"Hurry up!"
Ning Yu raised her blade once more to meet the massive hook, knocking it aside with force once again, reminding Shen Yiyue.
Shen Yiyue, unable to tend to her bleeding wounds, began to accelerate towards the direction of the gymnasium.
【Ding! Normal Task Triggered: Kill the Butcher 0/1】
【Reward: 3000 Points, 50% off Shopping in the Mall *1】
A prompt rang in Ning Yu's mind, triggered by the mutated zombie.
However, why was it a normal task?
Ning Yu was a bit puzzled. The last time she was pushed to the brink by a Glutton, it triggered an urgent task with more generous rewards.
Could it be that after her physical strength improved and her weapon evolved, the mutated zombies posed less of a threat to her?
"Clang!"
"Clang!"
While pondering, Ning Yu blocked two more hooks.
The speed of these hooks was indeed astonishing, but it still took some time to fly over from such a high building.
As long as she wasn't ambushed, she had enough reaction time.
Could this be the reason the task wasn't urgent?
The surrounding zombies, which had been wandering aimlessly, now turned their heads upon hearing the loud metallic clanging, as if they had heard the lunch bell.
"Awoo!!"
They bared their yellowed teeth, roaring with hunger.
Suddenly, Tianshen Elementary School seemed like the school cafeteria had opened, with countless child and teacher zombies snarling and running.
A little girl zombie's head even fell off as she ran, her body continuing for a while before realizing and turning back.
She picked up her head, held it under her arm, and continued to stagger forward.
In an instant, the zombies surged like a tide, enveloping them in a semi-circle.
The two of them, one in front and one behind.
Shen Yiyue limped ahead, her wounds bleeding, staining her sports pants red.
Ning Yu moved behind, blocking the hooks as she went.
There was no time to kill the butcher yet; there were too many zombies, all converging together.
The butcher, having missed several times, roared in anger, swinging his arm with even more force.
A fast-moving zombie, likely a young female teacher before death, was almost near Ning Yu.
Her gray, terrifying face, with glasses shaking, was close.
Ning Yu's silver hair danced as she raised her blade to strike, but suddenly heard the sound of the hook slicing through the air again and quickly dodged to the side.
Just as she moved, she realized the hook's target was not her but the female teacher zombie.
The hook pierced through its chest without resistance, splattering black-red blood and its rotten innards onto the ground.
The butcher on the building above, like a fisherman, swung his hand, and the catch was made!
The female teacher zombie was lifted into the air by the hook's force, as if in a martial arts film, hanging by a wire.
Its hands flailed in the air, not understanding how it had ascended, its foul mouth biting wildly but catching nothing.
Ning Yu was full of questions. The butcher didn't just eat living humans; it ate zombies too?
Truly, when it went mad, it didn't spare even its own kind.
The butcher, having caught the female teacher zombie, swung his large cleaver with the other hand!
It split its head in two, splattering red and white matter all over the butcher, and the zombie went still.
Seeing the prey dead, the butcher extended an extra hand from behind, grabbing the headless zombie body.
He hung it like a piece of meat in a butcher shop and began to dismember it!
First, he removed an arm, satisfied, and put it in his mouth, chewing with black blood dripping down his chin.
After eating the other arm, he gnawed on the body, the scene horrifying.
Now that he had something to eat, Ning Yu didn't continue to watch the butcher feast on his own kind.
For a short while, he probably wouldn't throw the hook again.
Unfortunately, he didn't get fresh meat; he had to settle for expired food.
Shen Yiyue ahead was in danger.
Several fast-moving zombies had entangled her from the side, about 5-6 in total.
With her current strength, dealing with these attacks simultaneously was not a problem.
But her leg had been slashed by the hook, making her dodges less agile, and she could only swing her long blade continuously, struggling to hold on.
A little boy zombie behind her suddenly pounced, falling to the ground, and bit into her ankle!
"Ah!"
She cried out in pain, but the zombies in front continued their attacks, leaving her no time to deal with it.
Fortunately, Ning Yu arrived from behind in time, slicing off half the boy zombie's head and kicking it away.
The zombies entangled with Shen Yiyue were quickly killed in their cooperation.
Before they could check how badly her ankle was bitten, the two ran up the gymnasium stairs.
There was a half-open barred iron gate on the stairs, not locked.
They quickly slipped in and closed the iron gate.
The zombies outside climbed the stairs rapidly, squeezing against the gate, their arms waving through the gaps.
The gate opened outward, but their low intelligence didn't realize that stepping back would open it.
Shen Yiyue, still in shock, glanced at the line of zombies outside the iron gate, as if it were the lunch queue.
After a brief rest of a few tens of seconds, the two quickly got up.
"Let's go inside; there should be a door here."
Ning Yu helped Shen Yiyue up; her continuous injuries made her forehead sweat with pain.
After circling the gymnasium, they found a locked door at the back.
Ning Yu noticed that the dust on the ground was significantly less here.
Someone must have been coming and going.
She quickly knocked on the door to see if anyone responded; if not, she would use the Crimson War Blade to force it open.
But soon, a muffled male voice came from inside:
"Who's there?"
Ning Yu quickly signaled to Shen Yiyue with her eyes, indicating she would speak.
Shen Yiyue immediately understood and stopped her action of preparing to speak.
"I'm Ning Yu from Class 3, Grade 6! There are so many monsters outside... wuwuwu... can you let me in? I'm so scared..."
The silver-haired little girl's voice, softer and sweeter than her usual tone, was filled with a crying intonation.
Anyone who heard it would only think she was a student from Tianshen Elementary School.
The person inside was indeed fooled; the door handle turned, and a crack opened.
As soon as it opened, Ning Yu burst in with astonishing speed, placing her blade against the person inside's neck:
"Don't move."
The silver-haired little girl's voice was cold, her gaze icy.
The person who opened the door was a middle-aged man with a few strands of gray at his temples and wrinkles on his face.
He held a baseball bat in his hand.
But with the blade at his neck, he dared not move, his expression panicked.
The middle-aged man also saw the person holding the blade to his neck, a silver-haired little girl.
Before he could be surprised by her swift and ruthless actions, he noticed something even more shocking:
"It's you? You're not... already gone?"
???
Ning Yu was also puzzled, but her grip didn't loosen; her amber eyes stared directly at him:
"Do you know me?"