Chapter 2040: Right and Wrong

Run fast!

Run!!

Boom!!!!

The air surge rolled and turned into a roaring earth dragon that lifted the ground. Like a superstorm, it devoured everything on the surface at a speed of one thousand four hundred meters per second.

Sand and stone were submerged, crushed into ash.

Outside the massive gathering place of ten thousand people, the sentinel stationed on the city wall stared wide-eyed in shock.

In his eyes, the land was tearing apart and wailing, as if some super-high-mass celestial body had suddenly descended onto the earth, crushing the entire plain into waves.

Rolling, surging.

Before he could grab the megaphone at his feet in fear, he tried to warn everyone.

The next second, the violently approaching seismic transverse wave hurled him into the sky, and the continually rising, cracked ground smashed him in midair!

Everything happened too quickly.

In just a few short seconds, hundreds to thousands of people were swallowed by the earth amid screams, and the ensuing spiritual energy shock, like a sound wave, instantly shattered crowds into powder.

Before the storm, whether a hundred-meter skyscraper or a low shed, an abandoned truck or withered trees along the way, all were swept up into the sky by this astonishing force.

And before the storm, there was Zhang Tie, his whole body ablaze like a flaming person.

He seemed like the incarnation of disaster.

Flying at supersonic speed, he now looked with a complex expression toward his next target in the distance, trying hard to avoid looking at the grim scene on the ground.

The spiritual energy erupting around him and the Fourth Rank rules were like a sickle, killing all living beings. Once his power reached the Fourth Rank, destroying cities and slaughtering humans was as easy as crushing ants.

Even just the shockwaves and heat waves generated by his high-speed flight alone could rival a barrage of rockets; combined with his deliberately unleashed spiritual energy and skill effects, everywhere he passed became scorched earth.

In this instance world, almost no creature could withstand him.

Even one of the highest-tier mutants in this instance, the Drip-Leaker, was merely smashed to pieces by him in a single encounter a few minutes earlier.

"How long... must this killing go on..."

"Bang bang! Bang! Bang!!"

The explosive sound of high-pressure air shattering rang out like heavy artillery.

Xiong Hanzi secretly sighed in his heart, silently estimating the time for him and Lin An to meet up.

Although he had swept through everything in his path, utterly unstoppable, his efficiency was still too low—so low it was like holding an eraser and gradually wiping out the entire planet.

At this rate, he doesn't have seven or eight hours; he simply cannot finish wiping this side clean.

"No wonder Captain Lin thinks it's impossible; better to just blow up this planet..."

"My progress here is probably less than three percent..."

For the vast majority of Fourth Rank beings, the upper limit of Fourth Rank combat power is destroying the surface and dealing a devastating blow to surface ecology; genuinely trying to exterminate all life on a planet would take far too long.

Perhaps he didn't want to kill excessively, or perhaps he wanted to conserve energy. Zhang Tie guessed that Captain Lin's greatest kindness was simply to clean up only to the minimum standard, enough to trigger the instance's reset.

He shook his head.

Just as Zhang Tie was pondering how to use his own power to clear things faster,

A cry filled with despair and anguished anger suddenly rang out from behind him.

All that could be seen was, on the plowed earth, a youth clutching the half-body of a girl, who at that moment was desperately running across the ruins, dodging and leaping, actually breaking through the sky‑falling rubble.

"Huh?"

"A superhuman of this world?"

His perception was extraordinarily keen.

Zhang Tie blinked slightly, then halted his flight in surprise.

With his hearing, he could naturally hear clearly what the youth was saying.

"Hanna!! Don't die!! I beg you, don't die! Hold on!! I'll take you away!!"

"Open your eyes.. open your eyes ah ah ah!!"

The youth's voice was like weeping blood, as if he could not accept that everyone had died, even the girl he had rescued in his arms was about to die.

He cursed Zhang Tie while desperately pleading for the girl to hold on.

With his excellent vision, Zhang Tie could even see the light in the youth's eyes—there was hatred, despair, and an incredulous collapse.

The youth stared fixedly at him, as if wanting to etch his face into his mind so that one day he could take revenge!

Faced with such a familiar, almost overly familiar gaze, Zhang Tie opened his mouth but ultimately remained silent, watching the youth flee toward another direction.

He knew that, in the youth's eyes, he was probably some kind of super mutant; even if a superhuman, he was a lunatic monster, an executioner! He could also tell that this youth was likely the protector of this gathering place, and the girl his lover.

"How similar..."

Strangely, for the first time Zhang Tie did not curse and swear in "battle," and a past memory suddenly surfaced in his mind.

However.

"Bang!"

The next second, Zhang Tie flicked his finger, and a spiritual energy shockwave with a force of up to 800 points, traveling at over eight times the speed of sound, instantly blew apart the youth's hindbrain.

Just as if hit by an armor‑piercing shell, he casually struck and blasted the youth's skull and upper body apart, exploding into a mass of blood mist.

Wobbling from inertia, with only a thud, the superhuman who had been fleeing while embracing his lover collapsed to the ground.

And the girl he had been holding in his arms was further grazed by that spiritual energy shock, losing half her brain and being utterly killed.

Retracting his finger, Zhang Tie lowered his head, silently gazing at the two bodies locked in an embrace.

This NPC's strength is poor, roughly equivalent to a Rank Three without spiritual energy; before him, it's hardly different from an ant.

Yet in this instance world, he could uphold a region, saving tens of thousands, and was the survivors' greatest hope.

No one knew what Zhang Tie was thinking; perhaps he himself didn't know.

After a while, Xiong Hanzi drew a deep breath, clenched his fists tightly, and flew once more toward the next target point.

He did not want to indiscriminately kill the innocent, nor did he want to bully the weak. But for Xiong Hanzi, Lin An's will was his will; no matter what Lin An said, he would do it!

(Lin Dui is right...! Just a bunch of NPCs... don't overthink... Zhang Tie... you don't need to overthink!)

Six minutes later.

The storm representing destruction, unbeknownst to people, silently approached the largest human safe zone in eastern Africa.

This is South Africa Harbor, a steel city built relying on Cape Town port supplies and military base, total survivor population: three million three hundred thousand.

The safe zone built along the coastline was like a steel train, with dense Corpse Horde stretching from east to west, encircling the entire coastline into a long stick of bread.

Thanks to the terrain advantage, on the front line stretching about twenty-three kilometers, the gathered corpse tide found it hard to pile into a corpse ladder and surge into the city.

However, large-scale piling was impossible, but local piling still occurred from time to time.

Only to see at the end of the defense line, hundreds of thousands of zombies roared, trampling the corpses beneath their feet and continually piling up into spikes; even though the survivors on the wall kept firing their firearms, they could barely stop it.

There were no lack of heavy weapons and artillery, but the survivors operating the heavy machine guns and artillery dared not waste precious ammunition at this moment, their eyes nervously fixed on the triangular beast beneath the corpse horde.

That was a special mutant among the leakers, possessing a certain intelligence while being extremely adept at destroying fortifications.

"Quick! Go inform the Captain! Inform those superpowered individuals!"

The standoff seemed to have lasted a long time, perhaps due to the instinct of the biochemical entities.

Almost the entire wall was in panic, while mobilizing their strength, the corpse horde beneath the wall suddenly went berserk, and the triangular beast hiding behind the corpse tide let out a sharp screech and frenziedly launched an attack on this weak point!

In an instant, battle erupted!

"Fire!! Fire!! Repel them!!"

"Boom!!! Boom!!! Boom!!!"

The continuously firing artillery accompanied by a piercing screech, landing in the corpse horde, was like the beat of a striking rhythm.

However, this batch of remaining old shells had limited explosive power. Even if the survivors on the wall began to fire the heavy machine guns without reservation, they could not sweep away the corpse ladder piled on the wall.

Ammunition is more precious than human life.

Accompanied by the roars and screams that followed one after another.

The other survivors stationed on the front line, at this moment anxiously rushed to support the breach like a swarm of ants.

However, this monster assault seemed somewhat different from before; the monsters' ferocity was obviously far greater than before.

"Hold on!! Quickly reinforce!! The superpowered individuals are on their way!!!"

"We absolutely cannot let these monsters climb the wall!!"

"Rat-a-tat! Rat-a-tat!"

Gunfire flashed; seeing the safe zone's superpowered individuals rushing from the rear, the nearest few survivors, disregarding their own safety, one of them—a dark-skinned sturdy man who looked like a squad leader—roared, grabbed a machine gun, and began firing almost at the triangular beast's head.

Ding-ding-ding-ding, the sound of metal clashing rang out urgently.

Fortunately, although these triangular beasts were strong, their strength was limited. Under the continuous impact of bullets, the first triangular mutant to charge onto the wall kept recoiling from the pain.

But just a few seconds later, with a sound of an empty chamber casing, before the burly man could raise his machine gun, he abruptly turned to reload; the second triangular beast had somehow stepped on a corpse, exploded it, leapt high, and jumped onto the wall.

Only a click was heard, and from behind it bit through his neck in one snap!

"Captain!!"

"Hold the top!! Hold the top!! The superpowered individuals are coming soon!!"

In less than a minute, the battle quickly escalated into white-hot intensity.

Ten-odd seconds later, a cheer burst from the wall; only two superpowered individuals, wearing curved blades on their backs and wielding battle axes, shouted angrily and charged into the battlefield.

"Repel them!!"

Eight minutes thirty-two seconds.

"Whoosh-bang!!"

Flying at high altitude, after passing through vast uninhabited areas, even devoid of life, Zhang Tie rushed to this African mainland route at extreme speed, the last human resistance point.

The shockwaves generated by the sonic booms spread behind him; watching the battle scene tens of kilometers away, Xiong Hanzi let out a long breath, slightly easing his speed.

Unlike the previous mere skirmishes, he could sense how many survivors lay behind this steel wall.

According to his and Lin An's experience in the Blood Corpse Secret Realm, destroying this place would likely add seven or eight points to the restart progress.

Especially, Lin Dui had just confirmed that after killing little Wickes—one of the dungeon's main plot characters—he received a system notification.

The information in the notification indicated that once too many plot characters died, the entire dungeon world's storyline would collapse.

Lin An's idea was correct; for a dungeon with an exclusive storyline generated from realistic fantasy, once the plot logic is destroyed, the dungeon itself will run into problems. If all the plot, even the dungeon's "background tone," ceases to exist, then a restart becomes almost inevitable.

"Kill all these people.."

"Damn it... sigh..."

No longer relying on low-altitude sonic booms to slaughter NPCs as before.

After a brief hesitation, Xiong Hanzi's hand suddenly manifested the Death-by-a-Thousand-Cuts. He noticed that there were quite a few superpowered individuals in this safe zone; although their strength was not great, relying solely on shock blasts was obviously too troublesome.

Moreover, his spiritual energy was not abundant either; given that half a planet still needed clearing, he planned to directly use the Death-by-a-Thousand-Cuts skill to create an earthquake, then use the Super Boundary Bear Roar to clear the area.

I don't know if he still felt somewhat reluctant.

He intended to wait until these NPCs repelled the monsters before acting, then slaughter humans together with the zombies—a point he really couldn't bring himself to do.

Of course, perhaps after these NPCs celebrated their survival, when they cheered for repelling the monsters, acting then might be even more cruel.

Waves crashed against the beach.

Under the dim sky, a squad of seven gathered by the seaside.

"According to our intercepted GPS coordinates, another command point of the Umbrella Company is near the waters of Greenland Island."

"They are moving across the ocean, responsible for commanding the European base!"

"As long as we can find that cargo ship! Perhaps we can destroy that place and locate their high-level leaders!"

Dressed in the signature black leather outfit, Ai Li Si held a map and began explaining the goal of this plan to the others.

After escaping Raccoon City, over these ten years she has been striving to find where the core high-level leadership of the Umbrella Company actually is.

Only by killing these behind-the-scenes masterminds can this near-biochemical crisis possibly be ended!

"Ai Li Si, who are the main targets on the cargo ship?"

"Are you sure you have the infection serum?"

"I'm sure! Not only do we have the T-virus serum, that bunch of scumbags also have our genetic samples... Once we get close, we..."

"Whoosh—Boom!!!"

Before Ai Li Si could finish speaking, in an instant, every team member's face changed drastically, and they abruptly looked up at the sky.

All that could be seen was a figure like a black streak of light, suddenly rushing toward them.

Its speed was so fast it even surpassed the limits of their perception!

For a moment, an intense sense of crisis filled everyone's hearts.

"Watch out!!"

Ai Li Si instinctively warned the teammates, and reflexively prepared to roll aside to attack the falling black light!

Too fast! Really too fast!!

But there was no time; in just 0.1 seconds, an almost invincible, overwhelming pressure instantly crushed everyone to the ground!

Seeing that the falling black light was actually a human just like them, everyone's faces showed shock, feeling as if their scalps were about to explode!

Such speed—even the most powerful biochemical mother body they imagined couldn't possibly have this power! What the hell is this thing!?

"Who are you..!?"

Ai Li Si's heart pounded wildly as she instinctively questioned Lin An, her mental power desperately trying to shake off the pressure on her body.

Looking at the protagonist team in the story, Lin An gave Ai Li Si and the others a slightly curious glance.

The next second.

"Bang!!"

Hearing the dense sound of flesh shattering, the protagonist team, about to embark on their salvation journey, was directly shattered into blood mist by him.

A blue light flashed in his eyes and vanished; Lin An furrowed his brow slightly, waved his hand, and collected the blood—or rather, the brain matter mixture—of Ai Li Si and the others, then turned his gaze to the communication channel.

He ignored the system warning prompts and also the difficulty alarms.

At this moment, Lin An merely silently gazed at the message sent by Zhang Tie.

He actually hadn't planned to kill the protagonist team upon meeting; he intended to talk first before acting. After all, sharing an apocalypse background, Ai Li Si's experiences also had similarities; a conversation might yield some insight.

But...

Zhang Tie, it seems, has run into a little trouble.

"Captain Lin..."

"Are we really doing this right.."

"Are they really just NPCs..?"

On the other end of the comms.

Amidst a collapsed mountain of corpses in the ruins, Zhang Tie stared blankly at an arm.

Beneath that severed arm, buried—or rather protected—within the corpses, was a young face that was now painfully looking at him.

"Uncle.. I hurt so much..."

"Why did you kill everyone..."