EN CH2

Chapter 2: A Nameless World 01

The scent of blood drifted between the low-hanging sky and the earth.

Muddled noises echoed from all directions, and a pervasive atmosphere of decay lingered beneath the clouds.

—A zombie siege. An army of the undead had completely surrounded the human base.

The human military stood in formation: helicopters hovered in mid-air, tanks held the vanguard, infantry backed them up, and the fortress sat dead center, like an isolated island in the middle of a storm. Dead silence stretched out ahead, so quiet that even the sound of breathing was hard to hear.

Right in the midst of this deathly stillness, a dejected, self-defeating voice suddenly rang out.

“We’re done for.”

“Totally screwed.”

“Game over.”

“We’re gonna die right here.”

The person muttering to himself was a fat man with a gleaming, bald head. He was standing on the platform of a tank, holding binoculars and peering ahead. At this moment, everything was gloomy and oppressive; standing at the very front of the military formation, his hairless scalp seemed to serve as the sole light source.

Someone huddled closer to him.

“C-Captain,” the man asked, trembling. “Didn’t you say you’re best at clearing zombie dungeons?”

Another man chimed in, “Didn’t you say chopping off zombie heads is just like slicing watermelons?”

“—Crisp, giant watermelons, at that.”

The bald captain’s voice trembled too.

“Y-You look at that—can you even call those zombies?!” He stretched out a shaking hand and pointed forward. “That’s a freaking undead scourge!”

Ahead of them, a purplish-black horde of corpses shuffled slowly forward, their flesh rotting and decaying, half-dried entrails dangling beneath exposed ribs. Those were normally common sights in zombie dungeons, except now, they had undergone additional mutations and had even evolved a leader.

They cast their eyes toward the center of the zombie tide. There stood a slowly moving, colossal monster, nearly the size of the entire human fortress. It walked across the earth like a mountain range, every step causing the ground to faintly tremor.

This was the zombie leader, which human scientists had named “Black Satan.” With a leader in command, the horde’s combat power had skyrocketed to terrifying levels, forcing the human frontline to retreat again and again until they reached this point.

Leader Black Satan was certainly the military’s number-one threat, yet it wasn’t the only major headache.

“Have you spotted Subject A1407?” the bald captain asked.

His teammate operating the binoculars to his right replied, “Not yet, still looking.”

Another teammate operated a display screen, where the image was frozen on a close-up of Black Satan. Standing atop its rugged, undulating shoulder was a blurry silhouette that appeared to be humanoid.

This was one of the anomalous images captured by reconnaissance drones over the past few months.

Through cross-referencing, this blurry humanoid figure had appeared in close proximity to Black Satan several times, and had also haunted the heartland of the zombie kingdom like a ghost. Its range of movement was vast, its trajectory didn’t match the traits of ordinary zombie-humans, and it showed signs of being able to manipulate other individuals.

Human scientists treated it as a grave threat, designating it “A1407” and suspecting it to be a second high-intelligence entity that had emerged after Black Satan.

They couldn’t even kill the giant monster yet, and now a new suspected leader had evolved—it was truly adding insult to injury.

“This is way too hard,” his teammate said, his eyes unfocused. “B-but didn’t we plan everything out really well?”

“Tell me about it, we even hired outside help,” the bald captain’s voice floated weakly. “We agreed to split into two routes: we’d hold off the zombie horde with God Yu, while Xia Sen helped the base develop the vaccine. Win the defense battle, clear the mission perfectly, and head back to the Paradise for our rewards—wasn’t that a great plan?”

“Who knew God Yu would wipe right at the start.”

“The zombies practically scattered his freaking ashes, haha.”

“So this is the sky-high-priced mercenary Yu Feichen, huh? Haha, I don’t wanna live anymore.”

“Now the zombies have evolved, and the base’s vaccine research direction has been declared a dead end.”

“Our little Xia Sen even got snatched away by a flying zombie along with the virus samples.”

“Total bust, Captain.”

“We’re finished, Captain.”

“Yeah, Captain.”

“What do we do, Captain?”

“Shut up!” The muscles in the captain’s face twitched. “Every time I hear the name Yu Feichen right now, my blood pressure spikes. Damn it, I’ve never seen someone so unreliable—”

At that very moment, a piercing, drawn-out screech rang out, and alarms blared. A military helicopter at the forefront of the formation dived too low, its rotors colliding head-on with a zombie bird. The fuselage erupted into thick smoke and raging flames, tumbling through the air in a billowing black parabola before nose-diving straight into the ground below.

Boom—

The first cannon blast lit up the pitch-black sky. The next second, gunfire roared and gunpowder smoke billowed everywhere.

The battle had begun.

The bald captain let out a furious roar and hoisted the giant heavy mortar beside him—but the thing was far too heavy, so much so that even his extraordinarily burly physique couldn’t handle it. His roar morphed mid-way into a sharp “Fuck,” and with a loud clang, the heavy cannon crashed back onto its original mounting bracket.

He checked the loading magazine and pulled down the sight to look ahead, his posture completely natural, as if nothing had just happened.

“How do we fight this?” Given the urgency of the situation, his teammates didn’t mock the embarrassing display, instead asking anxiously.

The captain said, “Based on my vast experience conquering zombie dungeons, massive, seemingly indestructible monsters like this always have a fatal weak spot. Remember my seven-word mantra: A blind cat meets a dead mouse. As long as we fire enough shots, we’ll hit its weakness.”

Unfortunately, no one bought his nonsense. His teammates were all shivering uncontrollably.

“What are you scared of?” the captain shouted as he climbed back into the hatch. “Worst-case scenario, we just clock out early! This isn’t the Gate of Eternal Night!”

The trailing echo of his voice dissolved into the deafening roar of artillery, yet those words actually seemed to soothe everyone’s nerves. Teammates at every station began operating normally.

The tank’s hatch slammed shut, and its treads gripped the ground firmly as it rolled forward, plunging deep into the zombie horde.

It was an extremely dangerous move, but in such a critical situation, they had no other choice.

“Keep an eye out for A1407 at all times,” the captain told the crew inside the cabin. “Just thinking about that creepy thing still not showing up gives me a bad feeling.”

“Copy that,” a teammate replied.

The cabin vibrated slightly as zombie creatures and flying chunks of flesh incessantly slammed against the tank’s outer hull, sending muffled thuds echoing inside like gloomy drumbeats.

“Watch the right flank!”

Amid the low-visibility grayish-white smoke and dust, a five-meter-tall zombie behemoth crashed violently into the side of the tank. The steel plates groaned, and the tank nearly flipped over. However, their reaction was fast; the moment the behemoth stepped back to gather momentum, an armor-piercing shell blew straight through its neck, successfully intercepting it.

“Barely holding on here,” a teammate said. “Though it’s a bit better than I expected. I thought we’d get wiped out right at the start too.”

He turned his head, only to see the captain staring dead-eyed at the external monitor, muttering under his breath, “Something’s off… this isn’t right.”

“Something’s off,” another teammate watching the screen echoed.

“Something’s off,” a third voice chimed in.

“Are you guys tape recorders?!” the captain snapped, his patience completely worn thin.

“No, something really is off,” a different voice in the squad finally spoke up. “A portion of the zombies are standing completely still without attacking. That’s why we didn’t feel much pressure just now.”

“The one at ten o’clock looks like it froze up. There are two at one o’clock, too.”

Following the directions, there really were two pale, rotting corpses at one o’clock with their heads hanging low. Wherever the zombie tide moved, they drifted along with the crowd, making no other movements—neither biting nor lunging for prey.

Looking across the battlefield, there was actually a sizable number of zombies like this.

The captain’s brow furrowed deeper, his voice dropping several octaves as he barked rapidly, “Open the hatch, I’m going out to look.”

As if what he saw with his naked eyes would be clearer than the electronic display, he poked half his body out of the top of the tank, raised his binoculars to observe their surroundings, and his face gradually drained of color. He whispered repeatedly, “Not right, not right…”

“What’s not right?”

“I saw this exact situation in a zombie dungeon a long time ago. It happened when they fell under a leader’s control and began a secondary mutation—we nearly got wiped out in that dungeon.” As if recalling something utterly horrifying, the bald captain’s voice trembled before he suddenly roared, “Cease fire! All units on high alert! Comms, patch me through to the Unified Command Center! Step up surveillance on the leader!”

He added, “Black Satan doesn’t have this capability. Where’s the guy tracking A1407? Surveillance!”

“S-Still haven’t—”

“Total waste of rations!” the captain cursed loudly. Grabbing the communicator to contact the Unified Command Center, he bellowed, “Cease fire, prepare defensive formations!” as he glared angrily down into the cabin—only to lock eyes with his teammates looking up at him.

—Eyes wide open, staring blankly, as if suddenly terrified out of their wits.

As if the roar of artillery had abruptly stopped, meeting those gazes made the captain shiver involuntarily, a sudden chill shooting up his spine.

“What are you glaring at me for?” he scoffed dryly. “This isn’t a horror dungeon.”

Even as he spoke, sensing something amiss, he slowly turned around—

Weight pressed down on his shoulder. It felt like a hand resting lightly on top of it.

The bald captain froze mid-turn. Remembering that zombies couldn’t perform a highly human gesture like “patting someone’s shoulder,” he glanced at his right shoulder out of the corner of his eye.

It really was a hand. From his limited angle, he could only see the middle, ring, and pinky fingers.

It was a human hand—or rather, a man’s hand. The fingernails were neatly trimmed, and the knuckles were long and well-defined.

Except the skin on this hand was far too pale, and the veins faintly visible beneath the skin carried an ominous purplish-blue tint—unmistakably a color belonging solely to zombies.

Furthermore, he couldn’t hear any breathing.

In an instant, a terrifying thought flashed through his mind.

There was a zombie right behind him.

One hand already gripping the hilt of his cold-steel military knife, he steadied his nerves and continued turning his head.

His field of vision widened. A pale, slender index finger came into view, wearing a familiar thin black band ring—the exact same kind every member of their squad wore on their hand.

The captain stared blankly.

Just then, a voice crackled through the communicator—an inquiry from the Unified Command Center.

“Please report the anomaly and your reason for ceasing fire.”

“Please report the anomaly and your reason for ceasing fire.”

And right behind him, another voice spoke up, its tone flat, its timbre cold and completely devoid of inflection.

“Why cease fire?”

Without waiting for an answer, icy fingers unceremoniously pried the communicator out of the bald captain’s hand.

“Follow my command,” the creature—indistinguishable as either human or zombie—said into the communicator. The voice sounded somewhat familiar.

The captain went completely numb.

The numb captain looked down at his numb teammates.

His teammates shifted their vacant stares back up to the captain, opened their mouths, and slowly mouthed a few words.

“We’ve. Got. A. Traitor.”

The captain’s mouth twitched several times. He reached his right hand behind his back, gripped his beloved rocket launcher, and took a few deep breaths as if to steel his courage.

Then, an infuriated roar echoed across the entire battlefield.

“YU——FEI——CHEN——!!!!”

“I’M——GOING——TO——FILE——A——COMPLAINT——AGAINST——YOU——!!!!!”