The ancient walls of Lincheng glimmered with a dark bluish hue under the fading light of dusk. Traces of rusted arrowheads from a hundred years ago still lingered in the cracks between the bricks.
Li Guanglong stood atop the battlements, his military boots grinding against the hardened scabs of dried blood with a chilling crunch.
The saber at his waist had just drawn blood. Droplets slid from the blade’s edge and froze upon touching the icy wall.
“Roll the fire oil barrels up to the parapet!”
Li Guanglong roared, his face fierce and savage. “Machine gunners, stand ready! Fire only when those beasts are within a hundred meters!”
Below the wall, the zombie horde surged like a black tide. Grayish arms waved and writhed in the dim light.
The zombies in front had already worn their nails to the nub, yet they continued to claw at the walls frantically, sending fragments of stone raining down.
A few particularly tall zombies stepped on the bodies of their kind, trying to climb upward. Their rotting feet slipped on the icy surface, producing an unbearable screech.
“Dad! I’m scared!”
A child's terrified cry came from within the inner wall. More than thirty civilians had been trapped in the gate tower, most of them elderly or children.
A middle-aged woman clutched her child tightly, trying to cover their mouth as muffled sobs escaped through her trembling fingers.
These were refugees who hadn’t managed to evacuate in time. Now they were trapped in this tiny space, surrounded by a sea of the undead.
Li Guanglong glanced coldly at the panicked crowd, his eyes more chilling than the bloodstains on the wall. “Anyone who dares make another sound—throw them down to feed the zombies!”
Before the words had faded, a scream rang out from the western parapet. A zombie missing half a leg had climbed the piled corpses and grabbed a young soldier’s ankle.
The soldier shrieked as he fell, and in an instant, his calf was torn open down to the bone.
Clang!
Li Guanglong’s saber whistled through the air and chopped down with precision, severing the soldier’s leg at the knee. Blood sprayed across his face, but he didn’t blink.
The soldier let out a painful, piercing scream, rousing the zombies below into an even greater frenzy.
“Take him down for treatment now! If there’s any sign of zombification—burn him on the spot!” Li Guanglong ordered.
“Yes, sir!”
Two of his guards acted without hesitation, dragging the injured soldier away.
Everyone knew: anyone bitten or scratched by a zombie risked infection by corpse poison and could turn into one of them.
Li Guanglong’s strike had been swift and clean. Though the soldier lost his leg, it might have saved his life.
“Stay sharp! If anyone gets bitten—end it yourself!” Li Guanglong shouted, sweeping his bloody blade across the soldiers on the wall.
The troops looked pale, their hands trembling as they gripped their weapons. But no one dared defy him. The gruesome scene just now was burned into their minds.
Just then, several strong civilians pushed past the soldiers and rushed up to the wall. The man leading them had a hoe slung over his shoulder, muscles taut beneath his rough linen shirt. “Your Highness, let us lend a hand!”
Li Guanglong frowned, about to rebuke them, but the man had already swung his hoe and smashed the skull of a zombie climbing the wall.
Black, thick fluid splashed across his body, but he showed no fear. He raised the hoe again and shoved the twitching corpse off the battlement.
More civilians joined in, bringing stones, passing along Molotovs, and even an old woman was seen feeding firewood into the oil barrels.
The defensive force on the wall grew stronger—but it also came with risk.
A woman holding a baby was startled by the zombies and stumbled backward, accidentally knocking over a barrel of fire oil.
The thick oil flowed through the cracks in the stone, dripping onto the heap of corpses below.
Someone’s spark ignited it, and flames shot up several meters into the air. The wall of fire momentarily blocked the zombies’ advance but also overheated part of the western wall, forcing the defenders to retreat temporarily.
“Cover that gap!”
Li Guanglong roared, cutting down a zombie that had climbed up amid the chaos—only for his saber to get lodged in its ribcage.
At that moment of delay, another zombie lunged forward, its jaws snapping toward Li Guanglong’s neck.
“Your Highness!”
Wan Zhong moved like a shadow, flashing in front of Li Guanglong.
With a single slash, Wan Zhong decapitated the zombie, but not before its claws had raked a deep wound across his body.
Corpse poison began to spread rapidly through the gash, visible even to the naked eye.
Gritting his teeth, Wan Zhen didn’t hesitate. He drew a short blade and immediately severed his own injured left arm.
“Wan Zhong!” Li Guanglong’s expression changed dramatically.
He hadn’t expected his most trusted general to sacrifice his own arm to protect him.
“Your Highness! Don’t worry about me—keep killing those beasts!” Wan Zhong used his inner energy to seal his acupoints, halting the bleeding.
In a moment like this, no one could afford to be distracted. Even martial arts masters were not immune—one mistake meant death or permanent injury.
The fire below the wall gradually burned out, revealing scorched corpses—and more zombies flooding forward.
The section of the wall damaged by the flames had begun to crack. Several unusually strong zombies were bashing their heads against it, and the sound of loosening bricks echoed like a countdown drum.
Then came a thunderous crash—the southwestern corner of the wall collapsed.
A tide of black zombies surged through the breach. The dozen or so soldiers stationed there didn’t even have time to scream before they were swallowed by the undead.
“It’s over...” a soldier slumped onto the stonework, his weapon clattering to the ground.
Gritting his teeth, Li Guanglong tore a strip from his robe to bandage his wound and prepared to launch a counterattack—but then, the sky suddenly tore open with a brilliant golden fissure.
From that piercing light, a crimson figure descended like a meteor, crashing into the heart of the zombie horde with unstoppable force. -Vivek
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