The Golden Hound

The location to bury the bomb was not in the residential estate but the street opposite them. The journey there was dangerous as there were more threats other than the zombies, like mutated rats from the virus; early-stage rodents were weak without much damaging ability but the virus they carried was potent. It was easy to be infected if one came into contact with them.

There were also pets left behind by humans — cats, dogs, snakes, and whatnot. All living creatures that caught the virus shared a common characteristic. No matter how obedient and gentle they used to be, they would become savage carnivores that fed on both zombies and humans!

During the apocalypse, most Evolved could only hunt for zombies. Only Awakened humans could handle these mutated beasts.

Imagine. An ordinary dog had a sense of smell forty times superior to that of man. If it were to evolve again, how fatal the results be?

Evolved snakes had infrared vision, for example, and could see their prey thousands of miles away without the obstruction of geography. Hiding was an exercise in futility unless one carried an electromagnetic radiation shield. There were also rabbits with unbelievable jumping abilities that allowed them to jump over any city wall, bats with ultrasound probing ability… There were just too many of them!

All mutated beasts were tough opponents. Especially those that stayed in groups, they were basically a disaster waiting to happen. Even bases with the ruin energy shields would not be able to take the might of a beast stampede.

A tiny mutated rat in the early stages that had yet to evolve could already infect one with the virus! However, rodents were hardly seen in their posh residential estate.

Nevertheless, pet cats and dogs were common!

As for the reason Lin Chao had picked the street opposite them...

It was simple. The special zombie's sense of smell was three times better than that of a regular zombie. If the bomb was set up in the residential area, it would be far too easy for the special zombies to sniff out the other survivors that were too close that they would choose to hunt and avoid the bomb altogether.

For that reason, he could only pick an empty spot.

Lin Chao was quick to come to the thirteenth floor following the stairway. There was no zombie since the level had already been cleaned and the loitering zombies downstairs did not know how to make their way up a staircase. It was considered a safe zone.

Lin Chao began cleaning the twelve floor. If he had not considered the possibility of the first floor having a mass gathering of zombies, he would have taken the elevator down.

He made it to the seventh floor before sunset.

Meeting only a maximum of four zombies on each floor and leveraging on the stairway, Lin Chao did not expend himself too much to clear them off.

Two days later, Lin Chao had successfully arrived at the first floor.

As he had expected, there was a large quantity of zombies roaming here. The rotten stench in the air was potent, making the smell of a living human stand out like a blinding spotlight. However, the combination of the pinching flavor of pepper and the odor of carrion on Lin Chao's clothes easily concealed the smell of his blood and flesh.

The heightened sense of smell was sometimes the zombies' weakness.

In spite of it, Lin Chao was still careful. If he was too near a zombie, he would be identified by the waves in its brain. It was therefore useless if someone were planning to deceive them visually by disguising as a zombie.

How could one wish for a zombie that was reduced to only retaining its feeding instinct to identify a human or one of its own by sight?

Lin Chao stayed away from the zombie's sensory range as much as he could. The distance was not that far at only about two meters, but he tried keeping a gap of three meters or more from them.

The zombies could see approximately ten meters away so they would be able to capture Lin Chao's silhouette at that range, albeit being a little blurred. However, they did not depend on their vision alone. Even if they had seen Lin Chao, they would ignore him as long as they did not smell anything human on him.

Still, any noise would draw the zombies over. Lin Chao could only minimize any noise that came with his movements but his soft footsteps would not draw any attention with the zombies' weakened hearing ability.

He went past one zombie after another.

When there were too many zombies together, Lin Chao threw parts that he had prepared earlier against doors, luring them away with a diversion. If something like this worked with clever humans, it would work exceptionally well with zombies that only had the intelligence of a human child.

Once the zombies were distracted, Lin Chao dashed forward and arrived at the door. Softly pulling the metal gate open, he kept the noise he made at a minimum.

He had finally arrived in the residential area.

The air outside was slightly fresher since the decomposing stench was largely diffused, unlike the enclosed space on the first floor that was sickeningly suffocating.

Lin Chao had investigated the surrounding previously and picked the route with the least zombies, briskly passing the security booth and coming to the streets outside.

The roads were vacant. Dented cars that collided against each other and big pools of scarlet liquid that were now browned did not catch the interest of the zombies.

The zombies meandered on the streets like ghosts while most of the human limbs on the ground were chomped to bones, left with little to no flesh. Some corpses were devoured to the point that they were no longer recognizable; judging from their dressing, there were all types of people from normally clothed youngsters to modern and elegant ladies, suited elites and so on.

At this moment, all of them were laid dead with wide eyes on this icy street. Their lifeless orbs still reflecting their final moments of hopelessness and fear.

The warm sun showered the streets but there was no warmth, only bone-deep chills.

Lin Chao stepped across a pretty girl's head and moved on. When he passed crashed cars, he could see the chaos that was once there. There were skeletons that were utterly clean in some cars while others had zombies trapped inside by the seatbelts as they could not unhinge them; seatbelts could take up to four hundred kilograms so the zombies could not break them apart despite their tripled strength in addition to their inability to exert any force in such a position.

A weak lady would be able to stab them to death with a long bar as well under this circumstance.

It was just that there were too many zombies on the road, and killing them would create a ruckus that would then draw in even more zombies.

Lin Chao darted around carefully against the wall. Passing some of the cars, the zombies inside could sense that he was not one of them and had immediately turned around to struggle out of the vehicles. Fortunately or unfortunately, they were held back by the seatbelts and could not even stand; they could only hit the car window in their fury until they shattered the glass, not caring that the shards of glass had pierced their head as they hissed and growled.

When Lin Chao passed a red car, a low growl suddenly came below it as his leg was grabbed. The arm was forceful with fingers like steel, as if the intent was to crush his ankle.

Lowering himself to check amidst his surprise, it was a festering woman's hand. Behind the hand, a threatening head with disheveled hair, not unlike a sinister ghost from hell, came from under the car to bite Lin Chao's foot with a mouth of sharp teeth!

Lin Chao frowned as he did not expect a zombie under a car. Looking at the zombie's body and discerning a few bite marks and dried blood traces, he guessed that it was bitten by the first wave of infected zombies and went into hiding under the car to survive only for the virus to gradually turn it into a zombie as well.

Lin Chao gripped his steel bar tightly and stabbed downward, targeting the head.

Pow!

The head that was raised near the tire was thrashed onto the ground before it could sink its teeth into Lin Chao's leg. He wound his steel bar up again and battered it down repeatedly without mercy.

Bang! Bang! Bang…

Although the zombie was not afraid of pain and had only the urge to bite, it was unable to when its head was lolled to the side under the hammering strikes and was finally crushed after seven to eight blows.

Killing the zombie in that instant, Lin Chao left swiftly to prevent being sensed by other zombies that could have been attracted by the noise.

Some ten minutes later, he finally came to the center of the street. There were crashed cars everywhere. He picked a black SUV and replaced the human remains on the driver's seat with the Organism Detector after moving the carcass to the ground outside the car. He then placed the oil container bomb beside the driver seat.

After that, he shut the car door closed and went back through the same route right away. If there were special zombies around, he would be in danger as they would be attracted over in a minute.

Just as he returned to the residential estate, Lin Chao heard a low rumble from afar. It was not the sound of a zombie. Instead, it sounded more like a canine's howl.

Turning back to look, his gaze went unblinking.

A large golden dog was seen walking out from the corner of another building in the residential area, its golden fur still stained with blood. It had obviously sniffed Lin Chao as its bloodthirsty eyes fell on his direction after its nose wiggled a little.

A Golden Hound!

Lin Chao felt like killing himself already.

Why did he not discover a Gold-class mutated beast here while he had been observing the area for the past few days?

Run!

He had no intent to battle it out as he sprinted for dear life instantly. It was lucky that Lin Chao was now near his building, and the Golden Hound was still at the corner of the street. He should be able to rush in, but would the hound be able to enter with the metal gate acting as his defense?

However, reality was brutal.

Before Lin Chao got to the door, the Golden Hound charged. They had about ten meters between them but the distance was only the distance of a blink of the eyes with the canine's speed.

Lin Chao threw his steel bar, intending to slow the dog down but what happened baffled him.

The Golden Hound actually gave up on him and chased after the steel bar when it saw the bar flying. A few steps later, however, it stopped and stared back at Lin Chao with its crimson eyes, giving chase again as it bared its teeth while hissing.