Chapter 471 – Mass Burial Site
There was lightning and thunder and heavy rain poured down.
The mass burial site in the wilderness was full of gravestones. The densely packed broken gravestones were engraved with messy characters and hands were constantly sticking out from the soil under the gravestones.
Some hands had decayed skin because they had been buried in the ground for a long time. Even their white bones could be seen. There were also some fresh corpses with pale and slender arms and bright red nail polish on their fingernails.
Ye Qi’s mind was a mess. There was the constant sound of thunder in his ears and the rain drenched his entire body. He touched his face while looking at the hands breaking through the ground. He asked loudly, “Are these ghosts or zombies?!”
Xiao Lou didn’t know if it was a fierce ghost or zombie climbing out from under the gravestones. Was this secret room a supernatural secret room or an escape room secret room similar to a biochemical case?
He couldn’t think any longer.
There was a slight tightening around his waist. Xiao Lou sensed Yu Hanjiang’s familiar strength. The moment these hideous looking things climbed out of the ground and almost grabbed Xiao Lou’s calves, Yu Hanjiang hugged Xiao Lou and soared into the sky. At the same time, he shouted at his teammates, “The mass burial site is too big. Get out of here as soon as possible!”
There was no end to the mass graves. It was unknown how many kilometers it stretched out.
In the dark, rainy night, everyone could only rely on the Night Pearl for lighting, However, the Night Pearl could only illuminate a fan-shaped area 10 meters in front of it. All the places that the Night Pearl shone on were filled with gravestones. The things that were either ghosts or zombies poured out of the ground like ants.
Tang Ci was just about to run forward when his right foot was suddenly grabbed by a pair of cold hands. His body fell straight down!
The heavy rain made the ground extremely muddy. The entire mass grave seemed to have become a huge muddy swamp.
Tang Ci struggled hard but he was trapped in the mud. The more he struggled, the deeper he sank. In the blink of an eye, Tang Ci’s legs below his knees were submerged.
Lu Jiuchuan’s eyes immediately widened when he saw this scene.
He rushed to Tang Ci’s side in two or three steps. He hugged Tang Ci by the waist and yanked upwards. The strong force pulled Tang Ci out of the ground. Then he took out his sword with his other hand and swept it around the area.
The white sword flashed and the hands that grabbed Tang Ci’s legs were severed by Lu Jiuchuan’s sword!
Tang Ci was rescued. His trouser legs were stained with mud and he was wrinkled and dirty. His white shirt clinging to his body set off the lean curves of his body and his wet hair clung to his pale face. There was a type of fragility that made one’s heart thump.
Lu Jiuchuan hugged him tightly and asked in a low voice, “Are you okay? Do you have any injuries?”
The man’s voice was mixed with the deafening thunder and it seemed to tremble slightly.
Tang Ci quickly compared down. Compared to the encounter in J of Clubs, the zombies weren’t much of a threat to him, not to mention that he had his teammates around him. He gently patted Lu Jiuchuan’s shoulder. “I’m fine. Just now, I was pulled into the mud and I could feel them grabbing and biting at my legs.”
Lu Jiuchuan shouted to his teammates the moment he heard this. “There is a large, muddy swamp. Everyone, be careful and don’t get stuck!”
Then he summoned the vermilion bird and whispered in Tang Ci’s ear, “I’ll take you away.”
Lu Jiuchuan rode the vermilion bird while hugging Tang Ci’s waist tightly with his other hand. The big red bird gave a clear scream and spread out its wings. It flew quickly forward like a sharp arrow.
Lu Jiuchuan looked down. The hands that had just been cut by him seemed to be conscious. After being severed, they were still crawling around on the ground while frantically looking for living creatures. In the blink of an eye, the legs of the nearby Gui Yuanzhang were cut. The brush in Gui Yuanzhang’s hands slammed down and all the severed hands on the ground were thrown away by him.
Gui Yuanzhang drew the wind trajectory with his brush. He flew forward in Lu Jiuchuan’s direction while shouting to his teammates, “They aren’t ghosts, they are corpses!”
Xiao Lou also realized it. Ghosts were illusory things and it was impossible for a group of ghosts to have their hands chopped off. These things were obviously dead people who crawled out of their graves.
Lu Jiuchuan spoke with a solemn expression, “The mass burial site contains large-scale corpses. These things are much more powerful than the low level zombies encountered in Zombie Town. Everyone, try not to touch the ground and be careful not to be pulled down by them!”
The densely packed hands meant there was almost no place for anyone to stand.
Lu Jiuchuan rose the vermilion bird with Tang Ci while YU Hanjiang took Xiao Lou with the light footwork card. Liu Qiao also flew in the air with the light footwork card while Shao Qingge and Ye Qi used the teleportation cards to take Old Mo and the Long Qu couple to escape. Chu Huaying had extremely fast speed and she had already fled to the next place before these hands could touch her.
Everyone showed their abilities and they flew through the mass burial site like they were being chased by wolves!
Half of them ran away on the ground while the other half moved through the air. They ran frantically for their lives and it was a bit of a mess.
Then five minutes later, Lu Jiuchuan was surprised to find that there was no end to this mass burial site.
Below his feet were still countless gravestones and zombies crawling out from under the gravestones. The number of arms was increasing and the ground was becoming even more crowded.
Lu Jiuchuan, who was riding the vermilion bird to lead the way, couldn’t help stopping and turning back. “Why can’t we get out?”
Tang Ci wondered, “How big is this mass burial site? Are we going in the wrong direction?”
Yu Hanjiang came to the vicinity of the vermilion bird with Xiao Lou. Xiao Lou said, “This place is too big and there is no direction to refer to on a rainy night. We are likely to have been circling in place!”
It was the ‘circular motion’ effect of organisms. Just like the length of a human’s right and left legs weren’t the same, the left and right wings of a bird also had different lengths. Walking forward while blindfolded was like a compass with one short and one long leg drawing a circle. People and animals would always walk in a large circle.
Humans and animals could usually move in a straight line because there were references around them and their brain was always helping them adjust their course of action. The team might not be blindfolded but there were no references around them.
On a rainy night, there were no stars in the sky to use as a direction reference.
It was a mass burial site full of gravestones. There wasn’t even a single tree around them.
If they couldn’t determine the direction, they wouldn’t be able to go out. The vermilion bird must’ve made a big circle in the sky.
Ye Qi shouted from below, “Our light footwork cards aren’t enough. The teleportation card might be fast but we always have to land. My foot was almost caught by a zombie just now. It was disgusting!”
His ankle was grabbed by cold hands and a chill went down Ye Qi’s spine when he thought about it.
Shao Qingge said, “We should decide what to do as soon as possible. Those of us who don’t have the light footwork card can’t stop for too long.”
They just had to land for more than two seconds and white fingers would grab them like iron shackles and pull them into the mud. It was difficult to climb out again after sinking into the mud. Shao Qingge had been grabbed by a pair of hands just now. Fortunately, he stepped on the opponent’s wrist with one foot. However, the cold touch still made his heart thump!
He had always loved cleanliness. At this time, he was covered with mud and water. His hair was messy and the expression on his face was cold like there was a layer of ice.
They ran for their lives through the mass burial site and occasionally, his legs were caught by the cold zombies and dragged down with force… the worst nightmare he had as a child was much better than his current situation.
These disgusting things kept grabbing at him. In addition, they had to keep running. Not only was it hard to maintain their physical strength but it was also difficult to keep calm psychologically.
Gui Yuanzhang suddenly said, “Come over to me!”
The moment Shao Qingge and Ye Qi heard this, they immediately took Old Mo and the Long Qu couple and teleported to Gui Yuanzhang.
Gui Yuanzhang took out a piece of paper. They saw this white paper quickly unfold in the air to become a picture scroll. This was followed by him using the brush on the paper floating in the air. He said softly, “Go up first. The strength of my brush won’t last long but it is better than you running on the ground!”
The group of people immediately climbed onto the scroll. Gui Yuanzhang temporarily made a picture that could ‘fly’ and led everyone to Lu Jiuchuan’s vermilion bird. They hovered high in the sky.
Lu Jiuchuan suggested, “Why don’t we kill them? They are just zombies!”
Xiao Lou shook his head and objected. “No, the area of this mass burial site is too large. We don’t know how many zombies there are and it will take time and effort to fight them. Moreover, the zombies encountered this time are different from the zombies of 2 of Spades. They might not necessarily be easily killed.”
Yu Hanjiang calmly continued, “Xiao Lou is right. The zombies infected with the virus moved awkwardly and slowly. Their weakness lay in their head and they could be killed by destroying the head. Right now, these dead people buried in the ground have undergone a corpse transformation. The hands that you cut off just now continued to move. This indicates that they aren’t easy to kill.”
Then he threw a grenade down at the ground. There was a loud bang and a large gravestone was blown to ashes by the grenade. The nearby zombies were also blown out. However, after these things were blown up, they could still drag their broken limbs to continue crawling on the ground.
Ye Qi stared at the zombies under his feet and spoke in a trembling voice, “These are dead people and they naturally aren’t afraid of death. Simple knives and guns aren’t a threat to them. Maybe my control skills won’t work either?”
He took out his flute and tried to play a song. As a result, the group of zombies under him didn’t respond.
Shao Qingge frowned. “Xiao Ye’s control skills are all things like sleepiness and dizziness. It is aimed at living things. Now we have encountered the dead. How can dead people fall asleep or feel dizzy?”
The control skills were mostly useless on these things that were already dead. Directly using the piano to fix them in place might be useful but unfortunately, the piano could only control a range of 500 meters. Based on a visual measurement, this mass burial site was several kilometers in size!
Now it was rainy weather and the method of asking Brother Jiu to use the vermilion bird to set fire to the gravestones wouldn’t work.
The expressions of the team members became serious.
Weapons couldn’t kill the undead zombies and musical instruments couldn’t control the dead. They couldn’t set a fire due to the rain… what should they do?
Lu Jiuchuan’s brow furrowed. “It seems that the keepers gave us a serious problem at the beginning this time!”
Xiao Lou looked down and saw that the area of thi mass burial site was shockingly large. It was estimated that there were at least tens of thousands of gravestones. They only had two light footwork cards and Light as a Swallow required them to find a foothold every 10 seconds. The Vermilion Bird card was the most stable and Brother Jiu could always ride it while bringing Tang Ci with him. However, there were still the remaining teammates. The displacement cards didn’t allow them to fly and using the brush and paper to float in the air was very limited…
The consequences would be disastrous once they fell into the zombie group!
Fighting took time and energy. They also ran the risk of being dragged into the swamp by a large number of zombies.
Not fighting and escaping by air was naturally the best way. After all, zombies couldn’t fly. The problem was that they couldn’t discern the right direction and had been circling the same place. They couldn’t escape this mass burial site!
Xiao Lou took a deep breath and quickly calmed down in order to think about countermeasures.
Suddenly, he came up with an idea. He took out a card and shouted to Tang Ci, “Mr Tang, use your drones to cooperate with me!”
The moment he finished speaking, everyone saw Xiao Lou suddenly throw out the Flower Lantern Tree card.
This was the reward they got from the Shangyuan Lantern Festival secret room. Everyone still remembered the complicated riddles that Xiao Lou had guessed correctly. At this time, the tree full of lanterns reappeared at the mass burial site. In the dark and rainy night, a beautiful lantern tree appeared in the wilderness. The lights shone on the surrounding gravestones and made it indescribably strange.
Xiao Lou turned on the skill ‘Thousands of Lights.’ The flower lantern tree instantly lit up with hundreds of lanterns that couldn’t be extinguished, making the scene within 1 kilometer as bright as daylight. All hostile targets within 1 kilometer would be uncontrollably affected. They would be attracted by the lantern tree and quickly gather under the lantern tree within 30 seconds.
Xiao Lou hadn’t used this lantern tree card since it was drawn but in fact, it was very useful lighting and monster gathering skill.
Today, the size of the mass burial site was more than 1 kilometer and it could only attract zombies within 1 kilometer to the lantern tree. This was useless. The key purpose of Xiao Lou summoning the lantern tree wasn’t to attract the zombies but to use it as a reference.
It was just like the starry night. If the North Star was in the sky, they wouldn’t lose their way. Now they had the lantern tree not extinguished by the rain as a reference. At the very least, they didn’t have to worry about moving in a circle all the time.
Xiao Lou looked at Tang Ci. “Mr Tang, we will fly forward with the lantern tree to our backs. We will use the drones to continuously monitor the distance between everyone and the lantern tree, making sure we are moving in a straight line and staying away from the lantern tree. We can’t deviate from this direction.”
Tang Ci immediately understood Xiao Lou’s thoughts and couldn’t help praising it. “Good idea.”
If they were always the same distance from the lantern tree, this proved they were moving around the lantern tree in a big circle and they could never get out of the mass burial site. Therefore, using the drones to continuously measure the distance and keep away from the tree placed there would ensure they were moving in the same direction.
It was like locating the North Star in the sky and walking with their back to it. This meant they were heading in the south direction.
It was better to use the bright lantern tree as a positioning reference on this rainy night.
Even the largest mass burial site had an end. They just had to go in one direction and they could naturally get out.
Tang Ci summoned a drone to monitor the distance. “At present, the distance from the lantern tree is 100 meters.
He looked up at Lu Jiuchuan. “Brother Jiu, let’s go!”
Lu Jiuchuan moved the vermilion bird forward quickly and the others immediately followed.
Tang Ci used the drone to monitor the distance data while helping Lu Jiuchuan adjust the distance, “200 meters… 500 meters… yes, keep going…”
The lantern tree gradually faded away behind everyone.
They used this tree as a reference and 10 minutes later, everyone finally left the five kilometer long mass burial site!
The gravestones under their feet gradually disappeared.
However, a deep cliff appeared in their field of vision.
Lu Jiuchuan hurriedly stopped the vermilion bird. He looked at the cliff below and couldn’t help cursing. “We finally escaped the mass burial site only to come to a cliff? In martial arts novels, the protagonist can learn martial arts by jumping off a cliff. However, isn’t it a dead end for us to jump off the climb?”
Everyone, “……”
Tang Ci had an ugly expression. “Did we go the opposite direction? Should we go back the same way?”
Gui Yuanzhang told them, “My brush’s floating effect can’t last that long.
The ‘flying picture scroll’ that allowed them to temporarily float in the air finally couldn’t hold on and fell to the ground. Yu Hanjiang and Liu Qiao also fell because they couldn’t find a landing point within 10 seconds and the skill entered the cooldown.
Returning the same way? There was a high probability it wouldn’t work.
Ye Qi suddenly shouted, “They’re catching up!”
The group heard this and turned back simultaneously to see countless zombies crawling forward rapidly in the rainstorm. The lantern tree only attracted zombies within a range of 1 kilometer. All zombies in other areas smelled living people and crawled over.
From Xiao Lou’s perspective, the large number of zombies was like a raging tide that was almost on the verge of completely submerging them.
Some female zombies had long hair down to their waist and they were wearing a big, red dress. Their lips seemed coated with a layer of blood and this appearance was worse than a ghost.
A chill went down everyone’s spines and they couldn’t help taking a step back.
Ye Qi couldn’t help asking, “What to do?”
Behind them was a bottomless cliff and there was no way to go back the way they came. One wrong step would crush them.
There was a dense group of zombies in front of them. The zombies were immortal and weren’t affected by control skills.
They were forced to a dead end at the very beginning!
It was worthy of the Battle Royale secret room. There weren't even a few minutes for transition and adjustment. The moment they entered the secret room, they were chased by this zombie group. At this moment, everyone couldn’t wait to collectively press A of Spades to the ground!
