Chương 196: The Progress Bar

"Copy that." Vince replied with just two words. He turned the walkie-talkie's volume all the way down and clipped it to his belt. Departing within thirty minutes was definitely doable. Ben's crew had already packed practically everything; the dinner they were eating consisted entirely of scavenged odds and ends they had planned to abandon anyway. As for his own group of "Supermen," they might be dead tired, but they weren't being asked to fight.

Just grabbing their go-bags and jumping into a car shouldn't be a problem. Vince checked his watch to confirm the time. He chose to trust them to handle their end. Right now, he needed to assess the situation directly in front of him. Raven was the furthest out. However, if she was smart and her stealth ability was as effective as advertised, she would likely find a way to fall back toward the gas station on her own. Cole was the closest. Logically, the zombie vanguard shouldn't have reached his position yet.

Since he had also lost contact, it likely meant something else had gone wrong—something fatal. Taking Raven's twelve-kilometer mark as the objective: running at full sprint on flat ground would take Vince roughly eight to ten minutes. But realistically, dodging through rubble and navigating around the encroaching horde would make maintaining top speed impossible. A full round trip would easily take nearly half an hour! Vince immediately formulated a plan: Push south at maximum speed.

Determine the exact position of the horde's vanguard. Prioritize locating Marcus in the middle relay! If he found Marcus—or definitively confirmed his status—he would push further south to search for Raven. Regardless of whether he found her or not, the absolute hard limit was five minutes after making contact with the horde's vanguard. After that, he had to turn back. If he spotted Cole along the way, great. If not, there was nothing he could do about it! With a thought, his spear materialized in his hand.

Pumping his arms, Vince tore down the ruined street, sprinting south with everything he had! It wasn't until he burst out of the localized dust cloud that he realized the massive office building wasn't the only casualty. All along the road, the three-story commercial storefronts had suffered varying degrees of damage. Some were leaning precariously, while others had completely collapsed into heaps of rubble.

The dust pluming from the roadside ruins hadn't even settled yet, indicating these structures had crumbled simultaneously with the massive office building. The street, which had looked perfectly normal during the day, now resembled the aftermath of a magnitude 7 earthquake. It was a complete disaster zone. Yet, just a few kilometers away at his apartment complex—and even at the gas station—no one had felt a single tremor. Something isn't right. Vince vaulted onto the roof of an intact storefront.

With a powerful kick, he launched himself dozens of meters into the air, getting a bird's-eye view of the landscape below. Was this an earthquake...? But the epicenter isn't here... It wasn't just the buildings immediately bordering the road. Everything within Vince's line of sight stretching several kilometers south—residential complexes, office blocks, shopping centers—showed signs of structural failure and collapse. It truly looked like a localized, shallow-focus earthquake had just ripped through the area.

But the affected zone was incredibly small, and the boundaries were bizarrely well-defined. However, pondering the cause was meaningless now. Dotted among the collapsed residential buildings, hundreds of bright red Health Bars had appeared. Ranging from a few dozen to over a thousand HP, all the zombies previously trapped or hiding indoors had been flushed out by the "earthquake." If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

And in the far distance, a dense, writhing, glowing "red tide" was slowly creeping along the main road. Thousands upon thousands of Health Bars, constrained by the ruined buildings on either side, were packed tightly onto the thoroughfare. Like an all-consuming flood, they were "slowly" surging in his direction. As the tide rolled forward, any mutated zombies flushed out of the residential complexes by the tremors were instantly drawn to the massive commotion, seamlessly merging into the rushing torrent.

That crimson tide looked exactly like a terrifying progress bar—moving at a steady, creeping, yet utterly unstoppable pace.

"Is that..." A few kilometers ahead of the main horde, within a residential complex on the right side of the road, a faint yellow Health Bar flickered in and out of view. It was mixed in with several red bars, and occasionally, the faint flash of muzzle fire illuminated the darkness. He couldn't read the exact number on the Health Bar, but it had a distinct blue border... Gunfire. An Awakened. It had to be either Marcus or Raven! Doesn't matter who it is, saving one is better than saving none!

Seeing a glimmer of hope, Vince landed heavily, kicked off again, and sprinted across the ruined rooftops directly toward the flashes of light.... Marcus vaulted a low brick wall, slipped through the back door of a street-facing storefront, and stumbled through the dark interior until he found a small storage closet to hide in. His left forearm was completely gone. A faint blue glow covered the ragged stump, barely managing to staunch the bleeding.

The lens on his night-vision goggles had shattered, leaving him with only a tiny, fractured sliver of visibility. The sudden "earthquake" had nearly buried him under a collapsing storefront. Relying entirely on his Awakened physical strength, he had agonizingly dug himself out, only to be immediately ambushed by a Bone-Spur Zombie. He lost half his arm in the ensuing struggle.

Thankfully, his ability allowed him to essentially cauterize the wound with energy, saving him from bleeding out and going into hemorrhagic shock. However, the gunfire from his desperate defense had drawn in two more mutated zombies, completely trapping him inside the building. His assault vehicle was parked on the road just a short distance away. He had to break out and reach that car. Because that vehicle wasn't just his lifeline; it was Raven's only chance of survival.

There was no doubt the "earthquake" had triggered the horde. Aside from acting as a signal relay, his primary objective was to act as the extraction point for Raven on the frontlines. Whether out of duty to the mission or personal loyalty, he had to get behind the wheel and drive south. His walkie-talkie had been smashed during the initial collapse. Even though he couldn't contact her, he stubbornly believed she was still alive.

Compared to dying, he was far more terrified of the thought that his teammate might fall on the final kilometer simply because he wasn't there to extract her in time. Marcus picked up a filthy rag from the floor of the storage closet. Using his teeth and his remaining hand, he viciously tied a makeshift tourniquet around his upper left bicep to further secure the wound.

The excruciating pain radiating from the torn flesh caused beads of cold sweat to roll down his forehead, but he clamped his jaw shut, refusing to make a single sound. Even so, the faint tearing of the fabric leaked out into the silence. Outside the closet, the two Bone-Spur Zombies zeroed in on the noise and slowly stalked into the shop. The clack, clack, clack of eight bone spurs tapping against the tile floor sounded deafeningly loud in the dead-silent room. Breathe... breathe...

The agonizing pain of his severed arm was momentarily eclipsed by the rhythmic, terrifying drumbeat of those approaching footsteps. Marcus forced himself to take slow, deep breaths, silencing his exhalations as much as possible. He let the stale, dusty air fill his lungs, flooding his bloodstream with oxygen to prime his muscles for a final burst of explosive power. He had dropped his rifle when his arm was severed. His sidearm was completely empty.

Right now, he had two full rifle magazines strapped to his chest rig, but no gun to use them with...

"That Vince guy was right... Sometimes cold weapons really are more reliable than guns..." He slowly reached down and picked up a heavy crowbar leaning against the wall of the storage room. For some reason, the image of that young man's face suddenly flashed through his mind. A pale blue light flowed from his hand, coating the crowbar until it emitted a faint, fluorescent glow. This was his ability.

It didn't just form an energy shield over his body; he could also channel it into weapons to drastically increase their density and hardness. Unfortunately, the front entrance of this shop was secured by a heavy, roll-down metal shutter. There was no way to break through it quickly. If he wanted to reach his car, his only option was to wait for those two incredibly fast Bone-Spur Zombies to fully enter the shop...

With his right hand, he slowly reached into a pouch on his tactical vest and pulled out a fragmentation grenade. He pulled the pin and bit down hard on the ring. The convoy was critically low on explosives; each veteran was only issued a single grenade. It had to be used in the absolute perfect scenario. And right now... the scenario was perfect. Creak. He slowly pushed the storage room door open just a crack. The two Bone-Spur Zombies stalking through the shop immediately snapped their heads toward the sound.

But a split second later, the metallic clink-clatter-clink of something rolling across the floor sent them lunging wildly toward the front of the shop!