Chapter 31: Facing the Sky

“The people in Hemudu Town are done for.”

While rejoicing at his own judgment, Zhou Liming felt a surge of sorrow. Apart from some who left overnight like him, the other people in Hemudu Town, under the impact of the Fierce Beasts, did not know how many would die by the mouths of the Fierce Beasts, and of those who escaped, how many would there be?

A new day began, but it represented the arrival of a new slaughter, which would constantly push inland.

Yuyao City was too close to Hemudu Town, so close that under the running of the Fierce Beasts, they could appear in front of Yuyao City in an hour. What was even more terrible was that hundreds of thousands of people were crowded here, unable to move an inch; let alone one hour, even ten hours, it would be impossible for hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate. The crowded sea of people, out of control, had no organization, no order…

Under panic, the chaos intensified, and people knocked down were trampled by countless feet in an instant, letting out a few screams before being drowned out by more screams.

Weak groups like children and the elderly became the first victims; after being squeezed and knocked down by powerful adults, they had no strength to struggle up and were trampled to death. How would the panicked people care about this? After many were trampled to death, their bodies were even stepped into meat paste, becoming a puddle of bloody mush on the road.

Screams, roars, cries for help, weeping… all mixed together, assaulting the ears; what was heard was completely the sound of hell.

“Everyone, don’t panic, steady, steady, we are here protecting you.”

The commander in charge of the entire Frontline stood on a helicopter shouting through a megaphone, but it was of no use at all; at this moment, no one would listen to him.

The desperate pushing crowd suddenly burst into cheers ahead, and the established checkpoint was broken through, with the crowd rushing past like a torrent. Dozens of armed soldiers were knocked down and then run over by the torrent; after a few screams and a short burst of submachine gun fire, they were completely drowned out.

From the distance came the roar of Fierce Beasts again, and with Zhou Liming’s sensitive hearing, he could also hear many beast roars that were weaker.

The Beast Tide had finally started again.

The crowd that broke through the checkpoint was all crowded on the highway, and running people constantly fell down, only to be run over by the human wave. You could not imagine the scene of hundreds of thousands of people crowded in one area; looking out, it was a dense mass of surging human heads, black and boundless.

Zhou Liming knew that the highway route was definitely not feasible for him.

Thinking that the Fierce Beasts would arrive soon, he made a prompt decision and said, “The road is no longer passable; we can only climb over the mountain ridge and go in another direction.”

Dean Zhou and An Xiaowei had no objections; after all, they were both women, and in this crisis, their psychological endurance was far inferior to men. The team needed a backbone, and obviously, neither of them was, nor were these children. Undoubtedly, as the only man in the team, the things Zhou Liming decided would not be opposed by anyone.

The mountain ridge, overgrown with thorns and grass, was not easy to walk, with only a small mountain path twisting and turning upwards.

What made Zhou Liming feel lucky was that the sky was gradually getting brighter, and in the dimness, he could still see a little of the road. The only thing that gave him a headache was the little brothers and sisters; they were young, and after climbing for a while, they shouted that they could not climb anymore. Having no other choice, Zhou Liming could only put down the bag he was carrying, pick up the two youngest, rush up a section of the mountain, put them down, run back, pick up another two, run again… in this cycle, and finally, he still had to carry the bag to catch up.

An ordinary person would have collapsed from exhaustion after doing this a few times.

But for Zhou Liming, who had been modified by unknown genes, it was no different from walking normally, or even a bit easier. He did not care now if Dean Zhou discovered his changes; with Dean Zhou’s familiarity with him, discovery was only a matter of time, far better than using some of his abilities within the normal human range now to help the people around him.

With Zhou Liming, this tireless freak, the mountain path was difficult to climb, but they still reached the top of the mountain after an hour.

There were many people who thought the same as Zhou Liming and his group; the mountain path was noisy, filled with people running up the mountain. However, people living in the city had limited physical strength; many had only drunk a little water from the day before yesterday after dinner until now, and their strength had dropped severely due to hunger, so one could imagine climbing the mountain; many only reached halfway up the mountain before collapsing from exhaustion and refusing to move.

Reaching the top of the mountain, the sky finally became slightly bright.

Zhou Liming settled An Xiaowei and the others, put down the bag, ran to the highest point, and looked out at Yuyao City from a distance.

Below, the flow of people like ants was just as he had inferred; crowded together, the resulting chaos turned the place below into hell. Like a black dragon, countless people were running from the highway. Inside Yuyao City, the streets were crowded with cars and people; these were some of the people who had not escaped from Yuyao City, and they were all people who had not taken the intelligence about the Fierce Beasts too seriously, but now they were tasting the bitter fruit of staying.

From far away, in the direction of the Hemudu Town highway, people were still escaping, and crowds were running everywhere.

And further away from the crowd, Fierce Beasts could be faintly seen appearing; they chased behind the people, and every time their raised claws fell, a human would surely fall to the ground. Then one or several Fierce Beasts would pounce, bite, and devour them in moments, leaving only a little residue and a ground of blood that still had heat.

Not only that, standing in such a high position and looking toward the northeast, that was the northeast side of Yuyao City, only about ten kilometers from the sea. A large number of Fierce Beasts appeared, and their mournful roars came constantly; one could also see a few tall Fierce Beasts moving forward among groups of Multi-legged Insect Beasts; they trampled the ground, making trembling sounds, and the trees and houses blocking their way were all knocked down by them…

The number of soldiers deployed in Yuyao City was only a regiment, and they were urgently transferred by transport helicopters; they were defending at some street entrances leading in and out of Yuyao City, but they had long been drowned out by the swarming crowd. Except for the soldiers upstairs and those who were quick to react, they were all drowned by the crowd and could not form combat effectiveness at all.

More than a dozen armed helicopters hovering in the sky began to move out, and after dividing into two squads, they flew toward the east and northeast directions respectively.

A “buzzing” sound came from the sky again, and the target was so obvious that the Multi-legged Insect Beasts all over the mountains and plains just looked up and then continued to run forward. Their movements were agile, constantly dodging obstacles in front of them while running fast, making people think of the Velociraptor in the dinosaur family, small and rapid.

The massive number of Multi-legged Insect Beasts was not the target of the armed helicopters, but rather the huge Fierce Beasts further away.

Zhou Liming kept staring at the two armed helicopter squads, and then when they flew over the Fierce Beasts, his pupils contracted, and he closed his eyes in pain.

Dozens of purple-blue light balls rose from a very far place, whistling through the air like cannonballs toward the armed helicopters in the sky. These purple-blue light balls seemed to be composed of energy, emitting strong light in the air; their excessive flight speed made them look like meteors with tails, illuminating the places they passed.

“Boom, boom, boom…”

There was almost no time to dodge; suddenly, seven burning fireballs appeared in the sky, followed by a violent explosion, like a giant thunder striking down from the nine heavens, shaking the whole sky as if it were trembling. The seven armed helicopters flying toward City Zhe B to snipe were directly blown up in the air, turning into a sky full of fire rain falling to the ground.

On the ground, another wave of dozens of purple-blue light balls was almost simultaneously ejected from the backs of a kind of huge crawling Fierce Beast, like the instant shelling of dozens of cannons… magnificent and beautiful.