The Apocalypse Solution Provider

Chapter 54: Terrifying Zombie Horde

A Zombie’s greatest weakness was its pants.

Since the undead lacked the cognitive function to hitch up a falling waistband, their mobility dropped in direct correlation to how far their pants sagged.

Su Jin had noted this glaring flaw early on while slaughtering his way through the infected; it was an obvious, exploitable issue.

For an Ability like his, which drastically boosted nocturnal agility and speed, this quirk was a massive tactical advantage.

Back when Sun Ya had suggested they strike while the bitter winter cold lingered.

He had flatly refused; beyond prioritizing Fu Hu and Cheng Du’s safety, this exact variable had factored into his cold calculations.

Frozen Zombies wore frozen clothes. Stiff pants didn’t fall down…

Now, with a horde composed entirely of high schoolers on their tail, the weakness was magnified tenfold.

Baggy tracksuits were the standard uniform… two blocks of sprinting, and the fabric was already drooping past their crotches.

Given their frenzied, breakneck pace, they’d probably kick their own shoes off within the mile.

His initial hypothesis had just been perfectly, flawlessly validated.

….

The vehicle kept rolling, but the chassis wobbled unsteadily, preventing them from safely pushing the speedometer any higher.

There was no way to get out and inspect the damage right now.

Severed limbs or shredded clothing might be tangled in the wheel hubs, or unseen sidewalk debris could have cracked the undercarriage.

No matter how you looked at it, the situation was grim.

The car could completely stall out at any second.

White-knuckling the steering wheel, Fu Hu asked nervously, “Director, what do we do if the car dies?”

“We ditch it and hoof it. We’ll stick to the interiors, navigating through buildings. For now, just drive as far as you can and shrink the distance home… If it’s bone and meat clogging the axles, keeping the wheels spinning might just grind the muscle away.”

The moment Su Jin finished speaking.

A thunderous boom erupted from behind them!

Su Jin and Cheng Du snapped their heads back simultaneously; the time bomb they had planted earlier had just detonated.

The explosion tossed the pursuing pack into the air, and the deafening blast immediately yanked the attention of the stragglers still chasing the car.

“Beautiful!” Cheng Du pumped his fist in excitement.

A cold, pragmatic smile touched Su Jin’s lips.

Bringing a dedicated sound source to manipulate the infected’s aggro had clearly been the right call.

“Director! We’ve got a problem!” Fu Hu roared in sudden panic, his foot instantly mashing the gas pedal to the floor.

“What the hell are you do—”

Su Jin and Cheng Du whipped their heads forward, instantly plunged into a waking nightmare.

It had to be the massive shockwave from the exploding gas canister.

Above the street, shattered glass exploded outward as an ocean of infected hurled themselves from the windows of the flanking residential and commercial high-rises!

It triggered a horrific chain reaction; glass rained from the sky in all directions as bodies plummeted like fleshy hail.

Lacking a loud sound source to distract them, the fresh infected raining from above locked onto their very first moving target: the speeding car.

Miscalculation!

The word flashed through Su Jin’s mind alongside a deafening, metallic ring.

“Cheng Du, set the second timer right now! Ten minutes!”

Hands trembling uncontrollably, Cheng Du leaned over with a chalk-white face to arm the explosive.

Bodies kept launching themselves from the flanks, the endless cacophony of shattering glass echoing like a detonating crystal factory.

The noise rippled outward like a virus, drawing even more infected to swan-dive from the buildings further up the road.

Most of the plummeting infected shattered their spines and snapped their limbs upon impact, yet they still crawled madly over the asphalt, dragging their broken bodies after the vehicle.

A rare few seemed… different. They leaped with terrifying precision, bounding from the high-rises to land squarely in the center of the avenue!

The scattered packs were converging… a massive, catastrophic Zombie Horde was brewing!

From a bird’s-eye view, the infected were flooding out of every alley and cross-street, converging on the main artery.

The lone car sped down the road, looking like prey attempting to outrun a surging black storm cloud.

Directly behind the bumper, over a dozen abnormally fast infected were rapidly closing the gap.

Su Jin gripped the overhead handle until his knuckles turned white; pushed beyond its limits, the dying vehicle violently shuddered, its speed forcibly bleeding away.

At this rate, combined with the debris choking the street, a total breakdown was a mathematical certainty.

Even if the engine survived, they couldn’t outrun the mutated, high-speed infected trailing them; that was the true lethal threat.

If a special infected bogged them down long enough for the wave to crash over them, all three would die screaming!

“Fu Hu!” Su Jin’s eyes darted across the cityscape until they locked onto a sprawling shopping complex. He barked the order without hesitation. “Full throttle! Dump the car at the mall. You two grab the gear, bail out, and hoof it back to the compound! If you get cut off, adapt and survive!”

Snapping the orders, he ripped the Sodium Fluorescein and the Portable UV Light from his tactical rig, shoving them into Cheng Du’s hands in the back seat.

“What about you, Director?!” Cheng Du demanded, panic edging his voice.

“While the engine still turns, I’m taking the wheel to draw the aggro! As long as I get indoors, I’m untouchable!” Su Jin fired back, his tone sharp and commanding. “Listen to me! In total darkness, these things can’t touch my agility. I just have to hole up until nightfall, and I can walk home. No more questions—execute the plan!”

Fu Hu swallowed his protests, throwing the wheel hard to barrel straight toward the plaza!

Thirty seconds later, the battered car screeched to a halt at the mall’s main entrance.

Without a single wasted breath, Cheng Du and Fu Hu vaulted out and sprinted into the complex, while Su Jin slid into the driver’s seat.

Checking the rearview mirror to gauge the advancing tsunami of rotting flesh, Su Jin cranked the wheel, peeling back onto the main road!

He slammed his palm against the horn, letting it blare endlessly into the apocalyptic streets.

….

Su Jin split his focus, wrestling the shuddering steering wheel while keeping his eyes glued to the mirrors.

The Zombie Horde roared at his bumper, with the special mutated infected constantly leaping and vaulting off cars in relentless pursuit.

He needed to find a clean side street, cut the wheel, and bail into a building to break line of sight.

Su Jin’s eyes darted left and right, scanning the urban blur.

Suddenly, his heart gave a hard jolt, and he blinked rapidly!

High on the rooftop of a commercial building dead ahead, four silhouettes—three adults, one child—seemed to be standing there, only to vanish a second later.

He couldn’t be sure if his stressed mind was playing tricks on him.

But there was absolutely zero time to dwell on it; spotting a relatively clear alleyway, Su Jin jerked the wheel and violently drifted into the narrow street.

Flanked by dense residential blocks, he hadn’t even made it a hundred yards before the engine seized with a sickening jolt!

Squinting into the mirror, he saw three of the high-speed infected bounding toward him, barely a hundred yards out!

With a single cold glance, Su Jin unsheathed a heavy steel pipe from his chest rig and jammed it hard against the steering wheel, pinning the horn down to keep it screaming.

He kicked the door open, slipped out like a ghost, and bolted toward the residential tower on his left.

…

Inside the Yingbin Restaurant, it was deathly silent.

The Zombie Horde surged past the shattered storefront, leaving the survivors inside paralyzed with absolute terror.

Everyone clamped their hands ruthlessly over their own mouths, terrified that even a heavy breath would sign their death warrants.

By one of the dining tables, Ding Jia was securely gagged and hogtied to a wooden chair, squirming and fighting against her restraints.

After what felt like an eternity, Tattooed Arm finally stood up, creeping toward the window to cautiously peek outside.

The moment his eyes registered the street, he squeezed them shut in sheer agony.

Rotting silhouettes prowled every visible inch of asphalt.

Just a few days ago, spotting three or five of the monsters had been enough to keep everyone locked indoors; now, the street outside was a literal depiction of hell!

From every tactical angle, survival was mathematically impossible!

How the fuck did this happen?! What kind of brain-dead motherfucker was street racing and leaning on the horn out there? Son of a bitch!

Thud.

The sudden noise made everyone in the room nearly swallow their own hearts as they whipped their heads around.

Ding Jia had knocked her chair over, violently worming her bound body across the floor to inch closer to her mother.

Straining and dragging herself, she finally closed the gap, desperately pressing her cheek against her mother’s face.

An icy, lifeless chill seeped into Ding Jia’s skin.

Tears instantly carved tracks down her dirty cheeks…

Tattooed Arm flew into a murderous rage, stepping forward to snatch Ding Jia by the throat. He hissed viciously, “You make one more fucking peep, and I’ll choke the life out of you right now! Got it?!”

“Mmph…” Ding Jia shook her head frantically through her tears, her terrified eyes drifting back to her mother’s corpse.

Tattooed Arm followed her gaze, his eye twitching violently as a sharp pang of reluctant empathy squeezed his chest.

“Fuck… I’ll cut you loose. Just keep your goddamn mouth shut, alright?!”