79: Too late! The undead army!

“Retreat!”

Su Wanqing reacted incredibly fast.

As soon as Zhou Weiguo’s voice fell, her command was already issued.

“All personnel, break through towards the blockade immediately!”

The situation had completely exceeded their estimations.

This was no longer within the scope of what a C-rank team could handle.

The core nest had mysteriously self-destructed, but the sleeping citizens had become a standing threat!

Hidden behind this was a massive conspiracy far exceeding A-rank!

Liu Yan, Shi Lei, and Mo Chen heard the command and, without hesitation, immediately turned to prepare to execute it.

However.

“Too late.”

A voice interrupted their impending steps.

It was Lin Yuan.

Not only did he not move, but he turned around, looking back at the street outside the steel factory.

“What’s too late?” Liu Yan asked anxiously, “Lin Yuan, now is not the time for you to act up! If we don’t leave now, we’ll all be exhausted to death here!”

“I said, it’s too late.”

Lin Yuan repeated, the playful smile completely gone from his face.

His Electromagnetic Induction had already spread out.

In his perception, something big had happened outside.

The faint electromagnetic signals that originally represented ordinary people were now skyrocketing at a bizarre frequency!

“Listen,” Lin Yuan said.

Everyone immediately held their breath.

“Shhh… shhh shhh…”

A uniform scraping sound came from all directions.

It was like countless people dragging ill-fitting shoes across a concrete floor.

The sound, from far to near, quickly grew denser.

Soon, black figures appeared at various dilapidated entrances and windows of the steel factory.

One.

Ten.

A hundred.

They were the ordinary citizens who had previously been lying on the roadside, slumped in cars, or leaning against walls.

But now, they had all stood up.

They all had their heads down, their faces obscured, their bodies stiff, and they moved slowly, shuffling step by step towards the steel factory.

The scene was eerily similar to a zombie siege in a horror movie.

“Are they… being controlled?” Mo Chen’s voice trembled.

“More than just controlled.”

Lin Yuan’s gaze was fixed on those “people.”

In his perception, the “garbled shadows” that had chased him earlier were now inside these people’s bodies!

They had become the drivers of these flesh-and-blood bodies!

“We can’t lay hands on ordinary people!” Shi Lei said with a muffled voice, his tone full of struggle.

This was an iron rule of the Dragon Shield Bureau.

“Who told you they were ordinary people?” Lin Yuan retorted.

He pointed at the approaching tide of people.

“Look closely.”

Everyone focused their gaze.

Among the stiff-moving “citizens,” several strangely shaped creatures were clearly mixed in!

Rotten skin, drooling fangs, twisted limbs.

They were precisely the lowest-grade Abyssal cannon fodder they had seen in the intel before—the Corrupted Ground Runner!

These monsters, just like the citizens, moved stiffly, their eyes hollow, mixed in with the crowd, and walked towards them.

At this moment, everyone understood.

These standing citizens, and those monsters, were no different!

They were all puppets controlled by the same thing!

“This is troublesome now.” Liu Yan’s face turned incredibly grim.

Thousands… perhaps even more puppets.

And an unknown number of monsters mixed among them.

The five of them were completely surrounded.

Su Wanqing took a deep breath, her gaze locked on the “tide of corpses” that was already close at hand.

She issued a new command.

“Prioritize clearing all non-human targets!”

“For the others… try to use non-lethal control methods!”

“Prepare to engage!”

No sooner had she spoken.

“Roar—!”

A Corrupted Ground Runner, mixed at the very front of the crowd, suddenly accelerated and pounced towards them!

Following closely behind was a middle-aged man in a suit.

He opened his mouth, letting out an inhuman roar, and stiffly charged towards the team.

“Bang!”

A dull thud.

Shi Lei’s burly figure blocked the front.

He didn’t use his ability, but simply with his physical body, he shoulder-charged the pouncing man in the suit, sending him flying.

The man tumbled twice in the air and fell heavily to the ground.

But the next second.

He stood up again, completely unharmed.

On the other side.

Su Wanqing’s ice sword pierced the head of the Corrupted Ground Runner.

“Pfft!”

Ice crystals burst, freezing it into an ice sculpture.

However, this was just the beginning.

More “people” and monsters flooded in from all directions, crowding the entire steel factory until it was impenetrable.

“Damn it! There are too many!”

Liu Yan waved her hands, andOne by one wind blades formed a barrier in front of her, forcefully pushing back several charging “corpses.”

But she dared not kill them.

The power of her wind blades was controlled to an extremely low level, only able to repel, not cause substantial damage.

This made her feel incredibly frustrated.

“No good! My Weakness is completely useless against them!” Mo Chen’s face grew paler.

His ability was completely ineffective against these empty shells without “souls.”

He was now a burden.

“Ice Wall!”

Su Wanqing let out a low cry and slammed her palm onto the ground.

Crack! Crack!

Thick ice walls rose from the ground, temporarily halting the advance of the corpse tide.

But everyone knew this was just a temporary measure.

These puppets were tireless and felt no pain; just by attrition, they could exhaust them to death here!

“Lin Yuan! What are you still spacing out for?!”

Liu Yan, while maintaining the wind wall, roared at Lin Yuan, who stood motionless in the center of the circle.

From the start of the battle until now, he had been acting as if nothing was happening, looking around, with no intention of making a move.

Lin Yuan ignored her.

He was busy analyzing in his mind.

The situation was very wrong.

Extremely wrong.

These puppets seemed to be attacking indiscriminately, but Lin Yuan, in his Electromagnetic Induction, saw something different.

The Corrupted Ground Runners mixed in the crowd, their targets were not Su Wanqing and Shi Lei, who were fighting most fiercely.

Instead, it was Mo Chen, who stood at the back of the circle with almost no combat power!

They were looking for weak points!

And those controlled citizens were more like… “meat shields” and “cannon fodder” to distract their vision.

What a clever feint.

“Damn it, these damned things actually have tactical discipline.”

Lin Yuan muttered to himself.

His brain worked rapidly.

Fighting head-on was definitely not an option.

Breaking through was also too late now.

What was the goal of these things?

Was it to kill them?

No.

Lin Yuan remembered the previous scene of the “shadows” chasing him.

Their target was himself!

It was the Abyssal Tribulation Thunder that had just been born within him, which he himself didn’t even understand!

A crazy thought emerged in his mind.

Since conventional tactics were useless… then he would use unconventional ones!

Just then.

“Boom!”

Under Shi Lei’s feet, an earth spike suddenly broke through the ground; he quickly dodged it with a sidestep.

The monsters had started using their underground kin for sneak attacks!

The team’s defensive perimeter had its first breach!

“If we keep fighting like this, we’ll eventually be exhausted to death…”

Lin Yuan murmured softly, his eyes growing brighter.

“Fortune favors the bold, the timid starve…”

“No pain, no gain!”

No longer paying attention to the roars and explosions around him, Lin Yuan slowly closed his eyes and immersed his entire mind in his dantian.

He gave up suppressing the Abyssal Tribulation Thunder and began to actively guide that powerful energy.

The Abyssal Tribulation Thunder began to overflow from his body, coiling around his right fingertip, emanating an aura of destruction.