Chapter Twenty-Two: A Knife in the Back

As he was about to reach the source beads, Gu Sha summoned all his strength and shoved the horde of zombies aside, sending them flying in all directions like petals scattered by a celestial maiden. The sudden dispersal caught the other team off guard, disrupting their formation. Yet, those individuals were well-trained: they immediately spread out, firing wildly.

Gu Sha lunged forward and swiftly picked up the two source beads. Seeing this, the team’s faces darkened. Still, none of them hesitated; recognizing that the beads had been taken, they promptly pulled out grenades and hurled them around the courtyard.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A series of deafening explosions tore through the courtyard, blasting the zombies into pieces. Yet, outside the walls, a dense, endless tide of zombies surged forward. With night fallen, visibility was poor—only the relentless, wave-like advance of the undead army could be seen.

“Brother!” the team’s leader, a young man, shouted, “Let’s make a deal. We join forces and fight our way out. When we’re safe, you keep one bead and we keep one. How does that sound?”

By now, the courtyard was nearly smothered by zombies; even the walls had collapsed under their weight. Gu Sha sized up the group: four members, all sharp and efficient in their actions. He guessed they had been mercenaries or something similar before the apocalypse—at the very least, people accustomed to handling firearms. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to develop such skills and coordination so quickly.

More importantly, Gu Sha sensed that two of them were first-tier warriors who had unlocked their genetic locks. He immediately stowed the source beads in his backpack and nodded, “Agreed. Let’s join forces and fight our way out. Once we’re clear, I’ll give you one bead.”

As Gu Sha suspected, these four were indeed mercenaries, active across other continents until recently, when they returned to Longzhou for vacation—only to be caught in the apocalypse. Their original team of eight had lost four members to zombification right away.

Luck favored them. While evading zombies, they found two source beads. With their acute survival instincts, they sensed the beads were extraordinary, so they risked their lives to snatch them from the undead. Once they realized the world had changed, the captain and vice-captain each swallowed a bead, unlocking their genetic locks.

That was when they understood the beads’ significance. After the authorities’ official announcements, their doubts vanished, and they began preparing for survival in the new world. Being mercenaries, they knew things inaccessible to ordinary people—where to find weapons, for instance. So, when the apocalypse hit, they quickly amassed an arsenal and headed to C City, planning to reach the shelter.

But fate brought a second wave of crimson descent. Others may have been terrified, but they were exhilarated. Having experienced the wonders of the source beads, they recognized this as a rare opportunity and set out to collect beads wherever they could.

Still, unlike Gu Sha, they lacked his foreknowledge; despite a day of running and gunning, they’d managed to secure only one bead. Just as they were about to give up and leave, they discovered two more.

Overjoyed, they prepared to act—only to find someone beat them to the punch. More surprising was that this lone figure could take on a whole mob of zombies with ease.

They worried Gu Sha would seize the beads, or worse, destroy them during the fight—a valid concern, since source beads were fragile, barely tougher than eggs. So they resolved to intervene, intending to gun down Gu Sha along with the zombies. Yet Gu Sha proved even more formidable than they’d imagined, dodging their attacks and snatching the beads first.

Now, they dared not fire at him. The beads were too delicate; one rash move could destroy them. With the zombie tide swelling, their anxiety grew. The mercenary captain signaled his team: after years of battling side by side, they understood immediately—cooperate with Gu Sha for now, then kill him as soon as they got out. They would never truly share the beads.

Two mercenaries with light machine guns rushed ahead, spraying bullets in a wild barrage.

“Let’s go!” the captain shouted to Gu Sha. The four surrounded him, forming a protective ring as they advanced.

Gu Sha wielded a heavy machete, cleaving through zombies relentlessly.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The mercenaries’ gear was impressive: grenades cleared their path, firearms mowed down the undead. Soon they burst out of the villa courtyard onto an open patch of ground.

But outside, the zombies were even denser, flooding in like a deluge. The group kept firing, but each also drew a combat knife, ready for close quarters. There was no other way; zombies were different from humans—gunfire would drop a man, but zombies, numb to pain, kept coming unless struck in a vital spot.

As the swarm grew ever thicker, the captain pointed to a small building in the distance. “There’s an armored SUV over there. We need to get to it fast. Brother, you’re good at close combat—put in some extra effort!”

“Of course,” Gu Sha replied with a light laugh. Then, without warning, he swung his machete at the captain standing beside the zombies.

Caught completely off guard, the captain never expected Gu Sha to turn on them at this moment. With no defense, he was decapitated in a single strike—his head soared into the air, his eyes still wide with disbelief.

“Captain!”

The other mercenaries were stunned, unable to comprehend the sudden betrayal.