Volume 1 Chapter 5: The Final Sacrifice

“Demon King Qin Lun, boohoo, Sister Hu Fei died…” Little Lian, with her simple-minded nature, threw her arms around Qin Lun’s neck and sobbed in grievance.

“I’m sorry! Every time I’m in danger, Joey shows up…” Qin Lun’s gaze darkened, and he patted the little beauty’s back, speaking softly.

“Let’s go, we’ve fallen behind!” Seeing that Qin Lun had returned to normal, Lin Feng secretly sighed with relief. The pressure beside Joey was too great, and the string in his heart was almost about to snap.

In the next few floors of the hallway, the mixed team encountered a few more waves of zombies. But compared to a team of more than ten people, a small number of zombies no longer posed a threat of blocking the passage. However, two more Federation soldiers, used as human shields, died, and the prisoners were all injured.

After catching up with the group, they learned a lot about the mixed team from their intermittent conversations with the transvestite Lili. It turned out that the death row prisoners who had escaped separately from the Prison Cell Area, after obtaining some knives and weapons in places like the cafeteria, were gradually forced by scattered zombies to the base’s control hall, where they met the surviving base researchers and Federation soldiers.

Originally, this group had more than fifty people, with over twenty Federation soldiers and more than ten base researchers, four times the number of death row prisoners. Except for a very few people hiding in the corners of the base, they had gathered the vast majority of survivors.

At first, the Federation soldiers were the largest group. But they had to take care of the physically weak base researchers while being afraid of getting infected by the zombies, so they fought hesitantly. Gradually, they were separated and worn down by the zombie hordes. When their numbers dropped to a certain point, they finally became the prisoners’ human shields.

The death row prisoners, on the other hand, were fighting for their lives from the start. They fought the zombies fearlessly, without any reservations in close combat, doing whatever it took to survive. From the base control hall all the way to the Emergency Exit, although everyone was injured, only a few died. In contrast, they gained control over the gradually diminishing Federation side.

As time passed, this small survivor group of only about twelve or thirteen people finally entered the base’s exit passage from the emergency stairs. This passage was about seven meters wide and over thirty meters long, with an automatic conveyor rail on the ground, though the conveyor rail was now immobile.

The iron door at the exit of the passage was over ten centimeters thick and extremely heavy. Although it had wheels underneath, pushing it open was not an easy task.

After the group emerged from the emergency stairs, zombies in the base’s bottom hall at the other end of the passage had already noticed them and began dragging their staggering steps slowly closer. The bottom hall was very large, with nearly a hundred zombies, far too many for the injured prisoners to fight off.

Only by pushing open the base’s iron door did they have a glimmer of hope.

After entering the exit passage, Qin Lun could no longer hold on and sat down in the corner of the passage. He had lost too much blood, his face was pale, and cold sweat kept breaking out on his forehead.

“Demon King, how are you!” Little Lian crouched in front of Qin Lun and asked worriedly.

“Don’t go too far from me!” Qin Lun glanced at the death row team scattered in the distance, where the atmosphere was a bit strange, and said softly.

After speaking, he closed his eyes to rest and paid no more attention to Little Lian.

At this moment, the prisoners standing behind the last three Federation soldiers exchanged looks and each revealed a fierce smile. They quietly raised their sharp knives and stabbed them hard into the lower backs of these three Federation soldiers.

“Ah!” Three short screams sounded simultaneously. These Federation soldiers, with faces full of hatred, collapsed to the ground. The prisoners dragged them by one foot and threw them to the other end of the passage, blocking the path of the zombie horde.

During their fights with the zombies over this period, the prisoners had discovered that these zombies were neither infected with a virus nor had any intelligence, retaining only the instinct to feed. As long as there was “food” closest to them, they would even ignore other people in the distance.

The best way to stop them was not to fight, but to place a corpse in front of them. That way, until the food was completely eaten, everyone else was safe.

“Three corpses don’t seem enough for nearly a hundred zombies to share!” A fierce-looking bald man in the death row team showed a sinister smile. “It would be best if a few more useless people could make some contribution for everyone.”

This bald guy was named Chekhov, a Russian mafia boss and also a Serial Killer, nicknamed “Chameleon.”

Chekhov was about two meters tall, with a broad back and sturdy waist, weighing at least over 240 pounds. Standing there, he was like a wall. Although his muscles weren’t as developed as The Disciple Hansen’s, they were well-defined; he wasn’t just a fat man. Compared to the thinnest person in the prisoner group, the transvestite Lili, it was like the difference between a child and an adult.

Seeing no one else respond, Chekhov narrowed his eyes slightly, tore off his already tattered prison uniform, revealing the blue and purple tattoos covering his upper body, which was also the source of his “Chameleon” nickname.

The Russian prisoner, with his brutal face, looked fiercely at the others, his gaze first falling on the smallest person, the transvestite Lili. Seeing Chekhov’s cruel eyes, Lili shivered all over and looked pleadingly at The Disciple Hansen beside her.

The Disciple curled his lips, stepped forward unobtrusively, shielding Lili behind him, and cast a cold glance at “Chameleon” Chekhov. The gazes of the two Serial Killers clashed fiercely in the air.

“Hmph!” Chekhov’s brutal face twitched slightly, he snorted coldly, and looked away.

Although there were several Serial Killers in this death row team, there were differences between them. These differences were mainly reflected in the Federation’s assessed danger level of the Serial Killers, which was also the standard by which the Serial Killers measured each other.

In terms of the number of people killed, in this death row team, if The Disciple Hansen claimed second place, probably no one dared claim first. After all, he came from a mercenary background and had blood on his hands since he was a child soldier. This was also why Federal Zone 91 imprisoned him on the highest level of the Prison Cell Area.

As for another Serial Killer of the same level on the third level of the Prison Cell Area, it was Qin Lun, “Dissector” Joey Foster. Qin Lun’s situation was different from Hansen’s. Although his kill count wasn’t very high among all the Serial Killers, the Federation’s assessed danger level was no less than The Disciple’s.

The reason was that the victims of other Serial Killers were mostly ordinary people. But since Qin Lun entered Handan Heavy Penalty Prison, most of the people he killed were death row prisoners, even including some other famous Serial Killers.

The fearsome reputation of “Dissector” Joey Foster was a taboo even among death row prisoners; he could be called a Serial Killer among Serial Killers. This was why when the transvestite Lili recognized Qin Lun’s identity, she was almost scared out of her wits, and even The Disciple Hansen didn’t want to stay close to Qin Lun.

Realizing he couldn’t target Lili, Chekhov’s fierce eyes swept around again and finally focused on the trio of Qin Lun.

The Russian prisoner’s gaze toward Qin Lun showed a trace of caution, but when he saw the timid, petite figure beside the Serial Killer, he finally grinned widely, smiled cruelly, and strode over.

He didn’t dare provoke Qin Lun, who was resting with his eyes closed. Lin Feng had also changed into a prison uniform and didn’t seem badly injured. However, the little beauty in the nurse uniform seemed like the best target at the moment.

Although the little nurse was huddled near Qin Lun, Chekhov was confident that the seriously injured, barely alive “Dissector” wouldn’t bother with him over the life of a base nurse.

The Russian man opened one of his large hands, grabbed Little Lian’s neck, and lifted her into the air like a chick.

“Ah!” Little Lian kicked her feet in fear, but her small fists hitting Chekhov were like a dragonfly trying to shake a tree, having no effect on the Russian man at all.

“Haha!” Chekhov excitedly licked his lips, a hint of ferocity in his eyes, and increased the pressure slightly in his hand.

Little Lian’s pretty face turned purple, her mouth opened wide like a dead fish, and her eyes slowly turned white. It seemed she was about to be crushed to death by Chekhov.

But at this moment, Chekhov suddenly noticed the prisoners across the way had subtle changes in expression, each showing strange, mocking smiles as they watched him, as if enjoying a good show.

The Russian man felt a chill in his heart, immediately realized something was wrong, and suddenly turned his head to look back. Out of the corner of his eye, he immediately saw that, at some point, a ghost-like figure was standing silently behind him. The two bright red dots in the figure’s pupils were like suddenly appearing will-o’-the-wisps from hell, quietly staring at him.

“You…” Chekhov was shocked, his brutal face twisting into a knot.

Seeing that Chekhov had noticed him, Qin Lun immediately revealed a fierce smile and swiftly swung his right hand from behind his back.

“Thud!” A black flash like lightning seemed to streak through the passage. A black dagger shaped like scissor blades went in through the Russian man’s left temple and out through the right, piercing his bald head from left to right.

Chekhov’s twisted expression froze on his face, his bulging eyes staring at Qin Lun slowly lost their light, and his huge body fell straight forward with a “thump,” raising a cloud of dust.

“Cough, cough!” Little Lian, freed from Chekhov’s grip, lay on the ground coughing dryly.

Lin Feng, pale-faced, stole a glance at Chekhov’s corpse and wisely helped the little nurse retreat to the corner. He had an indescribably strange feeling about Qin Lun’s sudden act of killing just now.

The red glow in Qin Lun’s eyes quietly faded. Expressionlessly, he wiped the dagger on Chekhov’s body a couple of times, sat back down in the corner, and closed his eyes to rest. But in his heart, huge waves were stirred.

The moment he killed Chekhov, a cool current flowed along the black dagger into his palm. The egg-shaped pattern in his right palm, which had transformed from the “Death Notice,” actually gave a slight jump.

When the base incident occurred, Qin Lun had “seen” the simple tablet computer storing death row prisoner data, his “Death Notice,” merge with an orange multi-faceted crystal. At the time, he was just curious. During the contact, the “Death Notice” merged into his palm.

Now, stimulated by this cool current, the “Death Notice” seemed to have awakened, emitting a regular pulsation, as if there was another small heart beating in Qin Lun’s palm.