TDRA Chapter 36

(T/N: This chapter is dedicated to Paj for the generous support. Thank you so much. Also I’m trying this chapter with an audio for the short fight, hopefully it will be suitable and create a better intensive feeling when reading it. Please do remember to adjust your volume before playing the soundtrack. Thanks )

After Gu Ning took a good look at the thing that was lunging towards her, her heart thumped and all the hairs on her body instantly stood up!

It was a black zombie dog, unlike the previous one which was huge, this was the size of a normal house dog. There was a large hole in its belly which its intestines flowed out of hanging on its belly and half of which was getting dragged on the ground collecting a huge grey knot of dirt and dust. As if it was oblivious to it, the moment it swooped out of the darkness it moved like a black bolt of lightning. If it wasn’t for Gu Ning’s keen sense and quick reactions, she would have been bitten by it!

Gu Ning had no time to be distracted by what was happening at the school gate and concentrated fully on the zombie dog, which didn’t give her the chance to remove the gun from her back. Fortunately, Gu Ning kept her knife on hand.

Before she could even raise her knife, the zombie dog lunged towards her! The dog was extremely fast and its small size in this narrow space gave it an advantage. In addition, unless the dog’s head was cut off or chopped into pieces, attacks on other parts of its body were basically ineffective. Gu Ning was forced to dodge repeatedly to defend herself and had no other way to launch a counterattack.

Fortunately, there was still some furniture left in the restaurant, and the dog was completely devoid of any intelligence and only pounced on its prey by instinct. Gu Ning relied on these obstacles for a while but neither side could take down the other.

If the zombie dog retained its intelligence, it would’ve been annoyed by Gu Ning’s slippery dodging.

However, Gu Ning didn’t have much patience, she was still worried about the increasing intensity of gunfire and screaming at the school gate.

Her parents were still on the campus, and if the gate was broken…Gu Ning dared not think further.

Gathering back her thoughts, she watched as the zombie dog made a move to leap over the table and lunge at her. Gu Ning did not dodge, but the moment the zombie dog leaped up! She kicked the table so hard and it crashed onto the dog’s belly while it was in mid-leap! Gu Ning’s face did not show any joyful expression when she managed to land the hit, she just raised her foot again, the zombie dog hissed and was knocked away by the strong force coming from the table!

Gu Ning used her full force in this kick, and the edge of the table caught the zombie dog’s abdomen and crashed into the drab wall. The zombie dog was still struggling to escape, however, Gu Ning naturally wouldn’t give it any chances. She leaped onto the table, used her strength to press down the table while making sure the zombie dog was stuck, and immobilized it in between the edge of the table and the wall. The knife in her hand came down viciously without any hesitation on the neck of the zombie dog. She clearly remembered that Brother San had told her that the zombie dog in the courtyard was still alive after being shot in the head, so Gu Ning didn’t dare to take it lightly. She made sure that the head of the zombie dog was chopped off, separating from its body.

The zombie dog’s decapitated body slid off from the edge of the table and stopped moving.

The zombie dog’s head, however, rolled onto the table.

Gu Ning’s heart leaped up for a moment, she sliced the dog’s head into two, then used the tip of the knife to look around one half of the dog’s head. When it wasn’t in the left half, she started digging on the other one. Finally, the tip of her knife touched a small hard object, Gu Ning couldn’t help feeling happy. Once the tip of her knife picked the small object from the rotten and smelly brain. It was a pure white bead. Gu Ning didn’t even care about the filth, she just took out the bead which still reeked of rottenness, cupped it in her hands, and wiped the brain pulp off using the table rag, revealing its pristine, unblemished bead form. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to admire it at this moment, so Gu Ning just pocketed it and ran out with her gun.

Just as she appeared, a female zombie lunged towards her. There were limited bullets in the magazine so Gu Ning didn’t want to waste them, so she smashed the butt of her gun directly at it viciously! The zombie staggered backward from the impact, Gu Ning quickly drew the knife at her belt and thrust it towards the face of the female zombie which pounced back at her! The knife drawing action which Gu Ning practiced whenever she was free, got executed flawlessly as she was now incredibly skilled at it. Her current strength was monstrous, and if right now, she was a normal girl, she would’ve needed to hold the knife with both hands to plunge it into the zombie’s skull while also sprinting from a distance to gain a speed boost.

All thanks to Gu Ning’s extraordinary strength and precision she had honed through countless battles involving life and death. She only needed to make three moves, draw her knife, raise her hand, and slash it down, then the zombie would fall to the ground motionlessly.

It was only at this time that Gu Ning had spare time to observe the current situation at the school gate. When she first saw what was happening, her immediate reaction was to hide in the house, closing the door behind her but leaving a small enough gap from the door to peek out.

Currently, the school entrance was full of zombies. The zombies in the front row were sticking their hands into the gaps of the metal gate and clawing their way in. They were hissing with excitement and hunger, desperately trying to squeeze in, and there were at least two to three hundred of them!

Not only at the front gate, in front of the school entrance was a horizontal road, and on this road, lots of zombies were swarming in. There were was a constant stream of zombies stumbling past three or four meters in front of Gu Ning, but none of them noticed that a living person was hiding inside. It could be because the smell from the zombie dog within the house overpowered Gu Ning’s scent, even when she had the door slightly ajar.

The gunfire continued to ring out as rows of zombies fell to the ground with their heads blown off, and yet more zombies came, stepping over the corpses and filling in their positions.

If these zombies weren’t enough to instil horror, then within the crowd of zombies, there were dozens of zombies moving around with great agility and trying to climb up the metal gate, which would make anyone’s courage crumble.

The metal gate creaked as it was applied more and more pressure by the growing number of zombies.

The large lock hanging on the metal gate swung around and knocked on the bar as if it could be broken at any moment.

Most of the guns were aimed at the zombies that were trying to climb over the gate.

However, most of the people who held guns didn’t have enough opportunities to practice their marksmanship before the apocalypse happened so their aims were not that superb. More often than not, several of their shots fired would either miss or hit non-vital parts of the zombie. Basically, the ones who were able to hit those quick-moving zombies within three shots were the soldiers left behind by the Third Company for guarding.

Naturally, Gu Ning saw the agile zombies trying to climb the metal gate. Having flexible bodies that were totally different from the usual zombies, were enough to make anyone feel a chill of despair just by looking at them.

All Gu Ning could hear was the constant sound of gunshots, yet it took several shots to bring down one of those zombies climbing the metal gate, and one of them even managed to climb to the top before it was shot down! Gu Ning was terrified, if a zombie broke through the gate, the defenceless people in the colony, including her parents, would be in danger.

The only saving grace was that the school wall was built high enough and although there were zombies who tried to climb over the wall, their efforts were in vain.

This small restaurant had three floors in total, the ground floor was the small restaurant and the next levels were the residential building. Without further ado, Gu Ning carried her gun in front of her before going to the back door and dashed up the stairs she found.

Those quick-moving zombies continuously climbed upwards, almost covering up the entire metal gate. A large amount of densely gathered zombies on the metal gate was very terrifying and some of them even climbed higher before it got knocked down.

There were also some zombies banging on the small side door next to the gate. The side door was not strong enough to withstand several ramming attempts. Bai Lang called a dozen men to barricade that door using their bodies, and then grimly looked at the culprit who had drawn all these hordes of zombies back.

The culprit was the group of ten or so people who had traded a large number of supplies last night and stayed in the hostel.

Half an hour ago, they hurriedly ran back into the colony, and less than ten minutes later, those zombies blocked the entire school entrance.

By this time, they were surrounded by Bai Lang’s men.

Yin Sang stood with the man in a white shirt wearing glasses, countless daggers emanating from those beautiful eyes. If those merciless glances could be materialized, those people would probably be shredded to pieces long ago.

“If only Gu Ning and Brother San were here.” Cheng Ming said with a frown as he watched the countless zombies that gathered at the entrance and doesn’t seem to be reducing no matter what.

Cheng Ming and Jia DaoZhang came out to check out the situation, while Xie YuHong and Huang MengYao stayed back in the hostel to look after Gu Ning’s parents.

Most people remained in the building at this point, listening to the gunfire and waiting trepidatiously. Either waiting for victory or for the zombies to break in.

While a small number of people came out of the building to check out the situation.

Gu Ning quickly ran to the top floor, the distance diagonally from the gate was about three hundred meters away. She found a good angle and proceeded to aim her gun at the zombies who were climbing the iron metal, after aiming, she pulled the trigger——

Bang!

The bullet went through the back of the zombie’s head with perfect accuracy.

The gunshot from Gu Ning’s side was kind of loud, but the gunshots in the colony were even more intense, so no one paid any attention to her gunfire. Even the zombies with the keen sense of hearing were not attracted by it and they still kept surging towards the metal gate.

Gu Ning continued to aim at the next one.

On average, she fired a shot every five seconds.

Out of ten shots, at least eight of them hit the target.

The gunmen firing in the colony were a little puzzled, wondering how all of a sudden, their accuracy was so much higher. Zombies kept falling from the metal gate, landing into the group of zombies below them, smashing down pile after pile. However, the zombies seemed to be endless, and after killing a group of them, another group rushed in to fill up the open spot.

Still, the fact that the metal gates were crawling with zombies a moment ago and now they were cleared all at once, managed to catch the attention of some people.

The white-shirted man noticed that one zombie had fallen backward, but there were no bullet holes in the entire face, so it had to be shot from the back.

The eyes behind the glasses quickly locked onto the roof of the third floor diagonally across the street and said in a deep voice: “There’s someone on the roof across the street.”

Yin Sang, who was standing beside him, raised her head at once to follow his gaze and indeed saw a person with a gun raised right there, and she raised her eyebrows in surprise: “It’s her?!”

Gu Ning’s blonde hair was so conspicuous that it wasn’t hard to recognize her.

Gu Ning was completely unaware that she had been discovered, and naturally, she didn’t care at all. She just focused on her aim and fired, the bullet casing ejected, bullet shot out and passed through the skull of a zombie.

More and more people spotted her.

“Jia DaoZhang! Look! Gu Ning is over there!” Cheng Ming pointed excitedly at the top floor of the building diagonally opposite the colony.

When Jia DaoZhang squinted his eyes, he saw a handful of golden hair and instantly recognized that it was Gu Ning.

In this colony, the name Gu Ning was not well known, but her iconic blonde hair was of no small renown.

It caused a gasp of surprise from the surrounding.

Bai Lang glanced at the roof of the opposite building, then shot down a zombie before turning to Pei Jing, the leader of the troublemakers, and said: “I’ll send you all to heaven the second this door is slammed open.”

Yan Yu, who had been standing next to Pei Jing, could no longer suppress her anger that she had been holding back and roared: “Then you should die first!” As she roared out this sentence, she opened her palm and pushed it forward in the direction of Bai Lang!

Pei Jing, who was next to her, couldn’t stop her in time and his expression suddenly changed! “Yan Yu!”

Just as she pushed out her palm! A football-sized ball of fire appeared out of the thin air in front of her palm! Whirling with flames, the moment this ball of fire appeared, even the air around it was a few degrees warmer! Yan Yu’s shrill cry had already attracted a lot of attention, but now seeing a fireball appear out of the thin air from her hands garnered even more attention! As Yan Yu pushed her hands forward, that fireball flew out with a whirring sound and flew straight towards Bai Lang’s face!

All the onlookers were caught by surprise, and they became even more shocked at the sight of a fireball flying rapidly towards Bai Lang under Yan Yu’s control and a cry of astonishment rang out at once!

Gu Ning was standing on the roof of the third floor in the opposite building, and she could see what was happening inside the colony right under her nose. When she saw with unparalleled clarity the fireball just appeared out of thin air and flew out under Yan Yu’s control, and in shock, she even forgot to continue shooting!

That fireball was extremely fast, and it came close in the blink of an eye!

“Bai Lang! Watch out!” Yin Sang and the man in the white shirt shouted at the same time.

Even Gu Ning couldn’t help but get nervous.

Bai Lang stared at the in-coming fireball straight at him, his face was stoic and solemn, his gaze was icy cold, but there wasn’t a hint of panic on his face. He didn’t even bother to dodge or evade, he just raised his gun and aimed at the fireball, bang bang bang! A few shots rang out. The ghastly-looking ball of fire, under the continuous impact of bullets, fell apart while in mid-air.

Bai Lang stepped on the remnants of the fireball, his gun aimed at Yan Yu, smiling slightly, but this smile was eerily cold: “Sorry, it’s you who will die first.”

Countless guns turned around and aimed at Yan Yu and the ten or so others in her group. Those onlookers who had been watching the drama unfold tensed up at this moment. Meanwhile, the remaining soldiers of the Third Company continued shooting at the zombies off the metal gate.

The situation has taken a sharp turn for the worse!

Yan Yu shuddered uncontrollably as a lot of guns pointed at her, she hadn’t expected at all that the fireball she sent out would be shattered with a gun! And with so many guns aimed at her, she simply didn’t dare to send out a second fireball.

“Wait! Don’t shoot yet!” At that moment Pei Jing suddenly spoke, while raising his hands in a gesture of surrender to avoid being shot outright.

Staring at Bai Lang, he continued: “As long as you don’t kill her, I can tell you the secret about the fireball!”

“Hmmm. Good offer.” Bai Lang nodded, but his hand holding the gun didn’t lower: “But let’s wait until the person in the way is dead.” He replied and was about to pull the trigger.

“Bai Lang.” The white-shirted man pressed Bai Lang’s hand that was holding the gun, then he pushed the glasses up and glanced at Yan Yu before saying: “Keep her to deal with those zombies.”

Bai Lang gave a glance at the densely packed zombies outside the metal gate, and his long slanted eyes narrowed slightly.

Pei Jing immediately spoke: “We can help you to get rid of all the zombies out there.”

Bai Lang’s long slanted eyes rose slightly upwards, and his expression changed into a sneer as he said: “Help me?”

When Pei Jing thought of the fact that they had indeed lured all these zombies to the colony, he had to change his tone and said: “Anyway, we will take care of these zombies, and besides, I will tell you what you want to know.”

Bai Lang finally showed a satisfied smile, then said to the soldiers who were still loading their bullets: “Do you hear them? Leave the zombies to them and save the bullets for your Brother San.”

The few soldiers hesitated but in the end, they stopped their shooting.

Although Gu Ning had sharp ears, she was still too far away to hear the conversation, so she could only notice that the sound of gunfire had faded out and as she was wondering what was going on, she saw Yan Yu, the one who had released the fireball earlier, reluctantly walk up to the metal gate and opened her palm. In the next instant, two fireballs appeared out of thin air on top of her palm, hovering upwards with flames swirling.

As she raised her hands, two fireballs traced a curved line in the air, flying across the metal gate, and slammed down!

It smashed into the crowd of zombies with a loud bang, instantly igniting the clothes on the zombies’ bodies!

Yan Yu threw about twenty fireballs one after another, hitting the zombies in different directions, her face was pale as if she had lost her strength and couldn’t send out any more fireballs.

However, those twenty fireballs were enough.

In just under three minutes, the fire spread, accompanied by the burning smell of rottenness as the zombies were decaying. The flames shot up into the sky, beyond the metal gate, the flames and the hissing of the zombies were in unison.

Gu Ning put down the gun in her hand and watched the zombies screaming and hissing in the fire as the thick smoke raised to the sky. For a moment, she didn’t know what to feel.