Volume 1 Chapter 3: Biohazard Crisis

“Quick, use the medical cabinet to block the door… Huh? You’re a prisoner? Weird, I think I’ve seen you before!” The pretty little nurse shouted nervously, but when her eyes landed on Qin Lun, she blinked wide as if discovering something new, apparently having forgotten this serial killer she’d just given a physical to days ago.

“Little Lian, come back. It’s Joey Foster!” Hu Fei’s pretty face was tense as she pulled Little Lian back, shielding her behind herself. Compared to the ditsy Little Lian, the icy beauty clearly had a much better memory.

“Oh, I remember! You’re Demon King Qin Lun!” The scatterbrained nurse finally recalled, shrieking as she ducked behind Hu Fei, only peeking out her small head, big eyes blinking rapidly as she stared at Qin Lun.

Demon King! Qin Lun shyly sniffed and swept a glance around the infirmary. “The smell of blood is really strong here. What happened? And what are those things outside?”

“See for yourselves!” Hu Fei gave Qin Lun a surprised look, hesitated, then pulled Little Lian aside to make room.

Qin Lun and Lin Feng exchanged a glance and stepped inside the infirmary. The inner room was a mess. Medical instruments were toppled over, and equipment was scattered everywhere. Most surprisingly, on the right side of the operating table lay a Federation soldier missing the top of his skull; bits of brain matter and blood painted the floor.

“He’s dead!” Little Lian clutched at Hu Fei’s slender waist, saying softly.

“He’s in that state, of course he’s dead!” Lin Feng rolled his eyes back. Having seen plenty of dead bodies in the Death Games, he wasn’t fazed.

“No, I mean he was already dead… before we killed him!” Little Lian waved her plump little fist indignantly.

“Little Lian means… he was an undead!” Hu Fei shook her head with a bitter smile, explaining, “He came for a routine physical. After the base was compromised, when Little Lian and I woke, he had no pulse or body heat anymore. But… more than ten minutes later, he got up again and attacked us…”

“Wait, you’re saying… he was a zombie!” Lin Feng looked at them, scarcely believing it. “Am I understanding this correctly?”

“It’s true! That zombie even bit Sister Hu Fei! That’s why I killed it!” Little Lian squirmed, sounding a bit embarrassed.

“I believe you!” Qin Lun, who had stayed silent until now, suddenly flashed a smile. “You were locking the door earlier… was it because there are more zombies outside the infirmary?”

“Yes! There’s a whole crowd of them out there!” The two beauties, one small, one taller, exchanged looks and nodded quickly like chicks pecking.

“More outside?!” Lin Feng jumped, rushing to the door and peering through a crack. Seeing over a dozen figures staggering down the corridor towards the infirmary made his face drain of color. “Come quick! Help me barricade the door!”

“Don’t block it!” Qin Lun waved a hand, smiling. He turned back to the two beauties. “You two ‘weak women’ managed to kill a Federation soldier turned zombie. These things shouldn’t be hard to deal with, right?”

“Well… I guess,” Hu Fei frowned, recalling. “They’re quite strong, but slow and clumsy like sixty or seventy-year-olds. They just try to bite.”

“Grab the medical kit. Find some long iron rods or poles. We charge out. Otherwise, when these things pile at the door, we wait to die!” Qin Lun commanded sharply, yet his broad smile never faltered, remaining cheerful.

The others were startled. Lin Feng and Hu Fei sprang into action immediately. Little Lian, however, puffed out her cheeks and glared fearlessly at Qin Lun. “It had to be you smashing against the door earlier so loudly! Otherwise, we could’ve hidden until rescue came.”

“Rescue won’t come for a long time. Probably over ninety-nine percent of people in this District 91 Base are zombies now. Only those who escape the base will survive!” Qin Lun smiled, shaking his head unconcernedly. “These zombies probably act on pure instinct. The infirmary reeks of strong medicine, which hid the blood scent for now. But if we stay too long, they’ll still smell you!”

Little Lian froze, stopping her argument. Even though she was scatty, she wasn’t foolish. Hu Fei and Lin Feng nearby also paled further; they’d just quietly shared what they saw in the Prison Cell Area.

With a survival rate of one in ten from the Prison Cell Area, apart from the escaped condemned prisoners, almost no one was probably left alive in the base now. The reason was simple: the zombies possessed no intelligence and moved slowly. Their biggest threat to survivors was right after the survivors woke up.

The zombies in the Prison Cell Area couldn’t have opened the damaged cell doors. The surviving condemned prisoners happened to be in that waking phase, thus avoiding the mass zombie assault. Escaping the prison area, everything they encountered – human or zombie – was an enemy to them. Getting cornered by a hundred zombies in a dead-end was basically impossible. For killers like Disciple Hansen and them, this was laughably easy.

Elsewhere in the base, apart from a very few lucky souls, other survivors would likely perish in zombie mouths. Hardly any survivors realized that their stumbling, shambling former colleagues or comrades weren’t people anymore. Moreover, their modern weapons were reduced to useless hunks of metal.

…

“Thud!” Lin Feng swung the heavy iron IV stand, smashing it onto a zombie’s skull, knocking it down. If a normal person took that hit, it would mean at least a concussion; they’d be down for hours.

“Growl!” But the zombie just shook its head, seeming enraged. It roared, shambled back to its feet, and lunged at Lin Feng again.

The scene from movies, where a blade just cleaves a zombie head like a rotten watermelon, didn’t happen here. Not only were these zombies all freshly dead, but even if their flesh rotted off, the bones would remain strong. And the human skull is the hardest part of the skeleton.

Facing over a dozen zombies in the infirmary corridor, armed only with a few poles, the group could only fight a retreating action, inching slowly toward the Emergency Exit.

During their rushed prep earlier, they’d debated how to escape the base. The entire District 91 Base was a massive shrine-like complex. Since condemned prisoners had to be ready for time transfer at any moment, the prison level was near the very top. The way out lay roughly ten floors below.

Now, with the base elevators and all automated transit systems useless, the only way down to the exit was the Emergency Exit staircase. However, because the zombies proved unexpectedly tough to kill, the group soon found themselves facing a slow, grinding stalemate.

The zombies chasing them weren’t fast enough to close the distance. But as they fought their way down the Emergency Exit stairs, zombies from lower floors, drawn by the noise, started funneling into the stairwell. A few scattered zombies couldn’t halt the survivors entirely, yet. But the horde gathering in front thickened with every step, forcing the group to slow down. They faced a steadily increasing danger of being closed between converging zombie tides.

“Hah!” Lin Feng gasped, swinging the IV stand, looking helplessly at the thick cluster of a dozen zombies cramming the landing ahead.

When they first exited the infirmary, seeing the zombies’ sluggish movements, he hadn’t taken them seriously. Now though, he felt his arms weak and his entire body sapped of strength. Uncontrollable fear bubbled back up.

Observing the perilous situation, Qin Lun, who was bringing up the rear guarding their backs against pursuit, finally lost his smile. Face pale, sweat beading densely on his forehead, he trembled violently and suddenly doubled over, racked with dry heaves.

“Hey! What’s wrong? Get up! They’re catching up!” Seeing Qin Lun’s agonized state, Little Lian paused uncertainly before dashing back to help haul the young man up by his arm.

“Leave me! You have to go!” Qin Lun shook as he raised his left hand to cover his face. Sweat-soaked bangs stuck to his forehead. He looked utterly wracked by pain. His right hand, braced against the wall, splayed desperately, scratching five deep furrows into the concrete. Strangled growls came from his throat. “Go… now! He… He’s trying to come out…”

“What’s happening? Don’t scare me! You’re Demon King Qin Lun! How can you die here?” Seeing the zombie reaching Qin Lun’s back, Little Lian’s voice trembled with impending tears. Her bright, wide eyes sparkled nervously. She hauled at his arm, desperately trying to lift him.

Lin Feng up front finally noticed. Seeing Qin Lun’s condition, his face instantly changed. Exhausted muscles found sudden energy, knocking several zombies clear with rapid swings as he rushed back down the stair platform—yet deliberately putting space between himself and the other three.

“Little Lian! Let GO of Qin Lun! Get over here!” Seeing Lin Feng’s reaction, Hu Fei seemed to grasp something. Her usually calm, serene face finally shifted; anxiety sharpened her tone.

“Why?” Little Lian blinked, momentarily puzzled. Then she felt the man’s arm suddenly go rigid in her grasp. He abruptly ripped it away, yanking her forward and nearly sending her tumbling.

“You…!” The girl pouted angrily, turning to reprimand him. But she froze mid-glare, icy dread creeping up her spine.

Qin Lun stood straight before her. The smile was back, though slightly hidden by the hand covering his face. Yet a sliver of his eyes was visible between his fingers—and in their depths glowed a fresh sliver of bright crimson bloodlust.

That smile, which once felt like warm spring sunshine, now looked warped and terrifying beneath the concealing hand—like a grinning devil crawled up from hell, radiating an unmasked aura of pure malice.

“Thwack!” Qin Lun’s right hand drove a dagger into the eyeball socket of the zombie behind him. The vicious black blade’s tip tore clean through the back of its skull. As the zombie shuddered in death spasm, pale yellowish brain sludge spattered the point.

“Heh!” Qin Lun’s left hand, the one that had masked his face, shot out like lightning, snagging Little Lian by her delicate neck. He jerked her against his body, crushing her into himself in a forced intimacy, their bodies pressed tight like lovers now.

Savoring the massive, soft pressure of two bountiful mounds squeezed against him, the killer leaned past Little Lian’s cheek. His tongue snaked out, licking her warm ear lobe, before he blew a whisper—hot, moist, intimate—right into her ear canal.

“I’m not your ‘Demon King Qin Lun’ anymore. You can call me Joey. Joey Foster.”