Chapter 143 - 131: People Inside, Open the Door

「Inside the weather station building.」

Kyle Warren grabbed Shauna Wallace, whose superpower was completely drained. His rough, large hands squeezed her delicate cheeks as he spewed a stream of lewd remarks, "Hey, gorgeous. Don’t all you women like pretty boys? What’s the matter, you think you’re too good for me? I may be a bit older, but I know how to treat a lady!"

"You bastard, let go of me!" Shauna Wallace’s voice was cold and captivating. Combined with the disdain in her eyes, it made her even more irresistible to the crowd of shut-ins who could usually only fantasize about such a woman.

"You’d risk your life for a pretty boy? I’m curious to see what happens when I toss this pretty boy out to the zombies. Will they eat him until there’s nothing but bone dust left, or will he become one of them—a hideous, shambling corpse?"

"Lucia, aren’t you going to plead for your boyfriend? Maybe I’ll even spare him."

Ever since she threw herself into Kyle Warren’s arms, Lucia knew he was not a forgiving man. If she dared to plead for Joel Bloom, her own fate would be no better.

A faint smile appeared on her pale face. Her slender hand caressed Kyle’s arm as she said, "Kyle, what are you talking about! That’s all in the past. I’m completely devoted to you now. Why would I ever plead for a pretty boy like him?"

Kyle Warren smiled with satisfaction and motioned for two of his men to go and throw Joel Bloom outside.

"But Mr. Warren, what if the zombies outside rush in when we open the door?"

Kyle Warren let out a sinister laugh as a delicate Fireball appeared in his hand. "So what if they rush in? I’ll kill them one by one. Now go! I want to watch this pretty boy get devoured by zombies with my own eyes."

He crouched down, grabbed Shauna Wallace by her wavy hair, and forced her to look in Joel Bloom’s direction.

Just as the two men were about to approach Joel Bloom, a young girl blocked their path. "Go away! All of you, go away! Don’t hurt brother Joel!"

One of the men kicked Lisa aside, drawing a muffled grunt from the little girl. She collapsed to the floor, sobbing in pain.

Just as the two were about to grab Joel Bloom’s arm, the sound of shattering glass suddenly came from the second floor. At first, they thought zombies had broken in upstairs. But when everyone looked up, they saw a colossal Flying Mantis descending straight from the second floor, landing right in front of Joel Bloom.

It swung the enormous, jade-like scythes on its chest lightly toward the two men, and two bloodcurdling screams erupted.

"AH! My hand!"

"AAH! My arm!"

In an instant, half a palm and half a forearm lay on the ground, clearly belonging to the two screaming men.

The crowd was utterly stunned by the sudden appearance of the giant mantis in front of Joel Bloom.

’A mantis that big? And it’s alive? Did it just chop off two men’s limbs?’

The bloody scene was seared into their minds. The ground was covered in fresh blood, with the severed hand and arm lying in a growing pool—a sight that sent a chill down their spines.

Strangely, after severing the men’s limbs, the Flying Mantis stood motionless in front of Joel Bloom. Except for the faint twitching of its two antennae, it looked exactly like a giant insect model carved from jade. It was too realistic, yet too surreal.

"Help! Help me! Somebody, get me to a hospital! My hand!"

"Mr. Warren, save me!"

Kyle Warren glanced at the two men wailing on the ground and just spat, "Useless!" Then he turned his full attention to the mantis before him.

The mantis stood like an invincible warrior, protecting Joel Bloom. To test this theory, Kyle Warren once again ordered two men to approach Joel, ready to make a move at the right moment.

The two men were reluctant to go, but Kyle Warren dangled a tempting offer.

"As long as Joel Bloom is dead, after I’ve had my fun with the little loli and Shauna Wallace, I’ll give them both to you to do with as you please. How about it?" And his words were transmitted with perfect clarity to Flora Bloom through Vert’s mental link.

The crowd watched the dying Joel Bloom with cold indifference. Even knowing that the young girl, Lisa, who looked to be about fifteen or sixteen, was about to suffer a terrible fate, they all chose to remain detached observers.

But these two of Kyle Warren’s henchmen were swayed.

In the month since the apocalypse began, they hadn’t touched a woman. There were only four women in the group: Lucia, who belonged to Kyle Warren; a fat, ugly older woman; and then there was Shauna Wallace and the little loli, Lisa.

"But boss, what if it attacks us? This..."

"What’s there to be afraid of? I’ll back you up! If it dares to attack, I’ll burn it to a crisp!"

Having been cooped up here for a month since the apocalypse began, Kyle Warren had no idea that superpowers could be upgraded, or that upgrading required Zombie Crystal Cores. He thought that having a superpower made him invincible, so he bragged endlessly.

’But he knew in his heart that he was really just using these two idiots to test the mantis’s strength.’

’Subconsciously, he couldn’t believe a mantis would deliberately protect a human. It wasn’t scientific!’

However, the unscientific still happened.

The two men had just gotten close to Joel Bloom when, amidst a blur of jade-colored scythes, they lost their lives.

This time, facing the men who had come to cause trouble again, Vert swiped its massive scythes across their necks.

’These people are so annoying,’ Vert thought. ’Why are they all dawdling? If you’re going to attack, attack all at once. This slow pace is cramping my style!’

Two heads flew into the air, landing at the feet of Kyle Warren and his group. The crowd turned pale with fright and began to scream uncontrollably.

Just then, a voice came from outside the only door, accompanied by violent banging.

"Open the door! People inside, open up!"

"Did you hear me? If you don’t open this door, your grandpa Monroe is coming in by force!"

The people inside never expected someone to be knocking at a time like this. To be more precise, they were bashing the door down.

’But whether they were knocking or bashing,’ they thought, ’the most important thing is that someone is here. Does that mean the horde of zombies outside has been wiped out?’

’Even if not all of them are gone, they probably no longer pose a threat.’

Just as the fat woman was about to open the door, the door—along with the tables, chairs, and appliances used to barricade it—was sent flying by a powerful impact, crashing against the far wall.

The main door was smashed open by the blow, collapsing to the ground and revealing a gaping, damaged entryway.

After accomplishing this, Juggernaut quietly and quickly retracted its tail, obediently standing guard outside and blocking the doorway in the process. At the same time, Flora Bloom let all her little pets out to forage freely.

The people inside didn’t notice the little pets outside at all.

Flora Bloom knew there were many zombies here. She hadn’t forgotten the Level 3 zombie lurking nearby, which made her skin crawl. She ordered Juggernaut to coordinate with Monkey Two and Monkey Three to hunt it down.

Two giant monkeys, two giant peacocks, a giant pangolin, a small white tiger, and a huge golden cicada lurking outside the second floor of the building, all under Juggernaut’s command, began to close in on the Level 3 zombie that thought it was well-hidden.

Flora Bloom and her group walked in. Jade immediately spotted her son, his face drained of all color, leaning against a ruined sofa.

"Joel! Joel, what happened to you? Where are you hurt?"

Flora Bloom walked over and saw the state of Joel Bloom’s leg. The fracture was horrifying. An injury like this could never have been caused by fighting a zombie or a simple fall.

Her face darkened as she scanned the group of people staring at them, dumbfounded, from the stairwell. "I’ll settle the score for my brother with all of you in a moment!"

She then took out the Space Spirit Water and poured it directly into Joel Bloom’s mouth while also cleaning his visible wounds.

"Mr. Wallace, Cynthia, come take a look at his injuries!" Flora Bloom was extremely anxious as she looked at her brother’s leg. Seeing him drifting in and out of consciousness, she began to worry. ’Could my all-powerful spiritual water have failed?’