Chapter Eighty-Eight: High-End Combat Power Enters the Fray

A Level Four zombie warrior, relying on his great strength and massive size, kept forcing his way toward Iron Pillar and the others. Every low-level zombie in his path was shoved into the deep trench. But when he finally noticed the trench, he assumed his power would let him leap across it with ease.

That was where the tragedy began.

He did make the jump, but he had underestimated the hard ice covering the slope on the far side. The moment his foot touched down, it slipped on the frozen surface, and he went skidding straight into the pit below. Yet in that misfortune there was a trace of luck. The trench was already packed thick with zombies, and when his huge body crashed down into it, he crushed many of them to death but survived himself. Accustomed to lording it over lesser zombies, how could he endure falling into a pit before even reaching battle? In a burst of rage, he vented all his fury on those low-level creatures suffering the same fate. With his combat power, they were no match for him at all, and one after another they were torn to pieces.

The same scene played out again and again along the fifteen-kilometer trench, greatly easing the work of the corpse rats.

A few Level Five zombie warriors managed, by sheer luck, to climb the slope, only to be met by several hard beast leg bones. The massive cudgels came smashing straight at their heads, leaving the Level Five zombie warriors dazed and reeling. They toppled backward, knocking many zombies behind them off balance, and all of them rolled back into the trench together.

To the west, zombies covered the land in a dense and endless mass, but when they reached Ma Yi’s first line of defense, it was as though their advance had been suddenly severed. They no longer showed any sign of moving forward.

More than ten kilometers away, the Zombie King still had no idea what had happened at the front. He only sensed that the speed of his army’s advance was steadily slowing.

Long accustomed to victory, the Zombie King was irritable to the point of violence, and in fury he urged his troops onward.

The zombie army, which had been gradually slowing, accelerated once more.

The trench was reaching its limit. From the slope above, one could already see the clawing, writhing zombies below. The pit was nearly full. This fifteen-kilometer trench had swallowed close to three million zombies already. That number was several times greater than the entire villa base. Yet the horde behind them showed not the slightest sign of thinning. If anything, it looked even larger, and it was charging forward even faster.

The slope was no longer the easy killing ground it had been before. Fighting was now breaking out everywhere upon it, and more and more zombies were succeeding in climbing up.

Fortunately, the advantage still lay with Ma Yi. When Iron Pillar and Second Ha had come to man the defenses, Ma Yi had specifically instructed them not to use their abilities unless the pit could no longer hold. That way, the warriors could conserve their strength and sustain themselves longer in battle. What Ma Yi had not told Iron Pillar, however, was that he had prepared another hidden measure within the first defensive line.

More than a hundred fuel tankers had already reached their assigned positions. Before the fuel pipes of each tanker was a hole a little over thirty centimeters wide, dug in advance at Ma Yi’s order by the corpse rats. They had not merely dug tunnels; to reduce the loss caused by the fuel flowing underground, the rats had even smoothed the tunnel walls to a remarkable degree.

The men driving the fuel tankers were soldiers Ma Yi had drawn from various bases to assist him. Their task was simple enough: transport the gasoline and diesel that had been gathered, arrive at the designated points, and under Ma Yi’s command pour it into the specified openings.

“Begin,” came Ma Yi’s voice through the radio.

The soldiers swiftly opened the fuel lines and inserted them into the rat holes in the ground. Only a small portion of the tankers began operating; most of the others remained tense and waiting. From where they stood, they could see the position of the first line and hear the various cries and shouts rising from it.

Above ground, zombie warriors kept charging onto the slope. Many of them had grown somewhat cleverer as well, sacrificing themselves to gouge small footholds into the incline and leave support for those who came after.

Underground, meanwhile, great quantities of gasoline coursed through the rat tunnels and poured into the trench. Only when the report came over the radio that the fuel had all been emptied did Ma Yi press the transmit button and say calmly, “Ignite it.”

“Yes, sir.”

At the order, the soldiers quickly flicked their lighters alight and tossed them into the tunnels. Instantly, jets of flame burst from the rat holes.

To prevent the gasoline from exploding once it ignited, Ma Yi had ordered the corpse rats to open ventilation shafts from the fuel channels up to the surface every twenty meters. The soldiers stood where they were, watching as bursts of fire spat from the ground in the distance, the vents flaring one after another ever closer to the trench.

“Execute the second plan.”

Just as the soldiers stared expectantly toward the trench, Ma Yi’s voice came again through the radio.

“Yes, sir!”

Only then did the soldiers hurriedly climb back into their vehicles and drive toward the villa.

In their rearview mirrors, they could see that within only a few minutes the trench had begun belching thick smoke, and along the entire western defensive line that lay within sight, columns of smoke rose one after another.

“Well now, Boss had this trick hidden away too?” Iron Pillar stood atop the slope. For the moment, there was no worthy opponent in the fight for him to take on, and he could not be bothered to move. So he simply stood there, idly bantering with Second Ha.

“The Boss isn’t stupid. A few hundred thousand against tens of millions? Of course he’d have his own plan. What, did you think the Boss was like you and didn’t know how to use his head?” Second Ha glanced at Iron Pillar with open disdain, though inwardly his admiration for Ma Yi had only deepened. Earlier, he too had thought the Boss meant to meet the enemy head-on by brute force. But now it was clear: unless there was absolutely no alternative, Ma Yi would never choose a direct clash. Several hours had already passed since the battle began, and only a handful of enemies had truly broken through and climbed onto the slope. Most had nearly made it to the top only to have their heads smashed by their side’s warriors and be sent tumbling back into the trench.

Tongues of flame began to emerge from the mass of zombie corpses in the trench. The pit, once filled with rolling smoke, was gradually overtaken by blue fire. The blaze grew fiercer and fiercer, until the many warriors standing on the slope could feel waves of scorching heat continually surging toward them.

“It looks like they’ve stopped on the other side.”

“Let’s pull back a little ourselves,” said Second Ha hurriedly when he saw the opposing zombie warriors trying to halt.

“Yeah. The fire’s too strong. They probably won’t dare come through.” Iron Pillar nodded, and the two of them immediately roared out their orders. On receiving the command, all the warriors on the slope retreated more than thirty meters.

“Why have they stopped?” bellowed the western Zombie King, now only five li from the first line of defense.

“They set fire to it? Then send the high-level warriors in. Smash through their line first, and we’ll talk after that.” He lifted his gaze and indeed saw smoke and flame rolling in the distance. But victory had followed him at every step, and he had no wish to wait. He had come this far unstoppable, with no one ever able to block his path. This time would be no different.

At his command, high-level zombies began appearing one after another within the vast horde, thrusting themselves toward the first defensive line. Bound by the Zombie King’s control, even if what lay ahead were mountains of blades and seas of fire, these zombie warriors had no choice but to charge.

“Well, would you look at that, Second. You see it? They’re making a big move over there.” Iron Pillar was, after all, an eighth-level calamity-class warrior; his eyesight was excellent. He could see the disturbance rippling through the enemy army, and from time to time high-level zombie warriors thrust their heads up from the sea of corpses.

“Hah, just a pack of trash. We’ll smash them one by one. Boss was right, just as expected. If their low-end combat strength can’t break the first line, then they’ll definitely send out their high-level warriors.” Second Ha nodded. He had seen it too. Just as the Boss had predicted, the trump card they had been holding back all this time was meant precisely for these enemies.

“That’s right. We’ll make sure none of them return. Pass the order—prepare to face the real enemy.” Iron Pillar nodded and spoke to the warriors beside him. In an instant, his order sped through the line. By saying they were about to face the real enemy, he meant their side’s warriors could fight without restraint now. The secret technique taught by the Boss, Voidshock, could be used.

Before long, large numbers of zombie warriors of Level Four and above had gathered on the far side of the wall of fire. Some of them looked normal, some were grotesquely misshapen, and some were stranger still. These peculiar zombie warriors seemed to have much thicker plate armor growing across the surfaces of their bodies than ordinary warriors. More outrageous still, some had armor that had grown into the shape of full knightly mail, so that across the whole body only a narrow slit remained where the eyes should be.

“Return fire!”

At once, the ranged fighters on both sides drew bone spears from their backs and hurled them wildly at the enemy. But the effect was slight. The flames in the trench were simply too fierce. When bone spears passed through the fire, the surging heat blasted them upward, and then the flames ignited them. Many were burned away before they could even reach the far side.

Ma Yi’s side had very few ranged warriors, so they had not been organized into any special unit. The enemy had many more ranged fighters, but their levels were generally low. There were only a few hundred above Level Four, far too few to pose any real threat to Iron Pillar’s side. At the start of the battle, the ones rushing in front had all been cannon fodder, so these ranged fighters had never come forward. Now that they had, they still had no way of dealing with Iron Pillar and his men.

With a furious roar, a Level Six zombie warrior sprang upward with a powerful leap, his arms clasped over his head as his whole body shot through the flames and crashed heavily onto the slope. After being baked by the blazing heat, the ice layer had already melted, and the earthy, rocky incline was smashed into a great crater by the impact.

Seeing the first success, more enemy warriors around Level Six began making running leaps. One after another, they burst through the wall of fire and slammed down on the slope beyond.

Some Level Four zombie warriors also tried to jump across, but the merciless blaze left them behind.

In an instant, all zombie warriors below Level Five no longer dared rush forward. Only those of Level Five and above could ignore the searing flames and make the leap.

But even crossing over was useless. The warriors of the Matchless Legion waiting on the slope watched them like tigers, leg bones raised in their hands, calmly awaiting their prey’s arrival. The secret art Voidshock erupted. Each leg bone radiated several tons of striking power, along with the continuous destructive force of vibration.

The moment a zombie warrior climbed onto the slope, a Voidshock-infused leg bone smashed into its body. It looked like a casual blow, the kind one might think could simply be endured. But the result was hideous. Solid armor burst apart as though blown open from within, and the body itself, as if struck by some colossal force, was hurled backward in an instant, drilling straight through the waves of flame and plunging into the deep trench below.