Chapter 483 - 479: Living in a Drunken Dream
Chapter 483: Chapter 479: Living in a Drunken Dream
"It’s manageable. As long as I keep it within a hundred-meter radius, the consumption isn’t too great."
"If I go beyond that, the superpower consumption might multiply."
"Sound off!" Xie Ning called out on the Spirit Net.
Everyone was exasperated, but they followed her orders and sounded off in sequence before walking forward for about five more minutes.
Cres suddenly shouted, "There’s a small group of zombies ahead. More than fifty meters away, to the front left."
The zombie horde quickly closed in. It consisted of a dozen or so Third Rank zombies, easily and quickly dealt with using superpower guns.
Neither Xie Ning nor Gu Chen needed to act. The small group of zombies was taken down by several teammates behind them, shot in the head.
Two Team A members rushed forward with great speed, skillfully cutting open the zombies’ heads and digging out the Crystal Cores.
"There’s a residential area ahead. Someone’s on the fifth floor. Should we go in and check?" Xie Ning asked, looking at the map in her spirit world.
At the same time, her spiritual power spread outwards, covering almost all the surrounding buildings.
Thus, it was clear at a glance which buildings were occupied and which were empty.
Gu Chen nodded. "Alright, let’s go take a look."
They were divided into seventeen teams, with each team responsible for only a small area, allowing for a more detailed search.
If all went well, they should be able to search the entire Gushang Base within three hours.
Six hours for the round trip was more than enough.
Xie Ning took the lead, running with the group toward the residential building diagonally across from them.
"This is the only occupied building in this row." The exact situation was still unknown.
Logically, the base should have organized everyone to take refuge in the underground shelters. As Xie Ning scanned above the fifth floor, she discovered there were quite a few people.
"There are over a dozen people concentrated up there."
"There are people on the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth floors."
’Strange, why didn’t the people in this building move to the underground shelter?’
Everyone was filled with doubt, but they followed Xie Ning and charged directly toward the residential building.
The main objective of their trip was the farming greenhouses of Gushang Base, but they also had to inspect the areas they passed through along the way.
"Stop!" Cres’s voice suddenly came through the Spirit Net. "Careful, something’s falling up ahead."
At that same moment, Xie Ning had already pulled Gu Chen to a halt and raised her hand to stop the others.
BANG! A sudden, loud crash erupted less than three meters in front of them.
"HAHAHA." Waves of ecstatic and utterly insane laughter came from upstairs.
A few men and women were crazily shouting curses, "Die, die! The sooner you die, the sooner you’ll be reborn!"
Through the thick, swirling sand.
Under the heavy night sky, a chill rose in everyone’s hearts.
Xie Ning and Gu Chen exchanged a baffled look.
"Okay, you can keep moving now," Cres said.
Xie Ning led the group as they ran swiftly into the building, passing through a blood-spattered stairwell.
The first thing they saw was half a zombie’s face hanging by the stairwell entrance, as dead as it could possibly be.
It was a horrifying sight. Xie Ning glanced at it and immediately looked away.
"Be careful," Gu Chen reminded everyone. "Those people upstairs seem deranged. They probably have some mental issues."
"Right."
Finally out of the irritating sandstorm, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and nodded solemnly.
Xie Ning and Gu Chen led the way, with Zhu Yong and Song Youzhi guarding the rear. The group of forty climbed the stairs.
Though there were many of them, they deliberately slowed and lightened their steps, so they didn’t make much noise.
"Zombies around the corner," Cres directed the team through the Spirit Net. "There are seven or eight of them on the third floor. One of them is a deep red dot; it should be some kind of mutated zombie."
In Cres’s current spirit map, humans and zombies were clearly distinguished.
Teammates were all green dots, while zombies were classified by Rank and automatically marked in red. The deeper the red, the higher the zombie’s Rank and mutation level.
"Everyone, be careful," Xie Ning reminded them. "Don’t take off your masks or goggles for any reason."
After all, the greatest danger here was still the unknown organisms mixed in with the sandstorm.
Everyone continued up the stairs, not letting their guard down for a single moment.
The regular team members were protected in the middle of the formation, moving forward in silence.
As soon as they reached the third-floor landing, several zombies lunged at them, drawn by the scent of flesh.
Dealing with them wasn’t difficult. The silenced superpower guns made short work of them with shots to the head.
But the mutated zombie Cres had mentioned was more troublesome to handle.
It was a very rare invisible zombie, and it moved extremely fast.
To prevent it from harming anyone else, Xie Ning and Cres locked onto it with their Spiritual Abilities.
Cres trapped the zombie on the landing with a barrier of spiritual power. Under Cres’s direction, the Team A members fired several shots at where its head should be, but they failed to kill it.
"Looks like this is a Fourth Rank or higher zombie." Xie Ning smiled, gave Cres a look, and swiftly moved forward.
The Zombie Crystal Cores of Fourth Rank and higher zombies were very useful and had to be collected.
The others only saw her flash to the corner of the stairs with incredible speed. Several long spikes protruded from between her fingers, as if her nails had suddenly lengthened.
She plunged them into the empty air in front of her with palpable force.
A shrill zombie howl came to an abrupt stop.
A transparent Crystal Core appeared, suspended in the air, as the zombie’s original form was revealed.
Expressionless, Xie Ning summoned a stream of water from her Space to rinse the Zombie Crystal Core. At the same moment, the pitiful zombie behind it slowly collapsed to the floor.
’Is this the speed and power of a Sixth-rank Gold Ability User?’
Everyone was deeply shaken.
A Fourth Rank invisible zombie was like nothing before her, killed with a casual grasp.
’So strong!’ The same two words appeared in everyone’s minds.
Xie Ning put away the Crystal Core, turned, and gestured to Cres.
"Good!"
Cres gave the order on the Spirit Net, "Go, up to the fifth floor. No zombies ahead, but be advised, the pets of the resident on the fourth floor have likely mutated."
The group carefully kept their voices down as they followed him to the fourth floor.
Through the door of apartment 401, they could hear the sound of something repeatedly scraping the security door.
"SCREECH SCREECH." The sound was deeply unsettling to hear.
Cres glanced over, his expression calm. "There are four or five small red dots. Should be mutated felines."
"Who keeps that many cats?" Song Kexin said, shaking her head.
Since there were no signs of life in the apartment other than the mutated animals, the group naturally wouldn’t go to the trouble of breaking down the door.
Xie Ning glanced over and noticed that the door to the adjacent apartment, 402, had been removed. Two zombies lay at the entrance, their Crystal Cores already harvested.
’It seems the people upstairs have come down to forage for food before.’
The group had just reached the fifth-floor landing when they heard waves of heavy metal music coming from one of the apartments.
At first, it was faint, but as they stepped onto the floor, they could hear a deafening rumble.
Everyone exchanged baffled glances and then looked in unison toward Cres.