Chapter 050: Starting With a Knife

The blue-clad girl's face was twisted and grotesque with terror, her bloodshot eyes fixed on Su Cheng, as if demanding to know why he hadn’t saved her. Crimson blood spread across the floor, soaking the soles of Su Cheng’s shoes. The café had become a slaughterhouse for the infected, the spread of the bio-plague so swift it left no time to react. In just a few minutes, several infected had already appeared inside, blood and severed limbs scattered everywhere.

Su Cheng realized that something was terribly wrong. The bio-plague was spreading at a rate beyond his imagination; at this pace, the whole of Tokyo would soon become nothing more than a factory for the undead.

“Food… I need food…”

A guttural, beast-like voice rasped from behind. A figure stumbled toward Su Cheng—the same middle-aged man who’d been stabbed through the abdomen by an infected. Now he too was mutating. A bloody hole gaped in his stomach, rotting intestines spilling out, and his right arm had transformed into a grotesque organ, resembling the tentacle of an octopus.

Su Cheng dodged to the side. The infected man's tentacle smashed into the café’s glass door with a thunderous crash, shattering it to pieces.

“A heavily infected one? He’s even stronger than that mutated waiter from earlier.”

The mutated infected was indeed immensely strong, but his speed and reflexes were no match for Su Cheng, whose body had been enhanced. No matter how powerful, it was impossible for the creature to even touch him.

In the next instant, the terrifying whistle of a blade slicing the air echoed through the café. The cold gleam of steel slashed down on the infected's deformed tentacle. With a single stroke, Su Cheng cut a gash deep to the bone, and putrid green pus sprayed from the wound, splattering the floor.

“It seems that in addition to increased strength, the mutated infected also develop hardened skin and tissue,” Su Cheng thought grimly. The force of his slash would have easily severed the arm of a regular infected, but on the heavily mutated one, it left only a deep wound.

Nevertheless, the hardening hadn't spread across the entire body. Su Cheng circled behind the creature, and his icy blade pierced upward through the back of its neck, skewering its skull.

“You have killed a Level Two Infected. Gained 50 points.”

The system’s voice chimed in his mind. Level Two Infected were much more powerful than the ordinary ones, with hardened skin and monstrous mutations, posing a real challenge for most players.

Ten minutes had passed since the game began. Su Cheng opened the leaderboard and saw that more than 130 players were still alive. After killing a Level Two Infected, his rank had climbed to forty-eighth place.

But rankings meant nothing at this stage; most professionals had yet to reveal their true abilities. Soon, the leaderboard would see a dramatic reshuffling.

Stepping out of the café, Su Cheng found the once-bustling Ginza commercial district transformed into a hunting ground for the undead. The blare of alarms, the roars of zombies, and the desperate screams of bystanders merged into a terrifying torrent of chaos, surging in all directions.

The bio-plague had erupted without warning, plunging all of Tokyo into utter turmoil. Because the virus spread through the air, almost all ordinary humans had been infected and turned into zombies. The few survivors lived in constant dread, uncertain if their companions or loved ones would mutate next.

According to the game’s prompts, the government would soon announce a total lockdown, sealing off the entire city—no one would be able to leave.

“The source of the bio-plague must be somewhere within Tokyo. But where? Has the government truly no inkling of what’s happening?” Su Cheng knew he needed a lead to investigate the origin of the outbreak, but for now, he had none.

Just then, a roaring tour bus barreled into a horde of zombies like a runaway beast, crushing infected beneath its wheels.

“Haha, this is way more satisfying than playing Resident Evil on the computer! Die, zombies!”

At the wheel was a young man with silver earrings, his face alight with excitement as he plowed through the infected swarming the streets.

On the bus with him were several other young men and women, clearly a small team.

“Players?” Su Cheng glanced at the group in surprise, but inwardly had already sentenced them to death. Charging through zombie hordes like that would only attract more infected, perhaps even elite-level Primordial Infected.

“Ryuichi, something’s wrong. The zombies are gathering—we should get out of here and find somewhere safe to hide.” One of the female players, alarmed, voiced her concern.

“Women are always timid. I’ll kill as many as come my way,” the earringed youth boasted, treating this scenario like a VR version of a generic zombie game, oblivious to the real danger.

But in the next instant, a gigantic mutated infected burst from a building and slammed into the side of the onrushing bus.

With a thunderous crash, the several-ton vehicle was sent rolling and tumbling by the mutated monster.

A Primordial Infected.

Su Cheng’s eyes narrowed when he saw the creature, massive as a truck. Primordial Infected carried the original plague virus and were the main vectors of the outbreak. Swarms of infected usually clustered around them, and any ordinary player targeted by a Primordial Infected was doomed.

Their reckless commotion had drawn the monster, sealing their fate.

This monster’s mutations were far more advanced than an ordinary zombie’s—it had become a killing machine, as formidable as an armored tank, able to flip a bus with ease. Such a creature was not something any ordinary human could hope to fight.

Before long, several blood-soaked youths crawled from the wreckage, their wounds severe but not fatal. Yet the scent of their blood drew a massive horde of zombies their way.

“We’re surrounded! Ryuichi, what do we do?”

Their legs trembled with fear, hands shaking too badly to grip their weapons.

“What else? We fight our way out,” the earringed youth replied, terror gnawing at his heart as he feigned calm and pulled a steel machete from his pack, hacking desperately at the nearest zombie.

His blade bit deep into the infected’s neck, but before he could rejoice, he found the weapon stuck in the creature’s bone. Helpless, he watched as mutated zombies lunged upon him, scythe-like limbs slashing open his chest.

“No!”

Terror filled the young man’s eyes as he watched the zombie tear open his chest, rip out his heart, and cram it into its fanged maw.

Despairing screams echoed through Ginza, but Su Cheng, witnessing the carnage, had no intention of intervening.

He was no savior and had no obligation to risk himself for others—especially when their stupidity had drawn the Primordial Infected and a legion of zombies, putting him in grave danger.

“Please… help me…”

Not far from Su Cheng, a young girl from the group, drenched in blood, staggered toward him. She had barely taken a few steps before a zombie pounced and bit into her neck.

The infected, driven by the plague, charged at Su Cheng like starving beasts. Yet to him, their movements were little faster than a tortoise’s. He dodged easily, a flash of cold steel splitting one zombie’s skull in two.

Bending low like a hunting leopard, Su Cheng lunged into the midst of the horde. The blade of his [Shadow of the Gale] arced in a crescent, the sweeping strike cutting a bloodline across the zombies’ waists. In the next moment, their bodies fell in two, torsos thudding to the ground.

This was the Whirling Blade Dance, a devastating technique from the Dark Knight’s Crusader Swordsmanship, which Su Cheng had mimicked.

“You have killed a Level One Infected. Gained 10 points.”
“You have killed a Level One Infected. Gained 10 points.”
“You have killed a Level Two Infected. Gained 50 points.”
…

A string of notifications flashed by, and Su Cheng’s rank climbed several places on the leaderboard. At this pace, he would break into the top fifty and clear the game without much trouble.

But his goal this time was to pass the dungeon with an S-rank, complete the Dark Swordsman’s class quest, and break into the top three.

After dispatching the infected, Su Cheng approached the young woman. She was dying, her throat torn out.

“Thank you…”

Her pupils faded to gray, her hand slackened, and a silver metal sphere rolled to Su Cheng’s feet.

[Unstable Arcane Bomb]
Type: Engineering Product
Quality: Rare
Power: Extremely High

“An engineering bomb?” Su Cheng’s heart skipped a beat. If she had detonated the Arcane Bomb at the last moment, the entire block would have been leveled—he too might have been caught in the blast.

The terrifying howls of the undead echoed through the streets of Tokyo. Suddenly, Su Cheng heard a burst of gunfire. A squad of riot police, armed to the teeth, charged toward the infected—their target, it seemed, was the mutated Primordial Infected.