The next day, Yang Bin led everyone to a large residential complex.
Maybe it was the passage of time, but Tier-5 Zombies had grown noticeably more common.
They found four in this single complex alone.
The catch: all four were holed up on upper floors, with thousands of regular zombies milling around the buildings below.
The moment the squad approached, the horde surged toward them.
Yang Bin shot the group a look. They formed a circle and put on a show-grunting, straining, making it look like the horde was giving them trouble.
Tier-5 Zombies were dirty campers. If they sensed you were too strong, they'd never come out.
So the squad played weak. Bait the campers into thinking they had easy prey.
Sure enough, it worked. The Tier-5 Zombie upstairs watched its minions fail to finish the job, then crept downstairs, blending into the horde, inching closer to the group.
Honestly, without the True Vision Eye, Yang Bin never would have spotted it skulking through the mass of bodies. The thing was sneaky as hell.
Just as it closed in and coiled to strike, a stone materialized out of thin air and rocketed toward its skull.
The Tier-5 Zombie reacted fast-dodging sideways the instant before impact.
But Yang Bin's Barbell Rod was already swinging into exactly that space.
"Bang..."
One hit. Dead.
Yang Bin dug out the crystal in seconds.
"Move. Next one."
The squad carved a bloody path through the horde and sprinted toward the next target.
At full Tier-5, a few thousand zombies couldn't even slow them down.
Two hours later, all four Tier-5 Zombies in the complex were dead. The squad moved on to the next hunting ground.
Yang Bin consumed all five crystals himself, pushing his strength to Tier-5 peak.
After reaching Tier 5, it took nine same-realm crystals to hit peak. He'd already had four banked from yesterday's haul-these five tipped him over.
At peak, his raw strength exceeded three thousand kilograms.
A normal Tier-5 peak should sit around 2,500 kilograms. Yang Bin's cultivation training gave him an extra five hundred-plus on top of that, pushing him past three thousand.
What did that mean in practice?
An ordinary sedan weighed just over a ton. Yang Bin could pick one up and toss it like a toy.
His speed and durability scaled accordingly.
At his current toughness, shrugging off submachine gun and assault rifle fire shouldn't be a problem.
The military still had heavier ordnance, though. That kept him cautious.
But at this rate, it wouldn't be long before conventional firearms lost all effectiveness against him.
---
Over ten kilometers away, in another residential complex.
A rescue force of three thousand soldiers was wrapping up an extraction operation.
Just as they prepared to pull out, tens of thousands of zombies materialized from every direction, encircling the entire complex.
The horde smashed through the perimeter walls and charged.
"It's here." Liu Yong's jaw tightened.
He'd come personally this time. The whole point was to draw out the Tier-6 Zombie and put it down.
Beside him, Lin Yifei stood rigid in her military fatigues, eyes sharp.
"Battle stations!" Liu Yong barked.
Three thousand soldiers snapped into formation. Muzzle flash lit up the complex as they poured fire into the advancing wave.
Under that wall of lead, zombies dropped in sheets.
But the horde didn't care. They kept coming, mindless and relentless.
Then-seven or eight Tier-5 Zombies launched from the rooftops behind the line, diving straight into the crowd.
These campers had been forced off the bench. Under orders from above, they had no choice but to play frontline warrior, charging in with reckless aggression.
The soldiers were ready for it. A squad of Tier-4 peak fighters peeled off and engaged the Tier-5 Zombies head-on.
Everyone else maintained suppressive fire, keeping the regular horde at bay.
Preparation paid off. The zombie numbers were massive, but not enough to crack the line.
More and more bodies piled up. The horde was losing ground.
Then a black blur dropped from a building on the far side.
It hit the ground and exploded forward-a streak of darkness tearing toward the formation.
Bullets sparked off its body. No effect.
In a blink, it was inside the ranks. The slaughter began.
Tier-3 soldiers. Tier-4 soldiers. It didn't matter. Nothing slowed it.
Wherever it passed, men died. Anyone it grabbed simply came apart.
"Tier-6 Zombie!"
Liu Yong watched the carnage with a face like iron. His fists clenched white at his sides.
The thing was obscenely powerful.
He glanced at Lin Yifei.
She met his eyes and nodded once.
The Tier-6 Zombie was cutting a direct path toward them-toward command. It knew exactly who to target.
As it closed in, the soldiers around Liu Yong threw themselves at it without hesitation.
Tier-4 peak, every one of them. Against a Yaoguang Realm Corpse King, it didn't matter. They were tissue paper.
But their sacrifice bought a heartbeat of time. The creature's momentum stuttered.
That was enough.
Light blazed in Lin Yifei's eyes. The temperature around them cratered.
In an instant, a thick shell of ice encased the Corpse King, locking it in place.
One second.
From a rooftop nearby-a single, thunderous crack.
"Bang..."
The Barrett's round punched clean through the zombie's skull.
But the head didn't burst like a watermelon. It held together-a massive hole bored through it, but intact.
"ROAAAR-"
The Corpse King screamed. Its eyes locked onto Lin Yifei with pure, focused hatred.
Then it ran.
"Don't let it escape!" Liu Yong roared.
Soldiers swarmed after it.
But even grievously wounded, the Yaoguang Corpse King was not something humans could pin down.
It tore through over a hundred more soldiers on its way out-and vanished.
Liu Yong exhaled slowly. A long, heavy breath.
They'd had one shot. They missed the kill. Next time, it would be ready. Next time would be worse.
He'd felt it now. Truly felt what this thing was.
This wasn't a Tier-6 Zombie. This was a Corpse King.
Lin Yifei swayed on her feet, staring at the empty space where it had disappeared.
That freeze had taken everything she had. Every last drop of energy for one single second.
She had nothing left to give.
The look it gave her before fleeing-that cold, intelligent hatred-settled into her bones like frost.
"Until that thing is dead, I need to stay off the field," she thought.
With the Yaoguang Corpse King gone, the remaining zombies broke and scattered.
When the dust settled, over ten thousand zombie corpses littered the complex. Two Tier-5 Zombies among them.
The cost: more than three hundred soldiers dead. Most fell to the Corpse King directly. The rest to the Tier-5 Zombies.
Every survivor understood the same thing.
The age of firearms was ending.