Chapter 537: Extra: Dream and Reality 1
After a great deal of effort, Shawn Monroe finally succeeded in “redeeming” Nora Lowell from Bloodfall Base.
However, before he could leave, Paige Summers warned him, “Although she has some capacity for speech and thought, and can even use her superpower, she is still a Zombie. You need to think this through. If you take her with you like this, you must keep her restrained at all times. Otherwise, if she breaks free and escapes, given her personality, she will inevitably harm people. If that happens, I won’t let her off again. I’ll burn her to ashes!”
Shawn Monroe lowered his gaze slightly, suppressing the urge to snatch the woman before him away again. He forced himself to say calmly, “If she didn’t have her superpower, she would probably just stay put.”
Seeing he was on the right track, Paige Summers nodded in satisfaction.
“That should be the case.”
“Then I’ll have to trouble you to help me with that.” Shawn Monroe gave a slight, humorless smile. “You know, we have a long way to go. I wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t have this properly arranged.”
Paige Summers immediately and generously replied, “No problem. We’ll do it for free! I’ll go talk to Andy right now.”
Shawn Monroe stared at her intently for a long moment, until she broke out in goosebumps. Only then did he let all expression drain from his face and give a nod of assent.
Paige Summers excused herself and left the room.
She rubbed her arms and shook her head.
‘I have to get Andy to hurry up and send these two away.’
‘Otherwise, if he keeps looking at me like that, I really can’t guarantee I’ll be able to stop myself from knocking him out!’
In truth, completely disabling Nora Lowell’s superpower was Andy’s idea.
It was part of his experiments.
After injecting the final dose into Nora Lowell’s body, he let out a long sigh of relief.
At the same time, he added with a hint of regret, “It’s a shame I can’t continue to observe the experimental results… Hmm, whether it’s a success or not is up to fate now…”
The next day, Shawn Monroe prepared to depart.
Paige Summers handed him a small bottle of medicine pills. “Andy asked me to give this to you. He said that for the first month after losing her superpower, she’ll be quite irritable. If you give her one pill a day, things should be much better.”
“Thank you.”
Shawn Monroe took the bottle, his voice reserved and faintly tinged with arrogance.
With that, he turned and walked toward his subordinates.
As their vehicle slowly pulled away from Bloodfall Base, Shawn Monroe looked back one last time through the window at Paige Summers standing there, clenching his fists. His short nails dug deep into his palms, the pain preventing him from losing his reason again.
He thought, ‘She’ll probably never know that I’m still crazy enough to think she should be mine!’
The dream was too beautiful, but reality was too cruel.
He would rather leave with the last shred of his dignity than stay!
Goodbye.
Forever.
The towering walls of Bloodfall Base receded into the distance, gradually shrinking to a black dot before vanishing below the gloomy horizon.
Inside the car, Nora Lowell was bound tightly. When she began to howl in pain, Shawn Monroe decisively took out one of the medicine pills and forced it into her mouth.
Sure enough, she slowly quieted down.
Shawn Monroe stared at her, then let out a soft sigh.
‘In this short first half of my life, it seems I’ve always been chasing things that don’t belong to me.’
‘Territory, power, and women…’
‘I’ve hovered between life and death several times, and yet, until now, she is the only one who has remained by my side.’
‘Perhaps this is fate!’
A month passed without notice, and Nora Lowell no longer had violent outbursts.
She no longer cursed Shawn Monroe, Paige Summers, Marcus Monroe, and anyone else she could remember in her grating voice.
She had grown quiet.
She didn’t need to eat or drink. She just sat there, not even making a sound.
Shawn Monroe didn’t mind.
Until one day, they were ambushed by Mutant Beasts.
While everyone else got out of the vehicle to fight or drive the enemy away, Nora Lowell sluggishly followed. Her bulging, lifeless eyes finally showed a flicker of movement as she pounced on a Mutant Beast!
Her sharp nails and teeth were her best weapons. She made no attempt to defend herself, allowing the beast to bite her arm while she, in turn, tore out its artery…
She began to feast on the Mutant Beast’s flesh and blood like a ravenous glutton.
Stained with blood, her hideous face wore a look of ravenous excitement.
She didn’t seem to chew at all, merely swallowing with force.
A chunk of flesh was missing from her arm, but the wound didn’t bleed, merely turning a dark, bruised color. She paid it no mind.
Threads of blood were caught between her sharp teeth…
When the Mutant Beasts were either dead or had fled, and only Shawn Monroe and his men remained, this was the scene that greeted them.
Shawn Monroe’s second-in-command found his teeth chattering. He stiffly turned his head away and said, “Boss… are we really taking *it* back to the city? I’m afraid… that’s not a good idea…”
It was only then that Shawn Monroe truly understood what Paige Summers meant when she said Nora Lowell was a Zombie.
Back in the vehicle, Nora Lowell, who had only been untied for a few days, was bound up once again.
Shawn Monroe didn’t think she could bite him, but he had to reassure his men.
He didn’t take Nora Lowell into Central City. Instead, he found a small base beforehand, settled her in a secluded house, and left two of his men to watch over her.
After returning to Central City, he took an extended leave of absence.
He politely refused his adoptive mother’s earnest pleas for him to stay, preparing to leave for good.
Kiera Walsh, feeling both relieved and disappointed, saw her adoptive son off with mixed emotions.
Shawn Monroe went back to Nora Lowell, bid farewell to the two members of The Power Corps who were no longer his subordinates, and took to the road alone with her.
He planned to return to The Dead City.
He’d had the idea ever since leaving Bloodfall Base, and it had only grown stronger along the way.
Besides, if he wanted to keep Nora Lowell, he had to leave Central City.
It wasn’t a place that would allow a Zombie to slip in!
No matter how he looked at it, The Dead City was his best option now.
He had met Paige Summers there, and it was also there that he had lost her.
No, he had never truly had her in the first place.
But there was no denying that The Dead City was the place where they had spent the most time together.
This leg of the journey grew easier and easier.
Along the way, not only did he not encounter a single Zombie, but even the Mutant Beasts were becoming scarce.
After a period of confusion, Shawn Monroe got his answer from a Hunting Party from The Dead City that he happened to encounter.
A month ago, The Dead City and Central City had signed some kind of agreement.
Apparently, the most important clause was that both sides would increase their efforts to wipe out Zombies and Mutant Beasts.
So, The Dead City issued a notice: any Hunting Party in the city that hunted a certain number of Zombies and Mutant Beasts could receive a bounty of Crystal Cores from The Citadel.
The rewards were generous enough to be mouth-watering, firing up everyone’s fighting spirit!
As a result, the outskirts of The Dead City had become cleaner and cleaner.
To get more rewards, they now had to travel farther out.
And the road to Central City was the best choice.
One Superpower User laughed and said, “If we kill our way to Central City and still don’t have enough, then we might as well just move there for good! I heard The Central Government is about to issue a special amnesty. Every Superpower User who passes the review to join Central City and become an official resident will be protected by the new laws. We won’t have to worry about people causing trouble for us anymore!”
Everyone burst into laughter.
Shawn Monroe smiled along with them.
‘Was it a joke?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘But something was definitely changing.’