Regardless of what anyone else thought, Tang Weiwei had already walked up to Yang Bin.
"When do we start?"
Yang Bin activated his True Vision Eye and scanned all four directions. The side they'd entered from still had the fewest zombies-and no Tier-3 Zombies, unlike the other two sides. Best breakthrough point.
"Give them ten minutes to prepare. After that, we charge out through the side door. I'll take my people and clear the path up front. Your people handle the flanks and rear guard."
"Clearing the front is extremely dangerous. You sure the three of you can handle it?" Tang Weiwei's tone carried a note of doubt.
"If you doubt us, your people can take point. I won't complain." Yang Bin waved dismissively. If anyone else were capable, he wouldn't have volunteered for the job in the first place.
"I'm not doubting you. I just think three people might be too few, given how dangerous the front will be."
"Then come up front with us. One more person does help."
"Fine." Tang Weiwei nodded.
"Good. It's settled. Remember-this is about survival. Make it absolutely clear to them: no one touches the crystals. Anyone who stops to collect a crystal gets killed on the spot." Yang Bin's voice was cold.
"Why don't you go tell them yourself!?"
"You've got more prestige." Yang Bin smiled.
"......"
Tang Weiwei rolled her eyes. She was starting to feel like his personal assistant.
Ten minutes later...
"Ready?" Yang Bin called out to the mass of people behind him.
Every face was grim. They nodded.
Yang Bin glanced at Tang Weiwei. She nodded and waved her hand. Her teammates rushed forward and cleared the tables and chairs from the door.
Chen Hao grabbed the door and wrenched it open.
Yang Bin exploded through the gap. The Barbell Rod swept in a wide arc, smashing the skulls of several zombies still turning toward the noise. He didn't pause-straight ahead.
Behind him, Chen Hao, Hu Wenliang, and Tang Weiwei surged out on his heels.
The rest of the crowd poured through after them.
"Roar-"
The sudden flood of living bodies drove every zombie in the area into a frenzy. They lunged toward the crowd from all sides.
The group moved in a triangular formation. Yang Bin held the tip of the spear, the Barbell Rod rising and falling in brutal rhythm, caving in zombie after zombie.
On the flanks, Chen Hao and Hu Wenliang cut down everything that rushed in from the sides. Tang Weiwei gripped her Fire Axe and suddenly realized she had nothing to do up here.
She dropped back a step, joining her other teammates to handle the zombies pressing from the sides and rear.
As Yang Bin drove deeper, the rest of the crowd finally met the horde face to face.
Maybe the earlier talk had gotten through. Maybe they'd simply accepted reality.
Either way, every single one of them swung their Table Legs at the charging zombies with everything they had.
The attacks were wild and uncoordinated, but the sheer volume kept the zombies at bay.
This was where numbers mattered.
Four or five thousand zombies-if they'd all focused on Yang Bin's small group, exhaustion alone would have killed them.
But with this many people absorbing the pressure, at least they weren't surrounded on all sides.
Still, these weren't ordinary zombies anymore. Wave after wave of Tier-1 Zombies crashed against the line. Ordinary people couldn't hold forever.
It didn't take long. Casualties appeared. One person dragged down, teeth sinking into their throat. Another pulled under, screaming. The people beside them watched with bloodshot eyes, faces twisted in fury.
But as more fell, something shifted. Fear burned away. What replaced it was raw, desperate madness.
There was no going back. Fight or die.
Everyone abandoned fear and swung like their lives depended on it-because they did.
At the front, Yang Bin had lost count of his kills. The horde ahead still stretched endlessly.
Kill one, and the next lunged forward immediately. His advance slowed to a crawl.
But Yang Bin was Tier 3 now. Over eight hundred kilograms of force behind every swing made him an immovable wall cutting through the horde.
No matter how many rushed him, he didn't give a single step. Progress was slow, but it was steady-and everyone behind him followed.
More than a few survivors stared at his back in stunned silence. Now they understood why a woman as powerful as Tang Weiwei deferred to him.
Tang Weiwei herself was shaken.
She was closest. She felt it most clearly.
She'd guessed he was Tier 3, and she'd assumed her ability would keep the gap manageable. Now she saw the truth-the distance between them wasn't small. It was a chasm. If they actually fought, she probably couldn't survive a single swing of that rod.
What shocked her even more were the two beside him. Both absurdly strong.
Three people. Two Tier 3. One Tier-2 Peak. It was terrifying.
The rest of Tang Weiwei's team had gone quiet.
She'd told them before that their whole group might not be a match for Yang Bin's three. They hadn't believed her. Now the thought sent a chill down their spines.
If Tang Weiwei hadn't held them back, they'd be dead or close to it.
The battle ground on. The number of survivors kept shrinking, but the formation pushed outward, meter by meter.
At this rate, breaking through was all but guaranteed. The losses might even be lighter than Yang Bin had predicted-he hadn't expected these people to go completely berserk.
Then everything went wrong.
A man knocked to the ground by a zombie felt his fingers close around something hard. A crystal.
Survival instinct overrode every rule. He shoved it into his mouth and swallowed.
Energy flooded his body. A heartbeat ago he'd been seconds from death-now strength surged through his limbs. He hurled the zombie off, shot to his feet, and smashed its skull flat with his iron rod.
Dozens of eyes locked onto the scene. Then those eyes started searching the ground.
Minutes later, another man-bitten, infection already spreading, moments from turning-clawed a crystal from a zombie's shattered skull and swallowed it in desperation.
Under the crowd's disbelieving stares, his body stabilized. The infection receded. He was human again.
A Tier-1 Evolver could resist the energy erosion of a Tier-1 Zombie. Someone had posted about it online before the networks went down. It was actually true.
That broke the dam.
The ground was littered with zombie corpses. One crystal meant a massive boost in strength and immunity to infection. The math was obvious.
Tang Weiwei's rules evaporated from their minds. In their logic, getting stronger meant better odds of survival.
First they scavenged quietly. Then they started shoving each other aside, fighting over the crystals.
By the time Yang Bin noticed, it was already out of control.
"Fuck!" He spat the word through clenched teeth. The one thing he'd been afraid of.
"Why didn't your people keep them in line!?"
"Everyone's fighting zombies! Who has time to babysit them!?" Tang Weiwei shot back, helpless.
The scramble for crystals shattered the formation. Under the relentless zombie assault, the group fractured into isolated clusters.
Without Yang Bin's path, those cut off were already dead. They just didn't know it yet.
"If you want to live, keep up! If you want to die, keep digging for crystals!" Yang Bin roared, then turned forward and stopped looking back. His arms moved faster.
"Stay with us! Forget about them!" Tang Weiwei shouted at her teammates and locked onto Yang Bin's pace.
Those still thinking clearly scrambled to follow.
The ones who'd finally pried a crystal free looked up-and saw nothing but zombies closing in from every direction.