Chapter 95: Du Ruanlan vs. the Psychic Zombie King

Chapter 95 Du Ruanlan vs. the Psychic Zombie King

Owen stared intently at Du Ruanlan and said firmly, "No, he's not mentally weak like that!"

The Psychic Zombie King watched as Du Ruanlan walked away step by step, with his back to it. Its mouth twisted slightly—more like a spasm—when suddenly, Du Ruanlan stopped.

Du Ruanlan abruptly turned around. At that moment, all the mental threads the Psychic Zombie King had poured into his mind shattered. The backlash of the broken psychic energy recoiled into the Zombie King's own brain, causing blood to pour from all seven facial orifices.

"Owen, did you see that? The boss really broke free from the Psychic Zombie King's Mind Control!" Jiang Fuzhong laughed heartily, as if he himself had broken free from the Zombie King's control.

Owen's eyes welled up. "I knew he could do it. He definitely could. My man's will isn't that weak, easily controlled!"

Since being released by Nation R, no one had ever broken free from the Psychic Zombie King's Mind Control. It stared at Du Ruanlan in disbelief, unable to accept reality.

Du Ruanlan sneered and charged straight at the Zombie King. Just before reaching it, he leaped into the air, swinging an energy-forged long blade down toward the Zombie King's head.

The Zombie King hastily retreated several steps until it had no more room to back away. Spreading its arms, it did a backflip off the ledge.

Du Ruanlan's blade struck empty air. He rushed to the edge of the terrace and looked down, seeing the Zombie King land steadily, unharmed. Without hesitation, he jumped down, wielding his energy blade as he advanced.

The Zombie King bared its teeth, let out a raspy, guttural snarl from its throat, like the roar of a beast.

The surrounding zombies and superpowered humans under its control, who had been fighting, suddenly halted their attacks as if summoned. They immediately converged around the Zombie King.

In an instant, the Zombie King was encircled by minions swarming in from all directions. It stood above them like a king, while the zombies and mind-controlled superpowered individuals acted as its servants.

The Zombie King extended its long fingernail and pointed at Du Ruanlan. The outermost ring of zombies and superpowered individuals, positioned defensively, immediately sprang into action, charging at Du Ruanlan. More remained behind to protect the Zombie King.

At the same time, Owen, Jiang Fuzhong, the Deputy Commander, and other superpowered individuals rushed forward to aid Du Ruanlan. With formidable strength, Du Ruanlan cut through zombies effortlessly, each strike felling one.

Soon, he cleared a bloody path toward the Zombie King. Realizing its underlings were no match for Du Ruanlan, the Zombie King's eyes flashed with malice.

It raised its hand and pointed again. Several superpowered individuals broke formation and charged straight at Du Ruanlan.

Under the Zombie King's Mind Control, these superpowered individuals attacked ruthlessly. Being high-level superpowered themselves, Du Ruanlan had to focus fully to counter them.

Three high-level superpowered individuals ganged up on Du Ruanlan, yet he showed no difficulty. Instead, he pushed them back.

The Zombie King's expression darkened further. Its long black fingernail tapped the ranks once more, and another powered fighter lunged forward, ambushing Du Ruanlan from behind while he fought the other three. Leaping into the air, it swung at him.

"Watch out, Ruanlan!"

"Boss, be careful!"

Owen and Jiang Fuzhong shouted in unison. Du Ruanlan glanced sideways, catching the attack in his peripheral vision. He pivoted away, countering with a superpower strike that sent the ambusher crashing to the ground, coughing up blood.

Du Ruanlan immediately prepared a second strike—one that would've killed or maimed the attacker.

"No, boss! That's Chen Dazhuang!" the Deputy Commander yelled. "He's not a zombie, just under Mind Control! Don't kill him!"

At this, Du Ruanlan instantly pulled back his superpower and dodged another incoming attack.

The Zombie King tilted its head, studying the scene like it had discovered something interesting. It tapped its long black fingernail twice more. The zombies retreated, while the mind-controlled superpowered individuals stepped forward, advancing on Du Ruanlan and the others.

Du Ruanlan's face darkened. Jiang Fuzhong couldn't hold back his anger. "Damn it! If you've got the guts, fight me head-on! Hiding behind these dirty tricks—you gutless coward!"

Though the Zombie King didn't understand human speech, it seemed to grasp Jiang Fuzhong's tone and knew it was being insulted. Enraged, it roared, and all the mind-controlled superpowered individuals charged forward.

Under the Zombie King's control, these superpowered individuals saw Du Ruanlan and his allies as enemies, attacking without restraint, aiming to kill. Meanwhile, Du Ruanlan's group had to hold back to avoid fatally injuring their comrades, unable to fight at full strength. Soon, they were being overpowered. And the Psychic Zombie King watched with relish.

"Boss, we can't keep fighting like this. That ugly bastard has probably figured out we won’t kill our own people, deliberately using them as human shields while his zombies hide behind. If this keeps up, it’s our own who’ll suffer in the end."

"Cover me—I’m charging in!" Du Ruanlan said. "If any superpowered individuals try to intercept, stop them if you can. Knock them out if possible—kill them if you have to!"

"But they’re all under the Psychic Zombie King’s Mind Control. If we kill them—" The Deputy Commander hesitated.

"So we just stand by and watch them kill others? If we don’t take out the Zombie King, sooner or later, you and I will either be killed or fall under his control. You decide!"

It was like the trolley problem—divert the train to kill a few or let it kill hundreds?

Owen rushed forward and killed a superpowered individual first, roaring, "Stop hesitating! Don’t let a moment of mercy doom the entire base! If the Psychic Zombie King isn’t eliminated, none of us will survive—not even these controlled ones!"

Jiang Fuzhong followed suit, killing a superpowered individual who had tried to kill him. "If we want fewer superpowered individuals to die, take out these ones guarding the Zombie King now! Let the boss take out the Psychic Zombie King!"

The Deputy Commander fell silent, saying nothing more, but joined the others in killing the mind-controlled superpowered individuals.

With their support, Du Ruanlan quickly cut a bloody path through and charged at the Psychic Zombie King. Protected by the zombie horde, the Zombie King retreated while howling, calling forth more zombies and controlled superpowered individuals to intercept.

This time, neither zombies nor controlled superpowered individuals were spared. Du Ruanlan slaughtered them all, clearing every obstacle in his way.

The Psychic Zombie King retreated under pressure, snarling in fury as it unleashed another wave of psychic energy, flooding toward everyone except Du Ruanlan.

Du Ruanlan’s pupils contracted. He stepped onto a zombie’s shoulder, launching himself into the air. All his power coalesced into a massive blade, which he swung down, severing every psychic thread the Zombie King had released.

The Zombie King shrieked in pain. Though unharmed, it staggered backward, only kept from falling by a superpowered individual behind it.

Yet when the Zombie King regained its footing, it turned and gouged a hole in that superpowered individual’s head, pulling out a multicolored Superpowered Crystal Core.

"Zhao Chang!" The Deputy Commander roared, lunging forward recklessly before Owen and Jiang Fuzhong restrained him.

"What are you doing?!"

The Deputy Commander’s face was streaked with tears as he shouted, "That’s Zhao Chang! He was a psychic—a researcher! Researchers aren’t supposed to fight on the front lines! I was the one who transferred him here to help free the superpowered individuals under the Zombie King’s control! And now he’s dead! If I hadn’t dragged him here, he’d still be alive!"

"Calm down! This isn’t your fault!" Owen yelled. "He wasn’t the only psychic superpowered individual helping us break the control! Many others have died too! Blame the Psychic Zombie King, not yourself!"

The Zombie King absorbed the colorful crystal core, primal energy surging into its body through its orifices and brain. Its wounds visibly healed, the bleeding from its seven orifices stopping.

Soon, the Zombie King finished absorbing the Superpowered Crystal Core. Its eyes glazed with unnatural euphoria, like a drug high, as if craving more.

This time, it smirked at Du Ruanlan and the others, a storm of psychic threads erupting from its mind in all directions.

Jiang Fuzhong cursed, "This bastard only has one move! Fight me one-on-one if you’ve got the guts!"

The Zombie King’s psychic assault didn’t falter under Jiang Fuzhong’s taunts—instead, it intensified. Then, Du Ruanlan heard a series of rapid explosions.

Turning, he saw superpowered individuals among their ranks detonating their Superpowered Crystal Cores one after another.

The blast radius varied by superpowered individual rank, but regardless, countless unprepared superpowered individuals were caught in the explosions, hurled into the air.

For a moment, the sky rained blood and dismembered limbs.

In an instant, Luo City base turned into a living hell.

The wind reeked of blood, intoxicating the Zombie King, which reveled in the carnage.

A drop of blood splashed into Du Ruanlan’s eye, staining his vision red.

"Damn it, enough of this!" Jiang Fuzhong bellowed, hurling a superpowered strike at the Zombie King, blasting away several zombies shielding it. Du Ruanlan followed up, unleashing his full power in three brutal strikes that cleared a bloody path straight to the Zombie King.

Du Ruanlan brandished her long blade, charging straight for the Zombie King's head. The Zombie King hastily retreated, but Du Ruanlan pressed forward relentlessly. Left with no choice, the Zombie King summoned its underlings to swarm in, only for them to be intercepted midway by Owen, Jiang Fuzhong, and the others.

In the blink of an eye, Du Ruanlan's blade was upon the Zombie King. With no room left to dodge, the creature seemed to realize escape was impossible. Instead of retreating further, it extended its long, black claws toward Du Ruanlan's neck.

"Ruanlan, watch out! Dodge!" Owen shouted in desperation.

Jiang Fuzhong's eyes nearly burst with fury. "Commander, forget that damned Zombie King! Get out of there!"

At this moment, the Zombie King's claws were still some distance from Du Ruanlan. If she abandoned her attack and dodged, she could evade the strike—but doing so would mean forfeiting her all-out strike. Worse, the Zombie King might seize that brief moment to summon its underlings and escape.

If the Zombie King got away this time, having learned its lesson, it would never show itself so brazenly again. It would lurk within the zombie horde, secretly manipulating enhanced individuals and zombies to fight or self-destruct.

Finding it afterward would be far from easy.

Du Ruanlan thought of the countless familiar faces that had self-destructed around her. She didn’t dodge. Instead, she glanced back at Owen for a fleeting moment before resolutely pressing forward.

"Ruanlan! Du Ruanlan!" Owen's voice tore through the air, raw with anguish.

Jiang Fuzhong roared in equal agony, "Commander!"

Amid their cries, the Zombie King's claws sank deep into Du Ruanlan's neck, burying half its fingers. At the same time, Du Ruanlan's blade cleaved through the Zombie King's skull, revealing the crystalline Zombie Core within, gleaming radiantly under the sunlight.

A drop of blood fell onto the Zombie Core, blooming like a bewitching rose within its glassy surface.

At that moment, all enhanced individuals under the Zombie King's Mind Control regained their senses. They stood dazed for a moment before recalling how they had been forced to fight their own comrades.

Their companions, unwilling to harm them, had instead suffered at their hands. Tears streamed down their faces as they realized what they had done.

Watching their awakened friends weep and laugh in relief, the Deputy Commander looked at his old comrade, tears in his eyes. "Old Li, Old Li... you're finally awake. If you hadn’t come to, you would’ve killed me!"

The newly awakened Old Li replied guiltily, "Deputy Commander, I'm sorry... I didn’t mean to. I—how did I suddenly break free?"

"It was Commander-in-Chief Du Ruanlan..."

Everyone turned to look at Du Ruanlan, who knelt on one knee with her back to them, utterly exhausted. The Zombie King's fingers were still embedded deep in her neck.

"Du Ruanlan!" Owen unleashed her superpower, sending the zombies in her path flying as she rushed to Du Ruanlan's side. She pulled Du Ruanlan into her arms, her face already streaked with tears.

Pale-faced, Du Ruanlan gave Owen a weak smile before yanking out the Zombie King's fingers from her neck. Blood gushed out instantly.

Owen frantically pulled disinfectant from her Spatial Storage and poured it over the deep punctures. The burning agony from the disinfectant seeping into the wounds made Du Ruanlan let out a stifled groan, veins instantly bulging along her neck.

"Ruanlan, hold on, just hold on!" Owen sobbed.

Deep down, they both knew it was too late. Once the zombie virus entered human blood, it spread throughout the body in seconds. Disinfectant was useless by now.

Yet Du Ruanlan only smiled at Owen—a smile as flirtatious as ever, laced with a hint of teasing. "Okay."

With that single word, she slumped limply into Owen's arms.

By then, Jiang Fuzhong and the others had rushed over, crowding around Du Ruanlan, shouting desperately, "Commander! Commander!"

Owen clutched Du Ruanlan tightly, panic in her voice. "Ruanlan, what's wrong? You—"

Lying in Owen's embrace, Du Ruanlan gazed up at her with a gentle, wan smile, her voice still light, as casually as mentioning the pleasant weather. "I used up too much superpower fighting the Zombie King's underlings earlier. Now it seems I’ve exhausted it all... I’m tapped out."

Terror flashed across Owen's face as thick tears rolled down her cheeks. Jiang Fuzhong choked out in disbelief, "No—no! How can this be? It wasn't supposed to end like this."

Du Ruanlan laboriously reached out to wipe the tears from Owen's face, his voice as magnetic and alluring as ever. "Don't cry. Maybe this is a good thing. After being infected with the zombie virus, there's always a secondary mutation. Perhaps lacking powers makes it easier to survive the infection period."

How could that be? After losing their powers, an enhanced individual's physical attributes would regress to ordinary human levels, with weakened immunity. How could that possibly help resist the zombie virus better?

Du Ruanlan comforted everyone, "Stop crying. No matter what, the Psychic Zombie King is dead. Luo City Base is secure!"

The Deputy Commander added, "Yes, no matter what, this crisis is finally over. At least Luo City Base is—ugh—"

Before he could finish, the Deputy Commander vomited blood. He looked down to see a dagger formed from an energy dagger deeply embedded in his heart. The other end of the dagger was held by his recently came to comrade, Old Li.

The Deputy Commander couldn’t comprehend what was happening. He stared wide-eyed and asked, "Old Li, why?"

Old Li didn’t answer and pulled out the dagger. Jiang Fuzhong, standing nearby, saw everything clearly. He looked into Old Li’s eyes and said, "*No*, he’s not awake. He’s still under Mind Control!"

"Then what was that thing we just killed? Wasn’t that the Psychic Zombie King?"

The group immediately tensed up. Two men who had just been calling each other brothers now turned on each other. A newly came to enhanced individual quickly said, "No, I came to. I’m not under Mind Control again!"

Yet some enhanced individuals, like Old Li, had their eyes turn vacant and dull again. They lashed out with their powers recklessly, attacking their fellow enhanced individuals once more.

"This can’t be right!" Jiang Fuzhong muttered, unable to believe that the nightmare they thought was over had suddenly returned.

Du Ruanlan sat up from Owen’s embrace, his face as pale as paper, bloodless. "There are more psychic zombies! They’re being controlled by different psychic zombies!"

Jiang Fuzhong snapped, "Psychic zombies? Where did so many psychic zombies come from?!"

Meanwhile, in the tunnels, Ji An said to Gu Jinsheng, "The situation in Luo City Base is dire. They haven’t trained to resist psychic invasions. If the Zombie King secretly controls enhanced individuals to bring down the base’s defenses and infiltrates, the consequences would be unimaginable."

Just imagining such a scenario was enough to know it would be a hellscape.

He Tao said, "What can we do? Wan Xueying hasn’t arrived yet, and we can’t fly there. If we drive, by the time we get there, we’d only be retrieving bodies from Luo City Base."

Gu Jinsheng turned to Ji An and asked, "Do you have any ideas?"

Ji An didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he looked at Bi Xue. She pointed at herself and said, "Me? Boss Ji, I don’t have a plane in my spatial ability."

Ji An said to her, "Bi Xue, come with me. I need to talk to you alone."

Bi Xue didn’t hesitate and followed Ji An out. Gu Jinsheng stood up to follow, but Ji An shook his head. "Jinsheng, don’t come. I need to speak with Bi Xue privately."

Gu Jinsheng looked into Ji An’s eyes—filled with gravity and solemnity—and nodded. "Alright."

The two stepped out of the tunnel and onto the surface. Ji An said, "Bi Xue, getting to Luo City Base might require your help."

"I don’t know what I can do."

Then Bi Xue remembered how Ji An had used her spatial ability to wield Spatial Blades and Spatial Slashes, and even performed spatial teleportation to escape the R-nation’s fighter jets. Instantly, her adrenaline surged.

Bi Xue said, "Boss Ji, whatever you need me to do, just say it. I’ll cooperate. It’s just psychic invasion—I’m used to it by now. Go ahead."

She grinned, acting as if psychic invasion was no big deal. "Just make sure you teach me all this afterward. Then I’ll be a top-tier too! Next time we’re on a mission, no one will dare call me a liability!"

But Ji An shook his head grimly.

"No?" Bi Xue’s face fell. "Is it because my level’s too low? Can’t use those skills on my own yet? That’s fine—Spatial Blades and Slashes are already amazing!"

"No," Ji An said. "If I use your spatial ability to get to Luo City Base, there’s a high chance your spatial ability will be burned out from overuse!"

In the apocalypse, superpowers were worth more than life!

Even a less powerful low-level superpower can give a superpowered individual the ability to protect themselves.

And Bi Xue's superpower is even a mid-level one. Now, knowing that space-warping ability isn’t just limited to storage but can do so much more—it might be the most powerful ability of all. In such a case, asking Bi Xue to give up her spatial superpower is no different from telling her to abandon her own life.

Bi Xue’s face instantly turned pale.

Ji An said, "The Luo City base is in imminent danger. Every minute we waste puts them in greater danger. Under these circumstances, I don’t know when Wan Xueying will return.

I want to borrow your superpower to rush to the Luo City base, but your superpower level is still low. If we push it to the limit to get there, it'll most likely burn out for good."