Chapter Eighty-Four: Only Skill Born of Familiarity

Several stray dogs had already fully turned into undead. Their bodies were coated in a thick layer of blood and gore, their jaws bulging as they savagely tore at the “food” before them. Their teeth had grown sharper; with each violent tug, chunks of viscera were swallowed into their mouths.

Crunch, crunch.

The sound of chewing rang with eerie clarity through the narrow alley.

Even so, the “food” sprawled on the ground had not given up resisting. Flesh had been ripped from the zombie’s face, exposing the teeth beneath. Rotten blood pooled and ran across the pavement as it struggled, but under the assault of the undead dogs, it had no chance of standing again.

The zombie thrashed on the ground, its frenzied howls echoing all around. Yet the fiercer it screamed, the more excited the dogs seemed to become. They buried their heads in their prey and feasted with abandon.

Fan Li set his katana aside, then drew a slingshot from his pocket. That too had been scavenged from supplies.

He drew the slingshot taut, loading it with a solid steel nut.

Whizz!

The nut shot out like a bullet.

A zombie dog was in the middle of devouring its meal when it let out a shrill yelp. At such close range, the nut smashed one of its hanging ears to pieces.

The dog jerked upright, trying to find the attacker.

Whizz!

The slingshot rang out again, but this time Fan Li deliberately missed, sending the shot into a farther corner.

Some of the zombie dogs were startled and lunged that way. While they searched for the enemy, Fan Li had already emerged from the shadows to meet them head-on.

A flash of cold light swept from his katana.

In a single exchange, the upper chest of the nearest zombie dog was split open, and its entire rotten canine head fell to the ground.

The remaining dogs reacted at once. As Fan Li attacked, one of their companions snapped at his lower leg. The charging dog was smeared head to toe in sticky blood; its mouth was stretched nearly to the back of its jaws, its teeth bared outward, with a half-eaten strip of viscera still hanging from them. As it rushed in, a few drops of blood dripped from the torn flesh.

Bang!

Fan Li twisted his waist and drove out a kick, sending the dog flying three meters. Then he forced a sideways slash with his katana. Blood sprayed into the air, and the dog’s head beside him tumbled across the ground several times.

After that, Fan Li did not press the attack. Instead, he sprinted toward the far end of the alley.

The pack numbered six. In one glance he had slain two, kicked away another, and the surviving zombie dogs immediately howled and gave chase as if possessed.

Fan Li would not risk his life recklessly. Facing so many enemies, he knew he still had Ellie and the Butcher, yet he believed that he himself should also be able to endure some manageable danger.

In a city like a ghostly forbidden domain, all manner of unusual situations would arise. The monster manual was his trump card, but his own body also had to possess the power to resist danger.

The panic of his first slashing encounter with a zombie, and now the deadly precision of every strike—if asked what experience Fan Li had gained, there was only one answer he could give.

I have no secret; I only know the craft by heart.

The zombie dogs had been thrown into chaos, but they gradually recovered. The one that had been kicked against the wall struggled up, shook its head, and those cloudy white eyes fixed themselves on Fan Li.

Woof! Woof!

Shrill barking rang through the alley, their attention utterly locked onto him.

Fan Li could feel the enemy closing in behind him. Closer. The panting at his back drew nearer and nearer, until every hair on his body stood on end. At that moment, he clenched his teeth, forced his motion to a halt, and then spun suddenly around. His katana swept out like a slanting moon toward the pursuer behind him.

Blind strike.

He did not strike the dog’s head. Instead, he split it cleanly from the waist, the abdomen torn open as rotten viscera, writhing with maggots, spilled down its belly. Yet even then it did not die. Dragging only its upper body, it still tried to attack Fan Li.

With only its two forelimbs clawing the ground, it was already a cripple, incapable of harming him at all. Fan Li gave it a quick kick, and it rolled away into the distance.

At that very moment, another zombie dog pounced. This time, Fan Li did not flee. Instead, he twisted forward. The stray dogs were of varying sizes, and the one before him was nothing more than a small breed, weighing barely five kilos. As it sprang toward his chest, Fan Li’s free arm hooked inward and seized its fur.

Sticky blood instantly soaked his palm. The sensation was awful, like gripping rotten mud, making one want to rinse it away at once.

Everything happened in a blink. Fan Li caught the zombie dog barehanded, then snapped his arm downward and hurled it to the ground. The entire stray dog was smashed down hard, whimpering a few times; with its neck twisted and broken, it lost all capacity to fight.

In barely two exchanges, Fan Li had secured three kills and crippled another. By then, only two zombie dogs remained in the alley, standing there in dumb confusion.

Intimidation.

As he smashed the dog to death, Fan Li’s fury surged, and his intimidation effect triggered passively, instantly filling the zombie dogs with an instinctive terror. They faltered, unwilling to come any closer.

Fan Li’s stamina had already been partly spent, but he knew this was a rare opening. The remaining strength in his body exploded outward. Katana in hand, he beheaded one zombie dog on the spot, then drew a deep breath and smashed the other dog’s skull apart, its brain matter spilling across the ground at once.

Sssshhh...

The zombie dog that had been cut in two was still struggling to crawl. Corrupt blood leaked from the severed body, while its cloudy eyes remained fixed on Fan Li as it gnawed uselessly at him, as if it wanted nothing more than to bite through the bastard who had interrupted its breakfast.

Bang!

Fan Li thrust his katana forward, and the tip pierced straight through the skull, killing it in a single blow.

Hiss... hiss...

The zombie being used as breakfast by the dogs was still screaming. With great effort it lifted an arm reduced to bone, trying to join the battlefield of flesh and blood.

When it came to slaughter and blood, zombies always seemed to possess astonishing energy.

Fan Li walked over and brought his blade down. The spraying blood gathered into lines of grisly text.

Rows of combat kill points appeared before his eyes:

[Kill Points +2]

[Kill Points +2]

[Kill Points +1]

...

The six zombie dogs, together with the one zombie, had granted Fan Li 13 kill points. Added to the zombies he had slain along the way, his total kill points had already reached 200.

Fan Li twisted open a bottle of mineral water and washed the filth from his hands. Only then did the nauseating stench fade somewhat.

After a brief rest, he walked toward the alley exit. Sunlight fell on him once more, and the shadow behind him stretched long and sudden. As for what lay behind, it was a horrifying ruin of blood and severed limbs, as though hell had descended upon the mortal world.