A foul stench of blood wafted between the drooping sky and vast earth.
From all directions came muddied noises astir, and the air was suffused with rot and decay.
—Zombies had besieged the city; the undead army had surrounded the human base.
The human army was in formation; helicopters were suspended mid-air. Tanks in front, the infantry behind, and the fort in-between like an island within a raging storm. It was dead silent ahead, and even the sounds of breathing could barely be heard.
In this dead silence, suddenly, a despairing cry rang out.
“We’re done for.
“Doomed.
“Our lives are no more.
“We’re going to have to remain here.”
The person muttering lowly to himself was a fatty with a bald, gleaming head. He was standing on the platform of a tank, looking ahead with the binoculars in his hands. At this moment, all of creation was dark and dreary; he stood at the frontmost of the army troops, his bald head with naught a single strand of hair becoming the only source of light.
A man shrank towards him.
“Cap… Captain,” that man shivered, asking. “Didn’t you say that you were best at clearing zombie instances?”
Another chimed in. “Didn’t you say that chopping a zombie’s head is like cutting a watermelon?”
“—you even said that it’s a large, crunchy watermelon.”
That bald captain’s voice quivered as well,
“You… Just look—can this be called a zombie?” He raised a trembling hand to the front. “This is a helldamned scourge of the undead!”
Ahead of them, a slow march of purplish-black corpses could be seen, their flesh rotting and deteriorating, half-dried entrails dangling beneath their bare ribs. This used to be a common sight in zombie instances, but now came a mutation into a new variation; the evolution of chieftains.
They turned their gazes towards the middlemost of the tide of zombies where a tremendous monstrosity slowly moved. It was as large as a human fortress, like a mountain range traversing the motherland, with each step setting off tiny quakes in the earth.
That was a zombie chieftain, which human scientists have bestowed the name ‘Black Satan’ upon. After the zombie chieftain arose, the combat power of the zombie horde increased so dramatically that the frontlines of humanity were forced to concede one step after another, until the present day.
The chieftain, Black Satan, was certainly the military’s greatest curse, but it wasn’t just that.
“Have you seen individual A1407 yet?” the bald captain said.
The teammate on his right manning the binoculars said, “Not yet, I’m still looking for it.”
Another teammate operating the display monitors pulled up an image on a partial close-up of Black Satan. On its deep, undulating shoulder stood a fuzzy shadow—a fuzzy, humanoid shadow.
This was one of the anomalous images that reconnaissance aircrafts had detected in the recent few months.
After its identification, this humanoid has appeared several times in extremely close proximity to Black Satan, also ghosting through the hinterland of the zombie kingdom on several occasions. It had a very wide range of movement; its pathing didn’t fit the profile of a normal zombie species, and it even showed signs of being able to manipulate other zombies.
Faced with a formidable foe, human scientists gave it the number ‘A1407’ in their intimidation, suspecting it to be the second high-functioning individual to have appeared after the Black Satan.
It really felt like adding insult to the injury; they had yet to find a way to kill the colossal monster, yet a new, suspected chieftain had again evolved from amongst the zombies.
“This is too tough.” His teammate’s eyes glazed over. “But, but hadn’t we planned well enough for it?”
“Who said that we hadn’t. We had even hired a mercenary.” The bald captain’s voice was also slightly floaty. “We’d agreed. Divide the soldiers into two groups; We’re in charge of slowing down the zombie horde with Yu-shen, and Xia Sen will help the base develop the vaccine; win the defense challenge, perfectly clear the mission, and go back to paradise to collect our rewards—doesn’t it sound like a very good plan?”
“Who could have expected that Yu-shen would kneel over right at the start?
“His ashes were even fucking scattered by the zombies, ha.
“Is this the mercenary Yu Feichen boasting astronomical rates? Hoho, please. Let a man live.”
“Now the zombies have evolved. The base declared that the development of the vaccine went down the wrong track.”
“Our little Xia Sen was even captured by flying zombies along with the virus sample.”
“All is lost, captain.”
“We’re doomed, captain.”
“That’s right, captain.”
“What should we do, captain?”
“Shut up!” The captain’s facial muscles twitched. “Now I want to blow my top every time I hear those three words Yu Feichen. Motherfucker, I’ve never seen such an unreliable thing—”
At that very moment, a long, shrill scream erupted. Alarms blared. A military helicopter at the front of the army troops swooped too far down; its propellers collided headlong into a zombie bird, sending its fuselage into a smoking plume of blazing flame. It drew a black, smoky parabola in the sky as it tumbled and nosedived straight down.
“Bang—”
The first gunshot ignited the gloomy, dark sky. The next second, gunfire resounded and gunpowder dispersed in all directions.
War broke out.
The bald captain roared and tugged at the huge artillery gun beside him—but it was too heavy for even his unusually bulky frame to handle. His roar sidetracked to become a fuck midway through, and the heavy artillery pounded back onto the gun rack.
He checked the magazine and trained the periscope straight ahead, his posture natural as if absolutely nothing had happened.
“How do we fight?” Due to the urgency of the situation, his teammates didn’t laugh at this awkward scene, but asked anxiously instead.
The captain said, “From my experience of sweeping zombie instances, this large and seemingly invulnerable monster must have a fatal weak spot. Mark these eight words down: a blind cat bumps into a dead rat. As long as we bombard it enough, we’re bound to hit it, be it by sheer dumb luck.”
Unfortunately, no one was listening to his nonsense. His teammates were all quaking in their boots.
“What are you afraid of?” The captain returned to the tank body, bellowing, “Big deal, at worst we’ll be sent packing! This isn’t the Gate of Eternal Night!”
The tail end of his words was drowned under the deafening cannon fire, but his speech did seem to calm the mind of those present. In each of their respective positions, his teammates slowly resumed their usual operations.
The tank’s hatch closed, and the tracks gripped firmly to the ground as it rolled forwards, moving deeper into the zombie horde.
It was an exceedingly dangerous task. But the situation was critical; they were out of alternatives.
“Always keep an eye out for A1407,” the captain said to the teammates within the tank. “I get a bad feeling just thinking about how that damned thing still hasn’t shown up yet.”
“Roger that,” a teammate said.
The tank shuddered slightly as a steady stream of zombie creatures and splattered chunks of corpses slammed into the tank’s hull, dull thuds beating down faintly like a sombre drumbeat.
“Watch the right side!”
Through the greyish-white smoke that offered dismal visibility, a five-metre-tall zombie behemoth rammed into the side of the tank so hard that the steel plates creaked and the tank nearly toppled over. But they weren’t slow to react; when the behemoth backed up and got ready to charge, armour-piercing bullets pierced through its neck, successfully intercepting it.
“We’re a little in over our heads,” said a teammate, “but it’s going a little better than I expected. I thought that we’d kneel over the second the battle began.”
He turned his head, only to see his captain staring fixedly at the monitor showing the exterior surroundings, muttering, “No… Something’s wrong.”
“Wrong, yeah.” Another teammate, who was also looking down at the monitor, said.
“Wrong, yeah.” Came another voice.
“Are you lot a copier machine?” the captain’s patience towards them had worn thin.
“It’s true that it’s not right.” A different voice, at last, emerged from the team. “Some of the zombies are still and show no signs of aggressive behaviour, that’s why we hadn’t felt much pressure earlier.”
“The one in the ten o’clock direction looks like its system had crashed, those two at one o’clock, too.”
Following the coordinates, there were indeed two pale, rotting corpses with their heads hung low at one o’clock. They drifted along wherever the zombie tide brought them, but showed no other movement, nor did they bite and pounce on prey.
Taking a broad view of the battlefield, there were more than just a handful of such zombies.
The captain’s brows gradually furrowed together. His voice also sunk significantly, his words coming out rapid-fire. “Open the hatch. I’m going out to take a look.”
As if what he saw with his naked eyes would be clearer than what was shown on the electronic monitor, he poked half his body out the top of the tank and set up his binoculars to scan their surroundings. Blood drained out of his face. He repeated lowly, “Wrong, wrong…”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve seen something similar happen in a zombie instance a long time along. That was when they were controlled by their chieftain and began their second mutation. It was near complete annihilation.” As if recalling something extremely terrible, the bald captain trailed off with a tremor and he suddenly roared, “Ceasefire! All units on alert! Increase the surveillance on the chieftain!”
And he added, “Black Satan doesn’t have such an ability. Where’s the man looking out for A1407? Monitors!”
“Not, not yet…”
“Have I taught you nothing!” rebuked the captain. He picked up the communication device and contacted the United Front headquarters, yelling, “Ceasefire! Prepare for defence!” And as he looked into the tank, he suddenly met with the raised eyes of a teammate, looking up at him.
—Eyes wide open and glazed, as if they had suddenly received a shock.
Like the sounds of gunfire had abruptly halted, at such a look, the captain couldn’t help but flinch. A sudden chill ran down his spine.
“What the hell are you staring at me for?” He sneered, “This isn’t a horror instance in any case.”
As he said this, he seemed to sense something. He slowly turned back—
There was an imposing weight on his shoulder; the weight of a hand gently rested on his shoulder.
The bald captain froze. He thought to himself, zombies weren’t capable of uncannily human-like gestures such as ‘tapping the shoulder’. Out of his peripheral vision, he glanced over his right shoulder.
It was indeed a hand. His angle was so limited that he could only see the middle, ring, and little fingers.
It was a human hand. Rather, a male hand. The nails were smooth, and the joints were long and well-defined.
But the skin of this hand was too pale, and the veins faintly visible under the skin were an unsettling shade of lime green, a colour which clearly belonged to the zombies.
Also, he didn’t hear any sound of breathing.
In that split second, a horrifying thought flashed past his mind.
There was a zombie behind him.
One hand already rested on the handle of his cold steel sabre. He kept his breathing calm and continued to turn his head.
As his field of vision widened, a pale and slender index finger came into view, along with a familiar black, thin ring worn by every man on their team.
The captain froze up.
Just then, the communication device suddenly crackled to life, containing an inquiry from the United Front headquarters.
“Please report the anomalies and reasons for ceasefire.”
“Please report the anomalies and reasons for ceasefire.”
And from behind him, another voice spoke, his voice level, and his tone calm without any particular inflection.
“Why the ceasefire?”
Before a response could be made, icy fingers plucked the communication device out of the bald captain’s hands without offering a reason.
“Follow my command.” That creature whose identity as a human or zombie was unknown spoke into the device. The voice sounded familiar.
The captain was stupefied.
The stupefied captain looked down at his equally stupefied teammate.
The teammate’s dazed gaze fell back on the captain. His mouth parted, and he slowly mouthed a few words.
’He’s, a, spook.’
The corners of the captain’s mouth twitched a few times. His right hand whipped around behind him and clasped around his beloved bazooka. He inhaled deeply a few times, as if to muster his courage.
Then, an enraged voice rang across the battlefield.
“Yu—Fei—Chen—!!!!”
“I’m—going—to—file—a—complaint!!!!!”
A foul stench of blood wafted between the drooping sky and vast earth.
From all directions came muddied noises astir, and the air was suffused with rot and decay.
—Zombies had besieged the city; the undead army had surrounded the human base.
The human army was in formation; helicopters were suspended mid-air. Tanks in front, the infantry behind, and the fort in-between like an island within a raging storm. It was dead silent ahead, and even the sounds of breathing could barely be heard.
In this dead silence, suddenly, a despairing cry rang out.
“We’re done for.
“Doomed.
“Our lives are no more.
“We’re going to have to remain here.”
The person muttering lowly to himself was a fatty with a bald, gleaming head. He was standing on the platform of a tank, looking ahead with the binoculars in his hands. At this moment, all of creation was dark and dreary; he stood at the frontmost of the army troops, his bald head with naught a single strand of hair becoming the only source of light.
A man shrank towards him.
“Cap… Captain,” that man shivered, asking. “Didn’t you say that you were best at clearing zombie instances?”
Another chimed in. “Didn’t you say that chopping a zombie’s head is like cutting a watermelon?”
“—you even said that it’s a large, crunchy watermelon.”
That bald captain’s voice quivered as well,
“You… Just look—can this be called a zombie?” He raised a trembling hand to the front. “This is a helldamned scourge of the undead!”
Ahead of them, a slow march of purplish-black corpses could be seen, their flesh rotting and deteriorating, half-dried entrails dangling beneath their bare ribs. This used to be a common sight in zombie instances, but now came a mutation into a new variation; the evolution of chieftains.
They turned their gazes towards the middlemost of the tide of zombies where a tremendous monstrosity slowly moved. It was as large as a human fortress, like a mountain range traversing the motherland, with each step setting off tiny quakes in the earth.
That was a zombie chieftain, which human scientists have bestowed the name ‘Black Satan’ upon. After the zombie chieftain arose, the combat power of the zombie horde increased so dramatically that the frontlines of humanity were forced to concede one step after another, until the present day.
The chieftain, Black Satan, was certainly the military’s greatest curse, but it wasn’t just that.
“Have you seen individual A1407 yet?” the bald captain said.
The teammate on his right manning the binoculars said, “Not yet, I’m still looking for it.”
Another teammate operating the display monitors pulled up an image on a partial close-up of Black Satan. On its deep, undulating shoulder stood a fuzzy shadow—a fuzzy, humanoid shadow.
This was one of the anomalous images that reconnaissance aircrafts had detected in the recent few months.
After its identification, this humanoid has appeared several times in extremely close proximity to Black Satan, also ghosting through the hinterland of the zombie kingdom on several occasions. It had a very wide range of movement; its pathing didn’t fit the profile of a normal zombie species, and it even showed signs of being able to manipulate other zombies.
Faced with a formidable foe, human scientists gave it the number ‘A1407’ in their intimidation, suspecting it to be the second high-functioning individual to have appeared after the Black Satan.
It really felt like adding insult to the injury; they had yet to find a way to kill the colossal monster, yet a new, suspected chieftain had again evolved from amongst the zombies.
“This is too tough.” His teammate’s eyes glazed over. “But, but hadn’t we planned well enough for it?”
“Who said that we hadn’t. We had even hired a mercenary.” The bald captain’s voice was also slightly floaty. “We’d agreed. Divide the soldiers into two groups; We’re in charge of slowing down the zombie horde with Yu-shen, and Xia Sen will help the base develop the vaccine; win the defense challenge, perfectly clear the mission, and go back to paradise to collect our rewards—doesn’t it sound like a very good plan?”
“Who could have expected that Yu-shen would kneel over right at the start?
“His ashes were even fucking scattered by the zombies, ha.
“Is this the mercenary Yu Feichen boasting astronomical rates? Hoho, please. Let a man live.”
“Now the zombies have evolved. The base declared that the development of the vaccine went down the wrong track.”
“Our little Xia Sen was even captured by flying zombies along with the virus sample.”
“All is lost, captain.”
“We’re doomed, captain.”
“That’s right, captain.”
“What should we do, captain?”
“Shut up!” The captain’s facial muscles twitched. “Now I want to blow my top every time I hear those three words Yu Feichen. Motherfucker, I’ve never seen such an unreliable thing—”
At that very moment, a long, shrill scream erupted. Alarms blared. A military helicopter at the front of the army troops swooped too far down; its propellers collided headlong into a zombie bird, sending its fuselage into a smoking plume of blazing flame. It drew a black, smoky parabola in the sky as it tumbled and nosedived straight down.
“Bang—”
The first gunshot ignited the gloomy, dark sky. The next second, gunfire resounded and gunpowder dispersed in all directions.
War broke out.
The bald captain roared and tugged at the huge artillery gun beside him—but it was too heavy for even his unusually bulky frame to handle. His roar sidetracked to become a fuck midway through, and the heavy artillery pounded back onto the gun rack.
He checked the magazine and trained the periscope straight ahead, his posture natural as if absolutely nothing had happened.
“How do we fight?” Due to the urgency of the situation, his teammates didn’t laugh at this awkward scene, but asked anxiously instead.
The captain said, “From my experience of sweeping zombie instances, this large and seemingly invulnerable monster must have a fatal weak spot. Mark these eight words down: a blind cat bumps into a dead rat. As long as we bombard it enough, we’re bound to hit it, be it by sheer dumb luck.”
Unfortunately, no one was listening to his nonsense. His teammates were all quaking in their boots.
“What are you afraid of?” The captain returned to the tank body, bellowing, “Big deal, at worst we’ll be sent packing! This isn’t the Gate of Eternal Night!”
The tail end of his words was drowned under the deafening cannon fire, but his speech did seem to calm the mind of those present. In each of their respective positions, his teammates slowly resumed their usual operations.
The tank’s hatch closed, and the tracks gripped firmly to the ground as it rolled forwards, moving deeper into the zombie horde.
It was an exceedingly dangerous task. But the situation was critical; they were out of alternatives.
“Always keep an eye out for A1407,” the captain said to the teammates within the tank. “I get a bad feeling just thinking about how that damned thing still hasn’t shown up yet.”
“Roger that,” a teammate said.
The tank shuddered slightly as a steady stream of zombie creatures and splattered chunks of corpses slammed into the tank’s hull, dull thuds beating down faintly like a sombre drumbeat.
“Watch the right side!”
Through the greyish-white smoke that offered dismal visibility, a five-metre-tall zombie behemoth rammed into the side of the tank so hard that the steel plates creaked and the tank nearly toppled over. But they weren’t slow to react; when the behemoth backed up and got ready to charge, armour-piercing bullets pierced through its neck, successfully intercepting it.
“We’re a little in over our heads,” said a teammate, “but it’s going a little better than I expected. I thought that we’d kneel over the second the battle began.”
He turned his head, only to see his captain staring fixedly at the monitor showing the exterior surroundings, muttering, “No… Something’s wrong.”
“Wrong, yeah.” Another teammate, who was also looking down at the monitor, said.
“Wrong, yeah.” Came another voice.
“Are you lot a copier machine?” the captain’s patience towards them had worn thin.
“It’s true that it’s not right.” A different voice, at last, emerged from the team. “Some of the zombies are still and show no signs of aggressive behaviour, that’s why we hadn’t felt much pressure earlier.”
“The one in the ten o’clock direction looks like its system had crashed, those two at one o’clock, too.”
Following the coordinates, there were indeed two pale, rotting corpses with their heads hung low at one o’clock. They drifted along wherever the zombie tide brought them, but showed no other movement, nor did they bite and pounce on prey.
Taking a broad view of the battlefield, there were more than just a handful of such zombies.
The captain’s brows gradually furrowed together. His voice also sunk significantly, his words coming out rapid-fire. “Open the hatch. I’m going out to take a look.”
As if what he saw with his naked eyes would be clearer than what was shown on the electronic monitor, he poked half his body out the top of the tank and set up his binoculars to scan their surroundings. Blood drained out of his face. He repeated lowly, “Wrong, wrong…”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve seen something similar happen in a zombie instance a long time along. That was when they were controlled by their chieftain and began their second mutation. It was near complete annihilation.” As if recalling something extremely terrible, the bald captain trailed off with a tremor and he suddenly roared, “Ceasefire! All units on alert! Increase the surveillance on the chieftain!”
And he added, “Black Satan doesn’t have such an ability. Where’s the man looking out for A1407? Monitors!”
“Not, not yet…”
“Have I taught you nothing!” rebuked the captain. He picked up the communication device and contacted the United Front headquarters, yelling, “Ceasefire! Prepare for defence!” And as he looked into the tank, he suddenly met with the raised eyes of a teammate, looking up at him.
—Eyes wide open and glazed, as if they had suddenly received a shock.
Like the sounds of gunfire had abruptly halted, at such a look, the captain couldn’t help but flinch. A sudden chill ran down his spine.
“What the hell are you staring at me for?” He sneered, “This isn’t a horror instance in any case.”
As he said this, he seemed to sense something. He slowly turned back—
There was an imposing weight on his shoulder; the weight of a hand gently rested on his shoulder.
The bald captain froze. He thought to himself, zombies weren’t capable of uncannily human-like gestures such as ‘tapping the shoulder’. Out of his peripheral vision, he glanced over his right shoulder.
It was indeed a hand. His angle was so limited that he could only see the middle, ring, and little fingers.
It was a human hand. Rather, a male hand. The nails were smooth, and the joints were long and well-defined.
But the skin of this hand was too pale, and the veins faintly visible under the skin were an unsettling shade of lime green, a colour which clearly belonged to the zombies.
Also, he didn’t hear any sound of breathing.
In that split second, a horrifying thought flashed past his mind.
There was a zombie behind him.
One hand already rested on the handle of his cold steel sabre. He kept his breathing calm and continued to turn his head.
As his field of vision widened, a pale and slender index finger came into view, along with a familiar black, thin ring worn by every man on their team.
The captain froze up.
Just then, the communication device suddenly crackled to life, containing an inquiry from the United Front headquarters.
“Please report the anomalies and reasons for ceasefire.”
“Please report the anomalies and reasons for ceasefire.”
And from behind him, another voice spoke, his voice level, and his tone calm without any particular inflection.
“Why the ceasefire?”
Before a response could be made, icy fingers plucked the communication device out of the bald captain’s hands without offering a reason.
“Follow my command.” That creature whose identity as a human or zombie was unknown spoke into the device. The voice sounded familiar.
The captain was stupefied.
The stupefied captain looked down at his equally stupefied teammate.
The teammate’s dazed gaze fell back on the captain. His mouth parted, and he slowly mouthed a few words.
’He’s, a, spook.’
The corners of the captain’s mouth twitched a few times. His right hand whipped around behind him and clasped around his beloved bazooka. He inhaled deeply a few times, as if to muster his courage.
Then, an enraged voice rang across the battlefield.
“Yu—Fei—Chen—!!!!”
“I’m—going—to—file—a—complaint!!!!!”
