Chapter 061: The Roar of the Zombie Beast

The stairs leading to the subway station were slick with some viscous liquid. Ayaka Zeshirou, caught off guard, stepped onto it and lost her balance, tumbling down the stairs.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch. Hasn’t it been dry in Tokyo these past days? Where did all this water come from?” Fortunately, the staircase wasn’t high, and she landed on something soft, sparing herself from injury. Still, her clothes and hands were covered in the sticky liquid, making her deeply uncomfortable.

With the power out, the subway station was shrouded in utter darkness, not a hint of light to be seen.

Ayaka sniffed her palm, and her expression changed at once. The liquid wasn’t water—it was coagulated blood plasma.

Her hand trembling, she felt beneath her and pulled out a flashlight. The beam illuminated a pale, distorted face with bulging eyes—a rotting human head.

A chill raced up her spine, and Ayaka finally understood why her fall hadn’t left her hurt. The subway station was piled with corpses; she had landed in a pit of bodies.

Though Ayaka was not faint-hearted—her courage had earned her a place in Investigation Division One, specializing in murders and kidnappings—she was still a young woman in her twenties. Faced with such gruesome horror, she couldn’t help but let out a terrified scream.

At that very instant, hands reached from behind to clamp over her mouth.

“Mmm—!”

Ayaka was so frightened her face was streaked with tears as she kicked and struggled desperately.

“Don’t make a sound—it’s me.” The familiar voice whispered in her ear; hearing Su Cheng, she quieted at once.

“Dead people, there are so many dead people here.”

Su Cheng’s face grew somber; there were at least thousands of bodies in the subway station. These people must have been trapped when the bioplague broke out and slaughtered by the creature.

The corpses had been torn apart, their flesh ripped and innards devoured, which meant they hadn’t turned into zombies en masse. Still, any body scavenged by a zombie beast would surely be infected with the bioplague—caution was paramount.

After the outbreak, Su Cheng had studied the plague’s transmission and infection rates. Susceptibility seemed linked to a person’s immune strength. Those with strong immunity were less likely to catch the virus from the air; thus, players with superior physiques had little risk of airborne infection.

But if attacked by a biovirus-infected entity, the chance of infection was nearly ninety-nine percent.

As for narrative characters like Ayaka, they were probably not so easily infected by the bioplague.

“This must be the monster’s hunting ground. Be careful.” With the faint light from the flashlight, Su Cheng and Ayaka explored the dark station cautiously.

Ayaka gripped her pistol, flicking off the safety, and followed Su Cheng anxiously. The criminals she had arrested before were all human; this time, the opponent was an unknown and terrifying monster—nerves were unavoidable.

The stench, reminiscent of rotting herring, permeated the subway. Su Cheng felt as if something was watching them from the darkness.

“No mistake—the zombie beast is nearby.”

From the footprints found in the police headquarters, the beast was massive. Yet after searching the subway station for so long, they found no trace, suggesting it could mask its presence.

It seemed necessary to lure the hidden zombie beast out.

A flash of inspiration struck. Su Cheng turned to the tense Ayaka, scrutinizing her.

“What are you planning?” Sensing his gaze, Ayaka felt a premonition of unease.

“I’ve thought of a way to draw out the monster, but I’ll need your help.”

Her eyes brightened, half trusting, half doubtful. “You really have a way?”

“Just hold the flashlight aloft and stand here without moving.”

Su Cheng had her raise the flashlight, striking a pose reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty.

“How will holding the flashlight draw out the monster—wait, where did he go?” Ayaka turned, only to find Su Cheng gone.

One minute, two, three… After three minutes with nothing stirring around her, Ayaka’s arm began to ache and she was about to lower it when a terrifying growl sounded overhead.

Zombie beast!

Ayaka looked up in terror and saw a huge shadow lunging at her with breathtaking speed.

The beam from her flashlight caught the creature, revealing its true form.

The zombie beast looked like a cross between a bear and a wolf, its face covered in thick gray fur. Though heavy and powerful, it moved with astonishing agility. Its limbs were robust, tipped with steel-like claws.

With the brute strength of a bear and the cunning of a wolf, the zombie beast could burst with speed surpassing a sports car. Any ordinary human targeted by it stood no chance of escaping.

Ayaka saw a bloody hole blasted open in the beast’s soft abdomen, exposing rotting organs and gleaming white bones.

Such wounds would be fatal to most animals, but for the zombie beast, they weren’t enough.

“It’s here!”

Confronting the creature that had slaughtered thousands, Ayaka’s face went pale. She summoned her last ounce of courage, aimed her gun at the beast’s massive head, and pulled the trigger.

Fire erupted from the barrel.

Her shot struck the beast’s skull, but the bullet lodged inside, failing to penetrate.

Just as the beast lunged at Ayaka, the corpse at her feet suddenly moved.

A flash of steel glinted in the beast’s savage eyes as Su Cheng sprang up, slashing upward at the monster’s neck.

Crack.

The blade tore through fur and flesh, biting into bone.

But the beast’s bones were tougher than alloy. Su Cheng’s strike left only a two-centimeter gash.

The wounded beast let out a furious, terrifying roar. Its green eyes fixed on the human before it, gleaming with madness and bloodlust.

“Saved…”

Ayaka, terrified, let out a sigh of relief. She’d never expected Su Cheng to be lying at her feet, playing dead so convincingly that even she was fooled.

Thankfully, she was wearing pants and not a skirt, or else...

Seizing the moment, Su Cheng didn’t hesitate. His Wind Shadow blade flashed upward, piercing through the beast’s throat.

But the creature was incredibly tenacious. Its pierced throat seemed unaffected as it swung its massive claws at Su Cheng.

The beast’s strength dwarfed that of wild grizzly bears. A swipe could smash a van flat. If it struck Su Cheng, he’d be ground into pulp.

With his enhanced neural reflexes, Su Cheng’s reaction time far surpassed ordinary people. As the zombie beast attacked, he sensed the danger instantly.

The next moment, he unleashed Spirit Jet, grabbing the stunned Ayaka and darting sideways over ten meters, barely evading the beast’s strike.

Boom!

The beast’s paw smashed into the parked train, its terrible force reducing an entire carriage to rubble.

“My God, what is this monster?” Ayaka’s gaze, wide and despairing, fell on the shattered train. Could the two of them really overcome a creature that even a fully-armed riot squad couldn’t kill?

“Something’s off. This monster wasn’t a normal beast mutated by the bioplague, but a man-made bioweapon.”

Su Cheng’s eyes darkened. No creature in nature possessed such terrifying strength. This must be a special zombie engineered by the Mitsui Corporation.

In terms of aggression, this bear-wolf zombie was even more dangerous than a tank zombie. But its defenses were weaker, which explained the grenade wound.

“A bioweapon? What should we do?” Ayaka gripped her pistol tightly, tense and anxious.

“Time your shots to distract it. I’ll look for its weak spot.”

With those words, Su Cheng’s feet erupted with a surge of spirit power.

His body shot forward like a rocket, closing in behind the zombie beast at incredible speed.

Sensing the threat, the beast roared and spun to attack.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Ayaka fired several shots in panic, but ordinary bullets barely scratched it.

The beast’s massive body barreled forward like a tank, its oppressive force making Su Cheng’s scalp tingle.

But in the face of the beast’s assault, Su Cheng was eerily calm and focused.

Infinite Shadow Blade!

In the next instant, his eyes blazed as he gripped his blade with both hands, slashing fiercely at the bear-wolf’s claws.

Shadow blades fluttered like dark butterflies from the underworld, slicing at the beast’s talons.

From the depths of the station, a furious roar echoed.

Su Cheng severed one of the beast’s giant claws, bone and hide together, and fetid green blood sprayed everywhere.

He leaped, stomping hard on the creature’s head, then drove his blade into its eye.

The blade plunged deep into the beast’s eyeball. Su Cheng, astride its neck, twisted the hilt violently.

Green blood gushed from the beast’s eye socket as it rampaged madly through the station.

Clinging to its neck, Su Cheng slashed through flesh and stuffed a grenade he’d taken from the police headquarters into the wound.

He kicked off, tumbling from the rampaging beast.

As he hit the ground, a burst of fire bloomed in the pitch-black station. With a thunderous explosion, the beast’s neck was blown apart. It staggered a few steps and collapsed.

“Is it dead?”

Ayaka, witness to the battle, stared at Su Cheng as if he were a monster himself.

It was hard to believe that a mere human could defeat a zombie beast that had slaughtered an entire riot squad.

She felt ashamed; despite her status as a shooting tournament champion, she’d been useless from start to finish—a bystander, nothing more.

“Whew—it's over.”

Su Cheng gasped for breath, his face pale. Had the beast not been gravely wounded before their battle, its combat power would have made killing it far more difficult.

Even so, the fight had been perilous. One misstep and even Su Cheng’s resilient body would have been torn to shreds.

He sheathed Wind Shadow and approached the beast’s corpse.

“Strange—why isn’t the story mission complete?”

Could this beast not be the culprit behind the police headquarters attack?

At that moment, the beast lying before him suddenly opened its remaining eye.

The chilling gaze of death locked onto him.