Chapter 186: Open battlefield
Blood could be considered the fall of the zombies, it was the most irresistible food for them. When the smell of fresh blood pervaded through the air, the zombies inside the town went crazy. Groups after groups of zombies tried to outdo each other as they ran from every corner of the town towards Wang Chong, a few of the weaker zombies got squashed by the stronger and bulkier zombies, after which they would fall and get trampled by its companions. When all of its companions are already in the distance, these weak zombies struggled on the ground in attempts to stand up, but an even bigger horde appeared and trampled on these weak zombies with their smelly feet until these zombies were smashed into meat pulps. The excited few zombies at the front pounced to the trenches and became miserable, they were unable to stride over the 50cm wide trench and started to fall like the wheat in the paddy fields being harvested in fall, some of the luckier ones were able to climb out of the trench and started to move towards the second trench, while the less fortunate ones either managed to struggle out but were trampled upon by the zombies behind, die in the trench and become stepping stones for the other zombies, or struggle and stumble with other zombies and somehow get pulled back into the trenches.
The mass of zombies crammed together and drew closer to the frontline. Seeing the zombie horde in front of them, many of the survivors felt their scalps go numb, luckily the Combat Team Members had experienced the horde at the flyover and could stabilize their own emotions. For the construction workers themselves, some of them felt their hearts palpitating loudly. Although they had experience in facing zombies before, they had never experienced a zombie horde of over a thousand zombies. The horde in front of them was not merely just a thousand, the hundred square meter of space in front of them had been squeezed full of zombies, but more and more zombies were still surging out of the town. Wang Chong, who had his hand raised up high, felt a strange emotion rising in his mind, he was thinking if his blood was extraordinary sweet for so many zombies to appear, he guessed that it could also be considered some sort of achievement.
“Boommm….” a large regiment of flames exploded in the middle of the zombie horde as countless of limbs covered with sand started flying all over the place. The heatwave produced by the explosion caused the zombies around the impact point to fall. Following the rain of sand and mud, a cleansed ground appeared in the middle of the horde. After the first roar of the 60mm mortar, the spray of the heavy machine guns came out. The long muzzle spewed with inch long fire as countless of bright bullets flew their way into the zombies.
“Pa pa pa….” The machine gunners and Garand rifles all followed on, every rifleman quickly unloaded their rifles of 8 bullets without a regard for aim, as long as the bullets could hit the zombies and slow them down, it was considered a good shot.
It was as though the frontmost zombies encountered an invisible scythe, all of them were instantly slashed, scattered and smashed upon moving forward. The whistling, sharp bullets continued to destroy zombie after zombie, which all became sluggish upon reaching 50m away from the survivor’s frontlines. They were going against a wall made out of bullets, groups after groups of zombies fell as more zombies surged forward and met with the rain of bullets. Limbs were broken apart by the power of the bullets as they flew all over while mortar rounds exploded within the zombie hordes one after another, releasing bright red lights that tore the zombies to shreds. The black soil on the ground flew with the scattered limbs from the impact of the mortars as smoke slowly rose into the sky. Soil and body parts continued to fly all around due to the explosions while bodies rained down onto the moving zombies. Before the last particle of sand could even drop to the ground, a new light would beam out from within the horde as even more things get flung into the sky. A few zombies in the horde got lost due to the thick smoke and started to charge in confusion all over the place, causing the chaos to become even messier. As time passed, the dead corpses at the 50m mark had already piled up to a meter tall mound.
The heavy machine guns sprayed bullets endlessly with the gunners’ hands trembling incessantly while they screamed. Their assistants nimbly fed the gun with the bandolier, but the gunners could not even wait for a short ten seconds and would scold them. Any curse or dirty words would be unleashed were not just for the ladies beside them. They were venting all their anger, the restrained feelings caused by the apocalypse. But these women were not easy to deal with as well, ever since Zhang Xiao Qiang matched them to the machine gunners, they became stronger. Whoever scolded them would be scolded back incessantly by them. The ladies fed the bandoliers into the guns swiftly while cursing at the gunners with words that caused even the lowest of scums to go red in embarrassment. Thus, the gunners fell into tragedy, they could only stare at the delicate and small hands that were covered in gunpowder and dirt and prayed for it to end. When the machine guns were loaded and started firing once again, the female voices were instantly drowned out. The machine gunners no longer cared and focused on controlling the recoil of the machine guns. Finished with the next bandolier, the gunners would scream out again and the cycle of the assistants scolding them would occur once more.
Although Zhang Xiao Qiang’s team were doing their best to stop the zombies from approaching, they were still too few in manpower. The machine guns, mortar teams, and the riflemen totaled up to only 30 odd men. Against 2000 over zombie horde, they started to feel the pressure. When two machine guns stopped firing to reload their guns, over 10 zombies broke through the 50-meter line and started to press forward. In a short while, the machine gunners loaded up again and started firing, but the zombies were able to decrease the distance. 30 meters….20 meters….10 meters…. Although the zombies were able to close in, no one dared to turn and run. They knew of the consequence and did not have the courage to face Zhang Xiao Qiang’s fury. Zhang Xiao Qiang walked over to the Land Rover and retrieved a wooden box from the boot and returned to the wall. He opened the box and revealed rows of hand grenades to the rest of his men. Zhang Xiao Qiang took one out, removed its safety pin and threw it out. The round grenade flew in an arc across the sky and landed on a zombie’s head 30 meters away. After a few seconds, a regiment of flames emitting dense smoke exploded and sent the zombie straight to Heaven. Due to the explosion, some dirt flew 20 meters out and even landed on a few survivors. The other members put their guns down and took up hand grenades as well as they removed the safety pins and threw the grenades at the zombies. The box had a total of 150 hand grenades, which were all thrown into the zombie horde and the explosions left behind a blank space. The zombies behind were unable to catch up, allowing the Combat Team Members to destroy the 100 odd zombies that were closer.
A few scattered zombies by the side were ahead of the rest. Their location was coincidentally the machine gunners’ blind spots while the riflemen were up against many zombies. Adding that they had to hit the zombies at their vital points to kill them, it made it harder to kill them and allowed to inch their way forward to the defensive wall. The defensive wall was built to the height of a grown man’s chest which prevented the zombies from passing through. The wall was able to block ordinary zombies but not evolved zombies. Two Type-S zombies crawled on the ground and flipped over the wall, pouncing straight for Wang Chong who, at that moment, was firing away. Zhang Xiao Qiang who was focused on the battlefield the entire time brandished his Desert Eagle and fired at them. One of the Type-S zombies had its chest burst open with a few holes from his Desert Eagle, the power of the shots caused it to stumble and fall to the side. The other Type-S zombie was not affected and continued to pounce at Wang Chong. Under the pressure and danger, Zhang Xiao Qiang ran forward and kicked Wang Chong at his butt, causing him to fall onto the grass.
The Type-S zombie nimble figure was right in front of him. It used its black claws and clawed at Zhang Xiao Qiang. In return, Zhang Xiao Qiang used the blade in his left hand to hack down at its wrist. The Type-S zombie was forced to slant under Zhang Xiao Qiang’s force. In that instant, Zhang Xiao Qiang moved to the zombie’s side. With the pistol in his right hand, he smashed down on the zombie’s back. The Type-S zombie could no longer regain its balance and fell straight to the ground.
“BANG BANG BANG….”
Zhang Xiao Qiang unleashed three consecutive shots to the back of the Type-S zombie’s head. The zombie’s head exploded into a thick paste under the powerful shots. The white bones and yellow brain fluids mixed with the dark red blood as all the nerves and veins splattered across in all directions.