Chapter 164 Surround

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Why the previous three scout teams were completely annihilated was not because they weren't good enough, but because human strength sometimes runs out.

Unless aboard an airplane, no one can avoid the omnipresent zombies.

No matter what strategy you use, or how you try, if you can't avoid them, you can't avoid them, and then there's only one outcome—surrounded by zombies.

And, once surrounded, there are just more and more zombies, increasingly more.

Gao Yuan only glanced back once to find that the zombies behind him were now innumerable.

Gao Yuan's strategy was to run fast and not stop, and if there were zombies blocking the way ahead, he'd strike them down with a single blow, never entangling with them.

He had entered the densely built-up city area but had just passed the Lejin Suburbs; in terms of straight-line distance, Gao Yuan had run merely four or five kilometers.

He was still far from the fifth ring road.

But, the situation was still controllable; though the zombies were numerous, Gao Yuan could use his speed to run out of their encirclement before they could close in, so he had never fallen into a state of being surrounded by zombies.

Can you imagine that scenario?

A person is just running, with zombies in the front facing him, but he can't stop; he just continues to run forward.

The zombies behind him are multiplying, and more are being attracted by the noise, swarming in from all directions like bees.

In the beginning, Gao Yuan was indeed a bit nervous, not frightened, just nervous.

Not afraid because of confidence in himself, nervous because it's the inevitable reaction when engaging in a task known to be dangerous.

But Gao Yuan quickly stopped being nervous, not because he'd relaxed, but because he had become completely numb.

Gao Yuan didn't make any unnecessary movements that wasted strength; in actual combat, he learned the most effortless way to deal with zombies that blocked his path.

After entering the city area, a very unfavorable situation was that there were too many buildings, and Gao Yuan had no choice but to follow the roads.

Unlike in the open wilderness, where Gao Yuan could choose countless paths and just run as long as there were no zombies, he could more easily take advantage of his speed to shake them off.

But it's not the same in the city; no matter how Gao Yuan ran, he could only follow the roads, because although he was fast, he couldn't move across rooftops and walls, and there were sure to be zombies on the roads.

It's not yet strenuous, but the zombies were inevitably increasing in number, and this doesn't just refer to those following behind Gao Yuan, but also to more and more zombies that appeared in front blocking his way.

Running at high speed also meant he was more likely to get injured, and now no road within a city area could possibly be clear, with abandoned cars on just about every route, becoming one obstruction after the other.

Gao Yuan had to be careful not to fall or crash into obstacles, while at the same time dealing with the threat of zombies.

Chopping his way through required strength, but compared to running around them, Gao Yuan felt it was less draining to just cleave his way through.

However, any movement would consume energy, and continuous strenuous activity would certainly consume a lot of it.

Gao Yuan was extremely fast and strong, but that didn't mean he was an ever-running machine that could keep going like this indefinitely.

Even though, so far, Gao Yuan had been running with reserved energy, at most using sixty to seventy percent of his strength.

But as Gao Yuan cut down a zombie and leaped onto a car, then jumped from one car to another, he saw at least a few hundred zombies gathered at the crossroads ahead.

The density of zombies suddenly increased.

Gao Yuan had always used only one knife, because he had always been able to find a gap in the oncoming zombies, and with that small gap, he could dodge their attacks.

But not anymore.

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The zombies before swarmed in, but the current wave of zombies came at Gao Yuan like a tidal surge.

They filled the entire road with their width, stretching at least dozens of meters in length.

As the horde of zombies jostled and collided with each other, arms outstretched, lunging towards Gao Yuan, he finally drew his Steel Mace.

Almost as soon as he drew the Steel Mace, Gao Yuan plunged into the sea of zombies.

It was like a surfer running into the sea with his board, then heading straight for the towering waves.

Without a sound, Gao Yuan's speed inevitably slowed down.

A slash diagonally downward, a mace swept horizontally, Gao Yuan carved a small gap in front of him, but the space couldn't even last a moment, as more zombies pressed in and reached out towards him.

He absolutely couldn't be dragged, wrapped up, pulled, or bitten.

Gao Yuan, who had become numb, felt a strong sense of crisis for the first time.

Like the proverb of the frog boiled in warm water, as Gao Yuan had always thought he could handle any situation, the accumulating zombies showed him what a quantitative change causing a qualitative change meant, and by the time Gao Yuan realized this, it was too late.

He was fast, yet there was absolutely no space to run.

He was strong, but with zombies everywhere, even if Gao Yuan could swing his weapon like an electric fan all day long, could an electric fan clear the air?

The zombies, like air, filled up all the spaces.

Gao Yuan finally had no choice but to turn back and twist around; he swung around on the spot, but he had to do it again immediately.

He plunged into panic in an instant, it was Gao Yuan's most direct instinctual reaction.

Being surrounded was an entirely different concept from fighting with ample space to move.

He could no longer delay, absolutely couldn't delay any longer.

In a flash, Gao Yuan unleashed all his strength in an outburst.

He activated his berserk mode, Gao Yuan went berserk.

But this was no game, as Gao Yuan had no special abilities, he couldn't push all the zombies away like in the games, creating a no-man's-land in front of him.

All Gao Yuan could do was continuously bring down his hands at an extremely fast pace, blowing the heads off the zombies blocking his way.

Zombies fell one by one, Gao Yuan's hands swung non-stop, trampling over the fallen, pushing forward with haste whether his footing was deep or shallow.

Gao Yuan felt his arms begin to weaken, his breathing became rapid, his lungs seemed ready to explode, his blood felt like it was surging to his forehead, the zombies appeared endless, and he sensed that if he stopped even for a moment, they would immediately tear him to pieces.

There were no moves, just a desperate effort to cleave through, smash down, and pile upon pile of inexhaustible zombies.

It was a charge towards death with no looking back.

Just as Gao Yuan felt his arms growing weak, suddenly there was a gap in front of him; he leapt up into the air with a powerful push and as soon as his feet touched down again, he went all out, sprinting forward at the fastest speed he could manage.

From crashing into the horde of zombies to forcefully killing his way out, it took Gao Yuan merely about fifteen or sixteen seconds.

Yet, those few seconds felt as long as a lifetime to Gao Yuan.

Looking back, in just a short moment, Gao Yuan had created a thirty-meter gap between himself and the zombies behind him.

Finally taking a deep breath, Gao Yuan knew he had underestimated the power of the zombies, so his troubles had grown; now, with no massive hordes of zombies ahead and still able to distance himself from the ones behind, he had to think of a plan.