Invincible through Touching Corpses

This wasn’t Zhou De’s first time at East Sea Base, nor was it the first time he had issued a mission to the academy.

He had seen elite squads from the academy led by Body Shaping Realm experts before.

And compared to Lin Xinghai’s squad, they were at least inferior in terms of equipment.

He had never seen a student pilot a Rare Level Mecha.

After all, besides being expensive, the things were, as their name suggested, extremely rare.

That was why, generally, only veteran Body Shaping Realm experts could own such a Mecha.

Of course, this was only what Zhou De could see on the surface. If he were to step inside one of the Armored Vehicles, he would be horrified to discover that, in addition to the standard Tearing Rifles and Hand Cannons, they were also stocked with Mortars, Grenade Cannons, High-Energy Bombs, and Purgatory Bombs.

They even had military-exclusive Mechanical Spiders, Bee Bombs, Plasma Grenades, Combat Robots, and Attack Drones—not a single item was missing.

Even Lin Xinghai had been left a little dumbfounded when he first saw all this equipment, getting his first real taste of what it meant to be filthy rich.

Although he figured most of it would go unused, every single item was a potential lifesaver if they truly ran into danger.

Of course, there were some things Lin Xinghai particularly liked, such as the 100 Combat Robots. According to Little Fatty, besides serving as shields for the team, he had also asked the information engineering department at Hongyu Group to develop a program that would allow these Combat Robots to autonomously collect Elemental Crystals.

That way, when they were clearing out Zombies later, they could save a huge amount of time on collecting Elemental Crystals.

However, even for a behemoth like the Hongyu Group, developing a polished program wasn’t something that could be done in a flash. According to Little Fatty, it would take at least a day.

When the time came, they would need to go to Dongwu Shelter and use their long-range communication equipment to receive the program.

Soon, the vehicles pulled up in front of Zhou De and his men, and Lin Xinghai got out to greet them.

Under their command, the two convoys quickly merged and set off immediately.

Everyone took the Space Elevator down to the surface.

Confident in his squad’s strength, Lin Xinghai didn’t bother with any special formations. He simply led the way with two Armored Vehicles, clearing a path for everyone. Zhou De’s convoy was in the middle, while Sun Tianbo and Xie Shangyong were assigned to bring up the rear.

In fact, since Zhou De was also leading a hundred-man soldier squad, Lin Xinghai normally wouldn’t have to worry much; they could handle any trouble themselves.

The reason they had posted the escort mission was mainly to deal with three specific dangerous sections of the route.

Right after leaving East Sea Base, the road was still in decent shape, and they sped along at 180 kilometers per hour. But once they left that area and hit the potholed roads of the wilderness, their speed plummeted to just 60 kilometers per hour.

The slow, bumpy ride was truly agonizing.

The convoy soon left the safe zone of East Sea Base, and by then, Zombies had started to appear sporadically.

The squad members on their first mission were extremely excited, shouting and clamoring to charge forward at the sight of a Zombie.

Lin Xinghai didn’t stop them. He let them leave the formation to take care of it, as long as they could catch up afterward.

These people were all Blood and Qi Realm Martial Artists. When facing ordinary Zombies, even High Level Zombies, a single slap was enough to finish the job. In fact, collecting the Elemental Crystal was more troublesome than killing the Zombie.

Because of this, everyone was thrilled at first, but after a dozen or so times, their excitement gradually wore off.

Eventually, they couldn’t even be bothered anymore, simply waiting for the Armored Vehicles to run them over. If any oblivious Zombie was foolish enough to give chase, a single bullet would take care of it.

The rest of the journey was quite peaceful, at least for a convoy of their strength. After all, even if they ran into a horde of over a hundred Zombies, it was nothing a single round of suppressive fire couldn’t handle.

They had set out at 9:30 in the morning and ate lunch in their vehicles. They drove until 2:00 in the afternoon—a full five and a half hours—before finally reaching the first dangerous location.

This was a stretch of road that ran along the edge of Kunde City. On one side was the Kunde City District, and on the other was a grand canal over ten meters wide.

Normally, they could have just taken a small detour to avoid it, but the grand canal blocked their way. Many of the bridges that had once been crossable had collapsed during the ten years of the cataclysm. If they wanted to go around, they would have to drive at least an extra 200 kilometers.

That would add at least another three hours to their journey, which was simply not worth it.

"Captain Lin, how do you plan to get through this next section?" Zhou De’s voice came over the intercom, his tone somewhat grave.

They had traveled this route many times before. If they could maintain a speed of over 180 kilometers per hour, it wouldn’t be too dangerous.

But now, forget 180 kilometers per hour—they couldn’t even reach 80.

At 60 kilometers per hour, even Intermediate Zombies could easily catch up. With such a large convoy, they were an excellent lure. If things went wrong, it wouldn’t be surprising for them to end up besieged by tens of thousands of Zombies.

That would be more than a little dangerous.

"Your convoy will wait outside the safe zone for now," Lin Xinghai said directly. "I’ll lead my squad in first to clear out the Zombies. You can enter once it’s secure."

This meant that all the risk would fall on the Xinghai Squad, while Zhou De’s team wouldn’t have to face any danger at all.

"That... I couldn’t possibly let you do that! Besides, clearing all the Zombies from this section will take a lot of time. Why don’t we just push through together? My men can help," Zhou De said hurriedly.

He couldn’t bring himself to just sit back and reap the benefits while watching others risk their lives.

"No need. Our squad is very fast at clearing Zombies. If you really want to help, just send some men to help me collect Elemental Crystals later," Lin Xinghai said.

Before Zhou De could even process what he meant, he saw three Armored Vehicles drive straight ahead.

Two of the Armored Vehicles drove a short distance before stopping in front of a shopping mall. People poured out of them and began unloading a lot of equipment, looking as if they were about to set up a temporary base.

The other Armored Vehicle, meanwhile, sped forward and quickly vanished from his sight.

Just as Zhou De was feeling puzzled, he suddenly heard a gunshot from the distance. A moment later, another shot rang out.

The shots were sporadic, with at least five seconds between each one. At the same time, he could faintly hear the dense roars of Zombies rising in the distance.

’What in the world are they trying to do?’

Zhou De watched their maneuvers, growing more and more confused. But just then, a guard responsible for monitoring the Zombie Detector shouted urgently, "Sir, a zombie horde! There’s a horde heading in our direction!"