Living inside a steel house didn't actually feel very comfortable, so Leo, brimming with excess energy, got up early in the morning. While the two women were still greedily clinging to their beds, he planned to go deal with his physiological needs.
There was no helping it—having a body that was too strong came with downsides.
He quietly got up, closed the door, washed up, and wandered toward the female trader's building, intending to pay another visit to the trader who was, frankly, very good at relieving stress.
But a sudden gust of yellow sand swept past, forcing Leo to squint his eyes and instantly clearing the fog from his sleepy mind.
"A sandstorm?"
That was his first thought, but the moment realization struck, he immediately turned his gaze toward the opposite side of the canyon that Tsunade and Kelly had dug out.
In the next instant, all desire vanished, replaced by a bone-deep chill.
Zombies.
Endless zombies.
They swayed as they walked along the distant cliffs, moving nonstop in a single direction, their numbers no fewer than last time.
And this time, his enhanced vision let him see even farther.
They were still packed shoulder to shoulder, one after another, seemingly without end, advancing endlessly toward the horizon.
He looked around.
In every direction—north, south, east, west—the barren wasteland was filled with zombies. No exceptions.
The moon hung in the sky, glowing a sickly yellow, while sand filled the air, darkening the world until it looked like night.
"..."
Leo stood there with his mouth open. Even as sand was blown into his mouth, he didn't react. He could only stare at the sea of zombies.
Today…
Wasn't this supposed to be the sixth day?!
He called up the system time in his mind, stared at the blood-red number six for a long moment, and silently accepted reality.
He walked to the trader's building, but didn't do anything inappropriate this time. Instead, he took all the remaining steel frames, bought the trader's last seven grenades, shut the trader's door tight, and returned to their steel shelter.
When he came back, Kelly and Tsunade had just finished getting dressed and were about to wash up. Leo stopped them and gestured for them to look outside.
Kelly's mouth fell open.
Tsunade's face went pale as she sank down onto the floor.
Too many.
There were far too many.
They had imagined the zombie horde Leo described, thinking it would be wave after wave of attacks—but they had never imagined it would truly be this exaggerated.
"Those zombies…" Kelly swallowed hard, her hands trembling. Now she finally understood why Leo had been so obsessed with traps and fire. At this scale, even an infinite supply of revolver ammo would never be enough to kill them all.
"Where did they even come from? And didn't you say this was supposed to happen on the seventh day?" she asked in a hushed voice.
Even though she knew that as long as they didn't shout, there was no way the zombies would detect them, she still instinctively kept her voice low.
"How would I know…" Leo patted his clothes, subconsciously searching for a cigarette. He was panicking too. There was still so much he hadn't finished. He still needed to—
"Calm down, Leo. We're here," Tsunade said, her face pale but her voice steady. The distance from the zombies had allowed her to recover some of her strength.
"And based on what you described—and what we're seeing—there's no way these zombies can break through to us. Cover the windows first. I need to rest for a bit, then we'll seal the door."
Leo took a deep breath and immediately followed her instructions, sealing the window Tsunade was facing.
After a long while, Tsunade recovered enough to materialize solid steel blocks and firmly seal the main entrance, leaving the zombies no chance whatsoever.
The three of them stayed inside the steel house in silence.
Leo and Kelly quietly observed the outside, while Tsunade crouched by the bed, staring fixedly at the steel blocks sealing the door, terrified that a blood-soaked monster might burst through at any moment.
Silence dominated the room.
Every second dragged on painfully. None of them wanted to fight unless absolutely necessary. Leo didn't. Kelly didn't either.
"If we fire now, we'll get completely swarmed, right?" Kelly asked as she wiped down her pipe machine gun and the revolver Leo had given her.
She had been happy when she got the revolver—it was a huge upgrade for her and would let her fully play her skills. But now, it felt less useful than a machine gun.
"Give me two more machine guns," she said. "I want to see if there's anything I can do with them after materializing."
Leo didn't say anything. He silently crafted two more pipe machine guns and handed them over.
Kelly took them without hesitation, materialized them, examined them briefly, then closed her eyes in resignation.
There was nothing to modify.
In fact, once materialized, they were even worse than their system versions.
At least system guns didn't jam, fall apart, or suffer from inconsistent fire rate and trajectory. Once materialized, these things were guaranteed to shake loose, and the accuracy was absolute trash. No rifling, no stability—hitting anything reliably was impossible.
She sighed and set them aside, planning to test later whether rapidly switching between system mode and materialized mode could be effective—maybe materialize to fire, then switch back to system mode to reload, or the other way around.
She couldn't test it in combat right now, but one thing was certain: when it came to reloading a revolver, the system wasn't faster than her.
She could reload all rounds into her revolver in under 0.4 seconds. For Leo, though, system reloading was clearly faster.
Leo could tell from her expression that modification wasn't happening.
He sighed and continued watching the slow-moving zombies, along with the moon that was steadily turning blood-red.
If he remembered correctly, the moon wasn't supposed to change this fast.
His hands clenched.
If each blood moon arrived earlier and progressed faster than the last, then by the seventh time…
Would it last an entire day?
The thought made his grip tighten further. He stared at the moon as it steadily reddened, watching time crawl toward noon.
And when noon arrived, the moon was indeed half red.
The zombies grew more active, their movements noticeably quicker.
Leo fell silent.
This had happened three hours earlier than last time.
He let out a bitter laugh.
"Why is it that only these bad premonitions ever come true?"