V1C15

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Dong——!

With the tremendous clang, half of the building woke up.

A screech, and the metal tables and chairs stacked against the wooden door of the stairwell were pushed back slightly, the closed doors opening up a sliver, revealing a veiny hand with black nails.

“They have indeed evolved, and their strength has also increased. What a shame that none of it was clear on the cameras.” Song Hanzhang stood next to the doorway and watched, his eyes slightly narrowed.

Lin Jue hoisted his makeshift spear on his shoulder, standing ready.

The two had already observed from the security room for about an hour. The zombies on floors one to three had continuously wandered about aimlessly, and due to the lacking definition of the security cameras, they couldn’t see clearly the minute changes on them. It was only around ten minutes ago that Song Hanzhang noticed that the zombies were starting to gather, their destination undoubtedly floor four.

The zombie’s nails latched onto the wooden door and pulled, shaking its entire frame. With a loud crack, the door broke into two.

Both of their faces hardened.

The zombie had already squeezed half its body inside, its arms waving in front of it, savage nails dancing in the air as if trying to grab onto the very scent of the living.

Soon, its head followed, its fanged mouth dirty with blood, its dazed eyeballs yellowing and its dried skin barely covering its cheekbones, veins spreading across its face as it snarled, trying to push through the door.

The banging sounds were also coming from the opposite stairwell. If they hadn’t already blockaded the doors with chairs and tables, they would have been surrounded by zombies by now.

“Thank goodness we saved an emergency exit, otherwise we’d be waiting for our deaths in here,” Lin Jue said with a lingering fear, his eyes staring unblinkingly at the zombies almost breaking in.

“There are quite a lot of zombies here already. Go try the one in front of us out when it breaks in and immediately retreat back to the security room after. We’ll leave the library immediately.” Song Hanzhang looked at the time, 23:57, all but going exactly according to plan. “After leaving here, we’ll go to the south plaza for a small break, and plan our way from there.”

“Roger that.” Lin Jue had just finished his sentence when the zombie banging against the door managed to break open a gap large enough to fit through!

If not for the layers of chairs and tables between them, it would have already lunged itself at them. The chairs and tables lodged the zombie in the middle as it fruitlessly reached its hands out to grab the two. Lin Jue tightened his grip on the wooden pole and sent the nailed side towards the zombie’s skull——

The nails pierced straight into the zombie’s eye socket, but it continued reaching forwards as if not feeling the pain. Lin Jue felt his eye hurt for no reason and mercilessly stirred the stick upwards—— the nails inside the zombie’s eyeball were pushed up. and in their spinning, destroyed the zombie’s brain.

It was almost lifted off the ground by him. When he pulled out the wooden pole, he saw that there was still half a broken eyeball stuck onto its end and couldn’t help but retch a little.

Masses upon masses of zombies were still pushing at the countless numbers of desks and chairs in a struggle to move forwards. Lin Jue wished he could keep fighting but Song Hanzhang dragged at him from behind. “Go——!”

With that command, the two quickly withdrew to the security room, locked the metal door, and blockaded it with the desk.

“Go down first. Be careful,” Song Hanzhang said.

Lin Jue nodded and tied the wooden pole behind his back. He opened the anti-theft window and crouched on the windowsill, one hand on the aircon rack, the other on the ‘rope’ made from the banners, and started climbing downwards.

Four levels of the library were taller than most normal buildings; he could only pray that the rope Song Hanzhang made was strong enough. The knot every half a meter did however help him hold onto the rope.

From above him came the sound of banging. Had the zombies already started attacking the metal door? Lin Jue couldn’t help but feel anxious and looked up to see if Song Hanzhang had come down yet, but the man kept crouching on the windowsill without going down.

It was only when Lin Jue had landed that Song Hanzhang started climbing down the rope, much faster than when Lin Jue did it.

“Why were you just staying there? What if the zombies came in!” Lin Jue felt stressed out on his behalf.

Song Hanzhang replied nonchalantly, “They wouldn’t be that fast. They could barely break open the wooden door, it would take at least another ten minutes for them to break open the metal door.”

Lin Jue sighed. “Fine, fine, fine, I was worrying for no reason. Where are we going now, the south plaza, or directly to the recreation center?”

To the south of the administration building was the south plaza, and surrounding the plaza was the medicine department, the laboratory, the languages department, and the arts department building, four altogether. There weren’t many classes on Friday nights, but there were still some.

“Not the recreation center. Don’t forget, the other team most likely followed my advice and went that way after we split up. It’s been over three hours since then, and if the zombies indeed evolve due to the people around them, then the zombies there wouldn’t have stayed stationary. They’re probably also preparing to leave now—— that is, if they’re still alive.”

Lin Jue’s heart sank. He had forgotten about the Judas. The other group was in an even worse position than them.

A lone zombie was walking slowly towards them from the direction of the administration building. The surroundings were clear and it would be easy to go around the zombie. Lin Jue didn’t feel like attacking and prepared to walk around the other side.

“Go try it out,” Song Hanzhang suddenly said.

Lin Jue turned to look at him, but without asking why, he took the polearm off from his back. The few pieces of eyeball remnants between the nails looked a little disturbing, but now wasn’t the time for it.

Lin Jue held the stick tightly and ran forwards. With one sweep, he knocked the zombie over, the nails on the wooden pole going straight through the back of the zombie’s skull, instantly killing it.

“How was it compared to the one in the library?” Song Hanzhang stepped up and asked.

“Much easier. Its nails are much shorter as well.” Lin Jue pulled the polearm out and swung the blood and eyeball remnants off of it.

“Then our prediction was correct: the zombies are indeed evolving due to the players around them.” Song Hanzhang looked towards the administration window, his tense expression relaxing slightly. “This is good news I suppose. We just need to go to places that no-one has gone before yet. At least the zombies won’t evolve as fast.”

Lin Jue saw that the zombies in the distance next to the administration building were already walking towards them and said, “Let’s go.”

Going around the administration building revealed the two buildings from the art and languages departments. Going through the middle of the two led them to the south plaza.

Unexpectedly, there were no zombies in the south plaza. Multiple windows were lit up in the two medicine department buildings around the plaza, but no zombies came out of them.

To the south of the plaza was the southern gate of the school. The walls over there had become like the walls around the dormitories as well, too tall to be climbed. Even the gate had become a towering expanse of iron.

As expected, they were unable to leave the school. Lin Jue felt his heart sink.

The feeling of being controlled by the unknown was awful; they were like cicadas being toyed with in a jar, unable to keep their lives or their dignity.

“Someone’s coming.” Song Hanzhang pointed towards the direction of the student center.

Lin Jue looked up: three silhouettes were running towards them; Zhao Liangsheng, Liu Shan and Gao Yifei.

The three ran to the plaza, panting, and Gao Yifei even waved at them, her previous nervous and uneasy expression relaxing. “I didn’t realize that you guys would be here. Everyone is fine, this is good.”

Song Hanzhang’s eyes floated across the three and only stopped when he saw the shovel in Liu Shan’s hands. He didn’t say anything, not intending to greet them at all.

Noticing the tense atmosphere, Lin Jue had to say something to save the conversation. “You guys came out from the student center right? Did the zombies there evolve?”

Gao Yifei seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and looked thankfully at him before speaking with a hint of fear still lingering in her voice, “It was fine at the start and there weren’t many zombies either, but more and more gathered together at the end. If it wasn’t for Liu Shan insisting for us to leave after noticing that something was wrong, and for Zhao Liangsheng being really good at fighting zombies, we probably wouldn’t have made it.”

Lin Jue took another look at Zhao Liangsheng whose crowbar was sticky with blood and brain matter but who sat uncaringly at the flower bed. Next to him was Liu Shan who looked nervous, constantly staring around him as if he was ready to run at the slightest movement.

“Oh? Is everyone here? What a coincidence.”

A familiar voice was carried over by the winds. The five looked towards where the sound came from, only to see Lu Ren standing on the stairs to the medical laboratory, looking at them from afar.

Lin Jue suddenly felt as if he was being predated on by a wild beast, his entire body tensing up.

“Song Hanzhang, that wasn’t very nice of you. I spent three hours and went through every single crevice of the laboratory, but there wasn’t even a shadow of a boss. On the other hand though, there were more and more zombies getting into the building, and it was getting interesting,” Lu Ren said, smiling, the blood on his blade already dried but the blade’s edge still reflecting a terrifying sharpness under the light. He stepped down the stairs and walked towards the plaza.

“It was just a guess, there may be no such thing as a ‘boss’. You’re thinking too much about it,” Song Hanzhang replied lightly.

Lu Ren raised his eyebrows, a dangerous expression on his face. “I wasted three hours on that.”

“That’s your problem.”

Lin Jue tightened his grip on the wooden pole and stared at Lu Ren as he strode into the plaza.

The moment Lu Ren stepped into the plaza, a vibration from his pocket made Lin Jue pause and take his phone out from habit. There was one new message.

——Wait, there was no signal right now, Lin Jue suddenly realized as he unlocked the screen.

There was only one short line of words on the screen.

【Player Lin Jue, requirements met, entering maze.】

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