19: Chapter 19 Zombie Anomaly

Mo Yufei was immersed in his grand plan, calculating rapidly in his mind how to corral the city's zombie hordes and strike it rich in one fell swoop.

Just then, a deafening roar suddenly erupted in his ears—not thunder, but the sonic boom of heavy bombers piercing the air.

Mo Yufei looked up abruptly, peering through the narrow, staggered gaps between the buildings of the Urban Village, and clearly saw several camouflage-painted bombers passing slowly overhead like steel behemoths.

The bomb bays under their wings were faintly primed for action.

The noon airstrike had arrived earlier and more directly than expected!

At this moment, the zombie horde gathered on the square outside the Urban Village was dense, forming a suffocating sea of black corpses. The warplanes dove in, locked onto their targets, and unleashed a devastating strike.

The deafening explosions lasted for a full ten minutes. First, artillery fire roared toward the square, followed immediately by rumbling in the distant urban area. The military's high-altitude sweep covered the entire zombie gathering zone, and the smell of gunpowder drifted into the Urban Village with the wind.

By the time the last explosion faded completely and the circling bombers drifted away, leaving only deathly silence and the occasional zombie roar, the surroundings finally returned to calm.

Mo Yufei's tense body slowly relaxed. He silently exited the Urban Village and walked slowly toward the square outside.

Upon reaching the edge of the square, even though he had become a zombie himself, the sight before him still made his heart shudder; the ground was littered with the fragmented remains of corpses.

The once-dense sea of corpses had been razed to the ground by artillery fire, leaving only a few struggling zombies that hadn't been killed.

Mo Yufei dared not step into the center of the square. He hid behind a pile of ruins nearby, his Mental Energy instantly spreading out, locking onto the zombies on the outermost edge of the square that had survived and could still move freely.

His intangible Mental Energy instantly invaded the minds of these low-intelligence zombies, forcibly leaving a soul mark. The next second, these zombies stopped their roaring and obeyed his commands completely.

"Go, rummage through the piles of corpses and find all the crystal cores inside the zombies' skulls."

Mo Yufei issued the order in his heart. The controlled zombies immediately lowered their heads and began to clumsily rummage through the piles of fragmented corpses.

The zombies used their stiff claws to tear apart flesh and remains, finding crystal cores—some transparent, some pale blue—one by one, and precisely tossing them into the hidden corner he had designated.

Throughout the process, he stayed huddled behind his cover, never showing his head or taking a single step out. He controlled everything remotely, remaining both safe and hidden, completely eliminating the risk of being discovered, just waiting for the zombies to finish collecting the crystal cores so he could quietly take all the spoils.

As he had expected, after the artillery fire subsided, the military's reconnaissance drones did not immediately withdraw but continued to circle at high altitude, monitoring and clearing the battlefield.

The scene shifted to the central operations office on Haisha Island.

In the spacious and bright command hall, a huge real-time satellite map occupied the entire wall. Red tactical markers kept jumping on the map, reflecting the progress of the city-wide sweep in real-time.

Military top brass, core government management personnel, and a group of operations staff were gathered in front of the platform, looking solemn.

"Report, no signs of life have been confirmed in the eastern and southern bombing zones. The zombie clearance rate is 98%."

"The zombie tide in the western remnant zone has gathered. Airstrike expected in three minutes."

The reports from the staff came one after another, and the entire combat system operated in an orderly manner.

Just then, a young officer at the console suddenly narrowed his eyes, his fingers hitting the console heavily.

"Wait! Look at the square outside the Urban Village in the northwest of District 6!"

On the screen, a bizarre scene appeared in the previously dead-silent square area.

A few scattered zombies were stiffly moving their feet, like marionettes, precisely rummaging for something amidst the piles of remains.

Even more bizarrely, the movement trajectories of these zombies were surprisingly consistent, cooperating in a way that was both chaotic and unified in pace.

"This is..."

A general frowned, his eyes locked onto the screen.

"Report! Drone footage shows that these zombies are not acting autonomously! Their logic of action is extremely unified; there is an invisible source of command!" the operations officer said urgently.

"And, there is strong, unknown Mental Energy fluctuation interference in the target area!"

The air in the command room instantly froze. The Commander stared at the bizarre scene on the screen, tapped his fingertips heavily on the tabletop, frowned tightly, and spat out four words in a low voice.

"Trouble has arrived."

The room was dead silent. Long before the disaster broke out, the military's top scientists had made multiple predictions about what would happen if zombies continued to evolve.

They might evolve from ordinary zombies to elite zombies, and then to zombies with awakened abilities, but what they feared most was always the final step—intelligence.

If zombies were to develop true intelligence, consciousness, thought, and command ability...

Then it would no longer be a scattered, crazy tide of corpses, but an organized, strategic, and purposeful destructive army.

That would be the true catastrophe of human civilization.

Now, the picture on the screen was a preliminary omen.

"Report!"

The officer's voice was urgent and tense. "The drone is maintaining a lock. That unknown psychic fluctuation is very stable and strong! It is not random interference; it is more like... a specific individual in centralized control!"

The Commander took a deep breath and pointed his finger at the area of psychic fluctuation on the screen.

"If a human is controlling this... that would be fine. The problem is... what if it isn't?"

Everyone in the room fell silent. Scientists had repeatedly conducted experiments, and the conclusion was so cruel it made one's scalp tingle.

Once a crystal core enters the body of an ordinary zombie, it will 100% induce awakening. There is no risk of infection fluctuation like in humans, and no probabilistic berserk state.

As soon as they swallow it, they awaken immediately, at a terrifying speed.

The Chief of Staff sprang from his seat, his face pale to the extreme. He pointed at the flickering, eerie light spot on the real-time map, his voice cracking from excitement as he roared: "Send a drone to scan the source of the Mental Energy. If there are no human vital signs, then immediately! You must destroy him at the first opportunity!"

"No one can keep up with this rate of evolution! If we let him swallow all the crystal cores in the square, given the scale of his Mental Energy just now, then next—"

The Chief of Staff jabbed his finger hard at the map, every word like a heavy hammer.

"He only needs to feed these crystal cores to the ordinary zombies around him one by one! A stronger zombie will be born immediately!"

"By then! An entire city of zombies will become his barracks! Today there are only these few zombies, tomorrow it will be a zombie army!"

"In less than a week, when we go to bomb them again, we won't be facing a scattered horde, but an organized, deadly enemy army with a Commander and tactics!"

In the command room, everyone's breathing became heavy instantly. The Chief of Staff's words painted the most terrifying picture of The Apocalypse.