CHAPTER 263: WRATH OF THE LIVING DEAD

The Commander’s glowing eyes swept across the wall like a spotlight, and every zombie in range seemed to sharpen, no longer flailing mindlessly and moved like soldiers.

"Command-Type! To the East!" I yelled into the comms. "Prioritise it, bring it down!"

But there was no time.

The north wall screamed under fresh impact as Blade-types vaulted over the piled corpses, with the help of Brutes tossing them. The zombies landed in the walkways like executioners. Long, jagged bone-arms slashed with surgical accuracy, severing rifle barrels, splitting helmets, and spilling blood in precise arcs.

"Squad Seven — fall back! FALL BACK!" Roulan’s voice cracked like a whip.

Li Ya didn’t wait for orders. She charged, her halberd roaring to life with fire qi, cleaving a wide arc that caught a Blade mid-swing. Clang! The strike shattered its arm and sent it cartwheeling into the corpse pile below.

But another was already behind her.

"Li Ya! Your back!" I shouted and tossed another Stage Two off the wall.

She dropped to the ground, taking the slash across her shoulder plate instead of her throat, then rammed the halberd butt into its gut hard enough to splinter ribs. A burst of flame chased the blow, sending it tumbling back into the swarm.

On the south wall, Shen Yifei and Liang Mei were a blur of motion, vaulting ladders, using their spears to dart around like flashes of light. They cut down Hunters before they could sink their fangs into the fresh recruits. But the numbers weren’t thinning. For every mutant that fell, three more climbed and replaced them.

Tang Wei snapped her shotgun back, hissing shells flicking out and hitting the floor with a crisp metal ring. In the sniper’s den, she crouched beside me before locking her eyes through a scope.

"John, there’s a huge number of Brutes towards the west wall... A dozen Stage Three Brutes behind them."

"Can you drop them?"

"Sighted."

Her fingers tapped the rifle’s surface before it boomed. Earth qi flowed from her abdomen and filled the bullet as it punched through the thick neck of a Brute mid-charge, tipping it into the others and halting their charge.

Still, the tide didn’t stop.

The corpse ramps were complete now, slick and glistening, and Stage Twos were pouring up them like ants on a vine. A Hunter skittered over the lip of the wall just meters from my side, and my gauntlet roared, blasting its head into chunks, but more followed.

Liang Mei’s voice hit the comm, sharp and urgent.

"They’re flooding the tower stairwell! We can’t hold them out much longer!"

Every wall position was straining. Brutes hammered, Blades carved, Hunters leapt, and somewhere in that rotting sea, the Commander watched with cold, azure gaze, taking all our movements into calculation.

This Command-Type is too annoying.

I bit my lower lip and closed my eyes, slowly lifting my head.

"If they want the tower so badly...

Then let’s let them have it!"

***

The first Stage Three mutants hit the wall like living siege engines — hulking, muscle-packed nightmares with jutting bones, snapping jaws, and eyes that burned with dim cunning. Others came leaner, with elongated claws for climbing.

The difference in ability between the Stage Two and Three zombies became far too great.

Once reaching Stage Three, their intelligence and instincts started to revive, beyond just seeking food to survive and evolve.

"They’re on the third level!" The roar of the swarm nearly drowned Zhou Xue’s voice, and no matter how many shots their group took... it wasn’t enough.

The tower shook again, not from Brutes this time, but from bodies smashing through the inner defences.

Roulan cut down a Hunter that vaulted the parapet, then turned to me. "We won’t hold much longer."

"That’s fine," I said. "We don’t need to."

Her brows furrowed until she followed my gaze to the charge markers blinking along the interior supports.

It had taken hours last night, working quietly with Tang Wei and Li Ya, to place those charges at every choke point. Enough to tear the tower apart in a heartbeat. The hard part would be timing it.

"Tang Wei! Li Ya!" I shouted over the gunfire. "Get everyone across to the central wall — now!"

Li Ya blinked once, then gave a grim nod, halberd spinning as she cut a path to the stairwell. Tang Wei snapped her shotgun open, blasted another mutant in the face, then waved Deng Hua and Zhou Xue toward the temporary bridge.

Even the terrified recruits hesitated while glancing at me.

"That’s an order!" I barked. "Go!"

One by one, they crossed the ten-metre span of steel and wood to the central wall, covered by Li Ya’s sweeping strikes and Tang Wei’s relentless shots. Roulan was the last to leave, her eyes locked on mine for a heartbeat before she stepped off the tower.

"Hurry up, John!"

The monsters poured in as soon as they sensed the weakness. Hundreds of Stage Three’s smashed through the temporary defences, Hunters vaulted and climbed the walls like frogs, Blades hooked their feet and skittered along the ceiling like grotesque insects.

The floor groaned with their weight.

I pulled the detonator from my belt.

"Come on... closer..."

A Brute forced its way into the chamber, roaring as it charged.

"Close enough."

I pressed the trigger.

BOOM.

The world turned white and soundless. The tower erupted from within, stone and steel shattering in a chain of concussive blasts. The shockwave ripped me off my feet, tossing me through open air.

I hit the central wall hard, skidding across the stone before Tang Wei and Roulan’s hands caught me, dragging me to cover.

Smoke and dust blotted out the tower. Where it had stood, there was only a churning pit of rubble — and the broken bodies of the swarm.

The ringing in my ears refused to fade. My vision swam as the smoke cleared, and the jagged skyline of the Jiang Base came into focus, now with one less tower.

Where the tower stood, there was nothing but a churning pit of stone and mangled corpses. Shards of concrete jutted out like broken glass, and the stench of burned flesh rolled over the wall in a suffocating wave.

Tang Wei crouched beside me, reloading without looking, her lips pushed out in a pout. "You’re fucking insane," she said flatly. "But... it worked."

Roulan scanned the battlefield below. "More than worked. That blast took out at least a quarter of their force."

"No... this is just the beginning." I couldn’t let them get distracted by this success... the enemy still numbered in the thousands at least.

But her words weren’t a complete lie. The corpse ramp that had been pushed against our walls was gone, obliterated along with the hundreds climbing it. Mutants that had been charging were reduced to scattered limbs or stumbling half-bodies.

Most of the brutes lay motionless, their armoured hides melted and bent around their flesh.

Li Ya landed beside us, halberd coated with gore. "Good. Fewer for me to kill later." She looked over the wall, eyes narrowing. "But they’re not done."

She was right. The swarm didn’t break. It didn’t even slow for long. The remaining Stage Ones kept pushing toward the other walls, filling the gap where the tower had been as if the dead pit were nothing but a pothole in the road.

And then I saw him.

The Command-Type.

It wasn’t a Stage One or Two Command Type; its eyes looked almost human. Stood atop a pile of bodies, its blue skin catching the firelight, sweeping its glowing eyes across the battlefield like a spotlight.

With each slow wave of its hand, the chaos of the horde straightened into purposeful movement. The mindless surge became a coordinated flow, driving pressure toward the north and west walls where our numbers were thinner.

"What!? They’re avoiding the damn blast zone," Tang Wei gasped.

"No... they are flanking it. They;re going to split us and hit two walls at once." I corrected.

Roulan’s gaze hardened. "We need to redistribute squads now, or the west wall will collapse before the next wave."

Shen Yifei’s voice cracked over comms, breathless and sharp. "North wall holding, but for how long, I can’t promise Tsssst! Stage Four Hunters! Tsssst!" Her transmission cut with static, replaced by the sharp crack of thunder from the north.

I pushed myself upright, checking my ammo and blades.

"Send a group to support the North, Roulan have Qinglan join you on the north wall. We must hold them on the walls. No matter what."

A deep roar rolled over the battlefield.

Stage Fours.

Larger shapes moved in the gloom and smoke beyond the fires, hulking silhouettes, leaping shadows and blades glinting in the torchlight. They’d stayed back while the fodder softened us up. Now they were coming.

Li Ya smirked, rolling her shoulders. "Those guys look quite delicious. Anyone for some barbecue?"

Tang Wei chambered her last round. "Well, I just so happen to have finished reloading, Ya-Ya, shall we go?"

Three walls remained.

And only two hours had passed.