86: Chapter 86 "Take your men and get out of my territory."

The convoy continued to advance.

The vehicles were half-filled with alcohol, cigarettes, and luxury handbags.

They encountered a few scattered zombies along the way.

Shen Qingyue sat in the command vehicle without even opening the door.

She raised her hand.

Boxes of bullets and grenades appeared out of thin air.

The soldiers rushed out and cleared them away quickly.

A young soldier dug out a gray crystal core and handed it to her with both hands.

"Captain Shen, a crystal core!"

Shen Qingyue didn't take it.

She simply wiped her fingertips with a wet wipe and said indifferently, "Be faster next time."

The soldier's face turned red, as if he had been personally complimented by a queen.

The way the other soldiers looked at her changed.

In the apocalypse, whoever could conjure bullets was like a god.

A young soldier lowered his voice.

"Supply Truck No. 3 still hasn't arrived; it's really strange."

An older soldier beside him smacked the back of his head.

"Why are you worrying about that?"

"Following Captain Shen is more reliable than following the logistics warehouse."

"Before, wars relied on ammunition; now, they rely on Captain Shen's hand."

As he spoke, he patted the LV box in his arms.

"See this? I got it for my girlfriend."

Captain Han Xue looked at the items in the truck bed.

She only felt it was absurd.

Two o'clock in the afternoon.

The convoy arrived at Jiangcheng University.

On the school gate, the "Welcome Freshmen" banner was half-smeared with blood.

As the wind blew, the fabric stuck to the iron gate, making a wet flapping sound.

The campus was very quiet.

So quiet that it didn't seem like there were any living people.

"Something is wrong here," Captain Han Xue said.

"There are no corpses at the entrance, and there are drag marks."

"In the past, you caught petty thieves at best. This is the apocalypse; if you don't understand, shut up."

"Stand in the back and learn."

Shen Qingyue walked right past her to the school gate.

"Clean up the trash."

"And see if there are any flowers worth picking along the way."

Who she really wanted to find was Chu Feng.

The Sun God.

She remembered his name, the location, and that this person was very strong.

The number of zombies in the teaching building far exceeded expectations.

When the first wave rushed out, the formation was almost torn apart.

"Open fire!"

Gunfire erupted.

A soldier pulled the trigger, but only heard the sound of an empty chamber.

He instinctively reached for a spare magazine, but touched a bottle of red wine instead.

He froze.

The next second, a zombie lunged at him.

A comrade beside him shot the zombie's head off and dragged him backward.

Shen Qingyue frowned.

"Chili spray, redeem."

Boxes of spray appeared out of thin air.

She ordered her men to throw the sprays into the hallway.

An irritating odor exploded.

Mutated zombies had poor eyesight, but their sense of smell was sharper than a dog's.

Struck by the pungent odor, the zombies in the hallway were forced into the lobby.

"Grenades!"

Boom!

Boom!

Corpse parts splattered.

Shen Qingyue had seen Lin Yuan's people use this tactic in her previous life.

But Lin Yuan used industrial stockpiles, terrain positioning, and tiered firepower.

She had only copied the noise.

The original was called tactics.

The pirated version was called pay-to-win.

In just over ten minutes, more than half of the hundred or so crystal cores were consumed.

The sounds of battle pushed all the way to the Library square.

In the center of the square was a half-collapsed fountain.

The ground was cracked with fissures.

Just as Shen Qingyue was about to order a search of the Library, boom!

The area beneath the fountain suddenly collapsed.

A black monster rushed out from underground.

It had long, thin limbs, and bone spurs protruding from its back.

The soldiers immediately opened fire.

But before the bullets could get close, they were deflected as if crushed by an invisible heavy hammer, embedding themselves slanted into the ground.

Shen Qingyue's pupils constricted.

It wasn't that its skin was tough.

It was that the gravity field around it was distorting the trajectory of the bullets.

Three words from Lin Yuan's notes flashed through her mind: Spine-Breaker.

A branch of the B-rank [Earth-element] Mutant.

Its entire body was wrapped in a gravity field, and its limbs were "stretched" to maintain balance.

The bone spurs on its back were actually the result of its spine being forced to burst outward when it couldn't withstand the vertical pressure.

Lin Yuan had only said one thing at the time:

"This thing is very troublesome; don't let it get into the crowd."

Now, it was right in the middle of her crowd.

Rifles opened fire.

Bullets hit the monster's skin, only sparking.

The Spine-Breaker swiped its claw.

Three soldiers were cut in half on the spot.

The veteran, left with only half a body, was still muttering: "Hot pot... it would have been better if I'd switched to a magazine..."

Before he could finish, he was gone.

After the three fell, the area was temporarily empty, and two grenades were thrown.

But the Spine-Breaker wasn't like a normal zombie; it dodged the explosion by moving sideways and turned to lunge into the crowd.

Boom! Boom!

The two explosions were wasted.

The Zombie Horde was also drawn back by the sound of the explosions.

Caught in a pincer attack, the formation collapsed instantly.

Captain Han Xue roared into the channel: "Where is Supply Truck No. 3! Get over here! We need to replenish ammunition!"

There was silence in the channel for two seconds.

Then came the reply authorized by Director Li Wenhui:

"Captain Shen possesses divine skills."

"Please resolve it on the spot."

"Reduce unnecessary waste of military district resources."

Captain Han Xue gripped the walkie-talkie, her teeth clenched.

When Shen Qingyue heard this, her expression changed completely.

"Director Li Wenhui!"

"You dare to plot against me!"

The Spine-Breaker lunged again.

Shen Qingyue frantically threw all her remaining crystal cores into the store.

But there were too many things in the store.

She didn't know what to buy to save her own life.

Grenades.

Bullet boxes.

Flashbangs.

Fishing nets.

Stockings.

Condoms.

A pile of things fell at her feet out of thin air.

Chaos.

It was too chaotic.

She wanted to grab a grenade, but tripped over a fishing net.

The command vehicle was smashed by a swipe of the Spine-Breaker's claw.

The air blast knocked her over.

Her snow-white combat uniform rolled into the muddy water.

She looked up.

The monster's claw was already raised.

In that instant, she suddenly remembered Lin Yuan standing in front of the Zombie Horde, coordinating his men, while she sat in the back waiting for the results.

She used to despise the smell of blood on Lin Yuan.

Now that she finally stood in Lin Yuan's position, she realized she couldn't even hold out for a minute.

She was no queen.

She was just a woman who didn't know how to fight without Lin Yuan.

"Captain Shen!"

Li Cheng roared as he rushed over.

His right arm metalized, forming a shield.

Bang!

The Spine-Breaker slammed its claw down.

The metal shield cracked.

Li Cheng knelt halfway on the ground, blood from his severed arm dripping down the metal cracks.

His first reaction wasn't to scream in pain, but to look back at Shen Qingyue.

"Captain Shen... run..."

Shen Qingyue only stumbled backward, her gaze passing over him to look at the Spine-Breaker.

She didn't even ask about his injury.

In her eyes, wasn't it expected for her subordinates to die for her?

The Spine-Breaker raised its claw again.

Just then, a flash of fire erupted from the roof of the Library.

A voice smashed down from above.

"Get lost!"

"You ugly monster!"

A spear of flame descended from the sky.

Boom!

The spear pinned the Spine-Breaker's giant claw, pressing it firmly to the ground.

At the same time, the grenades at Shen Qingyue's feet were detonated by the high heat.

The explosion kicked up dirt.

The flames swallowed half the square.

A figure leaped from the roof.

Flames burned around him.

Approaching zombies were burned to ash.

Behind him was a team of survivors.

A young man with a rapier pierced a zombie's eye socket.

A girl in a ponytail with a compound bow made continuous precision kills.

A tall, thin man threw a javelin, pinning the knee of an elite zombie.

They didn't shout.

They weren't chaotic.

Everyone knew exactly where they should stand.

Chu Feng landed and grabbed the Spine-Breaker's bone spurs with both hands.

The flames burned into the monster along his arms.

The Spine-Breaker roared.

Chu Feng was bleeding too.

Yet, he didn't retreat a single step.

"Don't come over!"

"It's mine!"

He took a claw hit on his shoulder and backhanded the flames into the monster's mouth.

Boom!

Half of the Spine-Breaker's head exploded.

Finally, he hugged the monster's neck and exerted force with both arms.

Crack.

The bone broke.

The square fell silent.

Chu Feng knelt on the monster's corpse and dug out a yellow crystal core.

B-rank.

He didn't look at Shen Qingyue.

He walked to Li Cheng first.

"Your arm is ruined, but you're still alive."

Chu Feng rummaged through his tattered backpack, took out some herbs, and pressed them onto the wound of the severed arm.

"Bite on this."

Li Cheng looked at him, his lips trembling.

Chu Feng slapped him across the face.

"Don't be a sissy."

"If you want to live, bite down."

Li Cheng bit down on the cloth strip.

The herbs were pressed in.

He trembled all over from the pain, but he didn't scream again.

Shen Qingyue stood up.

She wiped the mud off her face and straightened her damaged combat uniform.

She couldn't lose face.

Especially not in front of Chu Feng.

She walked up to Chu Feng.

"My name is Shen Qingyue."

"I am from the South Suburb Military District."

"Your strength is not bad."

"I allow you to join my team."

The girl with the ponytail laughed on the spot.

"Join you?"

"To be cannon fodder?"

She raised her compound bow and pointed it at the broken soldiers all over the ground.

"You hide in the back, conjuring junk, and let others die for you."

"Do you even deserve to be a leader?"

"If it weren't for your reckless commanding, we would have already rounded up the zombies."

Shen Qingyue's face darkened.

"Do you know who I am?"

The girl with the ponytail laughed out loud.

"I know."

"The Queen in White who was almost slapped to death by a monster."

Several survivors laughed out loud.

Shen Qingyue's chest heaved.

She didn't understand.

Shouldn't these Espers crave the protection of the military district?

Shouldn't they bow to her?

In her previous life, her shelter also had dozens of Espers.

She had never thought about it.

In reality, those people didn't come for her.

It was Lin Yuan who carried people back from the Zombie Horde time and time again, distributed food to the fighters time and time again, and stood at the very front time and time again.

Chu Feng stood up.

He wiped his face with his blood-stained hand.

"I protect my companions."

"You use your subordinates."

"We are not the same kind of people."

He looked at Shen Qingyue.

"Take your people and get out of my territory."