Qingyun Town, a riverside town once unremarkable on any map, was currently undergoing the bloodiest and most shocking baptism since its inception.
The deafening roar of 120mm tank guns, accompanied by the continuous fire of infantry fighting vehicle autocannons, was like a massive iron hammer. It forcibly tore a hole in the shroud of "despair" that had hung over the survivors since the apocalypse began. However, the light that filtered through was not warm; instead, it carried a chilling air of slaughter. Although the light seemed a bit fierce, it was enough for the survivors.
Behind a third-floor window in an old residential building facing the street, a pair of bloodshot eyes stared intently at the steel torrent on the road.
"This dense sound of gunfire... it's the army, for sure! It's the regular army!" A man with a stubbly face and a haggard appearance sat slumped beneath the windowsill, clutching a sharpened mop handle. Excited tears carved two clear tracks through the grime on his face. "Listen to those cannons. The zombies can't stop them at all; they're being slaughtered!"
Deep inside the room, a woman curled up on a moldy mattress, her voice trembling as she asked, "Honey, is the army here to get us? Does this mean... mean we don't have to eat those moldy biscuits anymore? We won't have to listen to those monsters scratching at the door every night?"
The man stood up abruptly, wanting to push open the window and shout. However, when he saw an armored vehicle full of heavily armed soldiers wearing gas masks slowly drive by—and incidentally crush the head of a still-twitching zombie on the roadside—the surge of ecstasy in his throat was suppressed by an inexplicable fear.
"Don't rush... wait a bit longer." The man swallowed hard, his voice dropping. "These soldiers... they don't look like the kind ones from before. The way they kill monsters is even more ruthless than the monsters themselves. What if we go out and they clear us out as zombies too?"
Meanwhile, in a large convenience store two blocks away from the main road, the atmosphere was entirely different. It was filled with a nauseating, rotten stench of "evil."
The convenience store's rolling shutter was locked from the inside, and the windows were all boarded up with wood and shelves. The shelves, once filled with a wide variety of goods, had long since been looted. Cigarette butts, wine bottles, and some tattered women's underwear were scattered on the floor. In the small warehouse at the very back of the store, faint sobs and the crisp sound of clinking chains could be heard.
"Bo... Boss, you think..." A shifty-looking man nicknamed "Mouse" swallowed hard, his palms gripping a machete slick with sweat. "The commotion outside is getting closer. Even tanks have driven in. The things we've done... those women, and those two disobedient men we took out a few days ago... if the army finds out, will they just execute us?"
The one called "Boss" was a burly man with a face full of scars and rough features. He was gulping down expired whiskey found in the depths of the warehouse, with a police pistol stolen from some officer tucked into his waistband.
Hearing his subordinate's words, he slammed the wine bottle onto the table with a dull thud, glaring with sinister eyes.
"Idiot! What the hell are you afraid of?" the Boss roared in a low voice. "What kind of world is this now? The apocalypse! The law has long since gone to the dogs! The army is here to clear out zombies and for supplies. You think they have the spare time to care about our little business?"
He walked to the warehouse door and kicked it hard. A terrified scream erupted from inside.
"If I don't talk, you don't talk, and the brothers don't talk, which of these stinking bitches would dare?" The Boss sneered, his gaze sweeping over the women in the back who were flinching with bruised bodies. "If anyone dares to say a single word in front of the army, I'll make sure to skin her alive and chop her up to feed the zombies before I get shot! Do you hear me?!"
The women in the warehouse huddled together, their eyes filled with despair. They had once prayed for the army's arrival, but as the army descended with the force of thunder, they realized they were still in the abyss. The demon before them was attempting to use the fear of the army's indifference to further enslave them.
"The Boss is right." Another accomplice approached, a cunning glint in his eyes. "As long as we hide these women well, once the army clears the town, we'll go out and cry about how miserable we are, saying we're refugees and victims. Maybe the army will even give us food or take us back to a base to enjoy ourselves."
However, these thugs had no idea that they were not about to face a humanitarian rescue team from the old era. Instead, they were facing a cold machine led by the Black Watch Commander, Viper, who believed in "absolute efficiency" and "forced order."
At that moment, inside the command vehicle, Viper was looking at the infrared scan images sent back by the drones.
"Reporting to the Commander, a large number of non-infected life signals have been detected in the convenience store ahead. Approximately 15 people. Five adult males are carrying cold weapons and a small amount of firearms. The rest are mostly female with weak vital signs; illegal detention is suspected."
Viper didn't even look up at the image; he was adjusting the occupation priority for the Qingyun Town Granary.
"Handle it according to the 'Order Restoration Protocol'." Viper's voice was as cold as ice. "For survivors, first conduct infection testing. Any resistors, anyone attempting to hide injuries, or any potential unstable factors whose criminal behavior has led to a decrease in social stability—dispose of them on the spot. We don't need to waste food on dregs."
"Understood. Notify Charlie 4 to conduct 'Violent Filtering' on the target convenience store."
On the street, an infantry fighting vehicle slowly turned, its dark 25mm autocannon muzzle pointing directly at the boarded-up windows of the convenience store.
Inside the store, the "Boss" was still fantasizing about how to deceive the army. He straightened his filthy shirt and waved at his subordinates. "Let's go, brothers. Open the door a crack. We're going to welcome our'saviors'."
He was completely unaware that the savior in his eyes currently had a finger on the trigger that would destroy them. In the units led by Black Watch, civilians were only one of two things: valuable assets or trash that needed to be cleared.