Chapter 233: Don’t Be Impulsive
Zachary Pierce suddenly urged, "Hurry, there’s an army of zombies coming down the corridor."
Faye Yardley grunted in acknowledgment but didn’t move. She had a gut feeling this untouchable red skull before her was connected to the zombies. ’But how do I make it disappear?’
"Yardley?"
Faye Yardley yanked up her sleeve, revealing the pattern Yvonne Lynch had left on her arm, and pressed it directly against the skull.
And just like that, the red skull was absorbed by the pattern on her arm.
Faye Yardley staggered.
Zachary Pierce took two steps forward to steady her, his brow furrowed. "That was reckless. Let’s go."
The team had just turned back into the main hall when they saw a dense horde of zombies appear outside the transparent door.
The zombies outside the glass door seemed agitated at the sight of the five of them, desperately clawing, biting, and headbutting the door to break through.
The strange thing was, the switch outside could open the door with the lightest touch. With so many zombies piled up at the entrance, it was impossible that none of them had hit it, yet the door remained firmly shut, keeping them all out.
Faye Yardley felt her right arm growing incredibly heavy, so heavy she couldn’t lift it.
Even Zachary Pierce, who was supporting her, could feel its unnatural weight.
"Help me to the center of the Teleportation Array."
Zachary Pierce swept her up into his arms. Lifting her should have been easy, but this time he could clearly feel the abnormal weight originating from her right arm.
With some effort, he carried her quickly to the center. Faye Yardley’s right arm fell directly into the slot for the power source, and the entire Array began to glow red, clearly activated.
The other three quickly closed in on them.
Outside, the zombies grew even more frenzied.
Many even launched superpower attacks against the glass door.
Enveloped in the red light, the five of them struggled to breathe. The moment the glass door shattered, they vanished from the Teleportation Array.
A few of the faster zombies that had been chasing them were teleported along with them.
After the teleportation, Faye Yardley’s arm felt much lighter. While before she couldn’t lift it at all, she could at least move it on her own now, though she still lacked fine motor control.
The other four quickly dispatched the zombies that had been teleported with them.
"Faye, how are you? Can you move your arm?" Cole Kensington asked. ’Faye is amazing,’ he thought. ’What is that thing on her arm?’
He was curious, but he wouldn’t ask.
Faye Yardley grunted. "Much better. It still affects me a bit, but walking is no problem. Where are we now?"
They were in a valley, standing right in the middle of it.
The valley was quiet. The trees were a dark hue, and the absence of birdsong or chirping insects gave the place a lifeless feel.
Finn Ford pointed to the trees on the hillside behind Faye Yardley and exclaimed, "What is that?!"
The branches between the trees were gradually weaving together.
The weeds at their feet and the surrounding bushes also began to move, though there was no wind.
"What if we set the mountain on fire?" Caleb Colby had thought he’d seen his share of strange things, but a chill still ran down his spine. It felt as if the entire valley had come alive.
Faye Yardley said bluntly, "Let’s find out."
But they discovered that an ordinary flame couldn’t ignite the plants.
"Try adding Oil," Faye Yardley said, taking a torch and a flask of Oil from her pack and setting a nearby bush alight.
Then she heard a heart-rending shriek. It wasn’t a sound heard with the ears, but one that seemed to directly assault the mind.
That was from just one or two bushes. If there were more, they would never withstand a collective psychic assault.
"Which way should we go now?"
Faye Yardley pointed directly at the hillside where the trees had first begun to knit together. "That way."
Once she made a decision, no one objected. The team had long since developed that kind of rapport.
’If the whole valley has become sentient,’ she thought, ’the best plan is to get to the heart of the monster.’
’It definitely won’t be at the Teleportation Array where we arrived.’
’The most likely spot is where the strangeness first began.’
’Of course, that also makes it the most dangerous.’
"Yvonne, what’s wrong?"
Seeing her daughter suddenly crumple to the floor and curl into a ball, Sierra Jonas rushed over to pick her up.
After scanning her daughter’s body with her spiritual power, she pulled a blood-red skull from the girl’s palm.
No matter how the skull struggled, it could not escape the net woven from Sierra Jonas’s spiritual power. Instead, she compressed and bound it into a small sphere of spiritual power, no bigger than a fingernail.
Seeing her daughter’s expression calm, she had someone else take the girl back to her room to rest. Sierra Jonas toyed with the small red ball, then spoke to it. "Chloe Hughes, it’s time to wrap things up over there. Come straight back."
"If you don’t, then don’t blame me for destroying this little wisp of your spiritual power."
As she spoke, Sierra Jonas loosened her grip on the sphere of spiritual power, allowing a faint red aura to leak out and dissipate into the air.
Faye Yardley and her team were, of course, unaware of this. All Faye knew was that her right arm had suddenly returned to normal.
At the same time, the valley seemed to lose some kind of animating spirit, becoming utterly mundane.
The trees that had been so tenacious and difficult to deal with now seemed soulless, reverting to ordinary plants.
"That’s so strange. Did something happen?"
"I don’t know."
"It really is weird. It’s like everything just lost its soul."
Faye Yardley touched her own arm. "My right arm is back to normal."
"The Teleportation Array is lighting up again."
Soon, the area of the valley around the Teleportation Array was swarming with zombies.
Unlike the plants from before, ordinary zombies could be killed by fire.
So Faye Yardley drew her Longbow and fired several flasks of Oil and lit torches in that direction. She followed up with a Crystal Arrow to hinder the fastest zombies and slow their advance.
The zombies in front quickly became stepping stones for the ones behind them.
There are always Superpower Controllers among the zombies, and it looked like there were even some with the Fire Ability in the horde.
As a result, the fires she had started didn’t kill very many.
"Why don’t we just annihilate this whole wave? They’re all points, after all." Caleb Colby felt alive again, ready for another big fight with the zombies.
Faye Yardley snorted. "As long as it’s not an endless stream, there’s no problem with us waiting here on the hillside for them to charge us."
Standing on a rock, Finn Ford said uncertainly, "Did you guys hear that? I think I heard a horse neighing."
"That’s my Bella. Are we just going to stand here and wait?"
Zachary Pierce said, "Don’t be rash. There’s nothing wrong with waiting for the zombies to come to us."