On the other side of the city, on a deathly silent street, four figures were cautiously moving through abandoned vehicles and scattered trash.
Leading them was Wu Ze, a typical rich second-generation heir. When the apocalypse broke out, he was living a life of debauchery at a party with his fair-weather friends, surviving until now only through a bit of street smarts and the power of money. He wore expensive outdoor sports brands, but his face bore an expression of anxiety and impatience that clashed with his gear.
Beside him was his girlfriend, an internet celebrity-faced girl with exquisite makeup, now clutching Wu Ze's arm in terror, as if a zombie might pounce from a corner at any second.
Behind them were two others; one was named Henry, blond-haired and blue-eyed, with a professional DSLR camera hanging around his neck. Even while fleeing, he still raised the camera from time to time to record the scenes of this apocalypse. His girlfriend was a quiet and elegant blonde girl, looking at him with worry.
They had just come out of a looted convenience store, empty-handed. After several days of observation, they were surprised to find that the zombies that used to roam the streets seemed to have vanished overnight. This unusual phenomenon made them uneasy, but it also gave birth to a bold plan—to head to Wu Ze's luxury villa in the suburbs.
Because there, a private helicopter was parked, their only hope of escaping this city of death.
"Hey, Henry! What time is it, and you're still messing with that broken camera!" Wu Ze looked back and urged impatiently, "Hurry up! We must reach my house before dark!"
Henry lowered the camera from his eyes, his deep blue eyes gleaming with a fanatical light. He whistled at the lens and said in accented Chinese, "Wu, don't you think? Recording all of this, it's so cool! Documenting the world under the apocalypse, we are witnesses to history!" As he spoke, he turned on the video function again, pointing the lens at the empty street ahead.
"Speaking of which... is F City completely abandoned now?" Henry's girlfriend asked softly, her voice full of confusion and fear.
Wu Ze, walking in front, sneered with a tone full of mockery: "You can try calling the police and see if the person who answers is alive or a zombie. Or maybe call the fire department? See if a fire truck will come to help extinguish the panic in your heart?"
Just as the four were moving forward warily, chatting idly, an indescribable sense of pressure suddenly came from ahead. The air seemed to freeze, and even the sound of the wind vanished.
Immediately after, the ground began to tremble slightly.
"Thump... Thump... Thump..."
Heavy and rhythmic footsteps approached from afar, each one feeling like a heavy hammer striking their hearts.
The four stopped in terror, looking toward the source of the sound—the end of that commercial street.
"Roar—!!!"
A hoarse, tearing, terrifying roar that seemed capable of shattering glass came from the shadows of the tall buildings. Then, a massive, indescribable figure slowly "crawled" out from behind a skyscraper.
It was a zombie, but its size had completely exceeded human imagination. It was seventy-eight meters tall, like a moving mountain of flesh. Its body was fused from countless twisted, rotting corpses and construction waste; numerous pale arms and distorted faces struggled and writhed on its gray, decaying skin, letting out silent wails. Its head was huge and deformed, with a giant mouth splitting to its ears, revealing white bones and rotting muscle tissue.
With every step it took, the ground groaned, and the buildings on both sides of the street were easily crushed to dust by its massive body.
The four stood frozen, their minds blank. The camera in Henry's hand fell to the ground with a "clack," and he even forgot to pick it up. Before such a terrifying monster, humans seemed so tiny, so powerless. Fear, like cold venom, instantly paralyzed their limbs, making them lose even the strength to run.
Just when they thought they were doomed, about to be crushed into meat paste by that mountain of flesh—
"Whoosh—! Whoosh—! Whoosh—!"
A series of sharp, long whistles, as if tearing through the sky, suddenly sounded from behind them!
"Ah!" The two girls were startled by the sudden sound and let out ear-piercing screams.
Before they could react, a thunderous roar erupted behind them!
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Following that was a rain-like sound of gunfire!
"Da da da da da da—!!!"
Countless streaks of fire trailed long plumes of flame, like a meteor shower of vengeance, passing over their heads and slamming hard into that giant zombie!
Massive explosions went off one after another on that mountain-like body, kicking up blood, flesh, and debris. The giant zombie let out a roar of pain, its massive body forced back repeatedly.
Wu Ze and the other three looked back in terror, only to be completely shocked by the scene before them.
At some point, the street behind them had become filled with troops!
A group of fully armed soldiers in camouflage combat gear rushed past them, assault rifles spitting tongues of fire, the dense rain of bullets forming a steel storm that swept toward the monster. A leading officer waved his hand frantically at them while running, signaling them to retreat to a safe area immediately.
Wu Ze and the others snapped out of it, scrambling to hide in the ruins of the shops along the street. In the chaos, Henry instinctively picked up his camera, tremblingly recording this heart-pounding scene.
Through the shaky lens, it could be seen that more troops were surging in from all directions like a tide.
Behind these soldiers were several armored vehicles, using their roof-mounted autocannons for continuous fire suppression. Further back were hundreds of soldiers armed with rifles, machine guns, and heavy weapons; they quickly set up temporary positions on the street, while shoulder-mounted anti-tank missiles and automatic grenade launchers roared, sending lethal munitions into the monster's body.
"Clang— Clang—"
Accompanied by the roar of treads crushing the ground—
Several main battle tanks emerged from the street corner; their massive bodies and menacing gun barrels brought an unparalleled sense of security and pressure.
A Marine Corps officer standing on a tank was holding a communicator, roaring at the troops across the entire battlefield:
"All units! All units! I want you to use the strongest firepower you have! Anti-armor missiles! High-explosive anti-tank rounds! Whatever weapon can penetrate armor or blow up a bunker, give that big guy a taste of everything!"
His voice echoed through the entire block via the loudspeaker.
With the giant zombie at the center, large numbers of troops appeared at the intersections of several surrounding streets. Tanks, armored vehicles, heavy fire positions... a death net woven of steel and fire had completely surrounded this terrifying monster.
In the sky, a formation of attack helicopters also roared onto the scene, circling above the monster like hunting hawks, their under-wing rocket pods already locked onto the target.
This was a real, modern, multi-dimensional war!
Hiding in the ruins, Wu Ze and the other three watched all this dumbfounded. They had never imagined that in the apocalypse, they would still see an army.
Henry's camera faithfully recorded it all—the roar of tanks, the charge of soldiers, the trajectories of missiles piercing the sky, and the apocalyptic scene of that giant zombie roaring in pain amidst the steel storm.
At this moment, all the fear and despair in their hearts were replaced by a burning emotion called "hope."