After stopping the car, the pair walked into the barracks together, only to see that someone was outside the truck waving at them.
"What's the matter?" The two people paused then quickened their steps.
"We'll talk in the car, we have to leave early today." Seeing the two people come over, the captain hurriedly motioned at the driver to leave.
"Yesterday afternoon a large number of zombies rushed out of the base, their movements were more flexible than before. When the zombies attacked, five soldiers were killed and two metal ability users…" The captain's eyes were heavy. "…both died."
One had been killed on the spot while the other was injured and became a zombie, so they had to…
The car had a heavy atmosphere, Luo Xun and Yan Fei were silent for a while before asking. "How were they hurt? Did the zombie jump into the base?"
The captain slowly shook his head, before he could speak a metal user other than Yan Fei spoke up. "They didn't repair the wall the way we did! The second team hung outside using the rope! It's how they lost two people!"
Yan Fei and Luo Xun looked at each other. They were surprised but also did understand why the other team would do this. After all, directly manipulating the metal gave better control, or perhaps they could not remotely control the metal.
"Where's Li?" Luo Xun asked another question.
"The higher ups asked us to transfer one person to the second team. I sent him over first." This was one of the reasons the captain was not happy, due to someone else's mistakes, he was forced to split up his own team. Their irresponsible decision was even more annoying!
The whole car was immersed in anger, towards the dead, the ones who had decided the matter and against the crazy zombies outside the base.
Because the second team had a major incident, the ability user who had transferred from the first team would have to act as a guide in using powers over long distances in addition to their regular workload. After all, the reason that the second team had not used the method previously was because they did not have a thorough grasp of it, which would cause a waste of nuclei.
"Captain, there is only one metal user left on the second team, why not just merge the two teams?"
Instead of sending a person over to the second team, why not merge the two teams together? Why so complicated?
The captain had a helpless face. "Fear of ability users having problems over using their powers. Plus the two teams had been working separately, so efficiency factored into the decision."
In fact, the main reason was that the base had not finished studying the crystal nuclei. What would happen if overuse of nuclei had an effect on the body? Like suddenly turning into a zombie? The base dared not allow these people to use their abilities until they could fully verify the situation.
The car soon parked at the edge of the wall. The captain cheered on the rest of the group. "Good, everyone get fired up. Although we now have one less person, our efficiency has been high so far, let's continue our efforts in the future!"
Because there were fewer people, the number of crystal nuclei was more numerous. So long as the two metal users could keep up, there would be no problems.
Yan Fei and the other metal user first climbed the wall. Luo Xun accompanied him, looking out with his crossbow. He sighed in his heart – the number of zombies had increased.
Zombies had a sense of smell like a shark. While at work everyone worked hard to kill zombies so the number near the wall had decreased, but the next morning one could still see a considerable number of the creatures outside.
Plus what happened yesterday afternoon seemed to have attracted more distant zombies into the vicinity. There was no way to clean up the blood spilled from the attack, which became a sign, waving at the zombies and telling them: There's plenty of delicious food, let's have dinner together!
Seeing a figure on the wall, the zombies became excited and waved their arms. Some tried to jump up towards the wall, trying to grab someone to eat like yesterday afternoon.
A livid soldier fired, killing a zombie while the nearby creatures excitedly surged in response.
"All right, everybody calm down." The captain shouted a few words before dispatching work.
Not too far away, every once in a while a batch of vehicles was released from the gate to carry out missions outside.
Uptown had a better design due to sufficient manpower that participated in construction work. The entrance to the city was divided into pedestrian and vehicle entrances, with armed soldiers on guard at both. The gate divided the city into two parts with a high wall in between. Once closed tightly, one was unable to climb in.
People who wanted to exit the city needed to enter the patio after registering. Once a certain number of vehicles had accumulated, the inner door would be closed and the outer door would open. When the gate opened, all the cars rushed out at the same time. If a zombie wandered into the courtyard, the gate would close and the soldiers on wall duty would shot and kill.
Luo Xun's group was working a long distance from the gate and could only faintly hear the sound of cars. Whenever the door opened, one could see distant cars frantically speeding down the street, only leaving afterimages to watchers.
Yan Fei and the other metal user named Sun Shaoyang each grabbed a piece of metal like magic. The metal seemed to come alive, without direct contact, the material crept down like mud to form a tube. The two's attention was not towards the self changing metal tube in the left hand, the other hand continued to grab a piece of metal and merge it to the upper end of the tube. As the metal increased, the metal tube continued downward. The metal liquids dripped and fused into the metal walls until they reached the required height.
While they were working, the captain was called away but came back after about half an hour to check on work progress. Seeing Yan Fei and Sun Shaoyang were still working, he waited until they were resting before speaking. "The earth users have already raised the wall to six meters but because our work has not been completed and the second team had a large accident, the leaders decided to change the previous plan. Let them heighten and thicken the inner wall to ten meters."
He continued explaining. "The situation inside the city wall and here is different. Even if the wall is higher one was still afraid of zombie trouble, no matter the method the wall must be built as soon as possible. Here trying to quickly repair all the walls before the earth users, and there's a new task waiting for us."
Some of the soldier's faces were not good. "What kind of new task?"
The captain pointed at the city wall. "Not right now, but some people suggested that we put some barbed wire on top of the wall."
While speaking, he took out a drawn plan. Though the image on the plan was not really barbed wire, it had a sharp thorn shape but the thorns stretched out from the wall. The tips were slanted, once installed they could partially block zombies who could jump the wall.
Yan Fei had the last say in the matter since he was the one who had thought up the improved wall building method before.
Yan Fei thought while holding his chin. "This is not difficult in itself to do but if you want the effect drawn here, the metal wall needs enough load bearing capacity, the metal walls need to be thick enough. Right not its only 10 centimeters thick, if this is installed the whole metal wall might collapse."
Several soldiers could not help but laugh, one joked. "That's okay, at least the wall could kill a portion of the zombies."
The captain laughed and then looked to Yan Fei. "If you want to install these things, how thick do the metal walls need to be?"
Yan Fei shrugged helplessly. "This I don't know, captain should talk to his superiors. The base must have architecture experts."
The captain patted his forehead, listening to himself, did he think these two men were professional home repair people? The other person's ability was only manipulating metal, he had not learned how to build a house.
"This is not urgent, I will ask later. Even if it’s necessary to build we would have to wait until the wall is raised to ten meters before considering the problem." Placing the drawing back into his pocket the captain let the group continue working.
As Yan Fei and the other metal user became more familiar with the process, they moved metal to the wall much faster. Avoiding the small pieces of metal and instead leaning the large metal plates against the wall to transport material upwards.
A truck loaded with metal stopped near the two, ready to provide all kinds of materials.
The captain also silently considered, would they not need a crane when it came time to build the wall up to ten meters? To help hoist the metal up? Or would the soldiers have to ferry it instead?
However, with less personnel, the remainder subconsciously sped up and also reduced rest time. All to make full use of time and build more. The wall would be done early and although there was still work to be done, security would be improved.
Many soldiers were lying in wait on both sides of the wall to deal with zombies who were crowding below. Even the worst shots among the soldiers practiced and their marksmanship had greatly improved compared to before the apocalypse.
Taking turns between being responsible for the ropes and collecting crystal nuclei, people's efficiency also improved a lot. The number of nuclei increased multiple fold through increased teamwork and understanding.
After a busy morning the group went back to the car, not to mention the two metal users, those who helped carry the metal materials were very tired. After all, the team size was not small but not large either – a total of 10 people, and there was a lot of things to do.
The team passed through the lofty inner gates and returned to the barracks. Luo Xun and Yan Fei dragged their tired bodies into the third canteen for takeout.
"The food is getting worse." Luo Xun whispered a sigh. Today there was no meat in the two dishes, fortunately the canteen considerately gave them an egg. Yes, only one egg in the two dishes they ordered.
"Didn't we hear that the fourth canteen's small ham sausages were all starch instead of meat?" Yan Fei smiled and put the lunch box into his backpack. "Let's go home and eat."
The canteen food changes were not a big problem, but if the overall portions became smaller than quantitative change would cause qualitative change.
The two men got into their car and drove home. East of the base, the southern area had a large amount of farmland slated for construction of new residential areas. The army had recovered the area a while ago and originally belonged to a senior family on base. The rest of the farmland had been fully reclaimed, looked like the next stage of days would begin.
On the way back, they passed through some of the more prosperous base streets where exchange windows had been placed at several intersections and ordinary people could exchange for food and other supplies. Base circulation was integral, it was more appropriate to take out points than instant noodles like when just entering the base.
Plus instant noodles, biscuits and other items were perishable foods. As the value increased higher and higher, most people were not willing to exchange these products.
Before long the pair saw the high rise building, turned at an intersection. It would not be long before they got back.
Yan Fei closed his eyes to self cultivate spirit as he was a little tired.
Luo Xun drove intently and avoided a hazardous pedestrian for the third time. Yes, after the end there were many scammers, people would follow behind then suddenly rush a car. The driver would possible hit the person and their associates would crowd and surround the car and force the driver to pay some sort of compensation.
Luo Xun had encountered this before, however right now he could bring out his crossbow and shoot at the following people's feet. Along with threat of a metal needle, they would run away.
Looked like the people here had recently arrived and did not know that Luo Xun's car was not a soft persimmon, so they rashly rushed over. In truth, one could not blame them, who told the couple to travel using a shabby second hand vehicle? They did not know the team had a strong ability user and only saw the car in bad shape.
Luo Xun felt vexed and wanted to step on the brakes in order to introduce his two crossbows to those naive outsiders. Suddenly, a scream came from a nearby sidewalk.
At the same time Yan Fei sharply opened his eyes and the two looked out the car window – zombie! There was a zombie on the street!
The two started when suddenly a scream came from another direction!
Luo Xun glanced around and quickly stepped on the accelerator – if only one or two people suddenly became zombies it could be considered an accident but he had clearly seen that in addition to the two outside, some of the roadside pedestrians did not look right!
It was the second zombie outbreak in the base!
Luo Xun's heart immediately made a judgement, the car rushed towards the neighborhood gate. He rapidly explained to Yan Fei. "Some of the people on the roadside did not look right. I think the situation's similar to the destruction of three bases in May!"
Although the cause was not clear, the situation came so suddenly, they must first go to a safe place to ride out the crisis!
Luo Xun had known that there had been an internal zombie outbreak in the southwest base, but was unclear as to when exactly. At that time he had not inquired about the matter and just listened to what the older base residents had said. The zombie virus outbreak occurred soon after the base was established and was soon suppressed.
But it had been a long time since Luo Xun arrived at the southwest base in his last life and this kind of thing had happened in almost every base. However some bases did not survive and were completely lost, the remainder had managed to persevere through the apocalyptic days.
"Ah, you drive, I'll be in charge of everything else." Yan Fei's face became more serious but not too tense. They had weathered quite a few storms from the start of the apocalypse, this time they would also survive!
Yan Fei removed a crystal nucleus from his pocket and filled up his mental strength. He had wanted to go back and have a nice afternoon nap. Fortunately he had developed the habit of carrying all his nuclei, in case of any accidents. There were several spare crystals in his inside and coat pockets.
It was not only Luo Xun and Yan Fei that had this sort of reaction, many of the people who had entered the base were ones who had experienced 'storms'.
Whether early or late, most of the people in the apocalypse had faced zombies, many had even personally killed zombies. Unfortunately there were still a lot of people who originally lived in the area and had not been confronted with this situation due to the military's timely response. Thus the incident had sparked quite a bit of panic amongst people.
The panicked people ran wildly, some ability users prepared themselves, those with some zombie experience grabbed whatever could be used as a weapon. One side turned to block attacks while also rushing towards their homes.
Unfortunately, there were a number of zombies on the street and the fleeing and struggling accidentally injured other people. In addition to the unrest caused the zombies, the congestion was getting worse.
Luo Xun drove to the gate entrance but met with a headache worthy discovery – someone had have closed the gate and now the fleeing people could only desperately squeeze through the other half of the door!
Who had shut the door?
Fine, one could understand what that person had been thinking closing the door, best to do so in advance. But the issue was that the people approaching were not just zombies!
Several zombies had caught up with the crowd, the people stuck at the community entrance!
Screams repeatedly sounded, Yan Fei opened the car window, ready to use spirit energy to control the closed door. Suddenly he saw a few familiar faces in the crowd and his brow rose.
It was Xu Bin and his men who had injured and nearly killed him.
Those guys who had been hanging out with Xu Bin? It seemed there were more of them than before. Xu Bin had met the people in the first two days near the area to see if Yan Fei had any female college students with him. Yan Fei had not realized that the coquettish female and the college students had been separated from the old group.
Yan Fei's hand slowed and saw a zombie appear next to Xu Bin. The man did not hesitate to push the female student seeking protection in his arms towards the zombie!
Zombies did not care what was pushed in front of them, in their eyes it was only food. Since the meal had taken the initiative to approach, it would not be polite. The zombie bit down with bloody fervor, the screaming sound painfully resounded in people's eardrums.
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