Shi You waited in the storage room for another hour. During that time, nearly twenty groups ran down into the underground parking garage. The number of zombies kept increasing, until there were so many that even with Frost Jade in hand, he couldn't kill his way out. Fortunately, half an hour ago, the sounds outside had gradually quieted down.
Low-level zombies were monsters attracted by sound, acting purely on instinct. When the electricity in the mall went out, the ventilation system stopped working. The chaotic sounds in the streets became the best bait.
Shi You moved the objects blocking the door aside and pushed it open gently. What appeared before his eyes was a massive pool of blood outside the door.
Blood was splattered across the floor, walls, and ceiling. A few bloody handprints stained the door.
There were no corpses on the floor, only torn-off arms and legs.
It seemed the zombies hadn't eaten their brains. They had only bitten their arms and legs, after which these people had turned into zombies and been drawn away from the parking garage by the noise.
Shi You understood the terror of zombies all too well.
Normal living creatures...
If their limbs were broken, they would feel pain and lose all ability to fight.
If one of their own kind was killed, fear would make them lose the will to fight.
But zombies were different. Even without their limbs, they would still sink their teeth into the nearest enemy.
Even if all their comrades were killed, the remaining zombies would continue attacking.
They were exactly like the undead.
Learning how to kill zombies as quickly as possible was a mandatory lesson for everyone in the apocalypse.
Shi You walked out onto the street and looked around. He saw severed limbs and mangled corpses everywhere. Thick black blood mixed with human blood. Cars that had veered off the road had smashed into pieces, their tires smeared with pulverized flesh as messy as mud.
There were practically no survivors left on the street. Only zombies ran rampant, drawn by the sound of something exploding.
Black smoke covered the sky. Less than two hours after the Doomsday Game arrived, the once-prosperous city had become a ruin.
And this was only the beginning. As the zombies grew stronger, more and more mutant zombies would appear. Breeder nests would spread throughout the city. Mutant zombies capable of jumping dozens of meters high, possessing dozens of tons of strength, and unleashing charges with hundreds or even thousands of tons of force would appear everywhere.
Compared with that time, the current situation hadn't even truly begun.
Using billboards and wrecked cars as cover, Shi You slowly made his way to the other side of the street.
The distance was less than five hundred meters, yet it took him twenty whole minutes!
When he reached the corner, sweat beaded on Shi You's forehead.
There was no more cover. The zombies wandering around the square spotted Shi You immediately.
Shi You stopped suppressing the sound of his footsteps. His Agility, twice that of an ordinary person, exploded to its full potential. Before he could draw the horde's attention, he turned sharply and vanished from the zombies' sight.
After leaving the mall, the number of zombies dropped noticeably.
Low-level zombies were attracted by sound. The more zombies there were, the more likely even more zombies would gather. Thus, during the early stages of the apocalypse, zombies weren't evenly distributed throughout every part of the city.
It was like a tribe. Each area would have a large group of zombies. The areas outside those groups were relatively safe. That was why some cowards never leveled up yet still managed to survive in the city for a long time.
[Experience +2]
Shi You slashed down a zombie and looked around the shops. He happened to meet the eyes of several people. The moment they made eye contact with him, those people quickly ducked their heads back like frightened rats.
Shi You ignored them and vaulted through a broken window into the small shop next door.
If this had been his previous life, he definitely would have captured these people.
Everyone's supplies for a single night, multiplied by a sufficiently large number of people, would amount to a considerable income.
But things were different now. He had no secure base. Capturing them would be useless.
Shi You sat down at a relatively clean table in the shop, popped a piece of chocolate into his mouth, and opened his personal status panel.
Player: Shi You
Level: 2
Experience: 48/100
Card slots: 3/25 (increases by five slots every time you level up)
Title: None
Basic Attributes (including the bonuses from Frost Jade)
Strength: 20
Agility: 28
Vitality: 18
Spirit: 34
(Note: Decimal values are rounded to two places and are no longer displayed.)
Free attribute points: 0
Resistance: 30% Frost Resistance
Skills: ...
Equipment: Frost Jade (semi-legendary), Falling Feather Ring (gold)
"Twenty-six more kills and I'll level up."
Shi You checked the time. It was already 4:10 p.m. During the apocalypse, night would fall at exactly 6:00 p.m. and last until 6:00 the following morning. Day and night varied by location around the world, but they were guaranteed to be twelve hours each. Even the North and South Poles were subject to this rule. It wasn't scientific, but since a scientifically impossible Doomsday Game had appeared, no one cared about minor details like this anymore.
At night, all of a zombie's attributes increased by 50%.
A zombie's basic attributes on the first day were 10 points in all four stats. A 50% increase brought that to 15 points.
For Shi You now, that wasn't a problem. But he had no intention of hunting at night.
Night didn't just increase the zombies' abilities. It also drastically reduced human visibility and the rest of their senses.
Besides, Shi You needed to rest too.
Risking a nighttime hunt to level up as quickly as possible on the first day, only to have no strength left the next day and be forced to sleep, then go back out hunting at night after waking up—what an idiotically stupid plan!
Right now, he needed to try to reach Level 3 before six in the evening, then find a safe shelter. Once that was done, today's mission would be complete.
Shi You swallowed the dark chocolate, took a sip of water, and carried the remaining supplies out of the shop.
The people in the nearby shops stared at Shi You greedily. Several of them looked as if they wanted to say something, but in the end, they hesitantly ducked their heads back.
Shi You crossed the street. There were few zombies on the other side as well, just a dozen or so. They were scattered into two or three small groups.
Without hiding his movements, Shi You assessed the situation, then dragged Frost Jade as he charged toward the three nearest zombies.
The zombies turned around quickly and lunged at him with growls. Their movements weren't slow, but in the eyes of Shi You, with 34 points of Spirit and 28 points of Agility, they moved like crawling turtles.
At this moment, Shi You still had time to adjust the direction of his slash. As he made the perfect adjustment, his Strength and the icy aura erupted simultaneously. The Frost Jade Saber, more than 1.6 meters long, had the advantage of reach. Its blade swept through the necks of all three zombies from a distance they couldn't cross to touch Shi You. All three heads fell at once.