Surviving the apocalypse with a wife and a system! [GL]

Chapter 231: Killing 1.

Once.

Twice.

Then nonstop.

She pulled it out and checked the screen, her eyes scanning the chat messages as new ones kept flooding in. It was the Building 9 group chat, and it was blowing up fast. People were asking what happened, who screamed, who fired a shot, and whether somebody had fallen. Bai Li’s eyes narrowed further as she scrolled. Message after message kept appearing. Hundreds of them in a short burst. Then she saw the name that made her pause.

Hu Xuecheng.

He had fallen from the balcony.

Or at least that was what the residents were saying.

Bai Li stared at the screen for a second, genuinely confused. Then a little shock slipped in after it. That was not what she had expected. Just moments ago, that man had been aiming a gun at her with murder in his eyes. Now the group chat was saying he was dead. Fallen. Dropped from the twentieth floor. The timing was so strange that even Bai Li had to stop and think about it.

She looked up from her phone and then peered from behind the pillar again. Ahead of her, a group of zombies had gathered in a loose circle near the courtyard. They were turning in stupid little motions, bumping into each other, drawn by the sound and the smell and maybe by the blood too. Bai Li could not see the body clearly yet from where she stood, but she knew enough to understand that the crowd of zombies probably marked the spot where the man had hit the ground.

If she was already hunting for crystal cores, then there was no harm in going closer and checking it herself.

Bai Li put her phone away.

Then she started forward.

She did not rush blindly. That would have been stupid. Instead, she moved with the kind of calm that made her look almost cold from a distance. Her steps stayed light, and her eyes kept tracking the zombies ahead. There were forty five of them. She could count them well enough from the way they clustered in layers, some standing nearer the courtyard entrance, some drifting toward the center, some turning on stiff legs near the edges as if they had no idea what they were chasing. The noise from the gunshot and the fall had brought them in, and now they were packed close enough to make the path dangerous.

Bai Li’s fingers tightened around the Whisperfang dagger.

It sat in her hand with a strangely clean feel, almost too light for a weapon that was about to kill so many things. The blade looked narrow at first glance, but when the light hit it, the edge gave off a dark gleam that was easy to miss if you weren’t watching closely. The dagger had been with her long enough now that it felt almost like part of her hand. Not an object. Not a tool. Just an extension of her own intent. It was short enough to move fast, sharp enough to cut deep, and balanced well enough that she could flick it or stab with the same control.

She did not draw any attention to herself at first.

She simply stepped out from behind the pillar and let the nearest zombie notice her.

Its head jerked toward her.

Its mouth opened.

Then it started moving.

Bai Li’s body shifted at the same moment. The first strike came so fast that even a human watching closely might have missed the exact line of motion. She drove the Whisperfang dagger forward and up at an angle, cutting through the zombie’s neck with a clean, ugly precision. The blade passed through flesh and bone with little resistance. The zombie’s head tilted once, then fell apart from its body in a crooked motion as it dropped to the ground.

The smell of rot thickened in the air.

Another zombie lunged from the side.

Bai Li twisted her waist, let it pass just enough to miss, then snapped the dagger back across its throat. The motion was smooth and almost lazy looking, but the effect was cruel. Blood sprayed out in a short line, and the zombie stumbled back while her blade already moved on to the next target.

She did not waste time on big unnecessary swings. That was never her style. She moved in a line, then broke that line when a zombie came from the flank, then turned her wrist and used the dagger point to pierce upward under the jaw of another. Each movement was quick and tight. The monsters came at her in a messy cluster, but her rhythm stayed clean. She was not fighting like a desperate survivor anymore. She was fighting like a cold blooded killer who already knew exactly how the next ten seconds were going to end.

One zombie reached for her shoulder.

She leaned away and stabbed it through the eye.

Another snapped its teeth at her neck.

She stepped half a pace back and sliced through the side of its face.

A third came in too hard from the front and overcommitted its whole body.

Bai Li used its own momentum against it, sliding to the side and opening its throat in one smooth pull.

The first few zombies dropped almost immediately. Then the rest started to crowd in with ugly, mindless persistence. Forty five was not a huge number for her now, but it was still enough to create pressure. She liked pressure. Pressure made her sharper. Pressure made her body move with less hesitation. It forced her to spend less time thinking and more time acting.

So she went in harder.

Her feet crossed and uncrossed over the blood wet pavement. Her shoulders dipped. Her dagger flashed. Zombies lunged. Zombies stumbled. Zombies fell. She moved through them with a kind of fierce confidence that made the whole scene look different, almost controlled in its violence. There was no panic in her face. No wasted breath. No wild expressions. Just focus. Just speed. Just a quiet, ruthless intent.

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TO BE CONTINUED.