[The Midnight Zombie Attack.]
Reading the message on her phone, Gu Jiu’s eyebrows twitched slightly as she turned to look at Lu Ji.
Lu Ji’s gaze rested on her, his pitch-black eyes like endless abysses, devoid of any glimmer of light.
In the past, Gu Jiu couldn’t understand why someone’s eyes could be so dark, like an infinite void of pure blackness, so unique that she sometimes doubted if he was even human.
Later, her suspicions proved correct. He wasn’t an ordinary human being; he was a being born of darkness.
Gu Jiu gave him a faint smile to confirm he was still present, then got up and pulled open the bathroom curtains to glance outside.
From a distance, she could see the red lanterns hanging over the ancient town, exuding a tranquil atmosphere in the darkness of night. It might have been because it was the early hours of the morning, and everyone had retreated to their homes for rest, leaving the entire town enveloped in an eerie silence.
It was like the calm before a storm.
Gu Jiu turned and left the bathroom.
She approached the window and leaned out to observe the scene below. The view here was broader, allowing her to better perceive the changes in the ancient town.
As if all at once, the ancient town had turned into a ghost town. The streets were deserted, the shops on both sides of the road were tightly shut, and only the lanterns hung high, casting a hazy red glow.
Further beyond the ancient town, there was a faint, ominous aura.
“Ah Jiu.”
Lu Ji’s voice broke the silence. Gu Jiu shifted her gaze to him and smiled as she asked, “Ah Ji, what was the message on your phone?”
Lu Ji handed his phone to her.
[The Midnight Zombie Attack.]
Seeing the message, Gu Jiu’s expression revealed a sense of realization as she smiled faintly and said, “I’d guess all the players received the same death notice tonight.”
Since the messages were the same, it meant the players wouldn’t be separated this time and would need to face the impending death crisis together.
The two of them quickly changed into combat-ready outfits and opened the door to step out.
The Xiao Qiao Inn was eerily silent, devoid of any trace of human presence. Much like the suddenly quiet ancient town, it seemed as though all the people in the inn had vanished, leaving only the players behind.
“Miss.”
Chai Yingying and Jiang Ze opened their doors and stepped out. Both were dressed in combat-appropriate attire, weapons in hand. Seeing Gu Jiu and Lu Ji, they visibly relaxed.
Jiang Ze said, “It seems like this death notice involves zombies. We’ll be up against a lot of them.”
The words “The Midnight Zombie Attack” alone were enough to make one’s scalp tingle. It turned out there weren’t just ghosts but zombies too. Who knew what other horrors awaited in the future?
Other players emerged from their rooms. Seeing that everyone was present brought a small sense of relief.
Group activity always felt safer than fighting alone. Even if something unexpected happened, at least there’d be others to accompany you in death—misery loves company, after all.
The thirteen players left the Xiao Qiao Inn together, united in purpose.
The death notice had already been delivered to their phones, and danger was unavoidable no matter where they stayed. Naturally, none of them were foolish enough to remain behind alone.
On the ground floor, Chai Yingying went to check the staff quarters of the inn. Unsurprisingly, they were empty.
“We might have entered another dimension,” Tan Lan explained. “Just like when we were in the ancient mansion during the day—it felt as though we were living in that era, experiencing the events described in the death notice.”
It was as if time and space had intertwined, pulling them away from their original timeline and into another.
Once the death notice was sent to their phones, every other human vanished from the town except for the players. Only by surviving this death scenario could they return to the real timeline of the ancient town.
After deducing this from the available clues, the players felt a small measure of relief.
At least they finally had some idea of what was happening.
Stepping out of Xiao Qiao Inn, the players walked along the streets, observing their surroundings.
Shops on both sides of the street were tightly shut, their only illumination coming from faintly glowing lanterns hanging above doorways and under eaves. Not a single soul could be seen on the streets. The atmosphere was eerily reminiscent of a zombie-infested era straight out of a horror movie.
The ancient town’s streets weren’t wide—roughly three meters across—and they twisted and turned, with no clear end in sight.
Suddenly, Gu Jiu looked ahead and warned, “They’re coming!”
The players, unsure of what she meant by “they,” exchanged wary but puzzled glances in her direction.
They hadn’t detected anything yet—how could she know zombies were approaching?
Not familiar enough to question her outright, they held their breath and remained on high alert. After a few minutes, faint figures appeared at the end of the winding street, leaping toward them with astonishing speed.
Zombies moved by hopping, yet when their feet touched the ground, they made no sound at all.
As the zombies drew closer, someone asked, “How do we kill zombies?”
“With talismans, maybe? Try exorcism talismans, ghost-repelling talismans, or Five Thunder Strike talismans.”
The player who suggested talismans quickly pulled out a stack and threw several at the approaching zombies. It was clear they had stockpiled a large number of talismans and weren’t hesitant to use them.
With a series of thunderous booms, the zombies hit by the talismans were reduced to charred corpses, collapsing to the ground.
“It works!” The players’ spirits lifted.
Those with talismans scrambled to find more, while those without had no choice but to grit their teeth and fend off the zombies with weapons.
Chai Yingying and Jiang Ze were among those without talismans. In the game worlds they had previously entered, there hadn’t been zombies, and the few talismans they had encountered were already used up.
“We should’ve stocked up on talismans in Boundless City,” Chai Yingying muttered regretfully.
Jiang Ze slashed at a zombie with his sword, only to see that the blade barely tore its clothing. The creature’s skin and flesh remained unscathed. It became clear that these zombies were as tough as iron walls—ordinary weapons were almost useless against them.
“Looks like weapons won’t work…” Jiang Ze began, but his words were cut short as a severed head flew past and landed at their feet.
Startled, Chai Yingying and Jiang Ze looked over to see Lu Ji wielding his familiar black sword. With each swing, a zombie’s head was cleanly severed.
Their initial alarm quickly turned into calm.
Back during the “Death Train” scenario, they had watched Lu Ji cut down hordes of undead with the same efficiency. When necessary, he had also been able to decapitate them with a single stroke.
After all, there wasn’t much difference between the undead and zombies.
Once decapitated, a zombie’s body would collapse. Though its head might still blink or open its mouth, a severed corpse posed no further threat—it was no longer a concern.
Zhou Anmin exclaimed excitedly, “We can just chop their heads off!”
Tan Lan, after spinning around and kicking a zombie away, warned them not to get ahead of themselves. “That’s only if you can manage to chop their heads off!”
The players using talismans attempted to decapitate zombies with weapons, but quickly discovered how difficult it was. Their failed attempts left them embarrassed, especially when they glanced at Lu Ji, whose effortless head-chopping seemed almost monstrous.
In summary, there were currently only two effective methods to kill zombies: using talismans or decapitating them.
However, both methods had significant limitations. Talismans were finite, and decapitation was exceedingly challenging. It took several players working together to successfully cut through a zombie’s neck—nothing like Lu Ji’s clean, one-swing decapitations.
As they mulled over this disparity, they suddenly heard a cracking sound. A zombie’s head lolled to the side as its body collapsed.
Everyone turned to see Gu Jiu standing behind the fallen zombie. She had twisted its neck with her bare hands, snapping it effortlessly.
The group: “….”
If Lu Ji was intimidating with his sword, Gu Jiu’s barehanded method was downright terrifying. The sound of a neck being wrenched echoed sharply in their ears, and many of them felt a phantom ache in their own necks.
The zombies’ necks seemed fragile, producing an unnervingly crisp sound when snapped.
Inspired, a few players swung their swords at nearby zombies’ necks, only for their blades to rebound with a loud clang. Their hands stung from the jarring impact, while the zombies remained intact, with only a faint mark on their necks.
It was as if they had accomplished nothing.
The zombies that had been attacked snarled, revealing jagged, monstrous teeth. One lunged ferociously at a player, its long, black claws narrowly missing its target but still tearing through the air with deadly intent.
Realizing they had underestimated the zombies, the players quickly refocused on survival.
Jiang Ze and Chai Yingying, thinking pragmatically, moved closer to Gu Jiu and Lu Ji. They willingly acted as bait, drawing zombies’ attention so the two could dispatch them more effectively.
But the zombies kept coming, surging into the town from outside like an unending tide.
Everywhere they looked, there were zombies—hopping down the streets, perching on rooftops, waiting to pounce.
Faced with this sea of undead, the players finally understood the true terror of the death notice. The previous scenario in the ancient mansion seemed like child’s play in comparison, something they could easily resolve.
But how were they supposed to survive this?
Tan Lan, Zhou Anmin, and Tong Shen wisely moved toward Gu Jiu and Lu Ji. Other players attempted to follow suit, but the sheer number of zombies soon separated them again.
Tan Lan, worried, muttered, “What do we do? At this rate, we’ll all be killed by these zombies.”
Gu Jiu reminded her, “If you can’t hold on, use a Spirit Communication Card!”
A Spirit Communication Card?!
One player who was about to be overwhelmed quickly activated their Spirit Communication Card.
When the card was used, the player vanished from their spot, leaving the others behind.
Seeing this, the players realized the truth: a Spirit Communication Card could only save one person, taking them out of danger and bypassing the death scenario entirely.
Tan Lan groaned in regret, “I didn’t buy many Spirit Communication Cards…”
She wasn’t alone—most of the other players looked equally disheartened and regretful. While this scenario allowed unlimited purchases of Spirit Communication Cards, each card cost 1,000 points. For most B-rank players, their resources weren’t abundant enough to casually buy them in bulk. Having three or four cards was already considered lucky.
In this game world, the death notices are the central focus. If players rely on Spirit Communication Cards to escape every time they enter the death notice scenario, it’s easy to predict what will happen once they run out of cards. It’s crucial to save them for moments of utmost danger.
Finally, another player, unable to hold on any longer, gritted their teeth and used a Spirit Communication Card to leave.
After several players used the Spirit Communication Cards in succession, the purpose of the cards became clear. The Spirit Communication Cards didn’t connect to a ghostly realm—they linked to the real world, pulling players out of the death notice timeline and returning them to the safety of reality.
Gu Jiu, Lu Ji, Chai Yingying, and Jiang Ze had yet to use their Spirit Communication Cards.
They were still holding their ground.
Seeing this, Tan Lan and the others gritted their teeth as well, silently resolving to keep fighting.
The players’ injuries multiplied. The zombies’ sharp black claws tore through their skin with terrifying ease, leaving deep gashes.
As the players fought desperately in the sea of zombies, an ethereal, otherworldly song suddenly rang out from ahead. The voice, haunting and melodic, gradually drowned out the zombies’ growls and roars.
The zombies’ ferocious movements faltered ever so slightly.
The players quickly noticed that the zombies’ attacks were becoming sluggish, giving them a chance to catch their breath.
But instead of feeling relieved, they grew increasingly uneasy. They retreated cautiously to a safer distance, their eyes fixed warily on the direction of the mysterious song.
Something about it felt ominous, as if an even greater danger was approaching.