"Shawn!?"
Diana's heart skipped a beat, recalling Shawn driving straight north not long ago.
Meeting Diana's 'innocent' gaze, Daryl took a breath and slowly exhaled.
"Shawn went to deal with the unavoidable."
"Just him alone?"
"The things he can do alone are far more than you can imagine."
"When you arrive at the Prison, you will be amazed. If it weren't for Shawn bearing the burden, we wouldn't be here today."
After speaking, Daryl looked at Merle beside him, and the cadres belonging to Alexandria.
"Have the convoy gather. We're going to find a place to rest."
"No one is allowed to get out of the vehicles at night. Even if you need to pee, pee in the vehicle."
"I won't punish you for getting out without permission, but if you lose your life because of it, that's just your bad luck."
Merle looked at Daryl and teased, "Oh, oh, oh, you're starting to manage people like Shawn."
"If you don't want to taste my fist, shut your mouth, Merle. If I wasn't worried about causing trouble before Shawn returns, I'd have already beaten you until you were spitting teeth."
"I'm so scared~~~"
"Get lost!!"
...
Perhaps, just as Daryl said.
Shawn's trip was indeed to resolve the unavoidable.
After explaining everything to Elynn, Shawn once again pulled out the fire truck in front of everyone.
Elynn was so startled by this scene that he couldn't help but rub his eyes, thinking he had seen it wrong.
He had previously thought Shawn's methods were more akin to 'magic' and 'props,' after all, what kind of fake miracles hadn't he seen from that person?
But Shawn's trick of making a fire truck appear out of nowhere truly astonished him.
If he hadn't been mindful of the Zealots present, he would have truly wanted to ask Shawn how he did it.
Before leaving, Shawn reprimanded Elynn in front of the Zealots and stated that he was willing to give him another chance.
He conveyed the decision he had just made to Elynn as a 'divine decree,' instructing the Zealots, led by Bray, to cooperate with his actions.
He himself requested a set of Zealot attire, then drove towards the address Elynn had given him.
It was a good thing he had taken many types of goods from the supermarket before.
Shawn applied some BB cream to his face, put on a neck collar and sunglasses, and was virtually unimpeded throughout the entire county.
Whenever Zealots pursued him from abandoned houses and vehicles along the roads, they would actively give way after seeing the markers Shawn had set up.
The reason was simple.
It was normal for them not to recognize Shawn; most Zealots didn't recognize each other.
They also couldn't imagine that someone would be so bold as to openly impersonate a Zealot, driving towards their 'holy land.'
If one were to draw a density map of the entire North Carolina, the holy land would be where the Zealots were most concentrated.
Normal people would be scrambling to escape, so why would anyone charge straight in?
But Shawn did exactly that today.
He drove straight northeast towards the county, in front of countless Zealots along the way.
He hardly even touched the brakes, maintaining high speed the entire time.
When he encountered a vehicle blocking the road, he would simply crash through its front, clearing a path.
The crazier Shawn's behavior, the more it resembled the Zealots' normal state, and the more at ease they felt about Shawn.
It wasn't until midnight that Shawn arrived at the place Elynn had mentioned.
Taking advantage of the darkness, Shawn put away the fire truck, removed his disguise, and melted into the dark jungle.
The moment he entered the darkness, Shawn suddenly transformed into a top predator, agile and completely integrated with the jungle.
Along the cliff, Shawn looked down.
What greeted his eyes was an entire summer resort, with the jungle separated by a fence. Inside, as far as the eye could see, were ocean-view villas.
Not far below the cliff, by the sea, there was the largest villa.
The villa was entirely white, spotless, exuding a hint of sanctity.
Even as dusk deepened, illuminated by the lights within the villa complex and the moonlight cast by the crescent moon, the surface of this villa still seemed to glow.
Shawn's gaze followed this villa, looking towards the area where the coast met the jungle behind it.
Even at such a distance, Shawn could still see clearly with his naked eye.
There were almost a hundred thick logs there!
The bark on the outside of the logs had been peeled off, making them smooth and standing at varying heights at the junction of the jungle and the coast.
Something seemed to be hanging from them…
Shawn squinted, his pupils subtly shifting.
As far as his eyes could see, they were all people!
Living people were hung there like rotten meat, their hands tied above their heads to thick ropes binding the logs.
Some looked on the verge of death, while others were already dead.
In the darkness, one could vaguely hear human screams coming from the logs. Those people had only just been hung up and still had strength.
But it seemed the people who hung them were already accustomed to it, not stopping them but just letting them scream.
There were no Walkers here, only Zealots, so no matter how much they screamed, it would be useless.
Everyone was like this when they first arrived here.
But in the end, they were often left with only two paths.
Either surrender, choose to join the Zealots and accept the baptism of their doctrine, and the injection of tranquilizers and other drugs.
Or hang or starve to death on the logs, turning into Walkers, and be burned, corpse and wood, together.
If one looked closely, one would surely find that among the hundred pillars, some had no people hanging from them and were entirely black with a charred surface.
Those were the remains left after burning people, and one could faintly smell a peculiar odor from them.
So, hanging people here was not just a test of the body, but also a severe mental punishment for these survivors who still held onto hope for themselves.
Once they completely lost hope, they would gradually be transformed into the Zealots' new blood.
Shawn took all of this in.
Just at the first sight of this place, a few words couldn't help but surface in Shawn's mind—hell on earth.
Since when did the human world become more like hell than hell itself?
Was it when the Walkers arrived?
No, it was actually when the Walkers disappeared.
...
Shawn opened the skill points interface and found the "Agility Sequence."
Shawn's base Agility attribute had already been raised to Lv7 during the last visit to the Hospital.
The remaining three stages required 2, 3, and 3 skill points respectively, totaling 8 points.
Based on Shawn's previous experience with adding points, the points for the latter three levels might be even more than the previous levels combined, possibly even several times over.
If he could max out all of them, his strength would surely experience another leap.
"Isn't this what skill points are for?"
Shawn unhesitatingly maxed out his Agility attribute, leaving him with only 2 usable skill points.
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