Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 21

“Get to the ground floor, they might still be alive,” Song Lengzhu commanded. Her teammates fired two more shots at Jin Ye and Xiao Li, who were still hanging from the outer wall, before following Song Lengzhu down to the first floor.

The moment the others opened fire, Jin Ye shielded Xiao Li with her body. After being hit, they lost their grip on the wall and plummeted downwards.

She held the petite Xiao Li tightly in her arms, landing with her back to the ground. Jin Ye had taken the full force of both gunshots.

Fortunately, they had chosen a good spot and only fell onto the church’s dome. The two-story drop didn’t kill them, but Jin Ye went still the moment she landed.

Xiao Li scrambled to her feet and rushed to check on Jin Ye’s condition. The bullets had struck Jin Ye’s spine, leaving two new, terrifyingly placed holes in her windbreaker.

Xiao Li panicked instantly, calling Jin Ye’s name over and over. After a long moment, Jin Ye coughed, her only response.

Thank goodness, thank goodness. The bullets seemed to have missed by a fraction, sparing Jin Ye’s life. Fighting back tears, Xiao Li helped Jin Ye up and ran toward the other side of the dome.

They weren’t dead, so the players’ scores wouldn’t have changed. Once the players realized this, they would definitely come up to finish the job. Xiao Li couldn’t afford to worry about Tang Yu; her priority was to save Jin Ye.

Poor Tang Yu wasn’t so lucky. She had fallen from a bad position, and with the Zombie King messing things up, she dropped straight toward the plaza when she let go.

The feeling of weightlessness triggered her hunter’s instincts. Her body’s will to survive made Tang Yu twist rapidly in mid-air, forcing the Zombie King that was still grabbing her underneath.

Almost as soon as she completed the maneuver, they slammed into the ground with a thud.

The immense impact sent a violent jolt through Tang Yu’s internal organs, and her limbs went numb. She scrambled and crawled to a sitting position, her mind a chaotic mess.

The Zombie King below her had its skull shattered from the fall. Its claws were still dug deep into Tang Yu’s arm. Thanks to its solid body serving as a meat shield, Tang Yu hadn’t been killed on impact.

But Tang Yu’s entire body ached. It seemed Song Lengzhu’s follow-up shot had hit her. She had no time to see where, but as long as it wasn’t a vital spot, this body could still move.

She immediately ripped the Zombie King’s claws out of her arm and, in a daze, ran toward the goddess statue. She was completely unaware that the mycelium emerging from the Zombie King’s chest had missed its mark.

Tang Yu shook her head and leaned against the goddess statue, dry-heaving.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

Her game panel suddenly emitted a crackling static sound, followed moments later by a crisp “ding.”

Tang Yu was in no state to check it. The spot where the Zombie King had clawed her began to itch and go numb with a sensation like ten thousand ants gnawing at her flesh.

Such a sensitive perception shouldn’t be possible for a zombie. Tang Yu couldn’t help but scratch the wound, which triggered a sharp sting.

“Over there!” someone shouted from the church entrance.

You’ve got to be kidding me, Tang Yu thought, on the verge of tears. Why are they so determined to wipe us out?

She stumbled around the goddess statue and hid behind a nearby sculpture. The sculpture was as wide as five people with their arms linked, completely concealing her figure.

Having learned her lesson from the camp, Tang Yu knew she couldn’t evade Song Lengzhu’s tracking. She steadied herself and held her knife horizontally across her chest. If she was going to die, she would take someone down with her.

Song Lengzhu’s teammates had already spread out, apparently trying to surround Tang Yu. Song Lengzhu herself, however, didn’t move in immediately. Instead, she crouched beside the Zombie King’s corpse to examine it.

Using a long, thin piece of rubble, she picked out a moss-like slime mold from the surface of the Zombie King’s chest. The organism was surrounded by yellow mycelium. With the Zombie King’s death, the mycelium had balled up, lost its vitality, and become inert.

She had been aiming for the Zombie King’s heart and lungs precisely to kill this thing first. If the slime mold’s main body had found a new host before its current one died, then killing the Zombie King would have only been half the mission accomplished.

But the transfer required time. The fall had happened too suddenly, and now the thing was dead, having clearly failed to transfer.

“What a pity,” Song Lengzhu murmured to herself. Her game panel hadn’t registered any points, which meant the game had not credited her with the kill.

She lifted her gaze toward Tang Yu’s hiding place, her eyes dark and unreadable. This little zombie had repeatedly appeared before her and repeatedly escaped. She had never encountered such a troublesome situation.

Song Lengzhu’s killing intent toward Tang Yu intensified. However, more than killing it, she now wanted to capture it alive.

She had to find out how something like this had appeared in the game.

Her teammates received her command and fanned out, searching among the sculptures in the plaza.