The survivors rescued from the institute were brought to the mountainside. Gu Yan condensed plant essence from the surrounding forest to heal them. Tree after tree withered as their vitality was drained—healing so many people whose bodies had been thoroughly altered was no small task.
When the ability users awakened, they found themselves standing upon a vast mountain range. Before them, millions of ability users had gathered in disciplined silence, like an army awaiting war.
Qi Chu and Qin Yao quickly organized the impromptu force into ranks according to abilities and combat roles.
Since everyone from GuoSan Base possessed space bracelets, they had long prepared sufficient food supplies. Lunch was distributed to all—including the newly healed—and then they waited.
---
Thirty minutes before the zombie horde reached the capital, Gu Ruanxing and Little Rui removed the Void Cloak shielding them.
The watchtowers were thrown into chaos.
The Gu family of the Capital, along with allied forces, executed a flawless evacuation and retreated toward the mountain army. As they arrived, alarms echoed from the Capital—but without panic or disorder, they merged into formation and took their assigned positions.
Gu Yunchen had already confirmed through his mental ability that every remaining person in the Capital was corrupt. Gu Mian then created a sealed spatial division around the city—none inside would escape.
Only then did the seventy-plus members of the Gu Team remove their stealth, appearing in the sky above the army. Qi Chu and Qin Yao joined them in the air as they waited for the zombies to approach.
---
In the Capital, the Level Twelve Zombie rose from atop an armored vehicle and hovered in the sky.
He wore what appeared to be royal garments. His features were strikingly handsome—if not for his corpse-pale skin, he could have passed for human.
He spoke:
> "Humans. Today is your last day. Join me, and I will elevate you into high-level zombies. Your bodies, abilities, and memories will remain intact.
Zombies are the true evolution decreed by the cosmos. We are immortal.
Fight us, and you will become food.
Humans and zombies cannot share this land. There is no third path.
I give you three minutes."
Some humans, already broken by despair, betrayed their kind without hesitation. Those around them could only watch in fury and helplessness.
Three minutes later, the horde surged forward.
---
As battle erupted, the Zombie King sensed a strange summoning force and flew toward the institute. Expecting a treasure, he instead found terrified dignitaries and researchers attempting to flee.
He scanned the building, reanimated the corpses, devoured the ability cores of the escaping officials, and tossed their remains to his subordinates.
Hours later, surveying the battlefield from above, he sensed something was wrong.
The zombies assigned to attack from the rear were gone.
He shifted position—and saw it.
Millions of humans in the mountains methodically harvesting zombies.
His lips twitched.
He ordered his forces to annihilate the Capital defenders and advance toward the mountains.
---
The defenders in the Capital soon realized the zombies had doubled in number. They were swiftly overwhelmed. The horde poured through the ruins and marched toward the rear mountains.
But hours earlier, the mountain army had prepared.
They had practiced condensing Qi into bows and arrows for an hour. When the zombies came within range, a rain of luminous arrows descended.
Gu Mian used spatial needles to extract zombie cores mid-battle. From above, one could see glowing cores rising from corpses and vanishing into her space.
When bodies piled too high, Gu Ruisheng and Gu Shao reduced them to dust.
At the rear, cultivators from P City Base joined the fray. GuoSan Base defenders were already engaged on their own front.
A command channel operated through wrist communicators—phones were useless in such chaos. Xiao San and Tang Guo relayed orders across all fronts, ensuring early casualties were avoided.
Two hours in, Gu Mian divided the Gu Team into three groups—each assigned to oversee one battlefield: GuoSan Base, P City Base, and the main mountain front.
Each group brought space ability users who created miniature ponds filled with spring water from Gu Mian's space—allowing purified cores to be absorbed quickly by exhausted fighters.
The Gu family suppressed their auras completely.
The Zombie King sensed only someone equal to himself and assumed Xiao San was in command.
He never imagined beings far beyond him were present.
---
When night fell, and the zombie horde flooded the Capital, Gu Ruisheng sealed the city within layered space separation—and reduced it to ashes.
The Zombie King stiffened.
A Level Twelve hiding among them? he thought grimly.
He never imagined the perpetrator far surpassed his level.
---
The following day, both sides paused.
The horde was so vast that less than a kilometer separated zombies from humans on each front. Neither side pursued.
Fighting hundreds of millions could not be finished in a day.
High-level fighters remained inactive. None above Level Seven had entered the battlefield yet.
That evening, the Zombie King declared the war would continue from dusk till dawn.
And so began the battle later recorded in history as The Three-Pincer War.
---
Low-level zombies flooded forward in endless waves.
High-level cultivators rained arrows. Lower-level fighters engaged physically.
Order ability users cleared the battlefield. Gu Shao and Gu Ruisheng teleported constantly to incinerate remains—others' fire abilities could not fully disintegrate zombies, and no one wished to test what resurrection abilities the Zombie King might possess.
Millions died each hour.
Low-level fighters replenished Qi and Mana continuously, even leveling up in the process.
Fire and Lightning ability users dominated in large-scale attacks.
For nights, the sky was filled with explosions, lightning, and blazing light.
Under the Gu Team's protection, not a single human died.
Lost limbs were regrown by high-level healers who treated the war as advanced practice.
---
One week passed.
Thirty million zombies had fallen.
But that was not even a quarter of the horde.
The Zombie King shifted tactics—releasing zombies during the day to exhaust humanity. Fighters rested in shifts, at most two hours per day.
During breaks, they consumed high-calorie rations from Gu Mian's space and drank spring-water juice. Thirty minutes of sleep. Then back to war.
Two weeks in, high-level zombies entered the battlefield.
High-level humans were forced into direct combat, leaving lower ranks without backup. Healers worked without pause.
Still, not one human died.
Order ability users, constantly clearing fields, broke through minor levels faster than anyone.
The Gu Team documented everything across all three fronts.
Gradually, the Gu family isolated the Zombie King and his Level Eleven ministers in a separate space. Gu Yunchen began issuing commands that manipulated zombie formations from within.
Teenagers like Leng Rui were heavily protected. Though injured at times, they never suffered fatal wounds.
---
Two months passed.
Humanity clung to sanity by a thread.
The Gu Team finally joined the battlefield openly—suppressing their cultivation to Level Twelve to maintain balance.
Now, except for those recording history, every living human in Hua Country was fighting.
And the war was far from over.