Chapter 29 Breaking Through
The eerie chewing sound from the walkie-talkie continued, and everyone in the underground tunnel remained silent, their gazes fixed on the direction of the walkie-talkie.
“Cover me.”
Liu Haoyu, holding a fire axe, walked towards the walkie-talkie, with Ma Jianhua by his side. The police officers behind them held their handguns, ever vigilant for any unknown monsters lurking in the darkness.
Under the watchful eyes of the police, Ma Jianhua reached the walkie-talkie. He picked it up and checked the number on it. This walkie-talkie did not belong to Wang Wenqi, but Ma Jianhua was unsure who was calling for help from the other end. Just as he was about to try and communicate, Liu Haoyu pressed his wrist, signaling him with a gesture.
“Don’t respond…”
Seeing Liu Haoyu’s gesture, Ma Jianhua understood what he meant. Just then, the chewing sound from the walkie-talkie abruptly stopped. It was replaced by a sticky sound, like a wet rag being dragged across the floor. Was the monster on the other end dragging a corpse? Or was the corpse moving on its own?
Ma Jianhua’s expression was extremely serious. He seemed to feel the sound from the walkie-talkie becoming clearer and clearer, as if… the sound was right above his head.
“Drip… drip…”
As this thought crossed his mind, everyone heard a crisp dripping sound. Liu Haoyu was the first to look up, his flashlight beam illuminating the tunnel ceiling. Hanging there was half a human head, chewed beyond recognition. What was dripping down was not blood, but sticky brain matter. Seeing the police officer’s head startled several officers, making their faces turn pale.
Ma Jianhua remained relatively calm. He held his handgun, picked up a stone, and threw it. The stone hit the head precisely. After a shake, the head fell to the ground. Ma Jianhua and Liu Haoyu walked over to the head. Liu Haoyu, seeing that it was not Wang Wenqi’s head, asked first, “Do you know this police officer?”
“…” Ma Jianhua was silent for a moment before saying, “He’s Zhang Liuming from the Armed Police Corps… we played basketball together not too long ago.”
Liu Haoyu didn’t ask further. Just then, eerie crawling sounds came from all directions, as if someone was dragging half their body on the floor, inching forward. What was even more alarming was that these horrifying sounds also appeared from the direction they had come.
“Defend in place!”
Ma Jianhua decided instantly, ordering three officers to form a defensive circle with their backs to each other. They held their police handguns, but their expressions were grim. After all, the armed police who carried micro-rifles and shotguns were now missing and their fate was unknown, let alone them who only carried handguns.
The tactical flashlights illuminated the surroundings as much as possible, but the areas not illuminated appeared even darker. The crawling sounds grew closer and clearer. Finally, at the edge of the light beams, the group clearly saw rows of decaying corpses, like something out of a zombie movie. These corpses’ faces were so rotted that only their skulls remained, with remnants of flesh hanging on the skeletons, ready to fall off at any moment. Due to the severe degree of decay, they could only crawl laboriously on the ground. However, even so, surrounded from all sides, the pressure they exerted was immense.
As the foul odor grew closer, Ma Jianhua couldn’t hold back any longer and pulled the trigger.
“Open fire!”
Gunshots rang out continuously, hitting the corpses and producing dull thuds. But apart from creating a few holes in them, the bullets couldn’t even stop their advance. Coupled with the relatively slow rate of fire and less power of handguns, Ma Jianhua and the others could only watch helplessly as these corpses gradually surrounded them.
“What are these things?!”
As Ma Jianhua emptied his magazine, he began to reload.
“I’ve been grabbed!”
Just then, a young police officer suddenly screamed. His ankle was grabbed by a hand that had emerged from a drainage ditch, and he couldn’t break free. Fortunately, Liu Haoyu was right beside him. The fire axe in his hand flashed, instantly severing the pale arm into two pieces. He looked at these grotesque corpses, seemingly realizing something. These must be flesh puppets created by ghouls. Moreover, judging by the tattered old-fashioned clothes on them, these corpses must have been exhumed from graves.
“Captain Ma, what should we do!?”
Facing the shrinking encirclement, the three police officers were filled with despair. If they had heavy weapons, they might have been able to blow these flesh puppets to smithereens. But the problem was… they didn’t! Against these mindless, brainless flesh monsters, their handguns were no different from burning sticks.
“Follow me!”
Liu Haoyu then said to the four police officers behind him. “I’ll clear the way, you keep up!” With that, Liu Haoyu handed the fire axe to Captain Ma and took out a skull-crushing hammer he had kept in his backpack. The moment he took out the skull-crushing hammer, this weapon carved a curve in Liu Haoyu’s hand and heavily smashed into the head of the foremost flesh puppet. With just one blow, the flesh puppet’s head exploded like a watermelon, splattering fetid liquid and dark purple rotten flesh everywhere.
Liu Haoyu compared the number of flesh puppets at the entrance and deeper within the tunnel and finally decided to head further into the tunnel. The flesh puppets at the entrance had almost filled the entire tunnel mouth. A few Talismans of Zhenlei (Zhenlei Talisman) would be impossible to blow them away, so it was better to go deeper and perhaps meet up with Wang Wenqi and the others. Assuming they were still alive…
“Boom, boom, boom!!”
Five Talismans of Zhenlei landed in the horde of corpses, creating a series of lightning strikes that, like explosions, tore open a gap in the encirclement in an instant.
“Hurry!”
Liu Haoyu led the way, charging at the front, dodging the grasping claws with a sidestep, and with the hammer head, he mercilessly smashed into the foreheads of the flesh puppets. Captain Ma was also a tough guy. After taking Liu Haoyu’s fire axe, he voluntarily took the rear position of the team. Facing the pursuit of the rotting corpses behind them, the fire axe in his hand seemed to split the heads of the rotting corpses in half with almost every swing, as easily as cutting grass. Even so, the encirclement of rotting corpses was still tightening around them. Liu Haoyu, leading the charge at the front, sustained a few wounds after prolonged combat. Captain Ma’s clothes at the rear of the team were torn, leaving only a few strips of cloth, and his body was covered in scratches. Fortunately, however, open areas were now visible ahead. As long as they could escape to that place, they would be completely free from the rotting corpses behind them.
