Infinite Ebullience
Chapter 1178 - 57: Tyrant Interception

Chapter 1178: Chapter 57: Tyrant Interception

Newcomers looked like startled wild cats, their scalps exploding as they fixed their eyes on the Licker. Even Kong Licheng and Dong Zixuan were unsettled. There was no helping it, common zombies were slow and not much of a threat; as long as they weren’t surrounded, they could always escape. But Lickers were different, their fierce appearance and frenzied sprint brought immense oppressive force, making one feel as if they might be pounced on and bitten to death in the next second.

"Focus fire and kill it first!" Hu Liwen screamed, firing without waiting for Tang Zheng to speak, Li Zhilian and Liu Binshi also opened fire randomly.

"Cease fire! Shotguns can’t reach that far, anything beyond fifty meters lacks precision!" Tang Zheng shouted angrily, infuriated by the increased gunfire that drew more zombies’ attention, starting to crowd towards them.

In total, three Lickers appeared in their field of vision, and within a few seconds, they had charged within a hundred meters.

"Quick, kill them!" Hu Liwen couldn’t calm down, firing all seven of her shotgun shells in a panic. Hearing the empty chamber sound, she didn’t reload but pulled on Tang Zheng’s arm, urging him to shoot.

Tang Zheng had already aimed at the Licker, but Hu Liwen’s pull caused him to miss.

"Get off!" Tang Zheng kicked the policewoman in the thigh, knocking her to the ground, "You deal with the common zombies."

Lickers are natural hunters, not very intelligent but they know to avoid danger. In the ACOG scope, their figures were just flickering by.

"Damn, they’re so fast." On such open ground, where they could move freely, it was difficult for Tang Zheng to predict their attack paths, let alone against three.

Tang Zheng, seeing he couldn’t kill the Licker instantly, resorted to the most wasteful tactic, chasing the lead Licker’s figure with his muzzle tilted firing.

Bang bang, bang bang, Tang Zheng fired rapidly in single shots, emptying his remaining twelve bullets, finally blowing the brain out of the first one. With no wasted movements, he switched his ammo clip, but the other two had taken advantage of the break to rush within fifty meters; Kong Licheng and Dong Zixuan attacked but couldn’t even touch a hair on the Lickers.

"Shoot, they are coming!" Hu Liwen, unrepentant, hid behind Tang Zheng, relinquishing her hope to someone else.

Tang Zheng’s M4A1 muzzle chased the second Licker’s head, firing again, the bullets whistling through the air, drawing a curve and finally two bullets pierced its head, spraying a mist of blood, its body falling to the ground due to inertia.

The third one charged within five meters, its entire body rotting, even adorned with some maggots, utterly disgusting!

Tang Zheng didn’t back down, because moving would only reduce the accuracy of his shooting, and those one or two steps wouldn’t have avoided the attack anyway. But the newcomers couldn’t withstand the pressure; aside from Dong Zixuan who was still guarding Tang Zheng’s side, everyone else backed away, wanting to distance themselves from the Licker.

Tang Zheng’s muzzle moved, abandoning aiming, and chased after the Licker to attack as the creature dodged bullets instinctively like a flea.

Bang, Dong Zixuan’s shotgun fired off course, Tang Zheng’s bullets hit the Licker’s body, unfortunately not its head, but it still felt threatened enough by him to change course, turning away to attack the newcomer behind him.

Li Zhilian saw the Licker bypass Tang Zheng and leap towards her, almost scared to death, without thinking, she grabbed Hu Liwen’s arm next to her, pulling her in front as a meat shield.

"Don’t!" Hu Liwen was incredibly unlucky, having previously used others as cover, now finally tasting her own medicine.

The Licker pounced, pinning down the policewoman, its right claw swinging and leaving four diagonal blood marks across her face from the temple to the chin, blood splattering.

"Ah!" Hu Liwen screamed, holding back the Licker’s snapping head with both hands, her face completely disfigured—a slashed nose, a blind eye, and her mouth grotesquely split into a cleft lip, looking like a ghastly female ghost.

Dong Zixuan didn’t dare shoot, worried shotgun pellets might hit her colleague, but Kong Licheng didn’t care about that, firing a shotgun blast that hit the zombie in the torso, a steel ball embedding in Hu Liwen’s ribs.

Tang Zheng fired a follow-up shot, the bullet penetrating the Licker’s head, killing it, its body falling on Hu Liwen.

"Liwen, are you okay?" Dong Zixuan lifted the corpse off, pulling Hu Liwen up.

"My eyes, my eyes!" Hu Liwen cried out, her face contorting with pain amidst all the blood, making her look even more terrifying.

"It’s okay, don’t panic!" Dong Zixuan comforted her colleague, reproaching Kong Licheng, "Were you trying to kill her?"

"She’s scratched, she’ll die sooner or later." Kong Licheng frowned, feeling that Dong Zixuan was being unreasonable.

"You’re the one who’s going to die!" Hu Liwen, enduring agonizing pain, stood up and roared at Li Zhilian, "I’m going to kill you."

"I learned it from you," Li Zhilian retorted, pointing his gun at Hu Liwen, he would have killed this woman if not for worrying about Tang Zheng.

"Stop arguing, fight the zombies, let’s get out of here." Tang Zheng had reloaded, immediately running, Li Zhilian must die, but not now, still needed to draw the zombies’ attention.

This delay allowed a gathering of about three hundred zombies, the nearest having already approached within thirty meters.

Hu Liwen, aching to devour Li Zhilian whole, though still didn’t dare disobey Tang Zheng’s orders; this time she’d learnt her lesson, following closely behind the group leader.

Tang Zheng firing, emptied his magazine in less than six seconds, then pressed the magazine release button, swiftly swapping it, the whole action smooth and pleasing to the eye.

Dong Zixuan and Kong Licheng began achieving some gains, but Liu Binshi still hadn’t managed to get a single head, Li Yumiao’s gun had jammed, the most tragic of all.

"Drop that, use this." Tang Zheng took off his shotgun and handed it to his classmate.

"Thank you." Li Yumiao didn’t expect that in the midst of battle, Tang Zheng still worried about her safety; she was profoundly moved.

In three minutes, Tang Zheng’s team had only covered five hundred meters. This was the result of the newbies fully exerting themselves under the pressure of death.

"Let’s rest for a moment!" Li Zhilian bent over, hands on his knees, gasping heavily. The discomfort in his nasal passages was intense. Although Tang Zheng didn’t respond, he clenched his teeth and kept running.

"Wait, wait a moment, I, I can’t keep up," Hu Liwen was in even worse shape. Even with Dong Zixuan supporting her, the two fell behind by more than twenty meters. Moreover, her leg muscles were sore and constantly shaking.

"Tang Zheng, let’s rest a bit. Everyone is at their limit." Dong Zixuan was gasping for breath, clearly exhausted. If it weren’t for her regular exercise, the burden of carrying Hu Liwen would have worn her out much earlier.

Tang Zheng was reluctant to agree, but seeing Li Yumiao also drenched in sweat and shaking, he immediately ran towards a nearby factory building.

"Rest for two minutes." Tang Zheng killed nearby zombies and squatted down to rest.

"Let’s go inside." Liu Binshi felt it was too dangerous outside and went to pull the iron gate of the factory.

"No!" Tang Zheng exclaimed with a start and chased after him.

The iron gate had just opened a crack when two zombies lunged out, reaching for Liu Binshi with extended arms.

Tang Zheng grabbed Liu Binshi by the collar, pulled him back, drew his handgun, and fired. The bullets left a big pit in the zombies’ cheeks.

"Quick, move the corpses." Hearing the noise, a horde of zombies inside the factory started running towards them, and Tang Zheng tried to close the door.

Liu Binshi, being a miner, had good physical strength. Ignoring the risk of infection, he grabbed the corpses by their clothes and dragged them out.

Tang Zheng closed the iron gate with a relieved sigh, sat down, and casually changed his ammo clip. On this stretch, he had used up a lot of ammunition, and his rifle bullets were nearly exhausted.

"Are you crazy? There are definitely workers in the factory during the day." Kong Licheng cursed, fearing that their teammates’ incompetence would eventually kill them.

"Just hang in there, we’ll treat you when we get back to the hotel." Dong Zixuan comforted her colleague, wiping the cold sweat from her forehead.

The entire factory area was a scene of apocalypse, and distant zombies continued to follow the sound of gunshots.

"All right, let’s move, there’s no time left." Tang Zheng saw everyone’s breathing had stabilized somewhat, jumped up, and pressed on, leaving the newbies with no room to negotiate. If they didn’t move, they would be left as food for the zombies.

The next two minutes of frantic escape were like that of stray dogs. However, after turning a street corner, the group saw a Black Hawk Helicopter parked on the lawn.

Its black paint glistened under the sunlight. Deadly bullet nests hung from its racks, an M230 machine gun was mounted at the front, both sides of the hatch were open, revealing two M134 miniguns, and there were even twelve air-to-ground missiles.

"That’s so cool!" Kong Licheng exclaimed. Without Tang Zheng needing to say anything, everyone’s pace involuntarily quickened. But in the next moment, with loud thudding sounds, their expressions changed.

A Tyrant from the first generation ran out from behind a factory a hundred meters away, chasing after the group.

"Someone go and lure the Tyrant away; otherwise, the helicopter won’t even take off before it gets shot down." Kong Licheng shouted. On the ground, the helicopter was just a sitting duck.

Hu Liwen and Li Zhilian flat-out ignored Kong Licheng. They didn’t want to be sent to their deaths against a monster that could easily overpower several Lickers.

"Damn it, forcing me to lose it, Li Zhilian, you go!" The Tyrant, tall and fast, was only slightly slower than Lickers. Seeing them unresponsive, Kong Licheng was ready to take drastic measures.

"I’ll go." Dong Zixuan stepped up but was held back by Kong Licheng, "No, you need to operate the Fire God Cannon."

It was just an excuse. Kong Licheng knew that whomever played the bait almost certainly wouldn’t survive, better to send someone expendable.

"I won’t!" Li Zhilian refused, shaking his head vigorously.

"Ungrateful fool." Kong Licheng’s face reddened with anger, ready to make an example out of Li Zhilian.

"You go. Just hold on for thirty seconds. Once I take off, I can support you with missiles. Otherwise, I won’t let you board." Tang Zheng rebuked Li Zhilian, increasing his pace again.

"If you don’t go now, I’ll kill you right here." Hu Liwen screamed, eager to take action immediately.

"You’re ruthless!" Seeing Tang Zheng’s stance, Li Zhilian knew he had no choice. He cursed and left the team, running between the helicopter and the Tyrant to intercept and attract its attention, staying closest to the helicopter.

Before anyone could breathe a sigh of relief, another Tyrant appeared and ran towards them. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it and cast your monthly ticket at qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation.)