Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 1166: Section 717: Factory (Part 2)

Chapter 1166: Section 717: Factory (Part 2)

Amidst the continuous sea of companions’ corpses, a zombie stood there bewildered. Its potential for spiritual energy rendered it immune to Malin’s psychic suggestion. Shocked by its comrades’ collective demise, it clutched its metal rod in a daze, feeling helpless and unsure of what to do.

Malin didn’t bother with it. Instead, he reached out to a young man on the ground who was struggling to breathe and used a healing spell to keep him alive.

The zombie still hadn’t come to its senses until bayonettes pierced it from behind—the soldiers forming the line once more spared no mercy for this lucky one.

Malin didn’t consider capturing this individual zombie immune to his suggestion to take it to the old dean for awakening. There were too many out-of-control bio-machines in the world to bother with just one more.

"Thank you, Sir," a middle-aged man covered in mud and blood approached. His temples had long turned gray, and his officer’s uniform was damaged in several places. His face was filled with surprise and the joy of narrowly escaping death. He took off the water bottle from his waist and handed it over, "Sir, it’s honey water, have a sip."

Malin indicated for him to check the trembling water bottle in his hand.

He glanced at the water bottle in his hand and only then noticed a bullet hole in it.

"Uh... my luck is pretty good," the middle-aged man said with a sense of humor despite the adversity.

This made Malin smile, and he casually flipped him a cigarette, "Hold your ground here, I’m going to help out at your adjacent defense line."

Then, amidst repeated thanks, Malin left, carrying his rifle with his left hand. From time to time, he fired at zombies appearing in his left firing zone while his right hand grabbed the head of a zombie scratching at a soldier, pulled it off the soldier’s body, and the zombie fell at Malin’s feet. Its last memory was the rapidly approaching boot sole.

Dragging the soldier to a nearby foxhole, he handed over the soldier, who was only frightened and had a few scratches, to two medics tending to the wounded. He also kindly introduced the soldier’s situation, "I’ve calmed him with a spell formation, but he might have been infected with zombie poison. You better treat him while there’s still time to save him."

After saying this, Malin pulled the longsword from the foxhole, flipped it in reverse, and swung it, slicing an incoming zombie in half. His spiritual shield blocked all filth.

Inserting the longsword back to its previous place, Malin removed the holster from his waist along with a bullet pouch and handed them to the medic, "Protect yourself. Also, an open abdominal wound might render all your efforts futile... you might need this." Malin tossed the World Tree potion to the two medics, perhaps because they had not given up yet, or maybe because the wounded soldier seemed so young and naive, or perhaps due to the heap of corpses from both sides piled up around the foxhole.

"Sir, I can still fight," the newly calmed soldier said.

So, Malin reached out, and spiritual energy brought a rifle to its master. Malin handed it to the soldier.

"Are you protecting him?" Malin noticed soldiers coming from a short distance away.

"Yes, he resolved a berserk zombie for us. The 477th Combat Engineer Battalion owes him a life debt, and now everyone is just repaying it... he’s a young man coming out from the First Academy of Xin’an Prefecture, and he shouldn’t die here for us rough old folk." With these words, the soldier climbed out of the foxhole once more.

Malin surveyed the surroundings. The defense line in this area had long been riddled by zombies, yet the surviving soldiers continued to gather at this point, constantly battling zombies that had infiltrated the defense line earlier.

In the distance, waves of zombies were still sweeping forward as though the recent artillery barrage had never happened.

The soldier pulled out a flare gun and fired it into the sky.

Several soldiers jumped into the foxhole, "We can’t hold it! Let’s go!"

"You leave if you want to, we’re staying with this kid." The older medic, while trying to stitch up the child’s abdominal cavity beneath him, lifted his body to show them his missing left leg and the wound firmly tied and burned with fire.

"Sir, you should leave, the artillery is coming soon." The younger medic was feeding the wounded with an elixir, deeply shaken by its effect—all witnessed the child’s wounds all starting to heal.

"I know," Malin placed his gun aside, using the kneeling body of a zombie as a gun rack.

The sound of whistling artillery shells came from behind. Turning to look, Malin saw the shells, their trajectories elongated under spiritual guidance. Then, the soldiers who remained on this defense line watched as the shells descended into the sea of zombies.

"There’s still so many!" yelled a soldier who had jumped into the foxhole.

"Yes, there are still many," watching the quadrupedal zombies leap from the smoke and quicken their pace, Malin raised his hands.

A wall of fire ignited ahead, swiftly spreading to both sides.

The zombies chose to run through the fire wall, using wave upon wave of deaths to extinguish the spell’s flames.

They came even closer.

But Malin smiled, for reinforcements had already arrived behind him. A sergeant approached Malin, looking at him with eyes full of reverence, "Sir, we’re here."

"Good, open fire at will," Malin said, raising his hand to apply a Group Hawk Eye Technique to all the soldiers behind him.