Living with My Aloof Ex-Wife After the Apocalypse - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Where Did This Heavenly Superpower Come From?

She had searched most of the hospital buildings, leaving only the final inpatient building. This was also the structure closest to the swarm of zombies she had discovered at the back gate earlier.

Xing He’s mind was fixated on Qing Meng. Is she in the hospital, or has she already evacuated elsewhere? Is she still safe, or has she already…

Xing He refused to dwell on the worst-case scenario, but no one knew better than her how fragile the lives of ordinary people were once the apocalypse began. She couldn’t help but grow angry at herself—angry for being too confident in the timing of the apocalypse’s arrival, and angry for being so hesitant and overthinking things instead of just bringing Qing Meng home immediately.

Her unstable emotions caused her footsteps to lose their rhythm, becoming somewhat hurried and aggressive. But it was precisely at a time like this that one needed to be extremely cautious; the slightest error could lead to an irreversible outcome.

Xing He composed herself. She took some cardboard she had scavenged and taped it tightly around her forearms. She adjusted the straps of her backpack to ensure it stayed flush against her body while she moved. Finally, she gripped a scalpel she had just found.

The weakness of a zombie is the cervical nerves in the back of the neck. While the scalpel was small, it was sharp enough; if inserted into the back of the neck to sever those nerves, the zombie would lose all motor function. Using a kitchen knife to decapitate them worked too, but compared to a scalpel, the hacking motion of a kitchen knife was too noisy and likely to attract other zombies.

Xing He checked the hospital’s building map. The first floor of the inpatient building was a through-way, connecting the back gate to the emergency center and other buildings. Therefore, only the inpatient lobby stood between her and the swarm. For a human facing a mass of zombies, this distance was practically zero.

There were three ways to go up: the direct elevators, a staircase leading to the fourth floor, and a fire escape that led to every floor. The fire escape was locked; forcing it open would surely trigger a riot in the swarm. The elevator entrance was on the side of the outer door, requiring her to pass through the area where the swarm was gathered.

The staircase, however, was within her line of sight, a short distance from the swarm, with only three zombies at the entrance. Without hesitation, she chose the stairs.

Approaching the stairwell rapidly, Xing He waited for the right moment and then lunged. In one swift motion, she thrust two scalpels into the necks of the zombies on her left and right. They collapsed instantly, their bodies hitting the floor with a dull thud.

The remaining female zombie noticed the commotion and lunged at Xing He with her maw wide open. Xing He turned, exhaled, drew her knife, and slashed—a single, fluid sequence. Just as the kitchen knife was about to sink into the zombie’s neck, the creature unexpectedly raised its arm to block and retreated a significant distance.

Low-level zombies have no consciousness and no fear; they attack any living thing and have no concept of “retreat.” This zombie was clearly different. Though it still looked clumsy, it possessed the awareness to dodge an attack.

It was a Level 1 Zombie!

A Level 1 zombie shouldn’t have appeared on the first day of the apocalypse unless, as Xing He suspected, the progression of the apocalypse had accelerated. This was grim news.

The momentum of her knife didn’t slow. Where the blade passed, the female zombie’s arm was severed, spraying blood. But zombies feel no pain. In that brief window, it had successfully moved its vital weakness out of the knife’s reach. It didn’t attack Xing He again; instead, it turned and ran up the stairs.

Just as Xing He thought the creature was simply fleeing, the swarm in front of the building suddenly began to stir. One by one, zombies started surging toward the stairwell. Catching the scent of a living human, the agitated zombies became even more excited, their distorted movements accelerating.

It was the work of that zombie.

Seeing more and more zombies approaching, Xing He retreated upstairs without hesitation. Stairs are excellent for slowing down a horde. Using the buffer time, she quickly thought of a strategy. She couldn’t hide in the consultation rooms; those doors were too flimsy to withstand a zombie’s claws. With the horde hot on her heels, getting trapped inside would make her a turtle in a jar.

Suddenly, to her delight, Xing He discovered that upon reaching the fourth floor, there was a fire door between the stairs and the main body of the building. It was a godsend.

Thanks to years of physical training, Xing He was agile, with top-tier core strength and explosiveness. With a light push of her feet, she cleared several flights of stairs in seconds, leaving the zombies behind. After closing and bolting the fire door, she immediately crouched in the corner. She stayed alert for any zombies ahead while keeping her body perfectly still to avoid making sounds that would further stimulate the swarm.

The corridor appeared empty of both survivors and zombies. It was likely that this building was the same as the others. Xing He felt a pang of disappointment, but it wasn’t time to give up yet; she hadn’t searched the upper floors, and Qing Meng might be right there. Humans always cling to hope; even if the worst-case scenario is 99% certain, some will only believe in the 1% miracle.

A trail of dark red blood stretched deep into the corridor. The blood hadn’t yet clotted, clearly dripped recently—likely from the zombie that had escaped the stairwell. Behind the door, the horde was still howling, but they had lost sight and sound of their target. Normally, a swarm that loses its target should calm down and disperse. They weren’t attacking the fire door, but for some reason, they weren’t leaving either, huddling in the stairwell with restless agitation.

For now, she didn’t have to worry about the horde bursting through, but that Level 1 zombie hadn’t gone far. If a Level 1 zombie wasn’t eliminated, the danger of the swarm would increase significantly. Xing He decided to finish it off first.

Crouching, she moved silently along the trail of blood to a restroom at the end of the hall. Before she even entered, a hideous face lunged at her without warning. Fortunately, Xing He was prepared. Her left arm, protected by the cardboard, blocked the bite while her right hand swung the knife.

To her surprise, the neck of this Level 1 zombie was at least twice as hard as a normal one. Her slash only cut halfway through its head, and the knife got stuck in the bone. Despite the disadvantage, Xing He remained calm. This area was far from the stairwell. A Level 1 zombie’s abilities were still weak; it likely couldn’t control the horde from here. As long as the swarm didn’t riot, she had plenty of ways to wear it down.

Xing He delivered an elbow strike to the zombie’s fragile head. Her moves often looked plain, but every strike condensed her full body weight into a single point, allowing her to break down the enemy’s weak points one by one. The Level 1 zombie couldn’t react; its nose collapsed inward, and the force sent it stumbling to the ground.

With the only path to the stairwell blocked, the zombie had no room to retreat. Xing He expected it to keep attacking, but instead, it turned and crawled toward a nearby elevator. To find out what was so strange about this creature, Xing He chased after it into the elevator.

Seeing Xing He in pursuit, the Level 1 zombie seemed enraged, launching reckless attacks. A Level 1 zombie differs from a normal one in that its defense and attack power grow exponentially. However, the neck is the lifeblood of all zombies. No matter how much they evolve, as long as they are zombies, they cannot survive a fatal wound to the neck. Its flailing was merely a death struggle.

Eventually, the cardboard was bitten through and hanging by a thread on Xing He’s arm, but in exchange, she successfully severed the head of the Level 1 zombie. With a flick of her knife, a green crystal appeared in her hand.

It was a Level 1 Zombie Core. This creature really was an evolved Level 1 zombie!

In her previous life, the first Level 1 zombie appeared in City H while Xing He was leading survivors to City N. Although she had done her best to respond, the appearance of that single Level 1 zombie caused their losses to be five times higher than planned. The pace of this life was much faster than the last, and Xing He was starting to doubt how long her past experiences would remain useful.

Before the crystal could even get warm in her hand, it suddenly vanished. In that moment, a long-silent voice echoed in her mind:

[Host has killed a Level 1 Zombie. Acquired Superpower: Level 1 Lure x1]

Superpower?

Xing He was no stranger to that word. In the apocalypse, humans bitten by zombies face the risk of infection. But it wasn’t always a dead end; one in a hundred thousand lucky individuals could awaken a superpower. The first “Ability User” in her past life appeared four months after the outbreak. From then on, they gradually entered the public eye.

There were many types: fire manipulation, enhanced vision, mental control… some could control elements, others could strengthen specific body parts, covering a vast range of fields. In the previous life, the Dawn Settlement had over a hundred such users, which was the foundation of its status as a sanctuary.

Xing He hadn’t been an Ability User in her past life. She fought zombies mostly with weapons and physical strength, occasionally envying those favored by heaven. If she could obtain an ability, it would be a massive help for early survival and for investigating the truth later. She was more than happy to have one.

But every Ability User, without exception, evolved their power only after being bitten and surviving an incubation period. Xing He was certain she had no wounds.

So, where did this heavenly superpower come from?

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