107: Chapter 107 A Perilous Chase

Amidst the desperate crowd fleeing for their lives, Song Yang quickly locked onto an off-road vehicle that had crashed sideways into a roadside flowerbed.

The car door was open, and the key was still in the ignition; clearly, the owner had abandoned the vehicle in a state of extreme panic.

He dashed over in one stride and dove into the driver's seat.

Song Yang slammed on the gas, roughly shoving aside debris and running people as he sped toward the outskirts of town.

He glanced at the rearview mirror; the black Rat Tide had already engulfed more than half of the town.

"Vroom—" The piercing roar of a motorcycle engine came from behind and to the side; it was Tiger Zhao.

Surprisingly, the motorcycle was barely able to keep up on the dirt road.

Tiger Zhao yelled at Song Yang, his voice torn and intermittent in the wind: "Brother Song! These ghostly things are too fast! We must find a way to evade them!"

With his left hand steadying the steering wheel, Song Yang reached into his jacket with his right and pulled out a folded, yellowed map—a distribution chart of the Official Shelter, with a spot circled in red ink.

"The Official Shelter, the closest one, is about ten kilometers from here!"

Tiger Zhao clearly hadn't expected Song Yang to have such a thing, and he was immediately overjoyed.

"You had this good thing and didn't say so earlier! Damn, following you is definitely the right choice!"

Song Yang ignored his hindsight, jerked the steering wheel, and forced the car to turn toward the location marked on the map.

Tiger Zhao didn't hesitate and immediately followed closely, with his underlings trailing right behind.

The vehicles raced along the uneven dirt road; their headlights tore through the darkness ahead but could not illuminate the shadow constantly closing in from behind.

In the rearview mirror, that river of scarlet light drew ever closer. They had split up; a portion went after other scattered survivors, but a terrifying number remained, biting hard at the heels of their vehicle.

Occasionally, one or two incredibly fast rats would almost latch onto the rear wheel of the motorcycle, only to be kicked away by Tiger Zhao in the nick of time.

Song Yang's face was as calm as water, and he floored the gas pedal.

A Rat King was directing this Rat Tide; their goal was clear, their execution was astonishing, and they would not stop until they achieved their objective.

The Rat King seemed to have sensed Song Yang and his group's intention to escape.

A strike team composed of hundreds of large rats shot out from the ruins on the flank, targeting the four tires of the car that were still spinning at high speed!

These rats were significantly faster than the main force chasing behind the car.

They were slightly smaller in size but appeared more ferocious.

"Damn it! They're going to chew through the tires!"

Tiger Zhao saw it clearly from his motorcycle, and his heart jumped into his throat.

He knew very well that on this dirt road filled with gravel and debris, once the off-road vehicle's tires were ruined, they would completely lose their speed advantage and become a meal for the Rat Tide.

Song Yang grabbed a steel pipe from the passenger seat, wedged one end into the gap between the steering wheel shaft and the dashboard, and braced the other end firmly.

This crude fixing device allowed the front of the car to temporarily maintain a roughly straight course.

After doing all this, Song Yang immediately turned his body from the driver's seat and grabbed the blood fang with his left hand.

"Squeak—!" The closest black rat had already pounced onto the side of the car, opened its mouth filled with dense, sharp fangs, and bit fiercely at the sidewall of the tire!

"You're courting death!" Song Yang kicked the car door off with one foot, then slashed with his blade.

The black rat's head was severed instantly, and filthy blood and brains splattered onto the car seat, only to be scattered by the wind from the high-speed movement.

However, this was just the beginning.

More black rats, like maggots on bones, frantically lunged at the off-road vehicle's tires.

Wherever Song Yang's blade flashed, rat corpses flew.

"Brother Song! The right rear tire! There are too many rats on the right rear tire!"

Tiger Zhao yelled anxiously from behind. His motorcycle was following closely behind and to the side of the off-road vehicle, but the rats attacking from the flank made it impossible for him to get close and help, leaving him to watch helplessly as more and more black shadows approached the wheels.

Without needing Tiger Zhao's reminder, Song Yang had already noticed the danger on the right rear through the rearview mirror.

At least three rats over there had already successfully latched onto the tire and rim, gnawing frantically.

The car body began to jolt irregularly; clearly, the tire was already damaged.

His eyes hardened, and he jerked the steering wheel, causing the front of the car to swing violently to the left!

This sudden turn was extremely wide, almost like a U-turn on the spot.

"Bang, bang, bang!" As the car fishtailed violently, those rats clinging tightly to the right tire were instantly flung off like they were on a high-speed spinning wheel.

Just with this move, the crisis on the right rear tire was temporarily mostly resolved.

But Song Yang dared not relax in the slightest; he quickly straightened the steering wheel, floored the gas, and charged toward the direction of the Shelter.

Soon, a tunnel embedded at the foot of the mountain appeared before them, which was the essential path to the Shelter's gate.

Song Yang drove into the tunnel first, followed by Tiger Zhao and his men, then other survivors, and finally, the dark, crushing mass of the rat swarm.

Although the tunnel was very long, everyone soon arrived in front of the gate.

In front of the gate, a simple defensive fortification had been built using sandbags and barbed wire, where seven or eight Soldiers in camouflage combat uniforms, fully armed with live ammunition, were vigilantly watching the depths of the tunnel.

Several trucks, also painted army green, were parked on one side of the gate, and a few Soldiers were questioning people getting off the vehicles.

The high beams from the various vehicles caused a stir among the Soldiers, and several dark, hollow gun barrels were immediately raised, aiming at the vehicles rushing out of the darkness.

"Stop! Stop immediately!"

Song Yang slowly released the gas, and the off-road vehicle came to a stop more than ten meters in front of the gate, with Tiger Zhao's motorcycle following closely behind.

"Screech—" He kicked down the kickstand of his motorcycle, rushed to the very front, and ignoring the warning gazes of the Soldiers, shouted anxiously: "Open the gate! Open it quickly! There is a Rat Tide behind us! Let us in!"

A Soldier with the rank of sergeant on his shoulder coldly sized up the disheveled Tiger Zhao, then glanced at the other people constantly arriving, a mocking smirk curling at the corner of his mouth: "Rat Tide? We hear this excuse eight times a day. For the safety of the Shelter, without identification and an entry permit, no one is allowed to enter!"

"We mean no harm! There really is a swarm of rats behind us!"

Tiger Zhao jumped up and down in his anxiety, pointing toward the depths of the tunnel, "They will be here any second! If you don't open the gate, everyone is going to die here!"

The young Soldier next to the sergeant lowered his gun barrel slightly and shouted sternly: "Shut up! If you dare to make any more noise, it will be considered an assault on the Shelter, and we will kill you without hesitation!"

But the next moment, "Squeak, squeak, squeak—!!!" A sharp, piercing sound of rat shrieks surged from the depths of the tunnel like a tidal wave!

Immediately after, in the darkness, countless tiny scarlet dots suddenly lit up, dense and packed, like ghost fires gushing from hell, rapidly lunging toward the gate!

"Squad leader, something is coming!!" An observant Soldier let out a terrified scream.