I just became the Pirate King, and you're telling me I also time-traveled at the same time.

Upon hearing this question, a venomous and insane hatred suddenly erupted in Zhao Tianhu's previously unfocused eyes.

"It was one person... a young man in black who cut it off..." Zhao Tianhu gritted his teeth, blood flowing again from his severed wrist due to his agitation.

"That person occupied the best defensive position in Qingshui Village... He has stockpiled mountains of supplies! Rice... canned goods... generators... countless steel pipes... It's as if he prepared a fortress before the apocalypse!"

In order to save his own life, Zhao Tianhu revealed all of Chu Yang's secrets, even exaggerating the amount of supplies.

"Oh?"

The man in the leather jacket's pupils contracted slightly, and a hint of interest seemed to curl into a cold smile beneath his mask.

Just days after the black rains fell, someone actually built a well-stocked fortress deep in these mountains and forests? This is definitely not something an ordinary survivor could accomplish.

"Are you familiar with the terrain and defenses of that village?" The man in the leather jacket slowly squatted down, staring intently into Zhao Tianhu's eyes.

"It's so familiar! I know it all too well! I'm a native of Qingshui Village!"

Zhao Tianhu, as if grasping at the last straw, nodded frantically, "As long as you officers can save me... as long as you give me a bite to eat... I'm willing to lead the way! I'll help you storm that village and seize all the supplies!"

The man in the leather jacket stared at Zhao Tianhu for a full ten seconds.

Then, he slowly stood up and casually waved his hand. "Medic, give him antibiotics to stop the bleeding."

Throw him into that SUV in the back. Don't let him die.

"As for the others..."

The man in the leather jacket didn't even glance at the few Zhao Tianhu's men on the ground still kowtowing and begging for mercy; his tone was as cold as polar ice.

"It's worthless."

Get rid of it.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Four soft, muffled gunshots, each fitted with a silencer, rang out in succession in the night sky.

The four henchmen who were trembling on the ground suddenly had a cloud of blood burst from the back of their heads. Before they could even scream, they all collapsed into pools of blood.

Zhao Tianhu was dragged onto the off-road vehicle by two soldiers like a dead dog. Seeing his brothers, who had been running for their lives with him just a second ago, turn into corpses in an instant, he was so frightened that his whole body convulsed violently, and he didn't even dare to breathe.

He knew he had just escaped one wolf's den only to fall into another.

But as long as I can survive. As long as I can lead this group of terrifying armed men back to Qingshui Village.

As long as I can see with my own eyes that guy surnamed Chu get shot in the head.

He'd be willing to be a dog leading the way for this group of people!

"Sir..." A soldier walked up to the man in the leather jacket and asked in a low voice, "Headquarters is still urging us to head to 'Underground Facility Zero' as soon as possible."

"Won't taking a detour to a survivor camp whose authenticity is unknown delay the organization's mission?"

"madness."

The man in the leather jacket turned around and looked at the distant, rolling mountains shrouded in night.

"Headquarters needs more than just experimental data; it also needs an absolutely secure rear supply base."

If what the one-armed dog said is true, then that outpost deep in the mountains not only has a perfect location, but also a huge amount of readily available supplies.

A cruel glint flashed in the man's eyes:

"Notify the convoy to change the route."

"Let's go meet this 'Boss Chu,' who seems to have a prophetic ability for the end times." The next day.

Chu Yang suddenly opened his eyes.

The moment he exited the Soul Palace, it felt as if a red-hot iron had been forcibly inserted into his brain, and the intense throbbing pain made him clench his teeth tightly.

He raised his hands and spread them out in the dimly lit stone house.

These are still the same hands, calloused from years of work, belonging to the founders of the Tang Dynasty's industry.

But at this moment, Chu Yang felt a strange muscle memory spreading wildly throughout his limbs and bones.

Chu Yang, who devoured the plane, copied the "Basic Primal Energy Tactical Movements" belonging to the Star Warriors to him without reservation.

Chu Yang in the pirate world has engraved a perception technique called "Basic Observation Haki" along with "Mastery of All Firearms," ​​which he honed over many years in the midst of gunfire, directly into the depths of his soul!

Chu Yang casually picked up the heavy pipe wrench on the table.

The moment he gripped the metal handle, his index finger naturally rested on the side of the pipe wrench, as if a trigger should have been there.

He could even instinctively calculate the weight, center of gravity, recoil, and perfect firing axis of the "weapon" in his mind within a second.

"Hoo..." Chu Yang exhaled a long breath, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes.

"woke up?"

The heavy steel door was pushed open, and Shen Lie walked in carrying a basin of murky, warm water. He threw a towel covered in machine oil into the basin and began to scrub it.

"You sat in that chair for four whole hours last night, you almost stopped breathing."

"If I hadn't checked your pulse, I would have thought you were fast asleep." Shen Lie wrung out the towel, wiped the sweat from his face, and frowned slightly. "However, the feeling you give me right now... is very strange."

"What's strange?" Chu Yang stood up and stretched his neck, which had made a popping sound.

"I can't quite put my finger on it." Shen Lie looked Chu Yang up and down like a keen-eyed wild beast. "If you were like a butcher wielding a knife a few days ago, now you're like a veteran who's lived on the battlefield for ten years."

The way you looked at me just now, your gaze unconsciously lingered on my forehead and heart.

That's a habit only snipers have.

Chu Yang did not deny it, but walked to the basin and washed his face with cold water to calm his burning brain.

Empty your tactical backpack.

"Bring several sturdy canvas bags, hydraulic shears, a crowbar, and two machetes." Chu Yang picked up the city's administrative map on the table and heavily circled a dot fifteen kilometers away from Qingshui Village with a red marker. "Where to? We still need to dig a pond on the back mountain, and the stone walls of those villagers outside haven't been finished yet." Shen Lie walked to the map.

"Just let Wang Dazhuang oversee those tasks."

Chu Yang pointed his finger at the red circle. "We need to go here."

"Qingshui Town?" Shen Lie gasped upon recognizing the name. "Chu Yang, are you crazy? That's the largest population center within a fifty-mile radius! The permanent population is at least fifty or sixty thousand! After the Black Rain, there are now tens of thousands of mutated zombies roaming the streets! Just the two of us, with two knives, trying to storm in?!"

"A knife is only used to clear a path."

Chu Yang turned his head, his dark eyes revealing a kind of madness that was determined to win: "The appearance of Zhao Tianhu and his gang has given me a wake-up call."

Melee weapons and defensive lines alone can hold off mutants, but they can't stop thugs armed with firearms.

"Qingshui Town is a major central town."

I checked the information, and the police station there is not an ordinary police station, but a regional center station with an armed riot squadron.

There is an equipment warehouse on the second basement level.

It contains at least fifty Type 92 pistols, twenty Type 79 submachine guns, and possibly even riot shotguns and several boxes of reserve ammunition, all permanently stored inside.

Chu Yang patted Shen Lie on the shoulder: "I'm going to do something big. Without guns, in this apocalypse, we can only ever be passively attacked."

Shen Lie stared intently at the red circle on the map, his Adam's apple bobbing violently.

Go to the town overrun by 50,000 zombies and rob the sheriff's armory.

To anyone, this sounds no different than sticking their neck directly under the guillotine.

But Shen Lie remained silent for less than five seconds before turning around and walking towards the storage shelf, where he grabbed the huge black tactical canvas bag.

"What time do we leave?" Shen Lie unzipped his jacket and threw the hydraulic shears inside.

"Now.

"Before the mutants there complete their secondary evolution and form a large-scale zombie horde, this is our only chance." Chu Yang shoved the machete into the scabbard on his leg and put on the stab-proof vest.

Half an hour later.

The Cherokee SUV, stained with dried black blood, silently drove out of Qingshui Village under the cover of the roar of the generator.

Without disturbing any villagers, only the dull sound of the engine echoed along the rugged mountain road.

The closer you get to Qingshui Town, the more shocking the scene becomes. The once smooth asphalt road is now littered with wrecked cars from multiple collisions.

Some of the cars still had blackened and rotting corpses hanging inside, and the windows were covered with disgusting bloody handprints.

Chu Yang drove his car, relying on his extraordinary senses to navigate dangerously through the wreckage of these cars.

"Bang!"

A mutated zombie wearing a floral dress, with most of its head shriveled up, roared and lunged at the SUV. Chu Yang stepped on the gas and rammed it, sending it flying more than ten meters away, where it crashed into a ditch by the roadside like a rag doll.

"The road ahead is blocked."

Shen Lie gripped the fire axe, his brow furrowed as he looked at the dozen or so heavy trucks piled up at the tollbooth ahead. "The trucks can't get through."

It's three kilometers from here to Qingshui Town.

"get off.

walk."

Chu Yang drove the SUV into a dense thicket of bushes by the roadside, turned off the engine, and used a few branches for simple camouflage.

Carrying heavy tactical backpacks and wielding melee weapons, the two men moved silently, like ghosts, along the drainage ditches on either side of the road towards Qingshui Town. The closer they got to the town center, the stronger the pungent stench of corpses and blood became in the air.

That was the stench of despair produced by the fermentation of tens of thousands of corpses under high temperatures.

"Keep quiet."

Lower your center of gravity.

The moment they stepped onto the town's main road, Chu Yang grabbed Shen Lie's shoulder, and the two quickly hid under the eaves of a hardware store whose shutters were already down.

Shen Lie glanced at the street outside through the broken glass window, and his pupils suddenly contracted.

Hundreds of zombies roamed the streets in dense numbers!

Some of them wandered aimlessly in circles, while others lay on the corpses and remains on the ground, licking the black blood.

Several mutated wild dogs, noticeably larger than usual, were cautiously leaping on the roofs of abandoned cars.

There was no sound of any living person.

The only sounds were the muffled "hoarse" sounds coming from the zombies' throats and the buzzing of flies' wings.

"Which street is the police station on?" Shen Lie asked in a low voice, using a whisper that only the two of them could hear. "Go through this main road and turn left onto Jianshe Road."

It's about 800 meters away from us.

Chu Yang's eyes remained unwavering; his brain was frantically calculating the movement trajectory of every zombie within his field of vision, blind spots, and wind direction.

"Eight hundred meters? This street is full of monsters, how are we going to get there? Just fight our way through? We'll be surrounded by thousands of zombies in less than two minutes!" Shen Lie gripped the axe handle tightly, his palms sweating profusely.

"No.

Go to the rooftop.

Chu Yang pointed to the row of shops along the street that were only three or four stories high, "The rooftops of these old buildings are basically connected, with a spacing of no more than two meters."

Go up there.

The two men quietly pried open the security window of the hardware store's back door with a crowbar, and followed the narrow, dark staircase all the way to the rooftop.

As it turned out, Chu Yang's judgment was accurate.

Most of the zombies in the town were concentrated in the dark places of the streets and indoors, while the rooftops were empty because of the direct sunlight.

The two of them leaped and climbed between the rooftops like two agile cheetahs. The wind howled in their ears, and below them lay a dense horde of corpses, a scene straight out of hell.

This extreme stealth maneuver, dancing on the edge of a knife, sent Shen Lie's adrenaline soaring.

Twenty minutes later.

"stop."

Chu Yang stopped behind an abandoned GG sign, slowly leaned out halfway, and took out a small monocular telescope.

About 100 meters ahead, a large, independent compound surrounded by a tall iron fence appeared.

The gate to the courtyard was blocked by a police riot control vehicle that had been wrecked beyond recognition.

The main building inside the courtyard is a five-story building with blue and white paint on the exterior walls. Several large, dilapidated characters are prominently displayed on it: Qingshui Town Public Security and Riot Control Team.

"We've arrived." Chu Yang handed the binoculars to Shen Lie. "Have you got a clear view of the situation?"

Shen Lie took the binoculars and observed carefully, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

"It's too quiet."

Shen Lie's voice was a little tense, "There are seven zombies dressed in police uniforms wandering around in the courtyard. However, the main building's door is open."

The light inside was too dim; I couldn't see anything.

Most bizarrely, the steps leading from the main building's entrance all the way into the courtyard were covered in large, still-drying trails of blood.

"Is the bloodstain dragging inwards or outwards?" Chu Yang asked.

"Inside!" Shen Lie gasped. "What was that that dragged the corpse from the courtyard into that dark main building?!"

Chu Yang's eyes sharpened instantly.

Ordinary zombies only have the instinct to eat; they will simply gnaw their prey down to the bones on the spot and will never drag the corpse into a fixed nest.

There's only one possibility that they would drag the body in.

Inside, there is one or more mutants that have developed a strong sense of territory and even have a rudimentary hunting instinct!

"Looks like this shipment of weapons won't be easy to carry," Chu Yang sneered, pulling a machete from his leg wraps.

"Are we still going? It's pitch black in there. What if some monster ambushes us from the shadows? We'll have nowhere to run!" Shen Lie gripped the fire axe tightly.