Chapter 023: The Professional

The slap in the face came as swiftly as a tornado. Just a moment ago, the white-haired zombie was boasting that no one could hurt him; in the next, he was nearly undone by a single slash from Su Cheng.

“Impossible! How could your blade injure me?” The agony radiating from the wound was like the fires of hell, twisting and distorting Sanchi Junjin’s zombie face as he stared at Su Cheng in disbelief.

Events seemed to be slipping out of his control.

The white-haired zombie possessed formidable defenses; his skin was harder than steel. Su Cheng’s earlier strike had only breached his flesh—it posed little threat. If it were merely a physical attack, the zombie wouldn’t even care. What truly unsettled him, however, was the terrifying force imbued within the blade.

This power appeared to be deadly against zombies. The omnipresent pain was driving Sanchi Junjin to the brink of madness.

Su Cheng narrowed his eyes, but gave no answer to the zombie’s question. He sheathed his katana, slipped behind the zombie, and with a deft twist of his wrist, a short dagger gleaming coldly appeared in his palm. He plunged it ruthlessly into the zombie’s back.

The white-haired zombie, caught by the sudden blow, spat out a mouthful of foul, black blood. His eyes, once pitch-black, now blazed crimson.

“Damn it! I understand now—you’re a player too!”

The zombie suddenly erupted in a terrifying roar. A flicker of surprise flashed in Su Cheng’s eyes; before the zombie could burst forth, Su Cheng withdrew and retreated.

“You mentioned players just now? What do you mean?”

“Cough… I’m a player of the horror game, just like you. If I’m not mistaken, you’re a melee class, aren’t you?” Cold light flickered deep within the zombie’s eyes. He had encountered and slain many players in reality, but the man before him was clearly no ordinary player—most likely another professional, just like himself.

Professional?

Su Cheng suspected the white-haired zombie was mistaken, but he had no intention to explain. What truly surprised him was how Sanchi Junjin, being a player, had ended up as a zombie.

“If we’re both professionals, perhaps there’s a chance to cooperate someday. As for the woman, you can take her with you.” Though wary of Su Cheng’s strange abilities, the zombie saw no reason to risk mutual destruction over a single woman.

His answer was met with a slash.

Su Cheng brought his blade down on the zombie’s neck. With his strength, a normal person’s neck would have been severed, but the strike landed as if upon cold iron, merely slicing through the zombie’s skin.

This white-haired zombie was no harmless creature. If he were spared today, he would surely seek vicious revenge against Su Cheng later.

Evil must be eradicated completely; Su Cheng would not hesitate at such a moment.

“You wish for death!”

The white-haired zombie, enraged by Su Cheng’s attack, lunged at him, murder in his eyes, as though he would tear him to pieces and swallow him whole.

Yet the zombie had fortified his defense and strength, not his speed.

Su Cheng refused to engage head-on. He swiftly darted outside, slamming the iron door shut from the outside.

Boom!

A thunderous crash echoed through the abandoned building.

A deep handprint was left upon the iron door.

“No ordinary human could possess such power. What does this ‘professional’ mean, as the zombie called it?” Su Cheng pondered the handprint, his figure fading into the darkness.

The white-haired zombie burst out of the room, but Su Cheng was nowhere to be found.

“Come out!”

A terrifying shriek erupted from the zombie’s lips, his human disguise peeling away as he charged forward, smashing his palm into a nearby stone pillar. The hard cement crumbled like soft tofu beneath his blow.

A shadow silently appeared behind the zombie. In the stillness of night, a cold flash sliced through the darkness—Su Cheng’s dagger plunged deep into the zombie’s back.

The zombie groaned, hellish pain searing his senses once more.

What terrified him most was the uncanny power on the blade, as if it were eating away at his very soul. A few more strikes, and he would not last.

Swish!

The katana withdrew from the zombie's back, trailing foul, black fluid.

Seeing the zombie’s hollowed, weakened state, Su Cheng felt fortunate to have chosen “Ghost Slash” mastery in sword arts. Without it, he would have found this zombie nearly impossible to deal with.

It was simply bad luck for the zombie to have encountered someone whose skills specifically countered supernatural entities.

“This zombie is stubborn indeed—he’s survived so many strikes.”

Throughout the battle, Su Cheng faced little real threat. Though the zombie’s strength was immense, his reaction and speed lagged far behind Su Cheng’s, leaving him helpless as the latter carved him apart, stroke by stroke.

“What exactly is a professional?”

Su Cheng raised his hand, the cold tip of his blade pointing to the zombie’s throat. He demanded an answer.

Hearing Su Cheng’s question, Sanchi Junjin’s zombie face twisted in disbelief. “You’re not a professional? That’s impossible!”

Never in his wildest dreams did Sanchi Junjin imagine he’d be crushed by a mere ordinary player.

“Answer me.”

“A professional is a player who possesses powerful abilities and can learn specific class skills. But that’s just the literal definition. In the horror game, once a player becomes a professional, they’re no longer human in the traditional sense.” Sanchi Junjin’s face was full of mocking disdain as he looked at Su Cheng.

“What do you mean?”

Su Cheng’s gaze sharpened; there seemed to be more beneath the surface.

“After becoming a professional, the game modifies the player’s body. The transformed player gains abilities unique to their class, breaking human limits in certain ways and becoming something nonhuman.”

“Like you?”

Su Cheng’s face was cold as he regarded Sanchi Junjin. To gain inhuman power, he had turned himself into a creature neither human nor ghost—a zombie.

“That’s right. My class is Zombie King.”

Not long ago, Sanchi Junjin was merely a minor boss of the Sanchi Syndicate, living a life of debt collecting, intimidation, and idleness. Until one day, he downloaded a horror mobile game.

Having survived several scenarios, Sanchi Junjin stumbled upon a bottle of zombie virus in a zombie-themed scenario, triggering a class quest.

After much hesitation, he drank the zombie virus for the sake of inhuman strength, becoming a professional with the powers of a zombie.

But after his transformation, Sanchi Junjin found his flesh rotting away in reality, soon becoming a terrifying, grotesque zombie.

As a zombie, he could no longer consume any human food and was forced to sleep in a cold coffin, unable to move in sunlight.

The power of the zombie was great, but the drawbacks were numerous, demanding a price few humans could bear. It was rare for anyone to accept becoming a monstrous corpse confined to a coffin.

Yet Sanchi Junjin quickly adapted to his new identity, even taking to drinking human blood and, in a fanciful move, donning a human disguise to mingle among the crowds in Tokyo.

“According to the zombie’s explanation, to trigger a class quest one must first obtain a specialized class item from a scenario. But he’s definitely hiding something—the professionals in this horror game are surely not so simple.”

Sanchi Junjin’s words were half-truths; Su Cheng did not fully believe him.

“Heh, your strength is impressive. But you’ll never understand the terror of professionals, since you’re not one yourself.”

As he spoke, Sanchi Junjin produced a syringe out of thin air, filled with a strange purple reagent.

“This is another zombie virus I found in the Resident Evil scenario. If it fuses with the zombie virus already in my body…”

Without hesitation, he stabbed the syringe into his arm and injected the virus.

The instant he did so, Su Cheng struck like lightning, slashing the zombie’s face.

The blade carved a hideous wound, splitting the zombie’s cheek in two.

Foul, black liquid oozed from the gash.

Seconds later, the wound on Sanchi Junjin’s face began to heal on its own.

“Rapid regeneration?”

Su Cheng’s expression shifted; things were becoming troublesome. The fusion of two viruses inside Sanchi Junjin could create unpredictable effects.

“This feeling is exquisite.”

With the fusion of both viruses, Sanchi Junjin looked intoxicated, a fanatical expression on his zombie face.

Before Su Cheng’s eyes, the zombie’s shriveled flesh began to swell, transforming from a dried corpse into a monstrous creature reminiscent of the “Tyrant” from Resident Evil.

Black viral tumors erupted across his body, his head and torso ballooning grotesquely, making him look like a patchwork of diseased meat—utterly revolting.

A dreadful pressure settled over Su Cheng. Such a monster was far beyond what any ordinary player could withstand.

“Heh, die!”

The zombie monster’s black claws elongated instantly, like the stingers of a venomous wasp, and shot toward Su Cheng’s eyes.