bloodstained little axe】
【Character Cards: A zombie transformed from a player】
She wasn’t seeing things, nor dreaming.
She had truly laid eyes on the dwarf zombie she’d summoned.
But the team was visiting this place for the first time—how could a zombie worker appear there?
And when had she even used it?
The minibus shook off the zombies and lurched forward unsteadily.
Yet the buildings on both sides continued to “prophesy” their arrival, spewing endless living dead.
Mu Shan’s body turned ice-cold.
Or put it another way… how many times had they already looped?
“Damn, this never ends!”
The old driver cursed as he nearly stomped the pedal through the floor.
The Coaster plowed through zombies lunging from the sides, its tires nearly leaving the ground. At a downhill slope, it launched into the air, as if it might take flight.
“Clang—” With another massive crash, two more road-blocking zombies exploded in a spray of brains.
The old driver kept searching for new routes. He even barreled into a residential complex’s underground parking garage, racing madly through the tunnels.
The pitch-black underground held few zombies. They sped toward the bright exit, smashing through obstacles in their path.
Abandoned cars littered the garage haphazardly, with zombies occasionally pounding on their doors from inside.
The porter and the fortune teller flanked the windows on either side, occasionally striking down lunging zombies from the sides, but the high speed made it hard for them to maintain balance due to inertia.
The engine buzzed as the minibus “boomed” through the rising arm barrier and burst out of the garage.
They regained daylight, and the Coaster sped along the smooth main road again, but Mu Shan’s heart grew heavier.
They had clearly chosen a different route from last time—why couldn’t they shake the zombie tide?
Shortly after exiting the garage—about five seconds—a “whoosh—” erupted as a tidal wave of zombies poured from the exit. Limbs, whether hands or feet, writhed across the ground in endless advance, like an unending mudflow.
The minibus forged ahead alone ahead of the mudflow, the distance shrinking relentlessly, as if it would inevitably be swallowed.
Everywhere they looked were living dead, and despair began to spread.
The porter guarding the rear door was covered in zombie blood from the waist up, his head and face caked in gore. His hands couldn’t grip the slippery steel pipe anymore; he resorted to smashing with fists and brute force.
“So many zombies—whoever you are, it’s death!”
“Fuck your ancestor’s zombie tide! Fuck!”
The old driver’s eyes were bloodshot. Prolonged high-intensity focus left him breathing like a broken bellows. “Almost out of gas…”
Even more crushing was the uncountable horde behind them, surging like a towering tsunami. Even when the fortune teller’s sword light momentarily shattered them, they swiftly regrouped.
It was as if some mysterious force drove them, gathering and rallying scattered nearby zombies into a colossal monster.
The distance between the minibus and the zombie tide closed tighter. Dust kicked up by the running horde blotted out the sky, dimming even the sunlight.
Mu Shan had been forced to join the zombie-slaying effort. The more corpses clung to the vehicle’s sides, the heavier it grew, shortening their fuel endurance.
She didn’t know where the way out was.
“No gas!!!” the old driver roared.
Mu Shan pulled a card from her pocket and tossed it over. “Use mine!”
【Gasoline +50L】
But it was merely a drop in the bucket.
Zombies blocking the path ahead were flung aside or crushed flat. The windshield was caked with rotten meat, obscuring the road ahead. Washer fluid couldn’t clean it, and the wipers were jammed with bones.
The old driver drove blindly on instinct.
Behind them, the fortune teller’s sword light cleaved fewer and fewer zombies—his skill likely consumed mana.
The horde advanced in boiling, tidal surges, inching closer.
Ahead lay a dead-end road, blocked by a pile of construction debris wrapped in green netting.
The old driver’s hair was soaked with sweat. In despair, he floored it one last time. The minibus roared up the small ramp and launched into the air.
The engine’s weary roar sounded like an old man’s heart-wrenching cough.
In the instant the minibus hung suspended, a bead of sweat slid into Mu Shan’s eye. She blinked and saw the zombie tide forming an encirclement behind them.
And atop the tide stood the red-clothed little girl’s indifferent face.
Before the minibus landed, countless reaching zombie hands were already within arm’s reach.
Like a total solar eclipse blotting out all light, it utterly engulfed their figures.
Darkness fell.
A shrill buzz rang out.
The zombies gnawing at flesh around the sedan abruptly turned back, clawing and lunging toward them.
“Damn damn damn!”
Feng Wei wrenched the steering wheel and floored it to turn around.
His expression froze. “Something’s off… The car’s condition is wrong, fuel’s wrong, why’s there so much blood on the glass! Everything’s wrong!”
Shu Yongzhi coughed, clutching his chest with an exhausted look. “Not just you—this poor Daoist is off too.”
He glanced at his hands—prolonged sword-gripping had left his forearms trembling uncontrollably.
Mu Shan stood up. “Fortune teller, can you climb onto the roof?”
Shu Yongzhi reacted sluggishly. “The roof…?”
“We need to track the zombies behind us, seize the high ground. I don’t know how much mana you have left, but keep them at least a meter away if you can.”
“Porter, how much strength do you have left? Make sure no zombie limbs snag the rear wheels, or we won’t move.”
Wang Wei cursed reflexively. “What bullshit—I, your father…”
He suddenly noticed his hands. Battle scars covered his entire upper body; even his head and face were smeared with zombie black blood.
The burly man’s face shifted from confusion to dawning horror. “Blood, so much blood—what happened…”
Mu Shan couldn’t wait for him to adjust. She gripped the passenger seat. “Brick Expert, [Zombies are dead and can’t move]—that logic’s wrong. Think of something else!”
Cao Cheng looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“Old driver, use the ‘Old Horse Knows the Way’ skill. Take impossible roads to escape—even rooftops if needed!”
Feng Wei’s expression flickered. “Little sister, how do you know our skills?”
Mu Shan wiped blood from her axe blade and lowered her voice. “Because you used it in the last loop.”
Unknown how many loops later.
The battered minibus howled down the road, its body so filthy its original color was unrecognizable, trailing long skid marks.
Cao Cheng trembled all over, stammering, “We’re in a four-wheeled vehicle, zombies on two legs. Everyone knows two legs can’t outrun four wheels, so I deduce—we won’t be caught by zombies!”
【Logic invalid, deduction failed】
“We’re living humans, zombies are dead. We’re not the same kind of creature. So I judge—we won’t turn into zombies!”
【Logic invalid, deduction failed】
Even the old driver in the driver’s seat couldn’t help cursing. “Damn, can you think properly? Even I hear the bug in your logic! Aren’t experts always right?!”
But he wasn’t an expert—he was a Brick Expert!
Cao Cheng pounded his forehead furiously, looking agonized.
Mu Shan hacked off a zombie’s hand clawing at the window with one axe swing—her arm felt like it had swung hundreds of times already. She panted with exhaustion.
“Brick Expert, what did you just say!”
Cao Cheng looked up in confusion. “Huh?”
Mu Shan suddenly realized something. “We can’t turn into zombies, but maybe zombies can turn into people!”
The old driver driving leaned back. “—You’ve gone crazy too!”