At first glance, this zombie really did look like a normal person. The corpse spots on its body were few and faint.
Fu Erdie suspected it might have been an ability user who had turned into a zombie.
But the information they had so far showed that ability users would not become zombies from being scratched or bitten, nor would they transform because of environmental mutation. So how had this relatively intact third-rank zombie come about?
Fu Erdie thought about it for a while, but could not find an answer for now. For the first time, she decided to capture a zombie alive and see whether communication was possible.
Fu Erdie no longer needed contact to push and pull her ability to support her close companions. As long as they were within one kilometre, she could control it. So she strengthened the spider plant’s speed and power. The moment the fire-type ability zombie threw a fireball over, she seized the opening and shot the spider plant out. Using Han Zhi’s ability to synchronise with the spider plant’s vision, she accurately bound the zombie’s arms and body, dragged it into the river, and rapidly pulled it toward Building Seven.
Zombies did not breathe or need oxygen, so they could survive underwater, but it could no longer use its fire ability.
By the time the spider plant had tied the zombie up tightly in the water and dragged it to the window of Building Seven, the zombie had completely lost the ability to resist.
Fu Erdie looked at the zombie outside the window, submerged in the water, and fell silent.
There were no human emotions in this zombie’s eyes, only the common greed for living people. Even now, completely restrained, there was no fear in its gaze.
Clearly, this third-rank fire-type zombie had no intelligence.
There should be a zombie king controlling it from behind.
So the question was: where was that zombie king? And what was its goal?
After digging out the zombie’s crystal core, Fu Erdie decided that for the rest of the journey, they would proceed the same way as they had during the northwest trip: she, Sang Wenhao, and Han Zhi would first slaughter the ability zombies in an area, then lure the leaderless ordinary zombies to the riverbank where Building Seven was, for the plants to deal with all at once.
By mid-February, Fu Erdie’s group had pushed another three hundred kilometres along the riverbank. They had dealt with seven districts and counties of varying sizes nearby and lured back seven hundred thousand zombies.
Those fire-type zombies also continued to come one after another to harass them, strategically trying to find isolated people or plants.
Unfortunately, even when someone or a dandelion was isolated for certain reasons, they were still extremely strong individuals, not something that could be casually defeated.
The only slightly difficult battle happened when Building Seven went ashore to deal with a batch of ability zombies, and a fifth-rank fire-type zombie set a fire nearby.
That flame was extremely troublesome. The water from Building Seven’s taps could not put it out.
Fu Erdie used Cen Xiyang’s ability to remotely control the tips of the plant babies. The plants’ roots, branches, and leaves travelled underground, looking for a chance to ambush the fire-type zombie from within the sea of flames.
While she tangled with the zombie, Sang Wenhao set up a gun through a hole in the window. Enduring the fierce heat from the muzzle of the sniper rifle, he fired bullet after bullet at the zombie.
After a minute of this long-range exchange, during which Building Seven was roasted in the flames, Fu Erdie finally killed the enemy and let the fire extinguish itself without the continued support of the fire ability.
A seventh-rank fighting a fifth-rank had not resulted in an instant kill, but had taken a full minute. Fu Erdie found that unbelievable.
Through repeated battles, everyone also clearly understood the biggest problem with this trip: Building Seven moved clumsily and was afraid of fire.
If Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao had been outside alone, they could have killed the fire-type zombie first before it had the chance to surround them with fire.
But now, because they had to worry about the immobile house, and because they feared that the house, even at fifth-rank, might not withstand the roasting of the flames, Fu Erdie had to multitask. She had to use Cen Xiyang’s ability, accelerate the plants’ underground surprise attack, strengthen the building’s defence, and enhance Han Zhi’s vision so it would be clearer.
Adding all of that together, Fu Erdie had to handle attack, defence, and support all at once, so the battle became difficult.
So Fu Erdie decided that no matter how remote the riverbank was, and no matter how far Building Seven’s docking point was from the zombie tide, they would no longer let Building Seven go ashore.
The effect was obvious. Fu Erdie, Sang Wenhao, and Han Zhi’s speed in killing ability zombies increased greatly, and Building Seven no longer suffered the kinds of threats that made Fu Erdie anxious.
But the problem was also clear: Building Seven had to wait longer.
Before, when it followed Fu Erdie while fighting zombies, it moved along with the zombie horde “running toward each other,” so the speed was much faster. Now, for safety’s sake, they could only take it slow.
While attacking ability zombies, Fu Erdie also paid attention to where these zombies, especially the many fire-type zombies, were coming from.
With this observation, another half month passed, and it was the end of February.
They had to go home again.
This time, just as the small electric car returned to the complex, Building Seven by the riverbank was surrounded.
Cen Xiyang and Han Zhi stood by the window and saw that the surrounding area was densely packed with ability zombies.
And they were all the strange kind they had seen before, with very few corpse spots or other hideous mutations on their bodies.
Building Seven sensed something was wrong. It stopped in the middle of the Li River, with two hundred metres separating it from both riverbanks.
Even so, there was no real sense of safety.
Because the high-precision detector D City Base had given them detected the ability fluctuations of a seventh-rank zombie in the air.
Cen Xiyang quickly made a decision. Third-rank dandelions flew into the sky to provide support, while she, Han Zhi, and Building Seven would sink to the bottom. Only the room where Cen Xiyang and Han Zhi were stayed filled with air; all other spaces were emptied. The whole building instantly began to sink.
But just as they moved, the ability zombies on the riverbank used their abilities to split the water, opening it from the middle to the left and right, fully exposing Building Seven.
Building Seven had only sunk fifty metres and now fell toward the riverbed.
Unfortunately, the third-rank dandelions had already flown into the sky. The dandelions still inside the building were only first and second rank, unable to lift the several-hundred-ton Building Seven.
In that rush, Building Seven changed shape. From a flat pancake, it stood upright and became a tall, slender building, shrinking its base width to twenty metres.
The succulent, pothos, and other fifth-rank plants instantly took action, all cushioning the whole building’s fall. They barely prevented the massive object falling from such a height from suffering serious damage.
Han Zhi had his X-ray vision open, while Cen Xiyang had already connected her ability to the spider plant and succulent during the fall, transmitting her ability to the tips of the branches and leaves. Amid the jolting dust, she launched a surprise attack, instantly strangling over a dozen ability users closest to the riverbank.
And these organised ability zombies were not weak either. A massive earth wall rose from the riverbed, blocking the vines that the plants had extended to attack. The overwhelming fire element belonging to the seventh-rank zombie swept over, turning into a red tornado that charged straight toward Building Seven in the centre of the river channel.
The moment it attacked, it aimed to kill. It left no way out.
The succulent reacted quickly and sent dozens of fleshy leaves flying out to block the slanting fire tornado.
At the same time, the gardenia’s fragrance became so dense it was almost suffocating. It spread in all directions, vaguely turning into a mist-like substance, blocking the zombies’ already imperfect vision and numbing their nerves and movements.
The two sides exchanged many moves, but only two or three seconds had passed.
In those two or three seconds, pothos, slightly slower than the spider plant, had already reached the riverbank and was the first to seize the water-type ability zombie.
Other zombies around the water-type zombie stirred, but their levels were all lower than pothos, only slowing it briefly.
Just as pothos was about to catch the water-type zombie, a violently fluctuating ball of fire rushed over, devouring its leaves and quickly spreading along the branches and leaves toward its main body.
Pothos cut off its own leaves.
The next second, even more violent flames swept toward Building Seven.
The fleshy leaves the succulent had flung out turned to ash. Its new leaves could not keep up with the speed of the attack, and the great fire struck the succulent’s body directly, forcing it to endure.
Seventh-rank against fifth-rank, and with elemental restraint — this was absolute suppression.
But the succulent could not retreat. It could not let the house be hit.
Because if its fleshy leaves were gone, they could grow again.
If its main body was injured, it could slowly repair itself.
But if the house was gone, none of the plants would have any possibility of recovery.
Plants did not feel pain.
But when the flames spread to the succulent’s core, the part of its roots, stems, and leaves that had existed since before the apocalypse, it suddenly felt intense pain.
The white light of the house ran at extreme speed, but it was useless. It still hurt.
Just as the succulent was about to split itself open and survive by abandoning part of itself, the river, which had been divided into two sides, suddenly reunited. Hundreds of tons of water per unit area pressed heavily down, crashing into the tall, thin Building Seven. While pushing Building Seven over, it also extinguished all the fiercely burning flames.
It turned out that while Building Seven had been fighting in chaos, Cen Xiyang had brought the spider plant with her. On the surface, they seemed to be looking for chances to ambush the ability zombies on the shore and had no time to deal with the water-type ability zombie in the zombie crowd. But in fact, while pothos was being pushed back head-on, repeatedly cutting off leaves and tangling with all kinds of abilities on the shore, the spider plant had long since buried itself deep in the soil. It raced at top speed toward the ground beneath the water-type ability user, and at the instant the gardenia fragrance was at its strongest, blinding the water-type zombie and the seventh-rank zombie king, it lightly touched the sole of the water-type zombie’s foot.
The next moment, Cen Xiyang’s ability passed through the zombie’s body into its brain. Negative pressure inside the skull crushed it, killing it instantly.
The river returned, heavily slamming Building Seven to the ground.
At that final moment, the spider plant actually rushed upward amid the violent shaking and retrieved the water-type zombie’s crystal core, dragging it from underground into the water.
This was a fifth-rank crystal core. The crystal core was not given to the severely injured succulent, but to the house.
The house’s white light operated, using the fastest speed to repair the succulent’s injured main body.
Just as everyone caught their breath and thought it was over, the river unexpectedly began to steam.
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