Chapter 17
Chapter 17: Eliminating the Bug
The moment Wu Lian Yi’s boots hit the rooftop, the leather-skirt zombie below sniffed hard. Her pupil-less eyes lifted. She turned—exactly toward them.
Then she howled.
Hundreds of zombies crowded around her like a moving wall as she marched toward the only seven-story building on the road. Inside, the people hiding went ghost-white. Curtains yanked shut. Hands clenched around kitchen knives and rusted pipes.
Wu Lian Yi stared down at the target in the center of the formation and felt nothing but disgust.
This thing was like a low-grade cultivation-realm zombie, the bottom rung—and it still dared threaten her. Wu Lian Yi didn’t swallow that kind of insult.
“Sun Wang,” she said, not taking her eyes off the target, “bring me a water-type ability user.”
“Okay!” Sun Wang said instantly, like the answer had never been in doubt.
He vanished.
Less than two minutes later, he reappeared—with Ying Yi.
Wu Lian Yi’s gaze flicked over. Of all people, Captain Eaglewing was water-type.
“Sister Lian Yi, I brought him,” Sun Wang said, then stepped back.
“Captain Eaglewing,” Wu Lian Yi said, direct as a blade, “what’s your water ability’s coverage? Can you hit that whole moving block below?”
Ying Yi assessed the crowding mass. “Barely.”
“Then do it.”
He didn’t argue. He pressed his palms together and formed a small orb of water. Power poured in. The orb swelled, thick and heavy, until it was the size of two wash basins. His face went pale at the strain. At the limit, he hurled it down.
The water smashed into the packed bodies, soaking them in a wave. It splashed and spread—running over shoulders, pooling between broken asphalt and dead feet.
Wu Lian Yi caught Ying Yi as his balance wavered, shoved him back toward Sun Wang, then threw the lightning ball she’d been brewing straight into the soaked mass.
Purple light detonated.
Electricity rode the water like a highway, snapping across wet flesh. Zombies stiffened, then went black. The wall collapsed like dominoes, bodies slamming down in a rolling crash.
Wu Lian Yi’s eyes never left the leather-skirt zombie. It dodged fast—fast enough to survive—but one arm still charred into blackened ruin.
“Sun Wang,” Wu Lian Yi said, already moving, “take the captain back. Don’t come for me. I’ll kill the evolved zombie giving orders and meet you afterward.”
She drew Lei Yao and leapt.
She used gravity like a weapon, blade cutting down toward the target. If she didn’t kill it now, she had no business calling herself Wu Lian Yi.
From the rooftop, Ying Yi watched with a twitching eyelid. Sun Wang looked like a believer staring at a god.
“Captain,” Sun Wang said quickly as he hauled Ying Yi back, “don’t worry. Sister Lian Yi doesn’t fight blind. We noticed something wrong with that zombie while clearing the alley earlier.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He teleported them off the building and back to the command vehicle.
The deputy captain, watching from the convoy, finally exhaled when he saw Ying Yi return safely. That Sun Wang kid had demanded to know who could control water. Ying Yi had barely said “me” before he’d been dragged away.
And Wu Lian Yi—she was a monster. Not just super strength. Lightning too. With Ying Yi’s setup, she’d already killed at least five hundred zombies, and she was still carving through the tide with calm, brutal efficiency.
On the street, Wu Lian Yi stayed locked on the leather-skirt zombie, chasing hard.
The target screamed and summoned level-zero zombies to throw themselves into Lei Yao’s path, but it didn’t matter. Wu Lian Yi’s strikes were too fast, too precise, too merciless. The charred arm flew off under one clean slash.
The zombie shrieked. A chunk of thigh got carved away next.
It finally understood.
It turned to flee, using level-zero zombies as cover.
“Smart,” Wu Lian Yi muttered. “Smarter than I’d like.”
She’d recovered enough to shape another lightning ball. As she fought, she decapitated a zombie with one stroke, then kicked the severed head forward like a cannonball. It slammed into the target’s knee and broke its stride.
Wu Lian Yi sprang forward and flung Lei Yao. The blade punched through the zombie’s chest and pinned it to the ground.
The leather-skirt zombie howled, summoning level-zero zombies around her to build a wall. With her remaining hand, she grabbed the sword, trying to tear it free. The moment her fingers closed on the blade, purple sparks scorched her skin.
Her scream carried across the street.
Wu Lian Yi drove the lightning ball down beside her. It exploded, clearing a clean circle about a meter and a half wide—just enough room to land.
She dropped into that space and stomped the zombie’s ankle, locking her in place. The pinned zombie couldn’t twist around fast enough to counter. She could only keep calling level-zero zombies.
Wu Lian Yi gripped the hilt and yanked. Lei Yao tore free.
The zombie tried to scramble away.
Wu Lian Yi split her skull in one brutal strike.
The body convulsed and went limp. From the cracked head, a white crystal the size of a red date tumbled out.
Level-zero zombies surged toward it in a frenzy, fighting each other for the prize.
Wu Lian Yi didn’t blink. She flicked the crystal core up with Lei Yao’s tip and stored it in her pocket space, then turned back to the remaining zombies and kept cutting.
“The mission target has been fully eliminated,” the communicator said in her ear, voice male and calm. “The apocalypse bug is removed. Mission progress: one-fifth. Please continue your efforts, tasker.”
Wu Lian Yi almost choked on disbelief. One-fifth?
But she’d removed the single biggest hidden threat—one that would have driven the pocket world into ruin. The rest could be done slowly. She wasn’t reckless enough to burn herself out now.
She fought on, a moving storm of steel and force, senses spread wide. Zombies couldn’t stay close for long.
Back at the convoy, Ying Yi watched the chaos and felt a cold fear of Wu Lian Yi being swallowed by the tide. He turned to Sun Wang, who was still recovering. “Go support her.”
“Roger.”
Sun Wang jumped from the command vehicle and teleported straight into the thickest pile.
He appeared beside Wu Lian Yi—and her sword tip stopped at his throat.
“Sister Lian Yi! It’s me—Sun Wang! Your underling!” he yelled, breathless.
In the next beat, Lei Yao slipped past his neck and stabbed through a zombie lunging at him from behind.
“Let’s go,” Wu Lian Yi said, calm as ever. She grabbed his wrist.
Sun Wang triggered teleportation.
They vanished from the ring of dead.
Back at the convoy, Wu Lian Yi ripped off her mask and tossed it aside, disgust in her eyes at the stench clinging to her. “Captain Eaglewing. The evolved zombie is dead.”