Chapter 99: World Alliance

After continuing on for a while, I suddenly noticed what seemed to be several figures ahead. I quickly drew my revolver and told the others to wait where they were while I went up ahead to check. They didn't seem to see the figures. Whether it was the effect of the Heavenly Eye or simply that my own abilities were high, at a distance of at least two kilometers, I could clearly make out every detail—every strand of hair, every fine body hair was visible with absolute clarity.

I flew forward on the wind, nearly skimming the ground, and hid myself behind a rock. The figures were encircling a zombie. From the zombie's clumsy movements, it didn't seem very powerful—at best, only a little stronger than an ordinary zombie.

"Xiao Yang, quit playing around. Finish it quickly," said a burly middle-aged man dressed in animal skins.

The young man called Xiao Yang held a badly notched steel blade and kept slashing at the zombie. It was already like that, and they still treated it so cruelly—who was the real monster here? The zombie's flesh was cut open, skin and meat hanging in shreds. Suddenly Xiao Yang kicked the zombie to the ground, planted a foot on its abdomen, and wore a cold, sinister smile. In that instant, a sudden change occurred. The zombie's stiff arms grabbed Xiao Yang's foot, and it sat up in a bizarre posture. Just as its rotting gap mouth was about to bite into Xiao Yang's leg, the middle-aged man in animal skins casually extended his longsword, and the zombie's huge mouth clamped down onto the blade.

Xiao Yang quickly bent down, struggled to pry the zombie's hands apart, and checked himself—seemed nothing was wrong. Only then did he roll up his pant leg, aim at the zombie's eye, and kick with all his might. In an instant, his toes sank deep into the zombie's eye socket. I could no longer keep watching. I walked straight out from behind the rock and, without saying a word, blew the zombie's head off with a single shot. Rather than let it suffer like that, it was better to grant it a quick, merciful end. They had once been human. They were not at fault. The fault was that their bodies were too weak and they had unfortunately been infected by the virus.

"Who are you?" Xiao Yang eyed me warily. The middle-aged man in animal skins instinctively tightened his grip on his longsword. The other young man, with an unreadable expression, drew from behind his back a weapon similar to a Tang saber.

"Never mind who I am. I just want to ask one thing: is tormenting a dead man like this really amusing?" Instead of retreating, I advanced, step by step, closing in on the three men. Perhaps they saw how fearsome the weapon in my hand was, and so for the moment they did not dare to attack. They all backed away. "Y-you... don't come any closer..." Xiao Yang raised his notched, worn blade, his hands trembling uncontrollably.

"And who are you people?" I stopped and demanded. I would not lose my mind like them—doing that would make me no different from these man-eating zombies.

After a brief silence, they told the truth: "We are people of the World Alliance. On orders from above, we came out to search for food. We did not intend to disturb you. We will take our leave now." The big man in animal skins spoke with cupped fists, seeming quite polite. Thinking about it, they must have seen that I did not look like someone to be provoked, and just now they witnessed the power of my revolver, so they wisely said some courteous words. After all, in this unstable age, keeping a low profile might let one survive a few more days. Seeing that they were about to leave, I quickly called out, "Wait. Where is the World Alliance?"

"Follow this road straight ahead, and you will see a sign standing by the roadside with directions on it. If you have no other questions, honored hero, we will be on our way." The middle-aged man in animal skins said. I waved my hand, and the three of them headed toward the fork on the left. Their steps were noticeably hurried. Perhaps they really did regard me as a villain.

The World Alliance—what kind of place was that? Why had I never heard of it before? Could it have been established recently? I turned back the way I came, and the others were sitting on the ground resting, recovering their strength. Oh, I forgot to introduce them. The remaining ten people were Qin Tian, Yu Jing, Murong Xue, Nine-Tailed Fox, Xiaoxiang Ke'er, the Dragon-Tiger sisters, Wang Gui, and that simple-minded birdman from the Feathered People tribe, plus me.

I said to everyone, "Get up, all of you. There's a human settlement up ahead. Once we get there, there will surely be food and water." Hearing this, those who had looked completely listless suddenly seemed injected with stimulant, scrambling and rushing forward like their lives depended on it. After walking about five kilometers, we did indeed see a sign standing beside a fork in the road. Written on it were the words: "World Alliance—take this passage." An arrow marked the direction. We turned right onto a small path, following where the arrow pointed.

Another half hour of walking brought us at last to the buildings ahead. It was a sprawling community of several hundred thousand square meters, surrounded by a majestic city wall about twenty stories high. I thought there was no way I was the only one who saw it—with such a massive structure, they could not possibly have missed it.

"Wow, there are people! Hahaha, we don't have to die!" Little Tiger jumped and shouted with excitement. Clearly, everyone else also saw the imposing structure ahead. With two kilometers still to go, I urged them to quicken their pace. Finally, damn it all, I could see a place where people actually lived. These past few days I had been wondering where all the people on Earth had gone—had they boarded spaceships and fled into space? Turns out they were all hiding here, damn it! Perhaps because they had finally seen hope, everyone walked faster. Soon, we arrived at the foot of the city wall.

"Who goes there?" Two soldiers standing at the city gate, each wielding a large saber, asked. Both were stripped to the waist, with bronze-colored skin and solid, dense muscles. In such a bitterly cold season, these two still went bare-chested. From the deep, powerful resonance of their voices, you could tell these two were definitely not ordinary men.

I hastily cupped my fists and bowed my head slightly. "Brothers, we are merchants who fled all the way from the south. In these chaotic, war-torn times, we barely escaped with our lives. Fortunately, we have finally found the city of the World Alliance. Would you two brothers be willing to do us a favor and allow us to enter?"

"Enough, enough. Stop your blathering!" the left soldier said, clearly irritated.

To conceal our identities, I had specifically instructed everyone to suppress their auras and act like ordinary people—that was the only way we would be allowed inside. After all, this place had gathered a huge number of humans. If we exposed our true strength, it would be easy to attract unwanted attention. This was also something I had learned from the twenty-first century.

I was just about to lead the brothers into the city when the soldier on the right suddenly blocked us.

"Wait. Everyone entering the World Alliance must be searched. Leave your weapon here." The soldier stared at the purple-blue short sword on Yu Jing's back.

I thought to myself, This is bad. I hadn't thought it through; I forgot to put Yu Jing's sword into my spatial ring. That sword belonged to Zixia—after all, it was a divine artifact. Was I really just going to hand it over?