Chapter 400 – The Hunt

Treading carefully along the street edge as they entered the industrial park, Liu Baodong and his group maintained a high level of vigilance, nervously scanning their surroundings.

For some unknown reason, the zombies had vanished without a trace, leaving behind only the fresh corpses on the ground, untouched by the undead.

This scene, contrary to being a relief, only heightened the sense of dread. It was as if, within this eerie silence, an unimaginable horror lurked.

“These bodies must have been left by the group ahead of us. But the number of zombies they’ve taken down is surprisingly low. They must have some method of avoiding the zombies,” Lucy observed, examining the wounds on the bodies.

“This has nothing to do with us!” Liu Baodong, shrinking his head, looked around and muttered in a low growl.

“You might as well find a shell to crawl into…” Lucy teased, shaking a piece of broken shard in her hand, “We’ve come across nearly twenty bodies along the way. Some of them have these strange blood holes in their heads that weren’t made by bullets. However, compared to this random shard I found, the wounds on the foreheads of the corpses are more rounded…”

“We still can’t determine if it was their doing or not. If it was, the attacker is probably a reinforced Psychic like me.”

In a short while, they reached the ruins where that shadow had been spotted.

But now, the pillar stood empty.

“The pattern is identical.” Lucy picked up a ceramic piece and compared it with the shard in her hand.

She looked back in the direction of the ambush, her usually expressionless face revealing a hint of shock: “With my eyesight, at best I would see ‘us’ as mere black dots, barely discernible in shape. For the ambusher to throw something so light from such a distance and still achieve that terrifying impact…”

The female team member, her face smeared with blood and tear stains, asked Lucy resentfully, “How do you know the attacker struck from here? Couldn’t he have picked it up here and then moved closer before throwing it?”

Lucy gave her a look of disdain and pointed below the pillar: “It’s obvious this was brought down by a powerful force, and… it’s still very fresh.”

“Yang Guanzhao is gone!”

A male team member suddenly screamed, interrupting Lucy.

“What happened?”

“Yeah, where’s Yang Guanzhao! He was right beside me a moment ago,” Liu Baodong quickly turned back, a chilling realization pouring over him like a bucket of ice water.

“I remember he was behind me too!”

With the ambush, as they entered the industrial park, everyone’s nerves were on edge. But they never imagined that right under their noses, a living person could just vanish into thin air!

Lucy walked over to pick up the dropped submachine gun from the ground, her expression somber: “It looks like it wasn’t for robbery… The most valuable thing we have on us are our weapons, yet this submachine gun was left behind by the assailant.”

“Are they trying to just scare us? Kill us one by one? Are they psychopaths or sadists?!”

Liu Baodong’s tolerance was nearly at its breaking point. He had never experienced anything as bizarre as this.

“Isn’t it really dangerous to stay outside? Let’s find a place to take cover, okay? It’s better to lie in wait than to wander around aimlessly!”

The female team member couldn’t even bother to roll her eyes at Lucy anymore, she shouted in panic.

“So…”

Lucy looked around and finally fixed her gaze on the building where Ling Mo and the others were staying.

“Let’s head over there.”

After they left, a small shadow emerged from the darkness, holding a bloody and mangled corpse – the missing male team member.

“The quality of these prey is much better, plus the one that hasn’t kicked the bucket yet should keep me entertained for a while. Ohoho…”

In the midst of a chilling laugh, the shadow licked its lips with a crimson tongue: “It’s perfect to have them scout ahead. Are they of my kind or just another prey? Maybe they’ll even fight with the higher-level ones. How interesting…”

“Hey, why are they heading our way?!”

With the help of the scent of three leader level female zombies, the approach of several humans with a strong scent of blood was quickly picked up by Ling Mo.

According to Xia Na, they were like human-shaped glow sticks in the night, impossible to miss.

Seeing them approach, Ling Mo intended to avoid them, but for one thing, Black Silk and Yu Shiran were still cocooned, and for another, this was the only structure in the barren vicinity…

“Why are they coming this way? You all looked fully armed and on an important mission, why didn’t you just keep following the main road!”

As Ling Mo peered through the gap in the curtains, Liu Baodong and his group had already turned the street corner and were heading straight in their direction.

Their hurried appearance, one of them covered in blood, suggested that they were in some sort of trouble.

“I only caught a glimpse from afar… but it seems like their numbers have decreased,” Ling Mo remarked.

Li Ya Lin and Xia Na both nodded in agreement: “It does seem so.”

“We’re down two men,” Xia Na answered with precision. The memory of zombies was evidently formidable.

However, when Ling Mo looked to Ye Lian for confirmation, she simply shook her head blankly: “It wasn’t important, so I didn’t notice.”

“Still as oblivious, huh… But your eyes look more and more like they used to…”

Ling Mo’s thoughts momentarily wandered before refocusing on Liu Baodong’s group.

It seemed they couldn’t hide, but the group’s pale faces and tense expressions, armed with weapons…

“We can’t let them pose any threat to us… And the sudden absence of zombies in the streets is odd…”

After approaching the building, Liu Baodong and his group observed from outside for a moment. Then one male team member stepped forward, peering nervously through a crack.

“It’s quiet.”

He gestured back to Liu Baodong, and upon receiving a nod, he slowly squeezed through the gap and into the building.

“Sending just one person in, huh…”

The building was quite large, and the zombies’ bodies were piled up in an office on the first floor, but the door was tightly closed, and it was located behind the lobby. The person simply made a symbolic gesture of approaching and taking a look.

After circling the lobby, he began to head upstairs.

If they were only sending this team member to explore the building, it would be somewhat troublesome for Ling Mo.

But Liu Baodong couldn’t stay put for long. Now, standing outside, even with his back against the wall, he felt extremely vulnerable.

The pride and ambition he felt when he first got off the plane had dissipated like smoke, leaving only regret and fear.

“We’ll follow behind.”

Liu Baodong, as if constipated, waited for two minutes and then hurriedly followed suit, eager to get inside.

Fear spreads easily, and the female team member, already greatly shocked, became even more flustered upon seeing this and hurriedly rushed in ahead of Lucy.

“Hmph.”

Lucy let out a somewhat mocking snort, glanced upstairs, then turned back to look at the empty street.

“If they’re so eager to kill us, why would they give us a chance to hide? What exactly is their purpose?”

After pondering for a moment, Lucy then sidestepped and squeezed through the gap.

However, laden with heavy gear, she struggled a bit to get through: “Why would there be a car driving towards this place…”

During the Disaster Outbreak, there were too many accidents involving vehicles. It could have been a passenger who mutated, or perhaps a driver who suddenly turned into a zombie…

Such secondary disasters were numerous, creating scenes like this everywhere.

This industrial park was a typical example. It had turned into this state naturally because various people within the factory had suddenly mutated.

As she went upstairs, Lucy suddenly felt something was off.

It was… too quiet inside.

She leaned to one side, slightly crouched down, and drew her pistol with one hand…

“Hey, you there in the tight leather jacket, drop your gun, or your companion is a goner.”

A lazy male voice suddenly came from behind, freezing Lucy’s movements in place.

“Those… idiots.”

Lucy cursed coldly.