Chapter 14: A Perilous Dead End

"Wang! Come back, now!"

Mouse’s eyes were bloodshot as he saw Wang Ji draw the wild boar away all on his own. He roared with fury, swinging the machine gun toward Wang Ji’s direction, desperate to go help him.

Anxious Xiaoliu brandished his AK, firing frantically at the mutant beasts swarming ahead. Under mounting pressure, he fumbled to reload, and in that moment, a mutant beast lunged onto the windshield, rattling the vehicle violently.

Inside the car, Xiaoyin and Xiaocong screamed in terror, clinging to each other and bawling, while Xiaoliu’s mother, pale as a ghost, held the two children tightly.

“Mouse! Mouse! I can’t hold on any longer!” Xiaoliu’s tearful shout snapped Mouse back to reality. He hurriedly swung the machine gun back, but as the mutant beasts drew closer, the gun’s angle became insufficient. The pickup trembled, on the verge of overturning under the onslaught.

Liu Shanye’s van had lost the cover Wang Ji provided, and the mutants crashed against it as well. The whole family cowered together, sobbing in despair. With only Liu Shanye’s amateur shooting and Lin Qixun’s pistol, there was no hope of holding off the beasts.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The mutants, smelling food just within reach, grew even more frenzied. In seconds, the car’s shell was battered and pitted.

Fortunately, Li Chengming charged in from the side, commanding his squad’s heavy machine gun. A few bursts of gunfire rescued Mouse and Liu Shanye from their plight.

Li Chengming maneuvered his vehicle beside Mouse’s and shouted, “Go! Don’t stop!”

“I’m not leaving! I’m going to save Wang!”

Li Chengming, exasperated, jumped down and smacked Mouse on the back of the head. “Listen to me, kid! Look behind you! All these people are counting on us to break through!”

“If you don’t move, everyone dies! I believe Wang Ji can make it! Do you understand?”

The slap and the crisis just now brought Mouse to his senses. Tearfully, he bellowed, “Wang! I’ll come back for you!”

Li Chengming gave a relieved smile and returned to his vehicle.

With both heavy machine guns together, their combined firepower ripped open a path through the mutant beasts, and the convoy moved out once more. But the chaos brought by the wild boar had thrown everything into confusion—several vehicles overturned under the assault, their passengers lost.

Zhao Wu followed Li Chengming out within minutes. Because of the situation, he shifted his men up from the rear to the middle of the convoy. From behind, the screams of those whose vehicles had been overturned by the mutants grew ever more desperate.

Those who’d fled the base on foot became mere fodder for the mutant beasts. The ones who hadn’t yet escaped saw the mutants pouring into the camp and scattered in panic.

Amid the horde, Wang Ji’s figure moved like a phantom, dodging and weaving. The sheer number of mutant beasts became his best shield against the wild boar.

Bang! Bang! Bang! He shot down a mutant dog, vaulting over its corpse just in time to avoid the boar’s charge. Its tusks, swirling with ferocious power, swept past him and skewered an unlucky mutant beast.

The wild boar, battered and bloody from Wang Ji’s grenades, glared with murderous madness. Surrounded by the pests, it let out a furious roar.

The mutant beasts scattered in terror, clearing a circle over ten meters wide for Wang Ji and the wild boar.

Wang Ji sneered. “So, you want to go one-on-one, you brute?”

He slung his automatic rifle and drew a shotgun from his back, loading several freshly materialized, large-caliber armor-piercing rounds.

Unlike ordinary shells, these rounds demanded immense strength and physique from the user; one careless shot could injure the shooter themselves. But their effect was unparalleled—according to the system, they could punch through an elephant at close range. For a wild boar as big as a van, they were perfect.

Seeing Wang Ji poised and ready, the wild boar growled twice, bristling with needle-like quills as a red glow seeped from its body.

It suddenly burst forth, limbs gouging deep furrows in the ground, crossing the distance in an instant, tusks locked on Wang Ji.

“Damn! That’s cheating!” Wang Ji barely rolled aside, but the boar’s sudden speed caught him, sending him flying several meters.

[Ding! Commander, warning: impact damage received. Minor internal injury to the left arm. Immediate treatment advised!]

“Ugh!” Wang Ji spat out mud and scrambled up, watching grimly as the boar wheeled around for another charge.

He had to seize an opportunity to seriously wound the beast.

But the wild boar gave him no respite. It charged again, and this time, Wang Ji, prepared, narrowly dodged. Man and beast clashed across the battlefield like a bullfight, trading attacks and evasions.

Soon, the system warned him that his stamina was nearing its limit. He hurriedly ate two pieces of chocolate to recover.

“This can’t go on.” Glancing at the dust cloud marking the convoy’s retreat, Wang Ji guessed they’d likely escaped.

Gritting his teeth, he scanned the surroundings and materialized an anti-personnel mine from the system. Seizing a moment as the boar adjusted its path, he tossed the mine onto the ground in its way.

“Come on!” Wang Ji, angered by the boar, retreated several steps and shouted.

The wild boar, infuriated by Wang Ji’s taunts, its blood-red eyes flaring, charged with a roar.

Three... two... one...

Wang Ji timed the detonation with bated breath.

Luck was on his side. With a thunderous explosion, the mine went off, blasting Wang Ji himself several meters away in the shockwave.

[Ding! Commander, warning: explosion damage received. Minor internal injuries. Immediate treatment advised!]

Coughing blood, Wang Ji suppressed the turmoil in his chest and forced himself to look at the wild boar howling in agony amid the flames.

The blast had torn a gaping wound in the boar’s left foreleg, down to the bone, and its chest was a mess of shredded flesh. Seeing Wang Ji approach, the wild beast glared murderously, trying to rise, but with its foreleg ruined, it could only roar, lifting its head defiantly.

“Cough... you’re tough, I’ll give you that.”

Wang Ji steadied the shotgun with both hands, stood three meters away, and fired at the boar’s forehead.

The massive recoil numbed his arms, but a bowl-sized blossom of gore erupted from the boar’s head as the armor-piercing round blew through its skull, pulverizing its brain.

The beast shuddered, eyes wide, and slowly collapsed, convulsing in its death throes.

Wang Ji gritted his teeth, chambered another round, and prepared to finish the job.

[Ding! Primary one-star mutant beast crystal core found. 500 energy absorbed!]

Wang Ji had no time for joy. A primal sense of mortal danger rose in his heart, and he turned just in time to see a slab of wall, several square meters wide, hurtling from the sky with a deep, ominous whine.

He barely managed to shield his head as the wall crashed down on him, shattering with a thunderous boom and raising a cloud of choking dust.

[Ding! Commander, critical injury received. Immediate treatment advised!]
[Ding! Commander, critical injury received. Immediate treatment advised!]
[Ding! Commander, critical injury received. Immediate treatment advised!]

Wang Ji slowly crawled to his feet, spitting blood, his whole body wracked with pain. His left hand was numb and useless—he didn’t need the system’s warnings to know how serious his injuries were.

Fighting to keep his eyes open, he peered through the dust toward the direction the wall had come from. There, atop the camp’s roof, a giant gorilla stood, eyes blazing red as it fixed its gaze upon him.

The gorilla, seeing Wang Ji still alive, pounded its chest and roared in fury.

Mutant beasts nearby surged toward Wang Ji, who braced himself, drew his pistol from his thigh, and fled desperately.

“Run! I have to run!”

If the gorilla caught him, it meant certain death.

By now, the camp was wreathed in thick smoke, with scattered gunfire and endless screams—proof the entire camp had fallen.

By a ruined building, Zhao Gang crawled across the ground, his legs numb and unresponsive, head bleeding and close to death. Yet with grim determination, he made his way toward Zhao Ya lying nearby, leaving a deep trail of blood. As the gorilla’s roar echoed, he managed a faint smile, placing his hand on Zhao Ya’s face and lowering his head, a look of contentment settling over his features.

Fueled by sheer will, Wang Ji staggered toward the distant convoy, fighting his way out.

Like a god of slaughter, he emptied his pistol at the beasts, then, with no time to materialize more ammo, switched to his rifle and kept charging.

His body armor was in tatters, wounds covering him like scales. He didn’t know how long he fought—just that, as dusk approached, he finally broke free of the mutant horde, every step leaving a bloody print.

But there was no joy. His mind was drifting on the edge of unconsciousness, sustained only by willpower.

He staggered between a row of houses, slumped against a wall, and the dizziness from blood loss left him powerless to move.

[Beep beep beep! Commander, excessive blood loss! Approaching death threshold—immediate treatment required!]

“No, there are still mutants behind me! I can’t stop…”

Hearing the system’s warning, Wang Ji managed a bitter smile. He realized he no longer had the strength to even use the medicines he’d materialized. Slumped against the wall, he finally slipped into darkness.