CRACK!
The blade of the axe struck solidly into the neck of the Black Zombie, the sound of breaking bones crystal clear in the deathly quiet of the forest.
But the zombie seemed to feel no pain. Tilting its head, it used its shoulder and half of its face to clamp down on the blade, preventing the axe from being pulled out.
Unable to pull it out, Li Ang decided against trying further. He released the handle and kicked the Black Zombie in the chest.
Even a direct hit from a shotgun only made the Black Zombie retreat a few steps. Its body was as tough as though it were cast from steel. Li Ang's kick merely made it stagger back half a step.
That half step was sufficient.
Using the recoil from the kick to fall backward, Li Ang's right hand fished a Coca-Cola glass bottle out of his backpack.
The glass bottle wasn't filled with soda but with a high-concentration gasoline mixture. Its mouth was sealed with rubber, and two sealed glass tubes containing concentrated sulfuric acid were stuck to its side.
The Coke bottle twirled through the air, gliding before colliding with the zombie's dark forehead and exploding with a bang.
A typical Molotov cocktail uses a rag soaked in flammable liquid as a wick, lit with a lighter before throwing.
However, the Soviet-style Molotov cocktail Li Ang had created relied on the chemical heat produced by the collision of the concentrated sulfuric acid glass tubes to ignite. This was a safer approach that also eliminated the step of fumbling for a lighter.
Glass shards scattered in all directions. The sulfuric acid and gasoline mixture spilled evenly over the Black Zombie, emitting a pungent odor strong enough to mask the stench of decay.
Instantly, the intense chemical energy ignited the gasoline mixture. A few sparks rapidly grew into a conflagration that engulfed the zombie's body, turning the Black Zombie into a human torch in the blink of an eye.
Flames surged skyward, lighting up the dense forest as bright as day. Unwitting insects, drawn to the light, flapped their wings around the human torch.
The funeral clothes on the zombie turned to ash in an instant, and even the black hair that could stop bullets curled and shriveled under the flames.
"HISS!"
The Black Zombie's mouth opened wide like a snake, letting out a piercing shriek as the axe fell from its neck.
BOOM!
Li Ang pulled the trigger of his shotgun. The Black Zombie, hit by the steel pellets, convulsed on the spot as if electrocuted.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The shotgun fired repeatedly without pause. The Black Zombie staggered backward with each shot, flammable liquid dripping from its body onto the leaf litter, leaving a trail of burning footprints.
The layer of black hair had been almost entirely burned off, leaving only a length akin to a finger joint. Li Ang pushed the last two shells into the shotgun's chamber and took out the electric nail gun from his backpack.
This industrial-grade nail gun had a maximum power of 2,500 W, firing forty-five steel nails per minute, capable of penetrating 10- to 20-millimeter-thick concrete walls or channel steel.
Before this nail gun, flesh and bone were no different from frozen tofu.
DING. DING. DING.
The crisp sound of the nail gun echoed through the dense forest. After the black hair had been weakened, long nails were driven into the Black Zombie's forehead, eye sockets, nose bridge, lips, jaws, and Adam's apple, piercing the skin and burrowing into its flesh.
A few breaths later, the Black Zombie's face was densely covered with steel nail heads—a horrifying sight that could make anyone with trypophobia scream and faint.
As the nails entered its brain, they ground the Black Zombie's rotting brain into a pulp, but even so, it still did not fall.
In the flickering shadows of the trees, the layer of black hair on the zombie's body seemed to come alive, rapidly twisting and entangling itself, curling and wrapping around to form a hollow, chainmail-like defensive layer on the zombie's surface.
With the mesh defense layer established, these faintly green-tinted hairs began to extract the remaining bodily fluids from within the Black Zombie, spreading them over the inner and outer surfaces of the mesh and filling the holes in the defensive layer.
As the mesh holes were plugged, the fire burning inside, starved of oxygen, was soon extinguished. Meanwhile, the fire on the outside was inhibited by the damp hair, its intensity diminishing until it gradually died out.
The entire process took place within a few seconds. As the bodily fluids were drained, the Black Zombie's already shriveled muscles became even more atrophied. From a distance, it looked like an upright black ape—small, weak, and unthreatening.
The small, thin Black Zombie stood hunched over like a statue. Li Ang silently watched it while stepping back slowly, his hands tirelessly swapping out the steel nail chains for the nail gun.
Suddenly, Li Ang's vision blurred. The Black Zombie's speed increased yet again, covering several meters in the blink of an eye and appearing directly in front of him. Its claw swept downward at an angle.
Li Ang hastily stepped back but still couldn't avoid the Black Zombie's fingernails grazing the CQB Tactical Bulletproof Vest he was wearing.
The outermost soft anti-stab layer of the CQB Bulletproof Vest, woven from high-strength polyethylene fibers, was 40% stronger than the famously durable Kevlar aramid fiber.
However, this soft anti-stab layer, capable of withstanding thousands of stabs from an adult male, did not last half a second against the Black Zombie's nails. It was effortlessly shredded into rags that scattered in the air.
The claw continued its descent.
Inside the CQB Bulletproof Vest was an NIJ—III level SAPI bulletproof plate compliant with the United States' National Institute of Justice standards, along with an OTV Bulletproof Vest.
This NIJ—III level bulletproof steel plate, weighing 1.8 kilograms, could completely withstand a direct hit from 7.62 mm caliber bullets.
As the claw came down, a piercing, teeth-gritting friction sound erupted as the Black Zombie's fingernails met the bulletproof steel plate. High-strength steel, forged by modern industrial society, was actually scraped into curled strips by the sharp fingernails, and the entire steel plate was cleanly split in two.
Fortunately, the zombie's claw was slightly obstructed by the bulletproof vest and could not penetrate further, failing to disembowel Li Ang in one fell swoop.
Surrounded by danger, Li Ang, lingering on the brink of life and death, didn't even have a chance to catch his breath when he saw the Black Zombie swinging its claw towards him again.
The piercing sound of the claw cutting through the air rang by his ears, but Li Ang's heart was still, his expression unchanging. Instead of retreating, he advanced, crashing into the Black Zombie's embrace before its claw could come down.
I can't retreat. To take one step back is to be forced back continuously. The Black Zombie's agility far surpasses mine. If I retreat, I'll eventually be torn to shreds by its violent, storm-like attacks.
The disparity in their sizes was stark; the collision was like a silverback gorilla embracing a red-nosed baboon, effectively immobilizing the Black Zombie's shoulders.
In this awkward position, reminiscent of a face-to-face dance, Li Ang could distinctly smell the intense, rotten, bloody stench from the other's body, potent enough to destroy one's olfactory system.
It's like a bloated Giant corpse that's been soaking in a hot spring for over ten days...
Such nostalgia, Li Ang thought.
CLICK. As the sound of the nail gun being loaded rang out, Li Ang, embracing the Black Zombie with both arms, pressed the nail gun against the zombie's nape.
DING! DING! DING! DING!
Dozens of nails penetrated the gaps in the Black Zombie's atlas, axis, and third cervical vertebrae, tearing the nuchal ligament, piercing the tough dura mater, and breaking its neck.
For an ordinary person, such injuries would have been instantly fatal or, at the very least, resulted in complete paralysis. But the Black Zombie's head merely lost support, tilting and resting on its shoulder, while its flailing arm still had enough strength to slash at Li Ang.
Now's the time!
Li Ang's Cat's Eye, shining brightly in the darkness, suddenly erupted with a dazzling radiance!
Illusion Technique, activate.
In the Black Zombie's mind, an image was projected: a scrawny little boy with snot running down his nose, dressed in tattered clothes, crying and shouting as he held a wooden basin,
"Mom! I'm hungry!"
A rather mundane sentence, yet it seemed to possess Magic Power, draining all of the Black Zombie's strength.
The menacing claw, waving in the air, trembled and could no longer strike down.
Those chaotic, hazy fragments of memory brewed and settled in the decaying brain, eventually congealing into tears of blood that welled from its eyes and slid down its parched cheeks.
With death, all ends. What returned to the world in the decaying corpse was not the old woman of the past, but a new life filled with hatred—it was a zombie, a zombie that drew strength from animosity and fed on flesh and blood.
It shouldn't harbor any emotions from its past life; it shouldn't feel sorrow or sadness for anything or anyone.
But why, why does my heart ache so much?
"ROAR!"
As if to deny its past, to deny that momentary weakness, the Black Zombie regained its ferocity. The last traces of emotion in its eyes melted away completely, like snow upon boiling soup.
With its head askew, the zombie opened its mouth wide and lunged at Li Ang, while its solitary arm shifted from a chop to a grab, reaching down from above for Li Ang's spine.
Utilizing the Black Zombie's moment of hesitation, Li Ang abruptly thrust his shoulder upward, sending the attacking head flying. He then leaned forward, lifting his right leg high like a ballet dancer, and used his toe to strike the wrist of the down-sweeping arm, blocking the assault.
The Black Zombie's head took a harsh blow from Li Ang's shoulder, tilting backward sharply until the back of its head touched its spine, the entire neck connected by nothing more than a flap of skin and flesh!
Even a zombie, born of the world's resentment and foul air, relied on its spinal column for strength. Now, with her spine damaged, her lone arm dropped lifelessly like a marionette with severed strings. Even her black fur suddenly fluffed up, no longer offering any protection.
Silently, Li Ang embraced the Black Zombie. Treading heavily, he rushed forward with the corpse in tow, slamming them both into the trunk of a tree thick enough for two people to encircle with their arms.
THUD!
The tree trunk shook, its branches trembled, and leaves fluttered down. Patches of moonlight filtered through the gaps in the canopy, illuminating the woods.
In the moonlight, Li Ang stepped back. With a swift motion, he pulled the dagger from his boot, plunged it into the zombie's mouth, and, as if hammering a nail, pinned the Black Zombie to the tree trunk.
His other hand, protected by a tactical glove, deftly picked up the Battle Axe that had fallen from the Black Zombie's neck.
The zombie, nailed to the tree, had only pure, unthinking hatred for the living left in its eyes.
Pitiful, lamentable, regrettable.
The blade of the Battle Axe gleamed coldly in the moonlight.
Li Ang's arm, like that of a woodcutter in the forest, swung the Battle Axe in an arc, slicing into the Black Zombie's neck.
THUNK!
The tree trunk vibrated again.
The zombie's head separated from its body.
[Hidden Mountain Village Zombie 1/1 killed]
[Script mission "Hungry Limit" completed]
[Awards calculation in progress]