Chapter 27 I Shall Fight Too!

Saber could already hear the roar of the Thorn’s engine. His combat skills were originally on par with Wei Tao’s, but his habit of relying on sniper rifles and stealth operations was exactly why he had ended up cornered in the ventilation shaft by the zombies.

Seeing that reinforcements had arrived, Saber no longer felt the need to hide. He thrust his rifle barrel through a gap in the vent, blew the head off a Smasher, then pulled his Type 92 pistol from his chest and vaulted out.

In a sense, Saber could hardly be called a kind man. In his spare time, his most frequent activity was meticulously carving a cross into the tip of his 9mm DAP92 bullets—a crude version of the notorious, internationally banned dum-dum bullet.

Crafting these rounds was deceptively simple: one used a knife to carve a cross into the jacket at the bullet's tip, exposing the lead core. Yet, this seemingly simple task was anything but. If the cross was even slightly off-center, it would ruin the bullet's accuracy. To ensure each round was perfectly marked, Saber had fashioned his own custom set of tools.

When a high-velocity dum-dum bullet strikes a living target, the much higher density of bodily tissue compared to air exerts immense resistance on the projectile. Because lead is soft and somewhat malleable, the exposed core deforms first, forcing the surrounding jacket to tear and flare outward like petals. As the jacket expands, the resistance of the tissue causes it to fold backward, significantly increasing the bullet's diameter. Consequently, as the round spins and bores forward, it creates an ever-widening wound channel. The momentary cavity created by the complete release of the bullet's energy is substantial. When such a round hit a zombie’s head, their skull would explode with a muffled "pop." Smaller zombie dogs were often torn in half instantly. The most miserable, however, were the Smashers; before they could even display their power, they would be crippled by a barrage of fire, only to meet the same inevitable fate of a shattered head.

Saber, in constant high-speed motion, required no deliberate aiming. His hands seemed to possess eyes of their own; any zombie that entered his field of vision was destined for a headshot. Zhao Qiang’s rendezvous with Saber, however, was less pleasant—the gore from a decimated zombie dog nearly splattered all over him.

"Old Meng, how is the situation on your end?" After picking up Saber, Zhao Qiang shifted his focus back to the base.

"We are down to our last line of fire. I don’t know how much longer we can hold," Meng Longwei replied, his voice heavy with dejection.

"We’ve linked up with Saber and are coming to extract you now!" Zhao Qiang said.

There was a long silence on the other end of the radio before Old Meng spoke. "Xiao Zhao, while you still have the chance, pull back."

"Have you lost your mind?" Zhao Qiang urged. "We still have a chance, don't we?"

"What chance? Ask Saber how many Intellects he sniped today and what the result was," Meng Longwei’s tone was filled with profound helplessness.

"We can't just give up! We still have a chance!" Zhao Qiang roared. His mind flashed with the faces of the friends and family he lived with in the bunker: his wife Peng Sha, his younger sister Zou Lin, his mentor Wei Tao, and little Zhang Yu. His heart felt as though it were being sliced by a blade.

"Zhao Qiang, listen to me," Wei Tao intervened. "If we cannot stop the zombie tide, I will collapse the entrance to the bunker. It is our only hope."

"What kind of hope is that! Is burying ourselves alive supposed to be hope?" Zhao Qiang accelerated toward the base. The zombies were mowed down like wheat before a harvester, crushed and mangled by the Thorn, which rocked violently as it plowed through the barricades of corpses.

"The ventilation system in this bunker is far more sophisticated than you realize. Even if I collapse this exit, we will not suffocate. The rubble will block the zombies, and we will search for another way out. You have a more important mission: find a way to neutralize this attack. Remember, only by solving the problem at its source can we truly end this."

"Then what should we do?" Zhao Qiang asked. He knew Wei Tao wouldn't gamble with the lives of over a thousand people. He vividly remembered the cold wind blowing from the bunker when it was first discovered; such a space surely had another exit, but no one knew where it led, or if that exit was just another trap laid by the zombies.

"Focus all your strength on eliminating the remaining Intellects. You must clear them out completely. No more talk—the fire is dying, and I have work to do." Wei Tao decisively cut the connection.

Soon, a muffled boom shook the ground before everything returned to a heavy silence. Judging by the rising smoke, Wei Tao had detonated the explosives at the bunker's entrance.

The team members were consumed with rage. This was the greatest humiliation the Tiger Squad had faced since its inception. What began as a simple rescue mission had ended with their home being overrun by zombies. A base of over a thousand people, with trained soldiers and ample ammunition, had been reduced to a group of survivors chased into a bunker, forced to collapse their own entrance just to halt the advance.

"How do you intend to handle them?" the silent Saber suddenly spoke.

Zhao Qiang finally remembered the students they had rescued earlier; the series of sudden events had made him almost forget their existence.

The students were not fools. They knew exactly what had happened: the sanctuary had fallen, the fate of those inside was unknown, and the rescue team had now become people in need of rescue themselves. The flicker of hope they had just ignited was extinguished by this bucket of cold water.

Hearing Saber’s words, Zhang Jun’s heart leaped into his throat. Saber had also been rescued by the Tiger Squad, but though they knew each other, their relationship seemed far from cordial. Saber sat alone in the last row of the Thorn, his gaze as cold as a blade, constantly sweeping back and forth across the throats of those around him.

"Th-that..." Zhang Jun said, his face flushing red as he stammered, "Can you give me a gun?"

"What do you want a gun for?" Saber’s voice was like a blade, cold enough to pierce the soul.

"I want to fight too!" Zhang Jun did not want to be seen as a disposable burden, nor did he want his companions to be abandoned. It appeared that this group was already overwhelmed.

"What can you do?" A faint trace of a smile appeared at the corners of Saber’s eyes, though the nervous Zhang Jun failed to notice it. "I participated in military training when I entered school. I know how to shoot. I can protect myself and my classmates. Please, don't leave us behind!"