Chương 138: Traversing the Horde

The middle-aged officer stared at his stoic, unsmiling commander, absolutely dumbfounded by his words. Then, abruptly standing up, he punched Joseph in the shoulder—a massive breach of military protocol.

"I've served under you for over ten years..." He pointed a finger at Joseph, shaking his head in disbelief.

"And this is the very first time I've ever heard you make a joke! See? That wasn't so hard! If the comms weren't jammed, I'd record this right now and play it for Evelyn!"

"Cut the crap. Why did you ask about the ammo?"

"The autocannon. Never got to fire one. Figure I might as well go out with a bang." SCREEEEECH... The agonizing grind of heavy metal screeching against armor cut their laughter short. Joseph looked through the narrow slit of the cockpit window. Thick, monstrous vines were slithering over the reinforced glass of the APC, wrapping around the chassis. More and more were swarming over them by the second.

"Go on then..." He knew time was up. He stood, unbuckled his harness, and moved over to the gunner's seat. He patted his old friend on the shoulder, then turned to the young soldier currently strapped into the turret controls.

"Step down, son. Let him have a turn."

"Hahahaha! Daddy's got the big guns now! Come to papa, you beautiful beast!" The new "gunner" took his seat. Joseph sat down in his spot, drew his sidearm from its holster, and began methodically wiping it down with a rag. He issued his final commands in a perfectly even, steady voice.

"All firing ports, man your stations. Aim toward the source of the vines. Full auto, controlled bursts—fire!" In the next second, deafening, thunderous roars of heavy artillery erupted from the APC's turret! Massive tongues of fire tore through the darkness. Zombies and mutants caught in the 30mm autocannon's firing arc were instantly atomized into pink mist! The other three soldiers thrust their assault rifles through the firing ports, pulling the triggers.

They didn't even need to aim; the horde was so dense it covered their entire field of fire. In the blink of an eye, the APC transformed into a fire-breathing, steel hedgehog. Hundreds of meters away, obscured by fire and thick smoke, a mass of grotesque, twisted limbs flailed furiously. The vines wrapped around the APC were shredded by the gunfire, but countless more immediately surged forward to replace them, an endless, writhing tide...

Vince hid behind a thick oak tree on the side of the road, watching the convoy roar past. The heavy machine gun mounted on the lead assault vehicle—and the panicked young soldier manning it, whose Health bar barely cleared 70—quickly killed any thought Vince had of stepping out to say hello. Taking a bullet from that thing would definitely hurt. From what he could see, the convoy was moving at a cautious pace. If they were looking for a place to hunker down, there was an 80% chance they'd stop at the gas station.

Driving blind at night in this apocalypse was a death sentence. Judging by their gear, they were definitely regular military, not some heavily armed scavenger gang. More importantly, he spotted a civilian bus in the middle of the formation. Although the windows were boarded up, he could see dozens of HP readouts through the cracks. Most were hovering around 50 or 60—malnourished, but not starving to death.

Since they were actively protecting a busload of civilians, the worst-case scenarios he had imagined were off the table. He saw no immediate need to chase after them. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. What really confused him, though, was that not a single zombie was chasing the convoy. Back when Vince was driving his clunky van, he had pulled aggro from a horde of nearly two hundred zombies and dragged them for miles.

Yet this massive, loud military convoy had just rolled right through without pulling a single straggler. Just as he was trying to figure it out, a rhythmic, heavy THUMP-THUMP-THUMP echoed from the distance.

"Gunfire? No, that's an autocannon!" Vince had never been in the military, but he played enough video games to recognize the distinct, thunderous thud of heavy armor-piercing rounds. That had to be the main gun on an APC! There were still people back there! No wonder nothing was chasing the convoy; the entire horde had been pulled toward the heavy artillery! And that gunfire was coming from the exact same direction where his ultimate prize was hiding—the 10, 000-HP mutant!

He didn't know where this military unit had come from, but clearly, when they crossed the park, they had kicked the hornet's nest. Watching the convoy's taillights disappear into the gloom, Vince equipped his Stealth Crystal and melted into the darkness, sprinting back toward the gunfire. He ran for about three kilometers before he was forced to stop. Zombies. Zombies everywhere. A suffocating sea of red Health bars choked the entire eastern side of the street, packed together like a massive ball of bloody yarn.

But among the standard [300] HP zombies, there was an absurd number of [500] HP zombies mixed in. They looked identical to the normal ones. At first, Vince thought his UI was glitching. Are the baseline zombies leveling up? Five hundred HP? Strangely, despite the massive numbers, there wasn't a single mutant variant in sight. The collective, low-frequency growl of the horde vibrated against his eardrums, yet there was a bizarre, unnatural stillness to the swarm.

Remembering the terrifying, prickly sensation of being watched when he last passed through here with his Stealth Crystal, Vince opened his inventory and pulled out a potion he had never used before: [Stealth Potion (Medium)]. Because his Stealth Crystal—even in its incomplete spherical form—was usually more than enough, and because it also worked on humans, he had never bothered with the potion. The potion's description explicitly stated it"lowered zombie perception," making it too narrow.

Plus, since potions altered his physical body directly, he was always slightly suspicious of their side effects. But facing a 10, 000-HP monstrosity, paranoia was a virtue. He still couldn't see the mutant's Health bar from this distance. However, he strongly suspected that the moment he saw its UI, it would sense him through the Stealth Crystal. That was exactly how it felt last time. Taking advantage of the distance, he willed the item to activate. Medium Stealth Potion!

The instant the potion took effect, an icy, dead chill bloomed in his chest and rapidly spread through his veins. The feeling... It felt like he had literally become a zombie! As the icy numbness spread, his vision began to warp. The colors bled out of the world, leaving behind a dull, monotonous, sepia-toned wasteland. The only things that retained their vibrant color were the floating Health bars. But there was a massive upside: as the sepia filter replaced the darkness, his night vision skyrocketed!

What had previously been a thirty-meter visibility radius in the pitch black suddenly expanded to hundreds of meters, as clear as day!

"Is this..." Vince raised his hand, staring at his desaturated fingers.

"... zombie vision?" He had no way to prove it, and no zombie was going to answer him. The potion was active. He couldn't waste a single second. Ten minutes sounded like a lot, but six hundred seconds burned fast in the field. With a thought, the heavy Unnamed spear materialized in his hand. Faced with an ocean of infected, potions and stealth mechanics felt flimsy; the cold, heavy weight of the steel staff gave him genuine, tactile security.

Under the stacked effects of his now Rare-tier Stealth Crystal and the Medium Stealth Potion, Vince slowly walked right up to a zombie. He stood inches from its face. It didn't react at all. He violently suppressed the urge to poke it with his spear. Discipline. Keep your hands to yourself! Keeping his spear tight against his body, he carefully slipped into the gaps between the infected, slowly wading into the horde.

It was like wading through a river of rotting flesh in the dark, and he was heading straight for the deepest, darkest center. Through his sepia-toned vision, everything looked like an old, degraded movie reel. Even the horrific, gaping wounds and rotting flesh of the zombies seemed heavily censored by the gray-yellow filter, making them look far less nauseating. Even the overpowering stench of coagulated blood, rotting meat, and other ungodly smells began to fade into a dull, neutral background scent.

He calmed his mind, acting as if he truly was just another infected joining a massive flash mob. Flowing with the current of the horde, he drifted deeper toward the center... CRACK! A sharp, solitary gunshot rang out from the epicenter of the horde. The zombies around Vince instantly convulsed, thrown into a frenzy as they began violently shoving their way toward the source of the noise. The sudden gunshot startled Vince so badly he almost broke his stealth posture.

Glancing at the countdown timer for his potion, he saw he still had plenty of time. He forced his heart rate back down. Unfortunately, the gunshot had whipped the horde into a riot. The zombies ahead of him began crushing against each other, eliminating any gaps to slip through, while the zombies behind him continued to press forward, packing the horde as tight as a vacuum-sealed bag of meat.