Chapter 165: We eat grain; they eat us

I've seen corpses before, but a corpse pile piled up like a mountain...

Among those present, probably only Lin An had seen such a thing once when entering the city.

When corpses of the same kind are piled into a mountain, every face bears the anger and unwillingness before death.

For the survivors of the base and service area, the impact was still somewhat greater.

Lin An silently surveyed the corpse mountain over six meters high before him; this height was already that of a two-story building.

The outermost corpses were soldiers in uniform, their bodies covered in dense bite marks.

The inner layer consisted of civilians, mixed with many children's corpses.

The corpse pile was obviously deliberately stacked, and it was made by two groups of people.

The innermost corpses had already rotted, and they did not match the smell Liang Shaoguang had previously detected.

The rifles scattered on the ground were almost all perforated, and the ground bore many traces of hand grenade explosions.

Many rats hiding inside the corpse pile emerged from the ears of children and women, their sticky fur stained with much brain matter.

No corpse was intact; at least within the observed range, the outermost corpses had their brains hollowed out.

To the zombie rats, this pile of corpses was like fresh cheese.

"Squeak!"

They sensed that there was a human presence outside.

The black rats' eyes turned scarlet as they shrieked and charged at a group of people. This group of zombie rats was noticeably larger in size, appearing to have all been infected by the virus.

Everyone panicked; they had not yet recovered from the shock.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Lin An slowly lowered his arm; the silver glint in his eyes flashed and vanished.

A continuous blood mist exploded; without any special mutant abilities, this group of lowly zombie rats instantly turned into blood mist.

Team internal communication.

"Captain Lin..."

"Why didn't they flee?"

Zhang Tie and Gao Tian stood behind Lin An with ashen faces, unable to understand how so many corpses could appear here.

Clearly they were a military unit, yet they couldn't even manage to flee.

After surveying the scene, Lin An calmly spoke:

"Bait."

"Just like a glue trap."

"The first batch of survivors from the granary died and turned into zombies, and a small number of corpses were gnawed by rats."

"After rats were infected with the zombie virus, they gained a certain intelligence; due to unknown reasons, a rat-king mutant and a human-form mutant were born and combined."

"These monsters chose to bury the corpses."

He pointed to a deep pit inside the corpse pile, where the corpses had already rotted and fermented.

"Using the granary as bait, it's like butter on a glue trap."

"The second batch of troops, bringing survivors, found this place; due to carelessness, they only discovered scattered zombies."

"The soldiers were responsible for guard duty, while the survivors, in their ecstasy, transported food."

"Then..."

Lin An glanced at the battle marks on the ground and noticed that the nearby granary had been damaged by impact.

"The 【Rat King】 appeared, drawing the troops' fire. People spontaneously gathered and hid within the troops' protective circle."

"Weapons could not kill the aggregated-bodied Rat King; we could only watch helplessly as it slaughtered the outer troops."

"Then the rat swarm emerged, encircling them completely."

"There was no way to escape...."

"Perhaps the troops could scatter and flee, allowing some to escape."

"But behind them were unarmed civilians."

"The defensive circle shrank again, mothers clutching children, people trampling on people, people squeezing people..."

"When the 【tank】 appeared, it completely cut off their last hope."

There was nothing unexpected, nor any twist.

Such examples occurred far too many times in my past life.

Mutants already possessed some intelligence; they would also encircle and set ambushes.

The trap was crude; Lin An could even imagine that these rats were merely imitating humans by dragging food out and scattering it haphazardly on the ground.

Starving survivors had their reason clouded by the food before them, like mice rushing onto a glue trap in greed.

Gao Tian's gaze was complex, his body stiff as he asked Lin An:

"Brother Lin..."

"But they... why would they pile up corpses..."

Lin An's expression unchanged as he countered:

"Why not pile them?"

"Don't you think this corpse pile looks like a grain heap in the granary?"

"We store grain; they store us..."

After speaking, Lin An's expression grew sombre as he patted Gao Tian's shoulder:

"You should be glad..."

"They aren't smart enough yet to know to move into the warehouse for preservation; that would improve the flavor."

Gao Tian looked at the child whose brains had been scooped out, the face completely gnawed, and couldn't help but bend over and retch.

Unlike others still feeling nauseous shock, Lin An was more concerned about where this army had come from.

There was no military region nearby, yet these soldiers were bringing survivors...

If they were out scavenging supplies, there would be no need to bring a bunch of burdens.

Then the only possibility is that they fled here.

An unknown gathering place where many survivors had congregated was overrun.

The number of soldiers before them was not small, but Lin An saw no corpses of Awakened Ones.

Even if there were, they'd been completely eaten, but the number probably wouldn't be large either.

This doesn't make sense.

A rough count showed over 1,300 corpses, of which more than 600 were soldiers.

Based on the normal ratio of Awakened Ones, there should be at least six or more Awakened Ones here.

This doesn't even account for the higher likelihood of Awakened Ones appearing in the army compared to ordinary civilians outside.

The weapons were uniformly standard, but ammunition was scarce and there was no heavy firepower.

This indicates their escape was extremely hasty, not the kind where zombies broke through defenses and gave time to react.

The Awakened Ones originally should have all been covering the rear, responsible for blocking...

Or perhaps some powerful mutants?

Lin An's gaze turned to the other exit of the food transfer station.

East...

Three green-painted military vehicles were parked at the exit, indicating the gathering place was not far from here.

The time of death for the corpses was two days ago.

The corpses' opened stomachs contained almost no food, and their gastric juices still held a small amount of undigested compressed biscuits.

Combined with the vehicles carrying ordinary people at walking speed, it would not exceed 17 kilometers per hour.

Then that gathering place should be in the suburbs of River-View City, roughly...

about 60 kilometers.

Lin An pondered, thinking that after bringing this batch of food back, he could lead a team to check it out.

A suspected military base not on the map, or a temporarily constructed safe zone.

There would surely be a large amount of weapons left behind, even heavy weapons.

The fleeing army numbered 600 people, which at least means that a force of regiment size or greater was stationed there.

Compared to the military base openly located in the River-View War Zone previously planned, this place is undoubtedly much closer.

Furthermore...

If the garrison there had already been wiped out, it would also save a lot of trouble.

He needed a large amount of weapons to arm his forces, but the military would not allow it, nor would they trade with him...