Monsters also have a hierarchy among themselves, indeed there is a level suppression among monsters.
Monsters that rely on instinct to fight also have things they instinctively fear, which might have been set by the Serpent People—or perhaps it's a biological nature that the Serpent People couldn't erase, no matter how they genetically modified them.
Gao Yuan wasn't a zombie, but he couldn't escape the category of monster either; he was a monster crafted jointly by the Celestials and the Serpent People.
This roar at the brink of death was but an instinctive sound of an animal about to die, and then, Gao Yuan instilled fear in the hordes of monsters overwhelming him.
Because Gao Yuan was now a monster from a higher tier in the biological chain.
When those smaller humanoid monsters felt fear, those larger monsters were still trampling or pushing aside the humanoid ones, approaching Gao Yuan.