Thomas Xu and the others faced at least two hundred or even three hundred living corpses. Men, women, old people and even children appeared in the group of corpses. When the distance between the two sides shortened to eighty or seventy meters, Thomas Xu's precise short bursts also turned into rapid long shots. Shoot, even though they were two or three hundred meters away, Jack could still see pieces of rotten flesh spattering away from the living corpses. They fell down one by one and stood up again, like ghosts that could never be killed, spreading a sense of despair and fear in everyone's brain.
Almost all the gun barrels of the six guns had turned red, but the zombies kept advancing, advancing! Chen Jie clearly knew that the shot she fired had hit a zombie in front of her; the bullet struck its spine directly, causing the strong male zombie to bend over like a broken twig. Yet, it still struggled to push itself forward on the ground with its remaining arms, while Thomas, with his mouth wide open, crawled relentlessly towards the crowd.
As the torrential bullets passed through the horde of corpses, they took away countless fragments of organs and shattered bones. However, the vitality of the living dead was evidently more tenacious than that of cockroaches. Even when their limbs were severed by bullets, they still wriggled forward like earthworms. Therefore, as long as their vital points were not hit, no amount of bullets would be effective!
The horde of corpses was only about thirty or forty meters away from Thomas Xu and the others. Jack heard Thomas Xu shout something from a distance, and then the women screamed and hid behind a large rock. Immediately after, he saw Thomas Xu, in a fit of rage, pull a rocket launcher from the ground and fire a rocket into the middle of the horde without even aiming.
"Boom..."
The rocket, trailing a long fiery tail, exploded in the center of the horde after passing through the rotting chest of a living dead. About twenty to thirty living dead were thrown high into the air by the massive shockwave. Even the ones standing at the edges were knocked down by the blast, and the horde of over a hundred living dead fell like cut wheat in an instant.
However, as Thomas Xu had once said, using a rocket launcher against the living dead was not very effective. Despite the appearance of a complete rout, very few were actually killed. After the massive shockwave subsided, they quickly stood up again, swaying unsteadily.
Just moments after the gunfire had ceased, it rang out again. Thomas Xu and the others continued to shoot at the horde with their hot guns. Fortunately, although the rocket launcher hadn't taken out many living dead, it had successfully ignited a patch of dry forest.
The fire blazed up instantly, turning the living dead into human-shaped torches. However, the initial flames did not diminish their madness; they continued to charge at the crowd without any hesitation.
"Ah…"
Blood-curdling screams erupted from the women hiding behind the rocks, as a living dead engulfed in flames had pounced on one of them. This was a small, fast-moving living dead that Thomas Xu and the others had overlooked.
The living dead landed on a girl, and the flames quickly ignited her as well. The girl let out a high-pitched, tragic scream, rolling and struggling violently on the ground. However, the strength of the living dead was usually one to one and a half times that of a human. The girl did not struggle for long before her throat was bitten through, and her screams abruptly ceased.
The raging fire played a significant role. Although the living dead that pounced on the girl killed her, it gradually lost its strength and slowly collapsed on top of her, perishing together in the sea of flames.
Jack had already joined the others. Looking at the two entangled together, like a campfire, he sighed heavily after putting down the Ryan Tingyu on his back. He turned to Cao Mei, who approached him with a face full of fear, and asked, "Who is that?"
"It's... it's Chen Fang!" Cao Mei's face turned pale with fear as she looked at Jack, unable to help but grab his arm, as if only by holding onto him could she find some comfort.
Chen Fang is one of the flight attendants, possibly the most ordinary among them. Jack didn't have a deep impression of her because she usually stayed at the back of the crowd and rarely came forward to please him. The only thing that stuck in his mind was her somewhat shy smile.
The raging fire grew larger with the accumulation of corpse oil. When the last living corpse curled up in the sea of flames, Thomas Xu and the others finally breathed a long sigh of relief. Stepping on the warm bullet shells scattered on the ground, Thomas Xu wiped the sweat from his forehead and walked up to Jack, asking, "Brother Lin, how could this happen? There are just too many living corpses! I just stood up high to take a look, and they're almost everywhere on the mountains. I estimate there are at least tens of thousands. At this rate, will we even be able to escape from this mountain?"
"We might be in big trouble!" Jack frowned deeply, thought for a moment, and turned to ask, "Bai Ru, didn't you say this afternoon that there's a leprosy hospital in the distance, and the living corpses inside are very agitated?"
"Yes, that's right. It's as if they can smell living people outside and are desperately trying to push their way out, but I didn't see anyone out there!" Bai Ru stepped forward and nodded heavily.
"There's probably only one explanation for this situation!" Jack looked seriously at everyone and said in a deep voice, "They shouldn't be agitated just because they sensed someone; it's highly likely they were summoned by advanced mutated living corpses! For example... the Corpse Demon!"
"What? Corpse Demon?" Thomas Xu's eyes widened in terror as he stammered, "Then... then aren't we about to face a terrifying tide of corpses?"
"A tide of corpses is certain, but from the current situation, it seems this tide has just begun to form and isn't as terrifying as you imagine!" Jack shook his head at Thomas Xu and, after a moment of silence, said, "We still have a chance to escape!"
"But where can we escape on this bare mountain? There are living corpses all around!" Thomas Xu pointed at the constantly moving shadows below the mountain, feeling extremely frustrated.
"The living corpses down the mountain are about to come up, and they'll catch up with us in no more than five minutes, so no matter where we escape, we need to move first!" Jack knew exactly how many living corpses were chasing them down the mountain. He turned around, waved to everyone, and led the way up the mountain.
"Master... Master..."
Just then, Michael came rushing out of a nearby forest, panting heavily. After leaving a long drag mark on the sand where Marcus was, he stopped at Jack's feet and exclaimed in a panic, "Master, there are so many living corpses everywhere!"
Jack shot him a fierce glare and replied irritably, "You don't need to tell me that. Where have you been?"
"Of course, I went to scout the terrain. We can't just blindly dive into a pile of corpses, can we?" Michael grinned widely, wagging his tail as he said, "But I circled around quite a bit, and I estimate that they won't be able to escape tonight. We're basically surrounded!"
Upon hearing Michael's words, everyone except for Bai Ru and A Xue, whose expressions remained relatively normal, changed their faces in unison. However, Jack frowned and kicked Michael, saying, "We can't leave them behind!"
Jack certainly understood what Michael meant by "them." It simply referred to Jack, him, and their women being able to get out without much issue, but the rest of the people would definitely be in grave danger. After all, in a sea of corpses, they couldn't possibly take care of so many people!
"I knew you would say that!" Michael secretly pouted, shaking his head helplessly as he said, "Alright then, if we have to take them with us, we can only go to that air raid shelter. We can block the entrance with stones and hide there for a few days. It should be fine, but I can't guarantee that we can really avoid the living corpses!"
"Air raid shelter? Where did that come from?" Jack asked in surprise.
"Of course, it's the result of my scouting the terrain just now!" Michael said proudly, raising his eyebrows. "Actually, there's an air raid shelter just behind this mountain; we just never discovered it before. But now, it's basically impossible to go around, as there are already quite a few living corpses around. We have to climb over the mountain!"
"Let's go!" Jack decisively led everyone to sprint up the mountain.
...
The instinct for survival was completely triggered, so even the women ran quickly, and no one dared to complain about fatigue. A large number of living corpses were chasing closely behind, and falling behind even slightly could cost them their lives!
Michael was leading the way with a "huff and puff," and naturally, Jack followed closely behind with Thomas. As for Ryan, who had twisted her ankle, she had completely severed ties with her husband. To leave a small woman like her at the foot of a mountain filled with dangers, regardless of what mistakes she had made in the past, was enough for her to give up on him. So after being brought back by Jack, she directly sought out William Guodong, who without a word took off his own clothes and put them on her, then let her climb onto his back and carried her up the mountain.
The mountains around here aren't very high, at most two to three hundred meters. The group took less than twenty minutes to reach the air raid shelter that Michael mentioned. It was a small arched shelter with an entrance about three meters high and four to five meters wide, and the dark tunnel made it impossible to see what was inside.
However, the small size had its advantages, as it made blocking the entrance much easier. At Jack's command, everyone—men, women, adults, and children—did their best to lift the stones around them, quickly stacking them layer by layer in front of the entrance, trying to make it as thick as possible.
Just as they could faintly see the living corpses surging up the mountainside, the group finally completed the last stone transport. Exhausted, they squeezed into a small hole they had left. Once everyone was inside, Jack instructed Michael to set a fire around them to burn away their lingering scent, and then he crawled into the cave, lifting the largest stone to completely seal the entrance.
The air raid shelter was very dim because no one had time to bring camping lights in the rush. Only William Guodong's tungsten flashlight was flickering like a ghostly flame, barely illuminating the figures in front of them, making it hard to see their faces clearly.
Jack casually pulled out a powerful flashlight from his waist bag, making the surroundings a bit brighter. He walked a few steps closer to the group and said to Thomas, who was rummaging for his flashlight, "You can put yours away; we don't know how long we'll be here, so we need to conserve the batteries!"
"Man, we aren't going to be stuck here for ten days or half a month, are we? We didn't bring much food!" Gao Chujian, bare-chested, walked over with a worried expression.
"That shouldn't be necessary. I estimate that the scale of this zombie tide won't be too large; they should all leave in three or four days at most!" Jack gently shook his head, then shone his flashlight into the depths of the shelter and asked Michael at his feet, "Have you been to the very back?"
"No, it's pitch black in there; who knows if we'll step in something nasty?" Michael shook his head, showing a look of cleanliness.
"Lin Ge, we definitely need to check it out; if there are still living corpses inside, it could be quite a show!" Thomas quickly looked at Jack, then turned to unload the magazine from his gun to check, frowning as he said, "I'm out of bullets; does anyone have some to spare?"
"I'm out too. If those zombies hadn't been burned, I was ready to smash them with my gun!" William Guodong shook his head helplessly, holding the empty gun up to his chest.
"I'm out too, you just took the last magazine!" Gao Chujing shook his head as well.
"I... I lost my gun!" Boss Hu said with a very embarrassed expression, but his rifle was definitely not lost; he had just thrown it away while fleeing over the mountains because he found it too heavy.
Thomas Xu turned to look at the women who were all empty-handed. He let out a bitter smile, leaned his rifle against the wall, and turned to Jack, saying, "Then Lin Ge, can you lend me your knife? It would be good to have something for self-defense when I go in!"
"Bro, there are still a few bullets in Lv Liangjia's gun, do you want them?" Chen Jie raised her empty-handed gun and pointed to Lv Liangjia beside her.
"Let's leave it for Xiao Lv; if we can't get out, we can still use it for a suicide!" Thomas Xu chuckled and shook his head, making a cruel joke that sent chills down everyone's spine. He then turned around and took the machete Jack handed him, smiling at Jack and saying, "Lin Ge, you go in front; after all, you have more bullets in your gun right now!"
"Then I might as well go alone!" Jack shook his head in disbelief, holding the flashlight and gun as he slowly walked in, but behind him, Thomas Xu's voice rang out loudly, "That won't do! I still want to follow you in the future; if you don't see my abilities, how will you take me along?"
"If you want to follow me, you're still far from it!" Jack replied nonchalantly, which left Thomas Xu behind him speechless for a long time, unable to utter a coherent word.