Chapter Thirty-Three: Advancing with Triumphant Momentum

Over a hundred vehicles stretched out in a line—just how long was that? For the moment, Xie Han had no way of calculating it; the variety of vehicles was simply too great. The minibus he rode in was positioned toward the rear, and looking both forward and backward, all he could see were vehicles in motion, their ends lost to the horizon. What surprised him most was that Chen Liu’s Hummer King was immediately behind the minibus. It was Chen Liu himself at the controls of the eight-barreled heavy machine gun, the dark muzzles aimed straight ahead. The golden ammunition belts gleamed with a cold light, chilling even in the morning. The safety was on, but Xie Han still felt a bead of cold sweat trickle down his spine; if a burst were fired their way, all of them would be finished.

Fortunately, his fears were unfounded—at least, from the time they left the base until they reached the highway junction. Once the convoy got onto the elevated expressway, their speed abruptly increased, the entire column accelerating to a hundred kilometers per hour. That meant it would take only about forty minutes to reach Wangtian City.

Ten kilometers after leaving the base, zombies began to appear sporadically along the sides of the expressway. Both sides were lined with guardrails, yet a handful of zombies managed to clamber over, wandering onto the road. Now Xie Han finally understood why a heavy bulldozer led the way. Imagine a small sedan colliding with a zombie at a hundred kilometers per hour—what would happen? The zombie would surely be sent flying, but the car would likely lose control and crash into the guardrails or worse.

For a twelve-ton bulldozer, however, such collisions were trivial. The fate of any zombie in its path was to be pulverized, hardly a trace left behind. Unlike a car, for the bulldozer these impacts were inconsequential, not even enough to cause it to shudder.

The situation along the way confirmed Xie Han’s reasoning. The patches of black smears scattered across the expressway told the whole story: every zombie on the road had been reduced to pulp.

But thirty kilometers out from Wangtian City, things began to change. On both sides of the highway, groups of zombies, drawn by the sound of engines, would lunge toward the convoy. These packs ranged from a dozen to over a hundred. Driven by mindless aggression, they sometimes broke open gaps in the guardrails, through which they would swarm onto the expressway, hurling themselves at the speeding vehicles with reckless abandon.

The people in the convoy were well accustomed to this. On every hunting expedition, these roadside zombies served as appetizers. To prevent them from blocking the way, the staccato bursts of machine gun fire would ring out from time to time. The gunfire was always brief—just a few seconds, and then silence. If there was no chaos ahead, it meant the zombies had been swiftly dealt with.

For those toward the rear, like Xie Han and his group, there was little opportunity to fire. All they could do was watch as the zombies on either side of the highway were blasted to pieces. With the firepower of heavy machine guns, there was no need to aim for the head; any hit was enough to sever bodies, arms, or legs. Zombies torn into two or three pieces still twitched on the pavement, but Xie Han doubted they posed any threat.

The sides of the expressway were littered with layer upon layer of zombie corpses, the accumulation of over a year—a staggering number. In some places, the corpses piled so high that only a narrow passage remained for the vehicles, and the stench was overwhelming. After a few unguarded breaths, Xie Han felt his stomach churn, nearly vomiting everything he’d eaten in recent days. It was, without a doubt, the most nauseating smell he had ever encountered.

He felt a pang of regret, recalling how many people had prepared scented masks before departure. Only now did he realize their necessity. And this was only halfway—what would the next thirty kilometers be like? And what about Wangtian City itself? The zombies had been festering for three and a half years; the city must be a place of unimaginable stench.

Clearly, Taishan and his companions were more experienced. Though lacking scented masks, they had damp cloths pressed to their noses. Xu Qiang was driving, so Taishan sat next to Xie Han, a wry smile on his face as he saw how pale Xie Han had become. “It’s just this stretch,” he said. “In another ten kilometers or so, the smell will fade.” He gestured out the window, where distant clusters of zombies could still be glimpsed. “See? Both sides of the highway are crowded with them. They’re slow, but their direction is unmistakable—they’re drifting slowly toward the base.”

Xie Han had noticed this as well. The highway had been designed to avoid densely populated areas. Judging by the number of zombies flanking the highway, it was clear they hadn’t originated nearby. The only logical source was Wangtian City. But they were still thirty kilometers out—troubling, to say the least. “When did this start happening?”

“Six months ago, when I last went hunting, the zombies had already moved five kilometers out from Wangtian City. Now, some are over forty kilometers away,” Taishan replied honestly. Despite his burly appearance, he was remarkably attentive to detail.

Xie Han drew a sharp breath. In six months, the zombies had advanced twenty-five to thirty-five kilometers toward the base. Some were now less than twenty kilometers away. And this was only along the expressway—what about the outlying regions? Were zombies even closer in places not visible from the road? He had no way of knowing. To accurately assess the situation, the best option would be satellite imagery, if the base had access to radar or orbital observation.

Thinking it over, Xie Han realized there was little cause for alarm. Anyone who had survived this apocalypse was no ordinary person; surely the base’s leadership was already aware. It wasn’t his place to issue warnings.

For a convoy traveling at a hundred kilometers per hour, the remaining thirty kilometers passed in a flash. In less than ten minutes, the sides of the expressway began to fill with dense housing, and the number of zombies swelled. Those in the minibus gripped their submachine guns, watching warily out the windows, as more and more zombies slipped through gaps and appeared within sight.

Chen Liu’s Hummer King followed closely behind, but the eight-barreled machine gun had yet to fire a shot. Even when zombies managed to get through, Chen Liu ignored them—wasting such precious ammunition here was out of the question. Only when they reached the densely packed city would the gun’s true value be revealed.

The convoy did not stop despite the increasing number of zombies, merely reducing speed to seventy kilometers per hour. After another ten minutes, they arrived at the entrance plaza of Wangtian City, where the convoy finally halted. The number of zombies here was not excessive, and several vehicles armed with heavy machine guns were clearing them out. Once all the vehicles had assembled, the onboard intelligent systems received detailed task assignments from the heavy bulldozer at the front.