The stench of blood instantly conjured up the image of a massive, terrifying figure in both Huan Tian and Lin Qingqing's minds.
Boom!
At the far end of the corridor behind them, a grotesquely large, blood-red arm suddenly reached around the corner. Five claw-like fingers, each as thick and sharp as an ivory tusk, dug into the wall with terrifying force. The reinforced concrete crumbled like soft tofu, the claws embedding with ease.
Then, a hulking mass of muscle and flesh stormed into view—
It was Luo Mai!
But now, he was even more monstrous than before. His once-tight shirt had been shredded by swollen muscles, reduced to strips of cloth dangling around his waist like tattered banners.
His mutated right arm had grown even more grotesque—thick cords of blood-red muscle pulsed like snakes under his skin, twisting violently. The mutation had already consumed half of his back, which now bulged upward into a grotesque hump. Only one side of his body still retained a vaguely human shape.
The grotesque transformation was entering its second-stage peak—a sign the mutation was spreading rapidly.
"Go!"
Huan Tian snatched up both of their backpacks and shoved the stunned Lin Qingqing forward.
Even among second-tier zombies, strength-enhanced variants were top-tier threats. Their dense muscle mass granted them overwhelming, one-hit-kill power, and a body tough enough to shrug off most attacks.
They were walking tanks. Unless you had heavy firepower, they were virtually unbeatable.
The moment Luo Mai laid eyes on them, veins of black blood spread through the whites of his dead eyes. His leg muscles bulged with a sickening swell, ripping his pants apart with a loud tear.
"ROAR!!!"
Luo Mai thundered forward in a frenzied charge, his massive right arm dragging behind him like a whip. Each footstep shook the ground with a deafening, earth-shattering impact.
Lin Qingqing didn't dare look back. She sprinted with all her might, heart hammering in her chest. With every tremor behind them, the ceiling lights above swung wildly, and dust rained down from the cracked walls, covering the two in grime and rubble.
The vibrations closing in made her feel as if they weren't being chased by a zombie, but by a rampaging rhinoceros.
"He was on the top floor! How the hell did he catch up to us?" Lin Qingqing gritted her teeth, arms pumping as she ran.
Huan Tian said nothing, but the icy look in his eyes blazed with deadly intent.
He was almost certain—
Luo Mai had been lured here by someone.
Back when the six-legged black widows were swarming the area, he couldn't make a move. But now that the swarm had been wiped out in a chain of explosions, Romai had immediately struck again.
"Don't let me find out who you are…"
Huan Tian's voice was low and cold as steel. Murder glinted in his eyes like a blade.
Without hesitation, he drew his Desert Eagle and fired behind them.
The brutal elegance of the weapon exploded in a burst of blue flame, the Nightmare Bullet screaming through the air, piercing deep into Luo Mai's muscle-bound body like a syringe before detonating inside.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Luo Mai's body exploded with seven or eight bloody wounds, gore splattering in all directions. But where a Nightmare Ammo would normally blast a bowl-sized hole in a regular zombie, the damage on him barely left wounds the size of ping-pong balls—mere scratches on his massive frame!
"His muscle tissue is way too dense. Unless we blow his head off, he's not going down!"
Huan Tian yanked back the Desert Eagle and swapped magazines. His clenched jaw was so tight that the muscles in his cheeks were visibly twitching.
"Then we change tactics."
Click—load—turn—fire!
His movements were machine-perfect, not even a tenth of a second wasted.
Another burst of bullets screamed through the air—but this time, Huan Tian was aiming for Luo Mai's lower body. The muscles in his thighs hadn't fully mutated yet; most of the tissue was still human.
Sure enough, the rounds struck home and exploded with brutal force, tearing gaping wounds in his legs. One bullet even struck Romai's right shin bone, shattering both the tibia and fibula in a thunderous blast.
THUD!
The ground shook violently as Luo Mai's massive body crashed down. Weighing nearly half a ton, he slammed into the floor with enough force to crack it open. Thick steel reinforcements beneath the surface buckled and jutted out like broken bones.
But even injured, Luo Mai only grew more furious.
With a roar, he pushed himself up using his mutated right arm, continuing the chase. His claws raked violently against the walls and floor, using every surface to hurl himself forward with terrifying momentum, leaving behind a trail of deep, jagged gouges.
Huan Tian kept firing in rapid succession, but Luo Mai raised his right arm like a massive shield. The rock-hard muscle absorbed every bullet. The rounds hit his flesh like stones thrown into a lake—ineffective, meaningless.
"RAAAHH!!"
Luo Mai roared, the sound booming like a landslide. There was mockery in his voice—glee, even. As he charged, his hand suddenly reached out and grabbed a nearby metal bookshelf. With a sickening crunch, he crushed it in his grip like a soda can, then hurled the mangled scrap straight at Huan Tian and Lin Qingqing!
"Look out!"
Huan Tian felt the wind of the projectile slicing through the air behind him. His scalp tingled with dread as he lunged forward and tackled Lin Qingqing to the ground.
WHOOSH—CRASH!!!
A dark shadow whipped over Lin Qingqing's head. Then a deafening boom erupted in front of them as the crushed bookshelf smashed through the wall, bricks and debris erupting in a cloud of choking dust.
"Get up! Move!"
Huan Tian roared as he dragged Lin Qingqing to her feet. Together they charged into the dust cloud, fleeing for their lives. Fortunately, their fully enclosed tactical helmets shielded their eyes. Without them, that dust would've blinded them, and they'd already be dead.
Behind them, Luo Mai's howls grew more frenzied, more triumphant. That single moment of delay had let him close a dangerous amount of distance. Half his face, already distorted by the spreading mutation, twisted into a monstrous grin.
He started grabbing anything within reach—broken boards, chunks of rubble, even pieces of furniture—and hurled them forward with lethal force, aiming to crush them where they ran.
Huan Tian didn't even have time to look back. He clenched his teeth and relied purely on the whistle of air to judge the direction and timing of each attack. Sweat streamed from his forehead, only to be blown away by the rushing wind before it could even reach his eyes.
[Current Nightmare Ammo - Tier 1: 35 rounds remaining]
[34]
[33]
[32]
…
The numbers ticked down rapidly.
And behind them, Luo Mai's footsteps thundered closer, like the pounding of a war drum announcing death.
Huan Tian ran at full speed, hands moving like lightning as he pulled spare nightmare Ammo from his belt and slammed them into the magazine. But the emotionless system broadcast echoing in his ears made his heart grow heavier with every word.
The back-to-back battles had left him with barely any time to extract Tier-1 Nightmare Crystals from the corpses. All the ones he'd stockpiled earlier had already been converted into ammo—now even that reserve was nearly gone.
"We're almost there! Just around that corner—it's the maintenance access tunnel!"
Lin Qingqing, breath ragged and face flushed, pointed ahead while narrowly dodging a smashed coffee table that flew past them. Huan Tian yanked her to the side just in time, the debris exploding behind them.
But he shook his head coldly. "We can't head in directly. If we do, that thing might charge straight through and bring the whole tunnel down on us."
"Then what do we do?!" Lin Qingqing's voice cracked, her face turning pale as fear surged through her.