34: Chapter 34 Blood-Red Garage

Blood gushed out from between Li Na's fingers.

Commander Lin Dong pressed his hand against her shoulder, dragging her behind the rear of a military humvee. A bullet had struck her upper right arm—a through-and-through wound, but the brachial artery was ruptured. A bright red warning pulsed on his interface: [Blood Loss Rate: 3.2ml/s, Remaining Safe Time: 4 minutes 20 seconds].

“Press down here.” He forced Li Na's hand onto a spot three centimeters above the wound with such strength that she gasped in pain. “Press hard, don't let go.”

Outside, the gunfire began to thin out.

Commander Lin Dong leaned out from above the humvee's tire, quickly scanning the battlefield. They were on level B2 of the underground garage, where one hundred and twenty load-bearing pillars carved the space into a grid. His side held the southeast corner, with the Red Alert Outpost Base just thirty meters behind them—the twenty-two-meter-long silver-grey heavy truck was emitting a faint blue glow, its body covered in dense energy circuits that looked like the veins of a living creature.

Deployment Progress: 68%.

Thirty-two percent to go.

Meanwhile, the enemies—forty-seven convicts who had escaped from the North Suburb Prison—were flanking them from the northwest and north. They had twelve firearms: three double-barreled shotguns, two Type 54 replicas, while the rest were armed with machetes and steel pipes.

But the biggest trouble was their leader.

Commander Lin Dong pulled up his interface and zoomed in. Target: [Zhang Biao], Lv.5, Strength 18, Agility 9, Constitution 15. Talent: [Berserk Strength]—In a burst state, Strength increases to 26 points for 8 seconds, with a 120-second cooldown.

Earlier, that convict had punched right through the sheet metal door of a van.

“Company Commander.” Eight meters to the right, Wang Lei Wang Lei whispered urgently, “Only seventeen rounds left.”

Commander Lin Dong didn't look back. “Swap magazines and wait for my signal.”

He did some quick mental math. On his side, there were six people in total including himself: three active-duty soldiers, one Communications Soldier Li Na, and two college students they had picked up from the roadside—those two were currently huddled behind a scrapped Santana, heads in their hands and shivering, completely unreliable.

Weapons: two Type 95s, one police revolver (Li Na's), and four grenades. Total ammunition: 43 rounds left for the Type 95s and 6 for the revolver.

Enemies: forty-seven, eleven of whom were armed with guns, and that Strength-type Esper leading them.

The firepower ratio between them was roughly 8:1.

Time window: The base vehicle still needed 19 minutes to complete deployment, and the enemy could launch a second charge at any moment.

Commander Lin Dong closed his eyes, and a 3D model of the entire garage level appeared in the darkness—he had scanned it once when they arrived this morning. The positions of every pillar, the distribution of vehicles, fire hydrants, and electrical boxes were all etched into his mind.

“Wang Lei.” He opened his eyes. “How many cars are in your direction?”

“Seven. Three sedans and four SUVs. The fuel tanks are facing...”

“Don't worry about the orientation,” Commander Lin Dong interrupted. “Take Little Li and circle around to their flank through passage B5. When you hear my shot, trigger every alarm you can find.”

Wang Lei was stunned. “But Commander, that will attract even more...”

“There's no one left within a kilometer,” Commander Lin Dong's voice was as calm as if he were reporting the weather. “That wave of buses just now lured away all the zombies within a three-kilometer radius. This place is currently a vacuum. Go, move fast.”

Wang Lei gritted his teeth and patted the Private named Little Li next to him. The two of them vanished into the darkness, hugging the shadows of the support pillars.

Commander Lin Dong adjusted Li Na's hand; the blood between her fingers had already congealed into a dark red gel.

“Hold on for three more minutes,” he said.

Li Na's face was as white as paper, and her lips were parched and peeling, but her eyes remained clear. “Commander, my interface... the blood loss rate has dropped to 1.7.”

Commander Lin Dong glanced at it. Her Spirit attribute had jumped from 6.2 to 7.8 and was rising at a rate of 0.1 every ten seconds.

Interesting.

But there was no time to dwell on it. He tucked Li Na's police revolver into his back waistband and added, “No matter what you hear later, don't show your head.”

Then he stood up, Type 95 in hand, and moved toward the southwest.

Only a third of the lights in the underground garage were still functioning. The sickly pale fluorescent tubes cast shadows that stretched and shrank erratically. Commander Lin Dong stepped over shattered glass and abandoned suitcases, circling behind a pillar with a diameter of 1.2 meters.

Thirty-five meters directly ahead was the enemy's main assembly point—a triangular formation formed by three buses.

Numbers flickered on his interface: Distance 37m, Wind Southeast 2.3m/s, Humidity 62%, Temperature 19°C.

At a distance of 37 meters, bullet drop was negligible. However, the target was behind a bus, with only half a head exposed.

He activated Sniper Mode. The interface locked onto the nearest gunman—a man with a crew cut wearing a grey jacket, holding a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun. Target exposure area: 0.23 square meters. Aim point: Right eye socket.

He pulled the trigger halfway.

Then he saw Zhang Biao.

The Strength-type Esper stepped out from behind a bus, carrying a piece of rebar as thick as a wrist. The tip of the rebar was stained with blood—it was unclear which unlucky soul it belonged to.

Zhang Biao stood in the clearing between the three vehicles, his gaze sweeping over the area where Commander Lin Dong was hiding. At 43 meters, a normal person wouldn't be able to see his expression clearly, but Commander Lin Dong's interface captured the detail—the corner of his mouth twitched into a smirk.

Then Zhang Biao raised the rebar and pointed it at Commander Lin Dong's position.

“Come out and talk,” his voice was gruff, echoing through the hollow garage. “I just want to ask one thing. That truck... what is it?”

Commander Lin Dong didn't move.

“Stop pretending, my brothers saw it. That thing crawled out of thin air. You think I’m a fucking idiot?” Zhang Biao took a step forward. “It's the apocalypse; everyone has some tricks. I can kill a zombie with one punch, and you clearly have something too. That truck was summoned by your ability, wasn't it?”

Commander Lin Dong's finger remained resting on the trigger.

“I'll give you a chance.” Zhang Biao shouldered the rebar. “Hand over that truck, and you people can leave. I, Zhang Biao, keep my word.”

“And then?” Commander Lin Dong finally spoke.

“And then?” Zhang Biao laughed out loud. “Then I'll use it to trade for food, women, and territory. It's the apocalypse, understand? The one with the biggest fist calls the shots.”

“Your fist isn't that big,” Commander Lin Dong said.

Zhang Biao's smile froze for 0.3 seconds.

Now.

Commander Lin Dong pulled the trigger.

The gunshot ricocheted between the pillars, turning into a rolling thunder. The man he had aimed at collapsed instantly, a mist of blood exploding from his left eye socket.

At the same instant, Commander Lin Dong had already darted out from behind the pillar, sprinting toward a pickup truck five meters to his front-right.

Bullets chased him, striking the concrete floor and sending fragments grazing his calf. The interface displayed: [HP -7, Minor Abrasion].

He dove behind the pickup just as car alarms began to blare—Wang Lei had made his move.

The anti-theft systems of three cars screamed simultaneously, creating a piercing cacophony in the empty garage. Half of the convicts, just recovering from the shock, instinctively turned their heads toward the source of the noise.

Commander Lin Dong stood up and fired three consecutive shots.

Two more went down.

The remaining men finally reacted and began frantically pouring fire toward his position. Slugs from the double-barreled shotguns slammed into the pickup, leaving fist-sized dents. Commander Lin Dong ducked back, listening to the whistle of shrapnel flying over his head.

Interface count: 27 rounds remaining. 44 enemies remaining, 8 of whom are armed with guns.

Zhang Biao's roar drowned out the gunfire and alarms: “Charge! He's alone! Catch him and I'll skin him alive!”

Commander Lin Dong swapped magazines.

Footsteps approached from three directions, the closest being less than twenty meters away.

He peeked out from the left side of the pickup—two convicts with machetes were creeping closer by the pillars. One of them was the Man with Glasses who had run away earlier. One lens of his glasses was shattered, and his face wore a complex expression of both terror and excitement.

Commander Lin Dong raised his gun and fired a shot, hitting the thigh of the man next to him. That man collapsed with a scream, and the Man with Glasses instantly dropped to the ground, scrambling backward on all fours.

But from another direction, three gunmen had already advanced to within fifteen meters.

Commander Lin Dong ducked back and took a deep breath.

He needed precise timing.

On the interface, Wang Lei's GPS signal was moving rapidly. The two soldiers were following the plan, circling through passage B5 to reach the second preset point behind the enemy.

They still needed thirty seconds.

Commander Lin Dong had to survive those thirty seconds.

He pulled his last grenade from his waist and pulled the pin, but he didn't throw it immediately. He held it in his hand, counting down.

Three seconds. The enemy's footsteps were closer.

Two seconds. He could hear heavy breathing just behind the pillar.

One second.

Commander Lin Dong stood up abruptly and threw the grenade like a baseball in a flat arc, slamming it into the side of the bus—not at the crowd, but at the bus's fuel cap.

The grenade bounced off the metal and landed under the vehicle.

Boom.

[part:gemini-3.1-flash-lite]

The explosion overturned the rear of the bus. The fuel tank didn't explode, but the tires flew off, and the chassis collapsed, forming a ramp.

The three closest gunmen were knocked to the ground by the shockwave.

Commander Lin Dong didn't wait for them to crawl up; he rushed out from behind the pickup truck, shouldered his Type 95, and fired in continuous bursts. Three shots, three people, all hitting their torsos—he had no time to aim for their heads.

The magazine was empty.

He threw the gun aside and drew the revolver from his lower back.

Six rounds left.

The nearest enemy was only seven meters away. That man had just crawled up from the ground, his face covered in blood, brandishing a knock-off Type 54.

Both of them fired at the same time.

Commander Lin Dong felt a heat in his left shoulder, and the panel popped up: 【HP-28, penetrating wound to left shoulder, muscle tissue damage 17%】.

A bloody hole appeared in the center of that man's forehead, and he fell straight backward.

Commander Lin Dong staggered a step, his left arm almost unable to lift. He gripped the gun with his right hand and continued counting: five rounds left.

Zhang Biao arrived.

That Strength-type Esper charged over, stepping on the wreckage of the bus; his speed was twice as fast as an ordinary person—a bonus from 18 points of Agility. He raised a threaded steel bar above his head and smashed it down from mid-air.

Commander Lin Dong dove to the right, and the steel bar slammed into the spot where he had just been standing, shattering the concrete floor into fist-sized chunks.

Zhang Biao couldn't pull back his momentum in time. Commander Lin Dong rolled over on the ground, pressed the revolver against his knee, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet went in, but Zhang Biao only let out a muffled grunt, his knee not even bending. His panel displayed: Constitution 15, damage reduction 30%.

This shot only took away 42 HP, while his total health was 380.

Zhang Biao grinned ferociously and swung the steel bar horizontally.

Commander Lin Dong blocked with his right arm—not a hard block, but using his arm to guide the steel bar and change its direction, while simultaneously using the force to roll backward. The revolver flew out of his hand and landed three meters away.

The steel bar grazed his scalp, taking a lock of hair with it.

Zhang Biao pulled back the steel bar, preparing for a second strike.

But he suddenly stopped.

His gaze passed over Commander Lin Dong and looked toward the rear—the direction of the base vehicle.

Commander Lin Dong didn't look back. He heard it.

The sound of an engine.

A low, heavy engine roar, the sound of tracks crushing gravel.

Was that... a tank?

No, not a tank. It was a lighter armored vehicle, but in this underground garage, that sound was enough to make anyone's scalp tingle.

The ferocious grin on Zhang Biao's face turned into astonishment.

A military green infantry fighting vehicle drove out from the shadows behind the base vehicle, the Red Alert logo on the vehicle body emitting a faint red light.

Was that... summoned by the system?

No, that wasn't right.

Commander Lin Dong realized in an instant—it wasn't a summon. This vehicle had been parked deep in the underground garage all along, as reserve equipment for the military camp. Had the explosion and gunfire just now shaken its anti-theft system awake?

But regardless, it had moved.

The autocannon on the roof turned slowly, its muzzle aimed at Zhang Biao.

Zhang Biao dropped the steel bar and turned to run.

He was fast; 18 points of Agility let him dart away like a cheetah. But that autocannon was faster than him.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—

A short burst, 25mm shells.

Zhang Biao's body flew out like a broken sack, slamming into the bus and creating a human-shaped dent in the metal plating.

The numbers on his panel flickered wildly on Commander Lin Dong's retina: HP 380→210→47→0.

【Target terminated】

Commander Lin Dong lay on the ground, gasping for air.

The engine noise stopped.

The infantry fighting vehicle cut its engine and sat quietly in place, as if everything that had just happened was a hallucination.

The remaining prisoners either ran or knelt. In less than ten seconds, the B2 level quieted down, leaving only the wailing of car alarms.

Commander Lin Dong struggled to climb up; the pain in his left shoulder made his vision go black.

He staggered back to the rear of the hummer vehicle.

Li Na was still there, she was still pressing on her wound, but her complexion had become transparently pale. The panel displayed: Blood loss rate 0.3 ml/s, remaining safe time... 8 minutes.

Commander Lin Dong crouched down, took a look at her pupils, and then squeezed her fingertips.

The slow capillary refill time indicated she couldn't hold on much longer.

"Commander..." Li Na's voice was like a mosquito, "That vehicle..."

"Don't speak." Commander Lin Dong tore open the first aid kit and used a tourniquet to tighten her upper arm again, "You need a blood transfusion."

"Type AB..." Li Na's lips moved, "It's written... on my panel..."

Commander Lin Dong froze.

Type AB.

He wasn't.

Among those three soldiers, Wang Lei was Type O, Xiao Li was Type B, and the remaining one was Type A.

The two college students? One was sprawled on the ground having wet his pants, the other was chanting Amitabha with his eyes closed—no need to ask, the probability of being Type AB was less than one in ten.

In the entire garage, the only ones who might have Type AB blood were those corpses and prisoners.

Commander Lin Dong stood up and walked toward the vicinity of the bus.

He turned over the first corpse—Type A.

The second—Type O.

The third—Type B.

The fourth was the Man with Glasses, who wasn't dead yet and was groaning while clutching his thigh. Commander Lin Dong dragged him up: "What's your blood type?"

The Man with Glasses looked at him blankly.

"Blood type!" Commander Lin Dong roared.

"Type... Type B..."

Commander Lin Dong dropped him and continued searching.

Time passed minute by minute.

At the eighth minute, he found it.

That gunman he had shot in the eye socket, the body was already starting to cool. But on the panel, it was clearly displayed: 【Blood Type: AB】.

Commander Lin Dong drew the field knife from his waist, cut open the deceased's sleeve, and found the median cubital vein. Then he took out the blood transfusion device from the first aid kit—a military single-person field blood transfusion kit, PVC tubing, with a needle at each end.

He stuck one end into the deceased's vein.

Dark red blood flowed into the tube.

He stuck the other end into the back of Li Na's left hand.

Li Na's body trembled slightly.

The panel began to flicker: 【Blood transfusion rate 8ml/min, estimated hemoglobin recovery to safety line in 5 minutes】.

Commander Lin Dong sat down on the ground with a thud.

The wound on his left shoulder was still bleeding, but on his panel, that line of red warning finally turned yellow.

He raised his head and looked at the infantry fighting vehicle.

It sat quietly in the shadows, its cannon barrel still pointing in the direction of Zhang Biao's corpse.

On the vehicle body, there was a row of white serial numbers: ZBD-03 07-514.

A military camp vehicle.

But who had started its engine?

Commander Lin Dong braced himself against the ground and stood up, walking toward the vehicle step by step.

Upon getting closer, he saw—the cockpit was empty.

Only a palm-sized screen on the center console was flickering. There was only one line of text on the screen:

【Friendly unit detected, automatic defense program activated. Energy remaining: 3%. Connect to main base system?】

Below, there were two options.

【Yes / No】

Commander Lin Dong's pupils constricted slightly.

Before he could tap it, the base vehicle behind him suddenly emitted a low hum.

The panel popped up a notification: 【base vehicle deployment progress: 100%. Red Alert Outpost Base has been built. Compatible vehicle detected nearby, recycle and retrofit?】

Commander Lin Dong turned around.

The silver-gray base vehicle had changed its appearance—it had deployed into a micro-base covering five hundred square meters; the outline of the Barracks, the chimneys of the power plant, and the prototype of the radar antenna were gradually becoming clear in the blue light.

And beside the hummer vehicle next to Li Na, stood a person he had never seen before.

Gray-green uniform, helmet, automatic rifle.

The person turned around and gave Commander Lin Dong a standard military salute.

"Report, Commander." He said, his voice devoid of emotion, "Conscript number 001, reporting for duty. May I ask, does that wounded person require medical transport?"

Commander Lin Dong opened his mouth, unsure of what to ask first.

Just then, a flurry of dense footsteps suddenly came from the garage entrance in the distance.

Not zombies—those footsteps were rhythmic and powerful; they were trained people.

A voice came from the darkness: "Listen, people inside, we are the Beiling City Armed Police Detachment! Drop your weapons and put your hands on your heads!"

Commander Lin Dong didn't move.

He just looked at that "Conscript," then at that infantry fighting vehicle, and finally at Li Na lying on the ground—her blood transfusion was still ongoing, but her eyes had opened at some point, and she was looking at him with a strange expression.

"Commander..." Her voice was a bit stronger than before, "I... just saw... inside that vehicle... there was something..."

"What something?"

"Like... like a human shadow. Transparent. He was smiling at me..."

Before she could finish, she fainted.

Commander Lin Dong turned his head sharply to look at the infantry fighting vehicle.

The cockpit was still empty.

But the screen on the center console had gone black.

【End of Chapter】