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

Chapter 233: Killing 3.

Bai Li knew.

She shifted right, then left, then back again, drawing the creatures into a tiny corridor between broken pavement and a low concrete planter. Once their movement tightened, she moved in close enough that they could not swing freely. One zombie tried to grab her arm. She let it think it had a chance, then pulled the dagger straight across its forearm and cut through the tendon before stabbing into the side of the neck. Another zombie bumped into the first one and tangled its legs. Bai Li used the opening to slash upward through the throat, then pivoted and drove a kick into the next creature’s knee. It dropped awkwardly. One quick thrust through the face finished it.

The fight was starting to build a rhythm that would have looked almost graceful if the scene had not been so ugly. Bai Li’s feet kept changing angles. Her torso turned just enough to avoid each attack. Her dagger moved in short, efficient arcs. She never swung too wide. Never wasted force. She used the shortest path possible every single time. Blood covered more of the ground now, making the pavement slick underfoot, but she compensated without trouble. She shifted weight, shortened her steps, and used the broken terrain like it was part of the battlefield instead of a problem.

A zombie lunged from behind a half collapsed flower bed.

Bai Li heard the movement before she fully saw it. She ducked under the arm and drove the dagger back into the creature’s throat from below. Then she yanked the blade out and struck sideways at the one behind it, catching it in the cheekbone and tearing through to the neck. It stumbled and fell.

One of the zombies near the wrecked car turned and charged straight at her.

Bai Li stepped onto the side of the car wreck for half a second, used the slight height to give herself more room, and brought the dagger down into the top of the zombie’s head with a sharp downward stab. The body fell forward and stayed there.

She jumped off the wreckage without pausing.

Her breathing grew a little louder now, but still controlled. Sweat rolled down the side of her neck. Her shoulders felt warm, her wrists slightly sore from repeated impact, but the soreness remained small enough to ignore. She had been through worse. Much worse. The blood on her sleeves and the rot in the air did not disturb her. If anything, the whole fight was reminding her of how far she had come. The body she had now was stronger than the one she had once taken for granted. Strong enough to handle this kind of slaughter without falling apart. Strong enough to keep going.

The next group came together too quickly, four zombies from the same rough angle. Bai Li did not let them surround her. She backed into a narrow line, made them compress into each other, then struck the one at the front hard enough to make it crash into the others. That caused a small chain reaction. Two stumbled. One lost balance. One reached out at the wrong time and got its wrist broken by the momentum of the collapse. Bai Li stepped into that mess and cut through the closest neck, then the next, then the next. Her dagger kept moving before the bodies had even finished falling.

A zombie threw itself at her with both arms wide.

She slashed it across the stomach.

The thing did not stop, so she shifted her body and opened the back of its neck before it could wrap around her.

Another rushed in from the edge and got the point of her blade under the chin.

The sound of tearing flesh, the scrape of metal, the dull crack of bone, all of it blended into a strange, ugly music that only the apocalypse could make. Bai Li stayed in the middle of it without hesitation. She looked like she belonged there more than the monsters did. Her movements were so direct that even the violence seemed efficient. She was not pretty about it. She was not performing. She was just killing.

That was all.

And it was enough.

By the time the first half of the forty five had dropped, the courtyard looked much worse than before. Bodies were piled in uneven clusters. Some had fallen at the edge of the planter. Some leaned against the wall. Some lay face down in the blood soaked ground. Bai Li did not stop to admire the results. She used the opening to move deeper into the area, making sure the remaining zombies could not regroup. If they tried to gather in one place, she broke them apart again. If they came from too many angles, she used the nearest obstacle to block one side and forced the others into narrower approaches. It was like solving a messy, violent puzzle with only a knife and her own body.

One zombie came from the right.

She ducked and cut the knee.

Another came from the left.

She slashed through the hand before it could touch her.

A third tried to bite her shoulder from behind. She turned her head just enough to avoid the teeth, then drove the dagger into the creature’s temple with enough force to pin it for a second before ripping it free.

A small cluster had gathered near the broken wall now, and Bai Li decided to switch the pattern again. Instead of going straight at them, she ran past the outer edge and let them turn. That gave her their backs for half a second. Half a second was plenty. She cut the first in the neck, the second through the eye socket, and the third in the back of the skull before the rest could properly react. The remaining zombies in that group turned too slowly to follow, so she finished them with short, angled strikes that sent their bodies dropping into the same messy spot.

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TO BE CONTINUED.