Chapter 21: Beheading

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Crack!

The blade of the axe struck solidly into the neck of the Black Zombie, the sound of breaking bones crystal clear in the deathly quiet of the forest.

But the zombie seemed to feel no pain at all, tilting its head and using its shoulder and half of its face to clamp down on the blade, preventing the axe from being pulled out.

Unable to pull it out, Li Ang fortunately decided not to try, releasing the handle and kicking the Black Zombie in the chest.

Normally, a direct hit from a shotgun only made the Black Zombie retreat a few steps, its body as tough as though it was cast from steel. Li Ang's kick made it stagger back just half a step.

That half step was sufficient.

Using the recoil from that kick to fall backward, Li Ang's right hand fished a Coca-Cola glass bottle out of his backpack.

The glass bottle wasn't filled with soda but with a high-concentration gasoline mixture, the mouth sealed with rubber, and two sealed glass tubes containing concentrated sulfuric acid stuck to the side of the bottle.

The Coke bottle twirled through the air, gliding before colliding with the zombie's dark forehead and exploding with a bang.

A typical Molotov cocktail is made with a rag soaked in a flammable liquid as a wick, which is then lit with a lighter before being thrown.

However, the Soviet-style Molotov cocktail that Li Ang created relied on the chemical heat produced by the collision of concentrated sulfuric acid glass tubes to ignite the mixture, a safer approach that also eliminated the step of using a lighter.

Glass shards scattered in all directions, the sulfuric acid and gasoline mixture evenly spilling over the Black Zombie, emitting a pungent odor strong enough to mask the stench of decay.

Instantly, the intense chemical energy ignited the gasoline mixture, sparks of fire spread rapidly across the zombie's body, turning the Black Zombie into a human torch in the blink of an eye.

Flames surged skyward, lighting up the dense forest as bright as day, and unwitting insects were drawn to the light, flapping their wings around the human torch.

The funeral clothes on the zombie turned to ash in an instant, and even the black hair that could stop bullets curled and shriveled under the flame.

"Hiss!"

The Black Zombie's mouth opened wide like a snake, letting out a piercing scream, and the axe fell from its neck.

Boom!

Li Ang pulled the trigger of his shotgun, and the Black Zombie, hit by the steel pellet bullets, convulsed on the spot as if electrocuted.

Boom Boom Boom Boom!

The shotgun fired repeatedly without a moment's pause, the Black Zombie moving backwards with each shot. The flammable liquid dripping from its body slowly dropped onto the leaf litter, leaving a trail of burning footprints.

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The layer of black hair had been almost entirely burned off, leaving only a length akin to a finger joint; Li Ang pushed the last two bullets into the shotgun's chamber and took out the electric nail gun from his backpack.

This industrial-grade nail gun's maximum power could reach 2500w, firing 45 steel nails per minute, capable of penetrating 10-20 millimeter-thick concrete walls or channel steel.

Flesh and bone were no different from frozen tofu in front of this nail gun.

Ding, ding, ding.

The crisp sound of the nail gun firing echoed through the dense forest. After the black hair had been weakened, long nails were driven into the Black Zombie's forehead, eye sockets, nose bridge, lips, teeth, and Adam's apple, piercing the skin and burrowing into flesh.

A few breaths later, the Black Zombie's face was densely covered with steel nail heads, a horrifying sight that could make anyone with trypophobia scream and faint.

As the nails entered the brain, they ground the Black Zombie's rotting brain into a pulp, but even so, it still did not fall.

In the flickering shadows of the trees, the layer of black hair on the zombie's body seemed to come alive, rapidly twisting and entangling itself, curling and wrapping around to form a hollow, chainmail-like defense layer on the zombie's surface.

With the mesh defense layer established, these faintly green-tinted hairs began to extract the remaining bodily fluids from inside the Black Zombie and spread them over the inner and outer layers of the mesh, filling up the holes in the defense layer.

As the mesh holes were plugged, the fire burning inside, starved of oxygen, was soon extinguished; while the fire on the outside was inhibited by the damp hair, its intensity diminishing until it gradually died out.

The entire process took place within a few seconds. As the bodily fluids were drained, the Black Zombie's already shriveled muscles became even more atrophied, and from a distance, it looked like a black ape walking upright—small, weak, and without threat.

The small and thin Black Zombie stood hunched over in place like a statue. Li Ang silently watched the other party while stepping back slowly, his hand tirelessly swapping steel nail chains for the nail gun.

Suddenly, Li Ang's vision blurred as the Black Zombie's speed increased by a fraction, covering several meters in the blink of an eye and appearing directly in front of Li Ang,

The Black Zombie's claw swept downward at an angle, and Li Ang hastily stepped back, but still couldn't avoid the Black Zombie's fingernails grazing the CQB Tactical Bulletproof Vest he was wearing.

The outermost soft anti-stab layer of the CQB Bulletproof Vest, woven from high-strength polyethylene fibers, was 40% stronger than the famously durable Kevlar aramid fiber.

However, this soft anti-stab layer, capable of withstanding thousands of stabs from an adult male, did not last half a second before the Black Zombie's nails; it was effortlessly shredded into rags that scattered in the air.

The claw kept descending.

Inside the CQB Bulletproof Vest was an NIJ—III level SAPI bulletproof plate compliant with the United States' National Institute of Justice standards, along with an OTV Bulletproof Vest.

This NIJ—III level bulletproof steel plate, weighing 1.8 kilograms, could completely withstand a direct hit from 7.62mm caliber bullets.

As the claw came down, the bulletproof steel plate and the Black Zombie's fingernails emitted a piercing, teeth-gritting friction sound,

High-strength steel, forged by the modern industrial society, was actually being scraped into curled strips of steel by the sharp fingernails, and the whole steel plate was cleanly split into two.

Fortunately, the Zombie's claw was slightly obstructed by the bulletproof vest and could not further penetrate, failing to disembowel Li Ang in one fell swoop.

Surrounded by danger, Li Ang, who was lingering on the brink of life and death, didn't even have a chance to catch his breath when he saw the Black Zombie swinging its claw towards him again.

The piercing sound of the claw cutting through the air rang by his ears, but Li Ang's heart was still, his expression unchanging. Instead of retreating, he advanced, crashing into the embrace of the Black Zombie before its claw could come down.

He couldn't retreat. To take one step back meant to keep retreating. The Black Zombie's agility far surpassed Li Ang's. If he retreated, he would eventually be torn to shreds by the violent, storm-like attacks.

The disparity in their sizes was stark; the collision was like a silverback gorilla embracing a red-nosed baboon, effectively immobilizing the Black Zombie's shoulders.

In this awkward position, reminiscent of a face-to-face dance, Li Ang could distinctly smell the intense, rotten stench on the other's body, potent enough to destroy one's olfactory system.

It was like gazing at a Giant corpse that had been soaking in a hot spring for over ten days...

Oh how he missed that, Li Ang thought to himself.

Click, as the sound of the nail gun being loaded rang out, Li Ang, who was embracing the Black Zombie with both arms, pressed the nail gun against the zombie's nape.

Ding ding ding ding!

Tens of nails penetrated the gaps in the Black Zombie's atlas, axis, and third cervical vertebrae, tearing the nuchal ligament, piercing the tough dura mater, and breaking its neck.

For an ordinary person, such injuries would have been instantly fatal or at the very least resulted in complete paralysis, but the Black Zombie's head merely lost support, tilting and resting on its shoulder, while its flailing arm still had enough strength to slash at Li Ang.

Now's the time!

Li Ang's eyes sparkled in the darkness, suddenly bursting with a radiant glow!

Illusion Technique, activate.

The Black Zombie's mind conjured an image: a scrawny little boy with snot running down his nose, in tattered clothes, crying and shouting as he held a wooden basin,

"Mom! I'm hungry!"

A rather mundane sentence, but it seemed to have the power of Magic, draining all of the Black Zombie's strength.

The menacing claw hanging in the air trembled and couldn't fall any further.

Those chaotic, hazy fragments of memory brewed and settled in the decaying brain, eventually congealing into tears of blood that welled from the eyes and slid down the parched cheeks.

With death, all ends. What returned to the world in the decaying corpse was not the old woman of the past, but a new life filled with hatred—it was a zombie, a zombie that drew strength from animosity and fed on flesh and blood.

It shouldn't harbor any emotions from its past life, shouldn't feel sorrow or sadness for anything or anyone.

But why, why did its heart ache so much?

"Roar!"

As if to deny its past, to deny a moment of weakness, the Black Zombie regained its ferocity, and the last traces of emotion in its eyes melted away completely like snow upon boiling soup.

With its head askew, the zombie opened its mouth wide and lunged at Li Ang, while its solitary arm shifted from a chop to a grab, reaching down for Li Ang's spine.

Utilizing the Black Zombie's moment of hesitation, Li Ang abruptly shouldered upwards, sending the attacking head flying up before he leaned forward, lifting his right leg high up like a ballet dancer and using his toe to strike at the wrist of the down-sweeping arm, blocking the assault.

The Black Zombie's head took a harsh blow from Li Ang's shoulder, tilting backward sharply, the back of the head touching the spine, hanging by a mere flap of skin.

Even a zombie, born of the world's resentment and foul air, relied on its spinal column for strength. Now with a damaged spine, its lone arm dropped lifelessly like a marionette without strings, its black fur becoming fluffed and failing to offer any protection.

Silently, Li Ang embraced the Black Zombie and tread heavily on the ground, rushing forward with the corpse in tow, slamming into the trunk of a tree thick enough for two to embrace.

Thud!

The tree trunk shook, its branches trembled, leaves fluttered down, and patches of moonlight filtered through the gaps, illuminating the woods.

In the moonlight, Li Ang retracted backwards and with a quick motion pulled the dagger from his boot, plunging it into the zombie's mouth and, like hammering a nail, pinned the Black Zombie to the tree trunk.

With his other hand, he deftly picked up the Battle Axe that had fallen from the Black Zombie's neck onto the ground.

The zombie, nailed to the tree, had only pure hatred for the living left in its eyes, without a hint of consciousness.

Pitiful, lamentable, regrettable.

The blade of the Battle Axe gleamed coldly in the moonlight.

Li Ang's arm, like that of a woodcutter in the forest, swung the Battle Axe in an arcing trajectory, slicing at the Black Zombie's neck.

Thunk!

The tree trunk vibrated again.

The zombie's head separated from its body.

[Hidden Mountain Village Zombie 1/1 killed]

[Script mission "Hungry Limit" completed]

[Awards calculation in progress]