Outside the ruins of Jiao City, a modified off-road vehicle drove in from the vast wilderness beyond the city.
The off-road vehicle was embedded with a large number of steel plates, and the front bumper was replaced with a sharp battering ram, stained with blood and decayed flesh.
It was evident that reaching this place was not easy for the vehicle.
The vehicle finally stopped at the entrance to the main road leading into Jiao City, where the path ahead was blocked by a large number of abandoned cars, even the modified off-road vehicle couldn’t pass through.
The engine went silent, and four young men and women wearing bulletproof vests and armed with guns got out of the car.
The leader was a strong man with scars on his face, carrying a machete over a meter long on his back. The other two men and one woman held assault rifles, looking tensely at the ruined city before them.
"This is already the largest ruined city around Gathering Point No. 73."
"It’s said that Gathering Point No. 73 once tried to reclaim Jiao City, sending over three hundred Transcendents into it, but they were hunted by more than three Corpse Kings.
A fifth-rank strongman from Gathering Point No. 73 perished, the Transcendents were almost completely wiped out, and since then, no one dared to propose reclaiming Jiao City again."
"We have just stepped into the first rank of Extraordinary, and Brother Li is a third-rank strongman. Can we really venture into the ruins of Jiao City?"
The three of them were discussing anxiously, clearly having heard about the dangers of this ruined city.
Only Li Kang, the leader, looked calm and nonchalant, saying indifferently:
"Since I brought you here, I naturally have the confidence to retreat safely.
I have lived on the outskirts of the ruins of Jiao City for three years, knowing the distribution of Extraordinary Zombies in the surrounding areas like the back of my hand.
The more zombies congregate inside Jiao City, the more likely it is for powerful Extraordinary Zombies to emerge, but as long as we don’t approach the inner circle of the city, the zombies we encounter are generally below the third rank.
Third-rank zombies and the ordinary zombies on the outskirts pose little threat to us, as long as we avoid getting contaminated by corpse poison, we can handle them easily."
As he spoke, Li Kang strode towards the ruins of Jiao City, and after glancing at each other, the other three cautiously followed Li Kang.
The four of them wandered on the deserted city streets, where dilapidated cars were piled everywhere. One young man looked excitedly at a somewhat intact car, attempting to scavenge something from it.
"Don’t waste your efforts. Anything you can see has already been searched by countless Scavengers, it’s impossible to find anything valuable.
The real treasures in the ruined city are hidden in the buildings close to the downtown area.
The buildings that can block the sunlight might likely harbor zombies inside, Scavengers don’t dare to approach lightly, allowing some resources to remain intact."
Hearing this, the young man’s enthusiasm diminished greatly.
The only young woman among them cautiously asked:
"Jiao City has been overrun for eleven years, even if there are resources like food in this city, they are probably long expired. What are we actually looking for here?"
Li Kang moved aside a scrapped car blocking the road and replied casually:
"Canned goods, tools, gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol... Jiao City was a big city with millions of residents, its resources are far richer than you can imagine.
Some well-preserved canned goods, cigarettes, and alcohol can be stored for decades. These things are precisely what the upper echelons lack the most.
The corpse poison has contaminated too much land, and the remaining clean land and current industrial conditions can only barely support the survivors in the gathering point, there’s simply no extra capacity to produce other luxury items, thus these pre-apocalyptic luxury goods are extremely valuable."
As they ventured deeper into the city, Li Kang and the others arrived in front of a large supermarket.
Looking up at the silent supermarket before him, Li Kang frowned deeply.
"Brother Li, aren’t we going in?"
Li Kang suddenly sneered and pointed to the supermarket in front of them, saying, "A huge supermarket should normally have at least dozens of zombies inside.
Can you believe that so many zombies wouldn’t smell us?"
"There’s no sound inside the supermarket, it must be an intelligent Extraordinary Zombie that’s aware of our presence, using some special Extraordinary Ability to silence the area, deliberately luring us in!"
The two men immediately showed looks of realization and praised in unison:
"As expected of Brother Li."
"Without Brother Li, we might have blindly entered and fallen into the trap of the Extraordinary Zombie."
Only the woman beside them frowned, as a first-rank Transcendent, her awakened Extraordinary Ability was related to life detection, and she could sense that there were indeed no living things inside the supermarket.
She was about to speak, but seeing the two men flattering Li Kang for his experience, she began to doubt her own detection abilities and swallowed her words.
They continued exploring the surrounding area, but what happened next took them by surprise.
Whether it was the abandoned supermarket, mall in the buildings, or street shops, they were all mysteriously silent.
While one or two places could be explained by the means of Extraordinary Zombies, the fact that every place was the same made them suspicious that something must have changed in Jiao City.
Even Li Kang lost his initial ease, his expression growing increasingly grave.
The voice of the only female Transcendent in the team rang out.
Li Kang remained silent with a composed expression, but the young man beside him retorted discontentedly:
"We’ve finally made it to Jiao City, we’ve used up a lot of gasoline along the way, are we supposed to leave empty-handed?"
"If we really are leaving, we should at least explore one resource area before going."
As the words fell, the four of them suddenly felt the ground beneath their feet trembling continuously.
Before the confused voices could fade, the four of them witnessed an unforgettable sight.
At the end of their vision, all the zombies defied their nature, appearing in the blazing sunlight outside.
Tens of thousands of zombies surged like a tide across the city’s streets towards them.
Leading the charge was a colossal zombie over ten meters tall, its towering body completely ignoring the buildings in the city, skyscrapers crumbled before it like flimsy blocks.
Its body crashed through buildings, its steps crushed cars in its path, with each step crossing dozens of meters, like a legendary giant.
Seeing this scene, even Li Kang struggled to suppress the fear in his heart.
"Corpse King! It’s a Corpse King!"
With the power to command tens of thousands of zombies, a zombie reaching the fourth rank or above is entitled to be called a Corpse King, capable of easily destroying a small gathering point.
They couldn’t imagine how a mere four-person Scavenger team could provoke such a terrifying creature.
In the face of such a formidable entity, the Scavenger team didn’t even dare to muster any thoughts of resistance, they could only watch helplessly as the gigantic Corpse King charged straight towards them, and then... passed by them.
"It’s not coming for us?"
Doubt rose from within Li Kang, as the voice of the female Transcendent sounded again.
"It seems... they are fleeing."
As her words fell, the entire sky darkened instantly, an all-encompassing black mist swallowing everything.