The Trembling World
chapter-211

TL: xDh20, LifeisaJourney

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Yin He quietly snuck up from behind and with a single hit to the back of the head, the Variant Zombie fainted. Then with a specialized rope, the Variant Zombie was tied up.

Yin He didn't need to use her [Sleeve Blade] for something so weak. The blunt force to the back of the head was more than enough to kill the Variant, but Yin He held back. She used just the right amount of force to knock the Variant Zombie unconscious.

“This is the Variant Zombie that killed LuChen? Why is it so weak?” Wang DeCheng and Han GuangMing walked up to the Variant Zombie and poked it.

“It's strength is quite weak. LuChen is a level 4 player, but he was ambushed from behind. LuChen didn't even have the time to call out for help. The Variant Zombie was able to camouflage in the surrounding environment. This Variant Zombie was cold blooded and it was hard to catch without a bait. Luckily, we had the chance to capture the infant to force the mother to show herself. If we had to hunt her down without any bait, it would be impossible to even subdue her.”

Liu Gan didn't quite agree with Wang DeCheng and Han GuangMing’s views. Nevertheless it was Yin He who had stolen the baby from the nest, if it were anyone else they would've fallen victim to the hoard. This female Variant Zombie had physiques that looked vaguely familiar to the Tentacle Variant that killed Jiang JinYuan. The arms were similar to the slender Tentacles, but that Tentacle Colossal Variant had two sharp pointed tips in the area where the hand was supposed to be. This female Variant was lacking the offensive tips.

“Elder Liu is right. This creature is quite dangerous. Have you seen a creature that can drain your blood? It caused a great deal of psychological trauma as well. It isn't weak at all, it's just that we don't have any way of countering its guerilla tactics,” Wang DeCheng nodded. He agreed with Liu Gan’s statement, but answered vaguely, since he felt quite awkward saying ‘Little He’ as that was how Liu Gan calls her.

“You said that the Variant was able to drain LuChen’s blood?” Han GuangMing was still skeptical.

Yin He overheard Han GuangMing and she pried open the Variant’s mouth. Inside there was nothing that looked like suction cups.

“When we return to the hotel, we can dissect the Variant after we kill it. Then we’ll know what we were dealing with.” Liu Gan handed the baby over to Yin He and picked up the tied Variant mother, heading towards the direction of the hotel.

Almost immediately Liu Gan’s hypersensitive hearing caught onto loud noises nearby their hotel. It sounded like someone was fighting. Liu Gan quickly increased his speed and they all rushed back to the hotel.

Because the zombies were no longer attracted to the baby's cries as it was stolen, they had begun to wander aimlessly. Some zombies wandered off and came close to the hotel by pure chance. Zhang ShengLi immediately reacted and woke up all the players within the hotel so they could kill off zombies that had gotten too close.

As Liu Gan and others got back, they saw heaps of dead zombies stacked nearby the hotel.

“Oh Elder Liu, you came back? How’s the situation?” Zhang ShengLi rushed over to greet Liu Gan. As the only level 5 player that was left behind - he was curious.

“We caught the Variant that was responsible for the death of LuChen. We also found the source of noise…” Liu Gan simplified his explanation. Liu Gan then called over Xue Jian so he could take on the duty of guarding the baby zombie and the mother Variant.

“Elder Liu. I really don’t know the source of where these zombies have come from. There’s like a never ending stream of zombies. I don’t think we should dwell here any longer, the rain will soon stop. Should we continue on our journey instead?” Zhang ShengLiwas getting worried.

“Yin He took a look at the road up ahead and there were obstacles. These oncoming zombies are very predictable, scattered and quite limited, so they pose no threat. We should take this opportunity to train our members to fight as a group.” Liu Gan decided, and ordered Zhang ShengLi.

Liu Gan had scouted the road ahead prior to this, and discovered that a large amount of time would be required to clear the blockage. Liu Gan saw only two options. One was to abandon the cars along with the food and resources inside them, but that wouldn’t be wise. So if they did what they had done earlier ,with squads on foot moving the cars out of the way, the disadvantage of this option would be that their backs would be turned away from the oncoming zombies. The second option was to arrange the formation to greet the oncoming zombies in a large battle.

Judging from the strength of the group as a whole, fending off the oncoming zombies wouldn’t be a problem. It would be a good training exercise for developing cooperation.

“Ah, if it’s like that then let’s have a good battle!” Zhang ShengLi didn’t have any second thoughts and issued the command to his subordinates.

With each level 5 player, leading their own squad, each player had their own respective duty. A few players in flanks to fight off the scattered zombies, another few to be the rear guard, the rest would be toward the front to hold the frontline. This is the first time, the group was engaging head on with the seemingly endless zombie tide without using fire.

As the sound of swords chopping and bones breaking continued,the noise echoed through the forest and lured more zombies closer to the battleground. This type of battle lasted for two hours until even when daybreak was starting to illuminate the grounds of the hotel. Nearby the hotel, within the forest there were bodies of at least a thousand zombies, looking similar to a scene portrayed from an ancient battle.

The battle wasn’t impossible, as there were several level 5 players to hold down the frontline, and also Liu Gan with Yin He to aid in critical situations. Many of the other team members were more like side characters. But with over a thousand of zombies dead, there were still seven wounded and one dead player.

The one dead player was due to a friendly attack, where a player had mistaken his teammate as a zombie. Of the seven players, five of the injuries were due to careless fighting that inflicted minor wounds onto others. The remaining two injuries were the player’s own fault for panicking, which lead to them getting bitten.

Out of the two bitten players, one had a bite on the shoulder. Even though it wasn’t a deep wound, but nevertheless he was infected. The other player had a bite to his arm but the squad leader in his group reacted fast enough to chop off the bitten arm, thus his alloy wristwatch changed from the red colored [Infected] status to the green colored [Non-Infected] status.

Back when Liu Gan had time for leisure in the real world, he would read novels. Many of the novels, had one common feature - the quality of the support roles of side characters. Liu Gan felt like the writers of those novels would purposely put in side characters that had low IQ, perhaps that way it would exaggerate the intelligence of the main character due to the difference between the characters. But, during that battle, Liu Gan realized that there were quite a few players in his group that had the same attributes of those side characters. Some were performing stupidly, strangely, cowardly, not much more needed to be said about them.

To be injured in this type of battle, they must have been drunk.

After the battle was over, the team members all laid in the hotel recuperating. Even though most weren’t injured, their pain lied not in physical pain, but instead, the emotional pain they were dealing with. Others also felt the heavy atmosphere from the aftereffects of the drawn out fight against the zombies.