Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 142

That piece of rotting flesh had half a finger still sticking out of the wolf’s mouth. The sound of teeth chewing on bone was particularly horrifying in the night.

Crunch, crunch…

The wolves’ gazes remained fixed on Tang Yu and Song Lengzhu. As they approached, they stuck out their tongues to lick the bloodstains on their muzzles.

Do animals willingly eat carrion? Tang Yu wasn’t sure. Although the living corpse had enhanced mobility due to the zombie serum, it was, after all, a fully turned zombie. Its flesh wasn’t fresh, but rather putrid. Could it be that this wolf pack was truly starving?

Before the wolves could fully mutate, Tang Yu and Song Lengzhu attacked simultaneously. They tacitly chose their targets, prioritizing the wolves that had licked the bl00d.

The beam of the flashlight danced around with Tang Yu’s movements. From a distance, it looked like someone lost in the desert, fleeing in a panic.

Jian Che was pressed against the porthole window, her gaze fixed on the pea-sized speck of light in the distance. The sound of wolves howling rose and fell. She knew she shouldn’t worry too much. She had witnessed Tang Yu’s abilities; they were powerful, and the wolf pack wouldn’t be a problem for her.

Nor did she need to worry about herself. The place she was in was completely sealed, and the thick titanium alloy armor kept all danger out. Even for a wolf pack, breaking through this defense would not be an easy task.

But, a sense of panic still rose in Jian Che. The speck of light was too far away, like a firefly in the darkness that could be extinguished with a pinch of the fingers.

What was even more terrifying was that she heard an unfamiliar sound gradually approaching.

It was the sound of small pebbles being kicked aside, very dense, as if many feet were walking on the ground. At first, the sounds were far apart, like someone walking slowly, but soon, it started running. Before Jian Che could react, she felt the helicopter’s fuselage dip, and at the same time, the screeching sound of nails scraping against sheet metal came from directly above.

Jian Che broke out in a cold sweat. She hurriedly put on the headset for the walkie-talkie and forced herself to calmly call out, “Tang Yu, something… something’s coming.”

The sound of metal scraping made one’s scalp tingle. Being able to convey the message completely was the last vestige of Jian Che’s resolve.

When Jian Che’s voice reached her ears, Tang Yu had just completed a perfect kill. Hearing Jian Che’s words, she paused, immediately extinguished the flames on Startling Dragon, and switched to her control ability so the living corpses inside and outside the helicopter could protect Jian Che.

Song Lengzhu’s walkie-talkie was on the same frequency. She immediately pressed the side of her earpiece and asked, “What is it? What’s its position?”

“I… I couldn’t see clearly. It’s on top of the helicopter.” Jian Che’s hushed voice reached their ears. Although she held back from screaming, the tremor in her words betrayed her fear. “The helicopter… is shaking. It seems… very big.”

Very big. It must be the creature that had ambushed them earlier. Something that could shake a helicopter was clearly not human.

But this thing knew how to create a diversion. Could it be even smarter than a human?

Tang Yu immediately looked at Song Lengzhu. “We can’t kill all the wolves. We have to go back.”

More than half of the forty-odd wolves had already been killed. Before most of the bl00d-licking wolves could turn, their skulls were pierced by Song Lengzhu’s bullets and Tang Yu’s sharp blade.

“You go first. I’ll be right behind you.” Unexpectedly, Song Lengzhu made the decision to split up.

Tang Yu tilted her head slightly, unsure of Song Lengzhu’s strategy. But now was not the time for discussion, and besides, she had faith in Song Lengzhu. So, without much hesitation, she immediately pulled three syringes from the side of her backpack and tossed them to Song Lengzhu. “Zombie serum. See if you can use it.”

As soon as her voice fell, Tang Yu rushed back. The moment she moved, a bone-chilling gale swept past from behind her, even stronger than the natural wind on the Gobi.

Tang Yu glanced back while running. A cloud of sand and dust rose with Song Lengzhu at its center. The surrounding wind seemed to have turned into sharp blades, spreading outwards close to the ground, indiscriminately attacking all surrounding creatures.

Tang Yu was both shocked and suspicious. This was an ability she had never seen before.

“Tang Yu, run faster.” Song Lengzhu’s steady voice sounded in her earpiece. Tang Yu immediately felt a needle-like pain on her exposed neck. The gale swept past her high ponytail, stabbing sharply at her skin. Tang Yu gritted her teeth, used her instant movement ability twice to escape the storm’s circle, and quickly switched back to control.

Her feet barely touched the ground as she raced, because Jian Che had sent another distress call: “The ceiling has been torn open!”

From a great distance, Tang Yu could see the helicopter shaking. The heavy fuselage looked as if it could fall apart at any moment. The two living corpses left outside had already climbed onto the roof and were clawing at a huge black shadow.

If not for the firelight from inside the helicopter cabin illuminating several black shapes hanging off the side, Tang Yu wouldn’t have seen anything on top at all. It was so black it almost blended in with the night.

The few appendages dangling outside the porthole window were covered in black fuzz. They looked like the legs of some creature. As soon as Tang Yu got close to the helicopter, these legs shifted and turned around, as if they had sensed her arrival.

The sound of scraping metal disappeared. Tang Yu immediately shone her flashlight upwards, and what came into view were two enormous, pitch-black eyeballs.

Tang Yu had never seen such large eyeballs; they were almost the size of a human head. They stared intently at Tang Yu, their surfaces reflecting the flashlight’s beam.

No, it wasn’t just two eyes. Below this pair were four smaller ones, and there were more above. This thing had eight eyes in total!

Tang Yu sucked in a cold breath. Moving the flashlight, she quickly got a clear view of the entire creature.

It was a spider, a gigantic one covered in black hair. Its complex mouthparts opened and closed, its monstrous face covered with eyeballs.

Almost at the same moment Tang Yu made this assessment, the giant spider leaped violently, pouncing straight for her head.

It was too big, its height almost level with the helicopter. The leap was incredibly fast and powerful, flinging the two zombies clinging to it away like withered leaves. Tang Yu didn’t have time for any other reaction and immediately switched to instant movement, teleporting to a spot farther away.

“There’s a spider!” Tang Yu shouted to inform Song Lengzhu. “A huge spider!”

As she spoke, her mind was already racing to think of a countermeasure.

The living corpse at her feet struggled to get up, its broken leg bones twisted, making it move like an abnormal.

Tang Yu noticed that the bodies of these two living corpses were no longer intact. Fine black hairs were embedded in their hands and faces. The pierced areas quickly turned red and festered, with milky-white pus accumulating in the wounds—a shocking sight.

These black hairs were poisonous!

Tang Yu’s teleportation point was far from the helicopter. She judged that the helicopter probably couldn’t withstand the giant spider’s impact, and it would be disastrous if it were knocked over and fell into the nearby canyon. She made a swift decision to lure the giant spider elsewhere.

However, the giant spider seemed to be capable of thought. Seeing Tang Yu run farther and farther away, it stopped its attack, leaped back onto the helicopter roof, wedged itself between the rotor blades, and used its two powerful chelicerae to scrape at the helicopter’s shell.

The helicopter’s roof wasn’t flat, but the giant spider managed to hang on very steadily with its eight legs. At the tip of its hairy chelicerae were two pairs of sharp, fang-like objects. Stabbing into the aluminum alloy, they quickly tore a large gash in the already damaged roof.

Tang Yu could see it now. This thing was picking on the weak.

She moved, running towards the helicopter. At the same time, a fireball appeared in her hand. With a powerful upward swing, she sent it flying towards the giant spider.

The expected scene of the hair catching fire didn’t happen. Only then did Tang Yu realize that what covered the giant spider’s body wasn’t hair, but hard and dense bone spikes.

Not flammable, not afraid of fire.

Tang Yu didn’t pause. If one move didn’t work, she’d use another. For the first time, she used her corrosion ability on the giant spider.

Starting from its mouthparts, a foul, thick smoke instantly rose, spreading towards the spider’s cephalothorax.

Tang Yu didn’t stand below to watch the show. She knew the corrosion ability was somewhat useless and couldn’t deliver a fatal blow. So, while activating the ability, she stepped onto the landing gear, grabbed a protrusion on the helicopter’s roof, kicked off with both feet, and nimbly flipped on top.

With the giant spider occupying it, there wasn’t much room left on the roof. Tang Yu reached out and grabbed a rotor blade to maintain her balance, while her other hand, holding her knife, slashed at the spider’s chelicerae.

Stung by the corrosion, the giant spider no longer avoided Tang Yu and instead launched a direct attack.

Two pairs of mouthparts, half a person tall, stabbed violently towards Tang Yu. Instead of retreating, she advanced, thrusting her knife forward to meet the spider’s chelicerae head-on.

A notch was cut into the sharp fangs, but they didn’t break. Seeing that Tang Yu was difficult to deal with, the giant spider shifted its eight legs, abruptly raised its body, tilted its rear end down, and its spinnerets shot out several thin white strands of silk, attacking Tang Yu from beneath its body.

The silk was too thin, and the surroundings too dark. Tang Yu only noticed its existence when it was right in front of her. With no time to dodge, she simply swung her knife to block the thin strands.

But the silk was extremely tough. Not only was it not cut, but it used the momentum to wrap around Startling Dragon. It wasn’t until Tang Yu felt a pulling force in her hand that she realized the other end of the silk was still attached to the giant spider’s rear. It was trying to pull her in.

Letting go was not an option. Tang Yu gritted her teeth and continuously activated her corrosion ability, but this time, the target was the silk instead of the spider’s body. Before the immense force could pull her into the spider’s mouth, the silk was melted through. Tang Yu immediately retreated, moving away from those horrifying mouthparts.

Looking down, she saw an irregular, large hole had appeared near the main support of the rotor. Jian Che was huddled by the cabin door, clutching a dagger and staring intently at the activity above.

She wasn’t trembling or screaming in fear like most teenagers would. Despite having bitten her lip until it bled, she stubbornly didn’t make a sound, just like when she first met Tang Yu. Moreover, she was alertly positioned near the cabin door, ready to escape at any moment.

Tang Yu glanced once, and after confirming Jian Che was safe, she attacked the giant spider again.

According to her usual fighting style, climbing onto the giant spider’s head and stabbing its eyes or joints would be the optimal combat choice. But this giant spider was covered in spiky hairs, making it impossible to climb, and for the moment, difficult to get close to.

She couldn’t climb, but the shadows could.

Tang Yu retracted the slow-acting corrosion and summoned three shadows.

One shadow was sent to protect Jian Che, while the other two materialized directly on the giant spider’s back and began attacking the joint between its cephalothorax and abdomen.

The giant spider’s spiky hairs pierced the shadows’ bodies, but it had no effect. The shadows weren’t human; they didn’t even have physical bodies, so there was no question of them being poisoned.

Sensing foreign objects on its body, the giant spider began to writhe continuously. Its eight powerful legs scraped against the alloy, the grating sound making one’s stomach churn with panic.

The shadows held on tightly to the giant spider’s body. Seeing it couldn’t shake them off, the giant spider leaped violently, landing on the ground.

But the two shadows didn’t move with the giant spider. Tang Yu turned her head to look and saw that the two shadows had been entangled in silk at some point, hanging from the rotor blades like cocoons.

Tang Yu had no choice but to dissipate the shadows and summon new ones. She had quite a headache; in this battle that had lasted less than five minutes, she had already switched between many different abilities.

One person and one spider, one high and one low, faced off against each other, each finding the other incredibly difficult to deal with.

The disadvantage of the wind blades was that, aside from the ability user, they would destroy everything in the vicinity. If there had been buildings or people nearby, Song Lengzhu’s surroundings would have likely turned into a living hell.

But its advantage was precisely this kind of large-scale, indiscriminate attack.

The encircling wolf pack was thrown to the ground. Those closer were already sliced in half. Their eyes had just turned crimson, but before they could launch the swift attacks of a zombie, their throats were slit by the sudden wind.

The rising dust was mixed with a bloody mist. Standing in the center of the gale, Song Lengzhu’s hair was disheveled, her windbreaker flapping loudly. Her eyes were icy. As dozens of living creatures were torn apart before her eyes, her expression didn’t change in the slightest.

She didn’t often use this ability, because the conditions were rarely right.

But now, on this bl00d-soaked stretch of the Gobi, there was only her and this pack of relentless wolves that wouldn’t let go until death.

The wolves on the outermost edge were covered in wounds but not yet dead. They didn’t run or hide; they got up and continued to charge at Song Lengzhu. The law of the jungle was ingrained in their genes; unless the prey was dead, they would not stop their attack.

Among the wolves charging again were four or five that had already turned. Song Lengzhu retracted her ability, clutching the zombie serum Tang Yu had given her. The moment a zombie wolf leaped to pounce on her, she flicked her wrist, and the syringe flew from her fingers, swiftly embedding itself between the wolf’s eyes.

This strike couldn’t stop the zombie wolf’s momentum. It continued to lunge forward due to inertia. Song Lengzhu turned her gun, used the butt to press against the syringe, and pushed the plunger all the way in.

The zombie wolf yelped twice in pain. After landing on all fours, it bared its teeth and snarled at Song Lengzhu. Its eyes had turned completely red, and its bloodthirsty nature made it leap again, snapping viciously at her ankle.

One second, three seconds, five seconds passed. Song Lengzhu easily came to a conclusion: Tang Yu’s zombie serum didn’t work on animals.

Professor Zhou’s research subjects were human zombies, after all. Without any animal samples, how could it possibly work on animals?

After reaching this conclusion, Song Lengzhu no longer lingered in the fight. Hearing Tang Yu shout over the walkie-talkie about a spider, she resolved to end things quickly. The firepower of her gun instantly surged under the influence of her ability. Firing five bullets at once, she let off three consecutive shots, and in the blink of an eye, killed the last few wolves.

The ground was soaked with bl00d, and the stench grew even stronger. Song Lengzhu glanced at the canyon ahead, then turned and ran over the gravel in Tang Yu’s direction.

She could only hope that the smell of bl00d wouldn’t attract anything more troublesome.