A Psychological-attribute Zombie

The iron portcullis of the institute was strong but old-fashioned. It had a wicket door, which was open. Zombies kept coming in through the door from outside. That was why there were endless zombies. What caused the serious look on the faces of Yun Che and Xing Feng wasn't the fact that the wicket was open but why it was open. Shen Rui and Jiang Shang reinforced the portcullis, and they were reliable, collected guys in battle, so there was no way they'd forget to latch the wicket. But their eyes were telling them that the wicket was open. There were only two reasons: someone on the team opened it or a zombie did it.

"You said level-6 zombies or above would be able to think, right?"

After staring at the wicket for quite a while, Xing Feng asked in a muffled voice. They needed to figure out what the reason was.

"Yes, normally speaking. But one special case is psychological-attribute. Some high IQ humans would gain psychological superfunction through zombification, so part of their intelligence remains. A level-3 psychological zombie would have the brain of a 3-year-old.

Psychological-attribute was uncommon both among humans and zombies. And there were more sub-psychological attributes among humans than among zombies. This attribute had something to do with one's brain. Once a human being became a zombie, the person's cells would all die, therefore, psychological zombies were extremely scarce. But the awakening of psychological superfunction could happen on few zombies who were really smart when they were alive, and they were generally tricky to deal with.

"So it's not a mole?"

"No. I think it's a psychological zombie. Bear in mind that we're in a seed research institute, only super-smart guys got to work here, right? So it's possible that there's a psychological zombie and the fellow might knows mind-control. Only gold-attribute zombies can open the portcullis reinforced by Shen Rui and level 3 or 4 gold zombies cannot think. The only possibility is, gold zombies got mind-controlled by a psychological-attribute zombie."

Yun Che confirmed Xing Feng's doubt, not that he had much faith in these people, it was just logical reasoning. Even an idiot knew how serious of a consequence it would be to open the wicket, even a mole wouldn't want to die unless the guy hated every single one here so much that he'd rather die together with them. But clearly, it was impossible. Most people didn't even know each other that well before the quest, such hate would make no sense, thus, a psychological zombie would be the only answer.

"Close the wicket first, find the zombie. He mustn't run around causing more problems. Can you fight now?"

Xing Feng was convinced but he was a bit worried about Yun Che. After all, he could barely stand not long ago.

"I can deal with a few level-3 zombies."

Enhanced by air superfunction, thunder superfunction was super powerful. Even though Yun Che wasn't fully recovered yet, no under level-4 zombie would be able to threaten him.

"OK. You let me know if you can't. Don't push yourself too hard."

Then Xing Feng jumped off with Yun Che in his arms. Heiyu seemed to understand the seriousness of the matter, so he stopped babbling about morality and virginity stuff.

"Heiyu, get out there to stop the zombies from coming in."

"Sure, you zombie scum, here I come! Smarten up and piss off or I'll slap the crap out of you!"

It was supposed to be a serious battle but Heiyu just made it comical like he always would. The good thing was, Xing Feng and Yun Che had already gotten used to him. After Heiyu jumped out of the portcullis, they followed him up. Yun Che swept the zombies around the portcullis with the power of thunder, Xing Feng charged straight at the wicket with the purpose of closing it and reinforcing it again with gold superfunction.

Thud! Thud!

"Watch out, Xing Feng!"

Right before the wicket was closed, golden bullets came for Xing Feng from a flank. Yun Che cried out loud, dashed over to him like a streak of lightning, and blocked all the bullets with his blade. Xing Feng turned around after reinforcing the wicket and barraged the rockery not far away from them.

"2 level-3 zombies back there. A gold, a psychological I think. One for each."

Yun Che turned on the air panel to check what was behind the rockery. They nodded at each other and started running toward the rockery. As they ran, golden bullets ceaselessly flew at them. It couldn't be more obvious that the psychological zombie was controlling the gold zombie.

"Are you shy?! Show yourself!"

With a swipe of the blade, the thunder shockwave that Yun Che struck cut the rockery in half when he nearly reached it. As the rocks rambled, two zombies, one male, one female came into their view. The female zombie in researcher uniform wore glasses, her eyes were blackish gray, which was one of the features of a level 4 or 5 zombie. The male zombie next to her wore the security guard uniform. He was a big, tall fellow who might be the same height as Xing Feng and Lei Dashan. It wasn't hard to figure out who was the psychological one and who was the gold one.

Roaaar!

Raaaahh!

Enraged, the psychological zombie roared into the sky. Dozens of zombies around her charged at Yun Che and Xing Feng. Well, they had to deal with these annoying buggers first.

"She's almost level 4. Be careful, she can mind-control up to nearly a hundred low-level zombies."

Yun Che cut off the head of a zombie and kicked over another one. These were level-2 zombies but there were too many of them. Yun Che and Xing Feng were overwhelmed while the gold one sneak attacked them from time to time.

"Kind of like a zombie keeper. How many can a level-4 control?"

A level-3 psychological zombie could control nearly a hundred, it would be real trouble if she reached level 4. A level-4 zombie would be too nasty of an opponent for them given their current state.

"She could've been level 4, but there's something missing. Let's talk about it later. Let's kill her first before she makes things stickier."

Yun Che had the concern that they would stumble into level-4 zombies but the highest level they ever met was "almost level-4". Yun Che started to take note. He remembered that the last massive zombie upgrade happened due to a snow and if his memory served him correctly, six months before the doomsday, it snowed for three days in a row along with natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunami and so on. After that, there was a level-up for all zombies and mutant plants and animals. Yun Che figured the zombies would hit level 4 after the heavy snow.

"Master, I'm coming to help you!"

"Go get everybody here!"

Heiyu jumped back in and intended to help his master, but Yun Che ordered him otherwise. After taking one last look at the two guys surrounded by zombies, Heiyu turned around and rushed to the main force.

"Chief!"

"Che!"

Soon, Chaoyang and Peak people were here. With their help, Yun Che and Xing Feng finally got to take a breather, but they didn't do so, instead, they charged straight at the psychological and gold zombies. Yun Che confronted the gold-attribute zombie, Xing Feng aimed at the head of the psychological zombie with his conjured handgun.

Roaaar!

Pow! Pow!

"Shit! Her superfunction affects human too."

As the zombie roared, Xing Feng missed the target. The bullets deflected. Almost immediately, Xing Feng knew what went wrong. He stepped back to keep a distance from the zombie. But once given room, she gathered another batch of zombie guards to protect her. It was difficult to aim at her again.

"She can mind-control you?"

Yun Che ran over to Xing Feng after cutting off one of the gold zombie's arms. He then frowned at the psychological zombie in the middle of the zombie circle.

"No. She can't mind-control me but she can mess with my head if I get too close."

Xing Feng wore a vexed look on the face. It was hard to kill her from a distance because she was well-protected by all her minions. If she managed to elude their attack, she'd cause more headaches later.

"Oh, I got it."

After thinking, Yun Che ended the level-3 gold zombie and rejoined the gang. "Fire guys, set the zombies on fire. Gold guys, conjured guns, keeping draw their attention by shooting bullets at them. Leave the mind-controlling hag to me."

"What are you gonna do?"

Xing Feng held him back right before he left. Others looked worriedly at him. None of them had forgotten that he wasn't at his best at the moment.

"It's true that psychological superfunction is dreadful. Almost all zombies lower than her can be controlled by her, but she has a lethal weak point which is she herself has no fighting abilities whatsoever. Just keep her distracted and I'll kill her from the back."

Although the psychological zombie could affect human, she would have to focus on her target. As long as she was distracted, Yun Che could sneak up on her with the air membrane on.

"OK. Check your air panel before you do it. Keep an eye out for other nearby level-3 zombies and their superfunction."

Only Yun Che was capable of making it happen. Before he went, Xing Feng warned him again. Yun Che nodded. Everybody activated their superfunction at the same time, fire surge and bullet rain successfully drew the zombies' attention. Yun Che faded from the crowd to move toward the back of the psychological zombie, covered with air membrane.

"Control your fires and bullets. Just distract the zombie, don't injure Che by accident."

Having sensed Yun Che was on the move, Xing Feng calmly gave the order. These guys were all level-3 superfunction possessors and worked together a lot, so both their superfunction control and teamwork were flawless.

In the meantime, Yun Che had reached the other side of the battlefield. Inside the air membrane, he was perfectly safe on the way. Everybody knew they were dealing with a tricky opponent, so they all tacitly drew the zombies they were fighting away from Yun Che.

Sizzzz

Fights were going on everywhere and accident happened. Right before Yun Che tried to stab the zombie from the back, a fireball thrown out by a zombie hit his forearm.

"Shit!"

His target seemed to sense that something wasn't right. Yun Che decisively put out the fire and chopped her head open.

Roaaar!

The assassination caught the zombie off guard. Her whole body was cut in half. A transparent crystal nucleus, which was the size of a baby's fist, popped out and got sucked into Yun Che's pocket.

"Open fire. Kill all the zombies in front of you."

Without being controlled by the psychological zombie, the low-level zombies scattered. Xing Feng and his mates, who were in charge of drawing the zombies' attention, noticed the change of situation. They went all out, bombarding the zombies with iridescent superfunction power. Dozens of zombies were slain in no time.