Even in the face of death, Li Ke refused to surrender. Despite the constant assault of zombies pushing and tearing at the vehicle, which was on the verge of collapse, he held onto the wooden frame beside him and forced himself to move closer to the breaking-down car.
Li Ke could hear it clearly: the outer layer of the car's metal had already been torn away. If he didn't act quickly, the wooden framework he had installed inside the car wouldn't hold long enough for him to complete his preparations.
"Damn bastards…"
Taking a deep breath, Li Ke closed his eyes for a moment before pulling out a batch of gunpowder.
His inventory contained a thousand portions of gunpowder, with each portion represented in reality as a substantial pile of black powder. Without hesitation, he tore open the burlap sack in front of him—an absurdly small sack containing all one thousand portions—and began pouring the black powder towards the front of the vehicle.
From the narrow opening of the sack, black powder gushed out continuously, filling the sealed cabin and quickly burying the entire front of the vehicle. Even the car door was completely blocked by the accumulating gunpowder.
"Hah… what did those MythBusters say again? Something about a wall being able to block most of an explosion?"
While dumping the powder, Li Ke reinforced the parts of the car that didn't seem entirely sealed. Amid the deafening roars of zombies, he heard the screech of tearing metal and the sound of hands clawing at the framework he had constructed.
He quickly tossed the still-flowing sack of gunpowder onto the front of the vehicle and, in the same instant, placed several blocks of dirt and stone in front of himself for protection.
Just as he finished, the front windshield of the RV shattered with a loud crash, revealing a zombie's grotesque face.
Without hesitation, Li Ke lit a piece of plastic with his lighter and hurled the burning fragment toward the pile of gunpowder. As the flaming plastic arced through the air, he swiftly blocked the only remaining gap with a stone block before curling himself into a protective position.
In the next moment, the ground shook violently. Fire and explosions filled the air.
Li Ke felt his body being thrown into the air, only for the RV to slam back into him. The zombies' howls and the sound of the explosion vanished in an instant, replaced by a high-pitched ringing in his ears. Dazed, he caught a glimpse of the walls he had built shattering and experienced a strange sensation of dizziness and displacement.
A sharp sense of weightlessness followed. Then, another tremor struck, though it was much weaker this time.
Li Ke landed heavily on the wooden framework he had constructed. His head buzzed incessantly, and the pain in his left arm and right shoulder was so intense that he could no longer move them. His vision was a blurry red, rendering him unable to see anything clearly.
But he was still alive and hadn't completely passed out. Through his bloodied vision, he noticed that the stone wall he had constructed remained mostly intact. However, the roof of the RV had been blown off, exposing the outside world.
He was no longer on the outskirts of the town. Now, he was only a short distance from the merchant's gas station. Unfortunately, the path between him and safety was filled with countless burning zombies.
...Burning?
Li Ke's foggy mind cleared in an instant. He stared at the zombies, their bodies engulfed in flames, as well as the blazing front half of the RV, including the engine and fuel tank. At last, he understood his current predicament.
The black powder he had scattered had successfully exploded, and the explosion had ignited the fuel tank. The resulting fire had spread to the surrounding zombies. Due to the sheer density of the horde, even zombies that hadn't been near the flames were being ignited by their burning counterparts.
Taking a deep breath, Li Ke forced himself to stay alert. Several zombies, ablaze with fire, were already staggering toward him, and the vehicle was still being pushed and shaken by those that hadn't been killed.
Li Ke tried to move, but his body refused to cooperate. Looking down, he realized that the RV's cabinets had pinned his legs. The interior of the RV was a wreck, with the bed being the only thing still intact.
Clenching his teeth, he summoned a machine gun from his inventory. With one free hand, he opened fire. Scorching bullets rained down in a relentless barrage; he didn't bother with precision, emptying the entire magazine.
When it came time to reload, however, his pinned arm made it impossible. Strangely, the magazine still reloaded itself, even though he hadn't moved his hand. Meanwhile, the burning zombies managed to push the battered RV closer to the merchant's building, giving Li Ke a clear view of the merchant standing motionless inside.
Just as Li Ke feared the vehicle might crash into the merchant's shop under the pressure of the flaming horde, another wave of dizziness and spatial disorientation washed over him. Before he could process what was happening, his surroundings changed entirely.
The weight pressing down on his body was gone, as was the unbearable heat. The endless sea of zombies had disappeared.
In their place were zombies that hadn't yet been set ablaze. They were intact, and they were running straight for him!
Stunned for a brief moment, Li Ke quickly realized he had been teleported. He now stood near one of the gas station's steel pillars. Without hesitation, he bolted toward the column, drawing the attention of the pursuing zombies.
With a leap, he landed on a wooden block, enduring the pain in his legs to jump onto a second one. By then, the first block had already been torn apart by the swarming zombies.
Wasting no time, Li Ke placed another wooden block beneath his feet. Each jump sent a fresh wave of pain through his body, nearly causing him to lose his balance. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to sit on the block and catch his breath.
Looking down, he saw the burning zombies from the RV and the approaching horde from all directions. Despite his temporary safety, it was clear the zombies were already forming a pile to climb toward him.
Suppressing the agony in his legs, Li Ke glanced at the column. This time, he constructed two side frameworks to serve as supports before continuing to climb upward.
With each jump, he felt his strength ebb away and his life force slip further, but he had no choice but to press on.
The searing pain blurred Li Ke's thoughts as he scrambled to the top of the gas station. Upon seeing the steel beams overhead, he finally exhaled in relief.
Using stone blocks, he hastily constructed a platform between the beams and took a moment to look down at the horde of zombies below.
What he saw made him chuckle bitterly.
"This world really wants me dead, doesn't it?"
Below, the horde had formed a massive pile, nearly reaching halfway up the steel columns. Among them, the frog-like leaping zombies were already trying to jump in his direction.
As he spoke, Li Ke couldn't help but cough up blood. He paid it no mind—given his situation, coughing blood was the least of his worries.
"Damn it, I might as well take a few more down with me."
Wiping the blood from his lips, he reached for the last two bags of gunpowder. Tearing open the improbable small burlap sacks, he hurled them toward the zombies below.
The bags scattered black gunpowder mid-air, blanketing the writhing mass of undead beneath him.
Without hesitation, Li Ke pulled the trigger of his weapon. A stream of bullets struck the gunpowder.
With a deafening roar, two fireballs erupted, sending a shockwave through the area.
Li Ke was caught in the blast, flung backward before crashing hard onto the stone platform he had constructed. The searing pain and the deafening hum in his ears drowned out everything else as flames surged around him.
But this time, Li Ke wasn't worried.
Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved a piece of roasted meat prepared by Erina Nakiri. It was a reserve he had saved for an escape attempt, but now, escape seemed like an impossible dream. Survival for another half-hour would already be a miracle.
He ate the meat slowly, one bite at a time, as his consciousness began to fade. In the background, he could hear the distant rumble of explosions and the crackle of flames.
Finally, his eyes began to close.
"Am I... really going to die?"
Darkness consumed him.
Night passed.
A cool breeze brushed against Li Ke's face, waking him. Disoriented, he opened his eyes to see a soot-blackened ceiling overhead.
The splitting headache and dizziness nearly overwhelmed him as he forced himself to sit up on the shattered stone wall.
What he saw left him speechless.
A vast expanse of scorched corpses lay before him, reduced to ashes by relentless flames. The small town was nothing more than smoldering ruins, with the forest beyond still emitting trails of smoke. It was clear that a catastrophe had unfolded here.
The merchant's building, however, remained untouched as always.
"Was this place hell from the very beginning?"
Li Ke's hazy mind entertained the thought, but the sharp pain coursing through his body and the gnawing hunger in his stomach quickly brought him back to reality.
"I'm... still alive?"
Confused, he looked down at the gas station. Where once there had been an intact structure with empty fuel pumps, there was now rubble. The ground was pocked with massive craters, and the area where the storage tanks had been was now a giant pit.
Even so, scattered flames continued to burn, threatening to reignite into an inferno at any moment.
Li Ke stared at the scene for a while before piecing it together.
"So the fire ignited the storage tanks? Then the explosion killed the zombies, and the flames kept burning until now?"
That was the truth, though not the full story. After Li Ke lost consciousness, the flames from the gunpowder ignited the gasoline residue in the pumps, which then spread to the storage tanks, triggering a massive explosion. The resulting inferno consumed wave after wave of zombies as they charged into the blaze.
Yet, four hours into his unconsciousness, something inexplicable happened. The seemingly endless zombie horde suddenly lost interest in the area and dispersed, leaving behind the burned remains of those killed in the fire.
Li Ke didn't know any of this. Surviving was all that mattered.
"I don't know how I lived, but since I'm alive, I'll make the most of it."
Coughing, he checked his system panel, only to be greeted by a long list of negative statuses:
Concussion: 54 hours 36 minutes
Fractures: 68 hours 7 minutes
Internal bleeding: 72 hours 21 minutes
Treated infection: 23%
Lacerations: 36 hours 21 minutes
Erina Nakiri's Love: 38 hours 42 minutes
"Huh?"
Most of the statuses made sense, but the last one caught his attention. Curious, he opened the details.
Erina Nakiri's Love:
After consuming a dish imbued with Erina Nakiri's affection, gain the following effects:
+50 HP maximum
+50 stamina maximum
Stamina recovery rate increased by 200%
HP recovery rate of 20 points per hour
Immunity to death caused by negative buffs, injuries, or diseases
Infection recovery: +50%
Li Ke immediately thought of the roasted meat he had eaten earlier. Checking his inventory, he noticed it now displayed a large "E" on its icon.
When he selected it, the name of the item had changed:
Erina Nakiri's Newlywed Roasted Meat:
Effects: +50 HP maximum, +50 stamina maximum, stamina recovery rate +200%, HP recovery rate +20/hour, immunity to death caused by negative buffs, injuries, or diseases. Infection recovery +50%.
A delicacy imbued with a maiden's love—utterly delicious!
Li Ke burst into laughter. Seeing his HP at a mere 6 points, he couldn't help but laugh harder.
Then, standing on shaky legs, he prepared to continue his journey and face the next wave of zombies.
But before he could take a step, something extraordinary occurred.
Two glowing orbs of light appeared over the charred ruins of the town. Moments later, two figures materialized amidst the light, their expressions dazed.
One had blonde hair and wore an outfit resembling a kimono. The other...
Li Ke froze.
He recognized her immediately.
"Lady Kiri...?"