Chapter 42: Have I Had My Data Deleted Too

Chapter 42: Was I Deleted From the Data Too?

Shu Hanqing pretended not to notice Rong Hua's face, which was red enough to bleed. With a cold expression, he crossed his arms and strode forward.

He thought, what was this little punk playing at?

Shi Lei followed behind them, hauling the heavy loot they'd picked up along the way.

Picking their way through a stretch of barren weeds and rubble, a rundown old building, long past its prime, loomed up ahead.

Three stories tall and circular, it looked like it had once been a bustling mid-sized mall before the end of the world.

Unfortunately, after years of brutal exposure, the exterior was wrecked—peeling paint revealing the steel bones underneath.

It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. There was no sign of a single zombie, nor any trace of other teams.

Shu Hanqing paused mid-step, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly. He had a nagging feeling something was off.

Had no one else made it here yet?

That was absolutely impossible. At the final trial's base camp, they'd specially placed a safe box in the core zone, a symbol of the highest honor. Rumor had it that inside was something so coveted it would drive every high-level ability user crazy with desire.

Everyone was fighting tooth and nail to get here. This place shouldn't be this quiet.

Shu Hanqing squinted into the distance. There, in the middle of the abandoned building's empty second-floor ruins, the safe box sat among the rubble.

He cautiously stepped forward into the ruined building's corridor. Judging by the layout, this had once been an open-air pedestrian street.

He looked up warily, his gaze sweeping inch by inch over the pitch-black windows and crumbling signs. His instincts screamed danger. His face darkened.

"Fall back!"

But just as they turned to retreat—

A torrent of inhuman, frenzied howls and frantic scratching erupted from behind the rusted iron doors lining the corridor.

The next second, a piercing screech of tearing metal split the air. The heavy iron doors were blasted open by sheer force, and countless withered, blackened hands thrust out in waves. A massive horde of zombies, reeking of rot and blood, came shrieking and lunging at them like mad.

At the same time, with a teeth-grinding screech of metal, the scattered scrap iron and steel bars around them seemed to be yanked by some invisible magnetic force. In an instant, they morphed into vicious, thorn-like iron masses, swelling and crisscrossing in midair, sealing off every escape route.

A figure that had been lurking in the shadows of the second floor slowly emerged at the edge.

Qin Shenzhen, black gloves on, stood with his lackeys, looking down at the trapped group from above. There wasn't a trace of classmate camaraderie in his gaze—just mockery and murderous intent. "Well, well, if it isn't our top dog and our bottom feeder. Too bad—after today, you'll be a snack for these zombies."

Qin Shenzhen was one of the camp's rare top-tier metal ability users. His control over metal was vicious and ruthless.

A faint shimmer of water vapor flickered at Shu Hanqing's fingertips. Biting back the rage surging inside him, he looked up and said coldly, "Qin Shenzhen, you know full well that during the assessment, students are absolutely forbidden from fighting each other."

Qin Shenzhen acted like that was the funniest joke in the world. He crouched at the concrete edge of the second floor and sneered down at them.

"Who said we're deliberately trying to get back at you? This assessment is about grabbing zombie cores, right? With everyone's superpowers flying everywhere and chaos all around, blades don't discriminate. It's only natural that people get banged up in the scuffle, right?"

This slick excuse made it crystal clear they intended to send them to their graves.

Before Shu Hanqing could fire back with a sneer, Rong Hua, who'd been watching coldly from the side, made his move. The wildness and bloodlust buried in his bones had finally found the perfect release.

Without even bothering to open his eyes, he cracked his knuckles, and the violent wood-type energy radiating from him swept outward like a tsunami.

Rong Hua tilted his head slightly and said to Shu Hanqing, "Why waste words on a dead man? I'm going to beat that piece of trash Qin Shenzhen until he's on his knees begging for mercy."

In an instant, the ground exploded. Bucket-thick, dark green vines burst up from below, sweeping through the dense zombie horde like crazed pythons, spraying foul blood everywhere.

There was no choice but to fight.

Shu Hanqing's slender fingers swept through the air.

The surging azure ability in his palm condensed in an instant into countless piercing water arrows that shot out with sharp whistles, punching clean through the skulls of the leading high-tier zombies with deadly precision.

These monsters had long since lost all sense of pain. Even with limbs blown off and chests caved in, they still dragged their mangled bodies through the thick blood, crawling with stubborn determination, their bone-white teeth snapping open and shut like mad.

The dense tide of corpses closed in from all sides, forcing everyone to grit their teeth and huddle together in the center.

Suddenly, a shrill scream burst out beside them.

Tan Chi's foot slipped, and a withered claw shot out from the pile of corpses, grabbing half her leg. She nearly got yanked into that nauseating mass of zombies.

Shu Hanqing's expression changed drastically. A burst of cold light surged through the air as he pushed the zombies around her back.

Rong Hua's main vine slashed through the air with tremendous force to back him up, sending several zombies that had lunged forward flying, flesh and blood splattering everywhere.

In that split second, Shu Hanqing managed to pull the utterly disheveled Tan Chi out.

He shoved her back hard, shielding her steadily behind him.

Tan Chi was scared out of her mind, her face pale as paper, her legs barely able to hold her up. The water ability she struggled to gather in her palms had completely lost its shape, not even hitting straight anymore.

Shu Hanqing stood in front of her without looking back. "Are you okay?"

Tan Chi, still trembling from the scare, could only shake her head frantically.

Seeing her sister in danger, Tan Ting's eyes went red. Her water ability transformed into a dense barrage of sharp water arrows, which she unleashed recklessly at the surging crowd.

Under the twin sisters' cover, Guan Hong took a deep breath and thrust his palms forward. His explosive fire ability erupted at full force, sending scorching flames into the air and burning the oncoming monsters with crackling pops.

Shi Lei let out a furious roar and slammed his thick arms into the ground.

His mighty earth ability churned wildly. In an instant, surging yellow earth rose around them, rapidly building a heavy defensive fortress that brutally cut off the first wave of the zombie tide.

At the edge of the second floor, Qin Shenzhen and his men had been watching with their arms crossed.

But as they watched the zombies below fail to stop these people, the horde showing signs of being torn apart, Qin Shenzhen's face turned utterly grim. "There's no way they're walking out of here today."

He pressed his right hand down hard. His group of high-level ability users exchanged glances, then launched a sneak attack from midair.

In an instant, the air above filled with surging energy. Countless metal blades and fierce attacks rained down on their heads.

Rong Hua cursed under his breath. Every swing of his vines came at a heavy cost.

Caught between the zombie horde and the sneak attacks from above, they had no choice but to keep retreating. The stench of blood in the air grew thicker, and the relentless fighting was draining everyone's stamina at a terrifying pace.

The battlefield was pure chaos.

The mix of abilities stripped away all of their senses.

No one saw it coming—from the shadows, a gaunt zombie that had been lying in wait suddenly lunged out, jaws wide open, straight for Shu Hanqing's neck.

Rong Hua reacted with lightning speed, driven by beast-like instinct. He threw himself sideways, using his own body to shield Shu Hanqing completely.

“RIIIP——”

A harsh ripping sound tore through the air as claws shredded fabric. The zombie’s sharp nails raked viciously across Rong Hua’s shoulder, instantly leaving a long, wet red gash streaked with toxic slime.

Shu Hanqing’s pupils snapped to pinpricks. The ice in his palm exploded in an instant, impaling the zombie clean through.

Qin Shenzhen and those bastards hiding in the shadows were absolute snakes—they had deliberately used their Superpower to attack Shu Hanqing in the split second everyone’s guard was down.

A gust of wind howled in with a piercing shriek as a lethal strike hurtled toward his face. Shu Hanqing only just managed to twist out of the way.

But then, the metallic blade that had shot toward him seemed to have a mind of its own. It twisted mid-air in a grotesque arc, curving with bone-chilling precision to slice through his path of retreat.

There was no avoiding it.

Shu Hanqing gritted his teeth so hard his molars ground. The glacial blue energy in his palm surged violently, coalescing in an instant into a thick, flowing water shield before him.

“Boom!”

The metal collided with the water shield with a thunderous impact, sending water and sparks blasting in every direction.

The backlash hit like a freight train. He blocked the fatal blow, but the sheer, bone-shattering force hurled him backward. His footing faltered, and the back of his skull cracked against the concrete wall.

The world spun in a dizzying blur.

All the screams around him faded away. Even Rong Hua’s frantic, distorted roar seemed to come from deep underwater—distant, muffled, impossible to hold onto.

Qin Shenzhen and his group had poked the beast inside Rong Hua.

Suddenly, from the broken, ravaged earth around them, all the dark green vines began to grow and spread in a frantic, suicidal burst of growth—like countless tentacles reaching up from the depths of hell, intertwining overhead to form an impenetrable web. It cocooned Shu Hanqing and the others in the middle, forming a towering fortress of green.

Qin Shenzhen, perched above, never imagined an exhausted Rong Hua could still unleash such terrifying power.

The surging vines, carrying rubble and howling wind, suddenly shot skyward like pythons striking, wrapping precisely around the ankles of the bastards on the upper level. They yanked them mercilessly off the platform and into the endless tide of zombies below, with no chance to break free.

In the blink of an eye, blood-curdling screams tore through the air, followed by the sickening sounds of teeth ripping flesh and the wet, grinding crunch of bone.

A cornered beast fights hardest. Outside, the zombie horde surged madly, claws and fangs biting through the outer layer of vines blocking them.

Every vine was an extension of his power. Each one that snapped carved a fresh wound into Rong Hua’s flesh.

Shu Hanqing’s eyes half-opened, vision blurry. Through the haze, he saw Rong Hua kneeling before him, ripping his sleeve off to press tightly against the wound on the back of Shu Hanqing’s head, murmuring that it would be okay.

Crimson blood-streaked marks appeared across Rong Hua’s exposed skin, seeping steadily.

On the vines near Shu Hanqing, countless small white flowers bloomed, shaken loose by the tremors and drifting down in a flurry.

A few petals, clean and untouched by dust, spun gently and landed softly on Shu Hanqing’s face.

Blood and beauty merged into one in that moment.

Shu Hanqing stared blankly at Rong Hua—who, even drenched in his own blood, still fought to protect him—and a strikingly similar scene flashed through his mind.

Vaguely, he thought he remembered that long ago, there had been someone else who shielded him with the same reckless abandon, holding him close beneath their body, blocking out the endless tide of zombies and darkness behind him.

His chest tightened. Trembling, he raised his hand and wrapped it around Rong Hua’s burning body.

Shu Hanqing closed his eyes and, addressing the long-dormant system in his mind, asked word by word.

“…Was I deleted too?”

Deep in his mind, the system’s voice crackled with static—like a broken machine struggling to function.