You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

"roar--!"

Just as Leon's brain was still processing this extremely shocking scene, the man suddenly opened his mouth full of minced meat and let out a roar.

He spat out the rotten flesh in his mouth, and with both hands and feet, he kicked off the floor covered in blood and excrement, lunging directly at Leon at the door.

"Zombies?!"

"My mom's a zombie?!"

Leon's mind was instantly flooded with those two words and countless profanities, and images from various post-apocalyptic biohazard movies he had seen in his previous life instantly filled his brain.

What kind of Resident Evil movie set is this?!

In a state of extreme terror, muscle memory instantly took over the body.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Four gunshots rang out in the narrow corridor.

Leon gripped the Glock with both hands, the muzzle spitting fire as four 9mm bullets struck the man in the chest.

Blood blossomed instantly on the man's chest, revealing four shocking, gaping holes.

but!

The man didn't even back down an inch!

If a normal person were shot four times like that, the enormous kinetic energy and the feedback from the pain nerves would instantly render them unable to move, or even cause them to go into shock on the spot.

But the man was like a zombie who felt no pain at all. Without the slightest hesitation, his blood-stained hands lunged at Leon, and he opened his mouth, which reeked of corpses and blood, and lunged to bite at Leon's neck.

"Fuck!"

Lyon cursed and dodged to the side at the last second.

The man missed and bumped into the door frame.

Leon gave him no chance to turn around. Using the momentum of his dodge, he gripped the slide of the pistol tightly with his right hand and swung his arm in a wide arc.

He used the heavy, hard gun handle as a hammer, and slammed it down hard on the man's temple and behind his ear.

"Thump!"

This powerful blow finally achieved the physical shutdown effect.

The man's profile caved in instantly; the powerful impact abruptly interrupted his attack trajectory.

He rolled his eyes, his body instantly... He fell heavily onto the corridor floor, his limbs twitched twice, and then he stopped moving.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

Leon was panting heavily, his heart pounding as if it were about to explode in his chest.

Adrenaline surged wildly in the blood vessels.

He stared intently at the man on the ground, who looked like rotten flesh, and then glanced at the disemboweled female corpse inside the house.

"Bang!"

Leon abruptly reached out and slammed the foul-smelling bedroom door shut, shutting out the hellish scene.

He staggered back two steps, his back pressed against the corridor wall, and his body uncontrollably slid down the wall, landing hard on the dusty floor.

"Fuck...fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

Leon clutched his head with both hands, digging his fingers deep into his hair, and unleashed a string of profanities.

Even when he was targeted by a sniper in a hail of bullets the night before last and personally blew someone's head off, he didn't feel this close to collapse.

"No...no...calm down..."

Leon forced himself to close his eyes and took deep breaths of the slightly cleaner air.

"Not zombies... There are no zombies in this world..."

"It's drugs."

He suddenly opened his eyes, his gaze gradually clearing from fear.

My mind started frantically searching for memories of the past two years as a patrolman on the streets of Seattle, as well as some bizarre American news stories I had read.

She took off her clothes and was half-naked.

Extreme paranoia and mania.

Completely losing the ability to feel pain, they can continue charging even after being shot.

Completely irrational, they devour the flesh and blood of their own kind like wild beasts.

And the blackened, ulcerated skin on his body.

The clues were pieced together little by little.

"Bath salts... plus 'Tranq' (toluidine)."

Lyon gritted his teeth and spat out those words.

He remembered.

A few years ago, there was a sensational case in Miami called the "face-biting man," in which the perpetrator bit off most of a homeless man's face on the highway and refused to confess even after being shot multiple times by the police.

That means inhaling an excessive amount of synthetic cathinones, commonly known as "bath salts".

This cheap, synthetic chemical drug causes a rapid rise in body temperature and produces extreme hallucinations in the brain, turning a person into a cannibalistic beast devoid of pain, driven only by the primal instinct to bite.

The man's rotting flesh was definitely a result of them mixing this substance with fentanyl, a veterinary sedative.

These are all things that these poor drug addicts concocted themselves in pursuit of the ultimate thrill.

Lyon sat on the ground, looking at the once cozy and respectable middle-class villa, and the truth of the matter was revealed.

"Waaaaah—waaaah—"

Just as Lyon was leaning against the wall, catching his breath, a sharp police siren suddenly sounded in the distance outside the window.

The sounds were dense and rapidly approaching.

Lyon's expression changed.

"Hold!"

He cursed under his breath and suddenly stood up from the ground.

He was so frightened by that monster that he broke out in a cold sweat and fired four shots in a moment of panic.