Yang Bin's steel pipe hammered down on the zombie's skull again and again. He knew the weak point was the head. Hitting anywhere else was pointless.

With each strike, more blood poured from the zombie's skull. Its movements grew sluggish, limbs jerking slower and slower.

Finally, under Yang Bin's relentless barrage, the skull caved in completely-smashed apart by sheer brute force.

The zombie stopped moving. It toppled forward and hit the ground like a felled tree.

Red and white splattered across the concrete.

"Urgh-"

The sight hit Yang Bin like a truck. No matter how tough he was, he dropped to his hands and knees and dry-heaved.

In the heat of the fight, he hadn't thought about it. His only focus had been putting the thing down as fast as possible.

Now that it was over, now that he could actually see the mess of brain matter and blood pooling across the ground, his stomach turned inside out.

There was nothing left in his gut. He nearly retched up bile.

"Urgh-"

The others were farther away, but they'd seen it clearly enough. Every face went white. They doubled over, vomiting.

They were college students. When had any of them ever witnessed something like this?

And they had it worse than Yang Bin-mouths heaving, but hands locked in place. If they let go and the zombie broke free, they were dead. The cruelty of it was almost absurd.

After a long moment, Yang Bin dragged himself upright. He didn't look at the corpse. He walked straight to Chen Hao and Zhao Kun.

The zombie they were pinning still thrashed and clawed at the air. Yang Bin's voice came out thin. "This one... let's just push it off."

"Yeah. Yeah."

Zhao Kun and Chen Hao nodded fast. They were genuinely afraid Yang Bin would cave in another skull.

Even Zhao Kun was looking at Yang Bin differently now-with something close to fear. Smashing a head to pieces with your bare hands and a pipe. Even if it was a zombie, it used to be human. Zhao Kun knew he couldn't have done it.

Yang Bin wasted no time. He had them release the zombie, guided it toward the edge, and Chen Hao and Zhao Kun rammed it off with the stool-same method as before.

Then the group muscled the last pinned zombie over the edge too.

When it was done, they collapsed. Bodies hit the ground like puppets with cut strings. Nobody wanted to move.

It wasn't that this round had been physically harder than the others. It was the vomiting. The exhaustion of keeping your stomach down while your eyes kept drifting to that shattered skull on the concrete.

After a while, Yang Bin pushed himself up again.

Under the horrified stares of everyone else, he walked straight toward the corpse.

"If I want to survive this apocalypse, this kind of thing is going to keep happening. I have to get past this now." The thought was cold and clear in his mind.

He stopped in front of the body. Forced down the nausea. And stared.

Chen Hao watched him. Hesitated. Then clenched his jaw and walked over too.

Zhao Kun and the others looked at the pair like they were watching lunatics. Deep down, Zhao Kun understood why they were doing it. But he couldn't make himself follow.

After a long silence, Yang Bin glanced at Chen Hao beside him. "Haozi. Good man."

"Bin-ge, whatever you do-I'm with you." Chen Hao's voice was steady.

"Good brother." Yang Bin nodded. "Let's toss it."

"Mm."

They lifted the corpse together and heaved it over the edge of the Rooftop. The others finally exhaled.

But what none of them realized was that after this moment, Yang Bin and Chen Hao had already pulled ahead of them in ways that mattered more than strength.

"Half an hour rest. Then we keep going," Yang Bin said.

"Okay."

No one argued. By now, Zhao Kun and his guys feared Yang Bin on a gut level. Even Zhao Kun-proud, stubborn Zhao Kun-was the same.

"Next time, can you not bring so many at once? We barely held on," Zhao Kun muttered.

"You think I wanted to? Those three refused to split up. No choice-had to bring them all."

"What if I go lure them next time?" Zhao Kun offered.

"No. From here on, we're pulling them from the seventh-floor corridor. I'm worried you'd drag the entire hallway up here."

"How do you know you won't?"

"I have my methods. If you really want to go, I won't stop you. But I'll tell you this-there are at least thirty or forty zombies in that corridor. If they swarm you all at once, there won't be enough of you left to identify."

Zhao Kun shuddered involuntarily. Then he coughed, awkward. "...Never mind, then."

Half an hour later, Yang Bin headed back down.

The next stretch went smoothly. The seventh-floor corridor had plenty of zombies, but they were scattered-not clustered together. They weren't standing still either. They drifted aimlessly, shuffling back and forth like sleepwalkers.

Yang Bin crouched at the stairwell entrance, using the corner for cover. True Vision Eye tracked each zombie's position and movement. Whenever one wandered close, he flicked a pebble to draw it toward the stairs, then led it up to the Rooftop where the crew shoved it off the edge.

One by one. Methodical. Efficient.

He lured over ten zombies this way without a hitch. Smooth as clockwork.

Until the seventeenth.

Same setup. Yang Bin pressed against the wall, watching through True Vision Eye, and tossed a stone just ahead of the target.

The opening steps went fine. The pebble trail guided the zombie right to the stairwell entrance.

Then it spotted Yang Bin. Same as the others, it lunged after him with that mindless hunger.

Except this one was fast.

Yang Bin's blood went cold. It was noticeably faster than anything they'd faced before.

If he hadn't already been running, if there hadn't been distance between them, it would have caught him before he reached the Rooftop.

The zombie burst onto the Rooftop. The crew swung the ladder as usual, aiming to slam it toward the edge.

The ladder connected-and the zombie staggered back a few steps, then planted its feet. Stable.

Everyone froze.

Then it charged. Straight at the group. Terrifyingly fast.

The ladder's bulk became a liability. Four people gripping it couldn't maneuver, couldn't dodge. The zombie closed the gap in seconds.

They didn't hesitate. They hurled the ladder at it and scrambled backward.

The zombie swatted the ladder aside like it was cardboard. Kept coming.

Yang Bin saw his opening. He swung from the flank-full force, everything he had-and cracked the pipe across the zombie's skull.

A heavy, dull thud. The steel pipe warped on impact.

The zombie's head was fine. Not even bleeding.

"How-" Yang Bin's eyes went wide. That was everything he had. Full power. And it didn't even break skin.

The zombie's gaze snapped to him. It snarled-a raw, guttural sound-and launched itself at Yang Bin.

He threw himself sideways, rolling across the concrete, barely clearing the lunge. Mid-roll, he swung the pipe up and smashed it into the thing's head again.

Nothing. No real damage. The zombie spun and pounced again.

"Watch out! This one's different!" Yang Bin shouted, scrambling, dodging, backpedaling.

But it was too fast. Every dodge was a razor-thin margin. Twice, three times, he nearly went down under its weight.

He felt it-the helplessness. The pipe bounced off its skull like hitting a wall. What was he supposed to do? Beat it with something that couldn't hurt it?

The others were frantic, but empty-handed. No weapons worth a damn. They couldn't do anything but watch.

Chen Hao snatched up a chunk of brick and surged forward. Zhao Kun grabbed his arm.

"You go in like that, you're dead! A steel pipe can't scratch it-what's a brick gonna do?"

"Then think of something!" Chen Hao's voice cracked. "Bin-ge can't last much longer!"