Chapter 404: Total Victory
“Cough cough… I’m… fine,” Lu Weiyi’s voice was hoarse.
He could only feel pain all over but couldn’t see his own appearance. He didn’t know his once beautiful face had become unrecognizable—like it had melted, taking on a gelatinous, dripping look.
“Father,” Tao Tao’s tears fell, and her hands turned into little green branches that wrapped Lu Weiyi tightly. “Tao Tao will take you to find daddy. Daddy is very strong.”
“I…” Lu Weiyi tried to lift his hand but finally lost strength and passed out.
Outside, after the SS-level zombie’s last blow, hundreds of meters of ice cracked open, leaving only a single section at the base of the ice wall. All powered users retreated and gathered there, and many who didn’t react in time even fell into the water.
Zhuang Mingxu coordinated all water-type powered users to immediately rescue those who fell into the water. Fortunately, the sea depth here was less than a hundred meters, so the A-level water types quickly searched.
Near the shore, Ning Yuan shivered as he swam ashore, used powers to remove water from his body, and hurriedly searched for the other two. Compared to Antonio, a versatile all-rounder, Liu Rui was in bad shape—when pulled up, he was already unconscious from drowning.
“Artificial respiration, quickly!” Ning Yuan ordered.
“I have internal injuries, breathing is hard,” Antonio shrugged.
“You don’t move, let me do the manly job,” Ning Yuan joked bitterly. He felt like his ribs might be broken but still pressed Liu Rui’s chest and performed artificial respiration.
“The zombies are leaving. Should I go back?” Antonio was worried about Dean, who was helping at the rear. Now with zombies gone, the 2,000+ powered users from Pingjin Base had become a threat.
“Okay,” Ning Yuan said, raising his hand to lay down a two-meter-wide ice path with his last bit of power.
“I’ll leave some crystal cores for you. Hurry back,” Antonio said, striding away.
Ning Yuan looked at the pile on the ground, then at Antonio, who was just as empty-handed, and for a moment couldn’t figure out where the other had gotten the crystal core to escape from—he remembered that guy didn’t have spatial powers, right?
The zombies had already left. The injured powered users, after emergency treatment from the medical team, were quickly transported back to the base and handed over to ordinary people for care.
Zhuang Mingxu moved through the teams of powered users, glancing occasionally toward a distant direction. He saw Li Zhuang helping carry the wounded and quietly pulled him aside to whisper a few words.
Just after Li Zhuang left, Antonio appeared in sight.
“Antonio, where’s Xiaoyi? How are things on your side?” Zhuang Mingxu asked.
Antonio stopped, his eyes seeing Dean surrounded by Wu Yue, Xiong Jie, and several second team powered users who were protecting him tightly. He touched his nose and said, “I’m going to find him now.”
“Treat yourself first,” Zhuang Mingxu said, knowing Antonio couldn’t put Dean out of his mind. Without peace of mind, he wouldn’t work efficiently. He gestured for Antonio to join a team and spoke a few words to Dean.
Hundreds of thousands of zombies had fallen into the water, turning the seabed into a hall of corpses—so many that it could even fill the entire trench.
After confirming the number of powered users was intact, Zhuang Mingxu arranged for all the injured to return to base. Then, a large number of armed soldiers appeared, surrounding all the powered users in Pingjin Base.
The two leaderless squads, lacking anyone to intimidate or unify them, immediately split into five or six groups with differing opinions—some chose to surrender, others wanted to fight for it.
Unfortunately, Zhuang Mingxu had immediately activated the ability disruptor. At this moment, all powered users were no different from ordinary people—completely unarmed.
Earth-type powered users quickly took action, hastily constructing a prison and throwing everyone in for detention.
While Zhuang Mingxu arranged for water-type powered users to retrieve the zombie corpses from the trench, Tao Tao finally arrived, bringing Lu Weiyi.
The small child wore thin clothes and looked pitiful. If not for her translucent rosy skin, she really looked like a poor little thing.
“Daddy.”
“Daddy!”
Tao Tao’s uncontrollable crying was carried by the wind, drawing the attention of nearby people. Looking over, they saw a child no taller than a thigh dragging a cocoon-like bundle of a person across the ice wall.
People nearby were about to ask whose child it was when Tao Tao saw Zhuang Mingxu without a trace of fear and stepped down onto the slope beyond the ice wall. Lu Weiyi, who was tied up behind him, slid down as well, his greater weight causing him to be dragged along.
“Tao Tao—” Zhuang Mingxu shouted and ran toward the direction they were falling.
“Shit,” Wu Yue, who was closest, strode over. His earth-type powers were useless in the completely isolated situation.
“I got this,” Li Dongsheng said, extending a green vine rapidly toward the pair, stopping their fall just before impact.
“Why aren’t you staying at home properly? How did you get out here?” Wu Yue walked over and picked up Tao Tao. His gaze then shifted to the cocoon-like person. “This is…”
“Daddy!” Tao Tao struggled to the ground and ran toward Zhuang Mingxu, crying, “Father, my father… boohoo…”
Zhuang Mingxu held him in one arm and calmly called out, “Dean.”
His foot slipped and he almost fell but was steadied by someone nearby. He stepped forward and stared in disbelief at the person before him—his face was so melted that only the positions of organs could be distinguished. It was hard to believe this was his stunningly beautiful lover.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, don’t be afraid,” Zhuang Mingxu took off his coat and covered Lu Weiyi’s face with it, speaking both to Tao Tao and himself.
“How is he?” Zhuang Mingxu asked Dean.
After the initial shock, Dean quickly switched to doctor mode. “Rib fractures, internal organ contusions, abdominal bleeding that requires surgery to drain, the skin…”
He glanced hesitantly at Zhuang Mingxu and didn’t continue—the damage was plainly visible.
“Can he be fixed?” Zhuang Mingxu’s face showed no emotion, but his trembling hands betrayed his nervousness.
“I’ve never tried,” Dean said, quickly adding, “But I can try.”
“Mm, okay,” Zhuang Mingxu nodded repeatedly, looking around but finding no one else to send the patient back.
Young Lu Weiyi had loved beauty, a sunny, cheerful kid who had always cared about his hair and nice clothes, with a slight cleanliness obsession.
The Ji family had ground him down, draining his vitality, and now the apocalypse had come. Zhuang Mingxu didn’t want anyone to see his face now.
“I…”
“We don’t need two medical specialists here anymore. I’ll take him back for surgery, Dean come with me,” Wu Yue volunteered, “You still need to stabilize the situation here.”
Zhuang Mingxu looked back at the group awaiting further orders, nodded heavily, and said to Dean, “Please, he… he loves beauty very much.”
Dean nodded, took a thin sheet from space to cover Lu Weiyi’s face, and together with Wu Yue climbed over the ice wall and headed north.
All the surrounding zombies had been retrieved from the seabed. The water-type powered users even purified the entire nearby sea area, ensuring the water quality wouldn’t affect the growth of marine life below.
Thanks to the medical team and hospital preparations, most of the base’s injured recovered the same day. Many powered users even successfully upgraded with the help of purified crystal cores.
Against hundreds of thousands of zombies, fewer than ten powered users died in the whole base. Over ten thousand were injured—a contrast enough to make this battle a historic victory.
The next morning, under Dean’s treatment, Lu Weiyi woke up.
At the base, Zhuang Mingxu had gathered all the crystal cores and, after clearing the nearby sea area, ordered various squads to clean up remaining zombies on the nearby land.
Through the slightly open bedroom door, Zhuang Mingxu’s radio chatter could be heard. He spoke quietly, barefoot, occasionally walking past the door to peek inside. The moment he realized Lu Weiyi was awake, he immediately turned around.
“…Do you feel any discomfort anywhere? You sustained multiple injuries,” Zhuang Mingxu turned off the walkie-talkie and stepped forward to grab Lu Weiyi’s hand.
“I’m fine now,” Lu Weiyi shook his head. He truly didn’t feel any pain in his body. He even sat up and stretched leisurely.
But when his gaze landed on the burns on his hand, he paused. He reached up to touch his cheek, only to have Zhuang Mingxu quickly grab his hand. Zhuang Mingxu spoke casually, “You sustained some injuries on your face. Dean is currently practicing skin regeneration techniques for burn wounds and has already seen some success. Don’t worry—just give it a little more time, okay?”
Lu Weiyi could imagine what he must have looked like at the time, especially given Zhuang Mingxu’s reaction. He began to feel like the skin on his face was bunched up, making it hard to even smile, and his eyelids felt sticky, as if they were fused together.
“Alright. Tell me how the base is doing,” Lu Weiyi changed the subject for Zhuang Mingxu’s sake.
“The base is stable now. The patrols are operating as before. I had them clear out all zombies within a ten-kilometer radius, restoring the area to how it was before the attack.”
“Our biggest gain this time was crystal cores. Not counting the ones you collected beforehand, just what we gathered afterward totals 438,000—despite some zombie corpses being incomplete due to artillery strikes and thus untraceable.”
“That means we fought off at least over 500,000 zombies.”
“Exactly,” Zhuang Mingxu said proudly. “Xiao Yi, none of our teammates or any of the small squads or even the civilians dropped the ball. The ability users fought on the front lines, while the civilians handled logistics, prisoner control, and material transport. No one shirked their responsibilities.”
“Everyone deserves credit for our survival in this attack.”
“That’s incredible,” Lu Weiyi admitted—the numbers truly surprised him. Surviving such an event felt like a miracle.
“There are also 2,326 prisoners from the Pingjin base. Meng Hu and Jiang Ning unfortunately died during zombie hunts. The rest are being held. Following your prior instructions, I had bombs implanted in them and released them to return and trade crystal cores to ransom themselves back.”
