Chapter 19: Dog Bark |
Wu Zhong caught his breath and rested for a moment.
His adrenaline was gradually fading, and pain emanated all over his body.
After all the turmoil, his skin was black and blue, scratched and bitten—truly brutal.
"Rip!"
He tore off some ragged cloth from his torn clothes and bandaged his wounds.
He inspected the smooth vertical pipe wall. Since the military knife was so sharp, maybe he could try chiseling grooves and climb out.
Clang clang clang!
He kept hacking and chipping, then stepped on and climbed the carved grooves, advancing cautiously step by step, painfully supporting himself upward.
"It hurts! It hurts!"
"Thud thud thud!"
There was a duct gate here. He chopped it open, slammed into it with force, and tumbled out.
"God… I'm beat."
He lay on the cold ground as the area brightened, the air thick with a foul stench.
It looked like a pig farm—pens full of live pigs were kept around.
"Good thing it's not a freezer. So they were feeding live animals."
Wu Zhong staggered to his feet and followed a passage out.
Before long he pushed open a small door and exited the piggery.
He found the pig farm was inside a larger building, but that building had been blasted and mostly collapsed, streaked with remnants of purple pulp.
So Infinite Summer had known he'd come out here, sabotaged the place ahead of time, and lured people away.
"Rumble!"
Outside the wind and rain raged, thunder crashed.
Faintly, there were gunshots and cannon blasts, along with indescribable collisions and explosions.
Wu Zhong was inside the area enclosed by the base's barbed-wire fence. The zone was large, with several buildings— the pig farm was only one—watchtowers stood everywhere.
He saw a big troop movement and immediately flattened himself to the ground.
"So it was just the underground air raid shelter. There's a military base out here—how do I get out?"
He looked at the military knife in his hand; the tip was dull and the edge somewhat bent.
Although the material was unusually tough—no chips in the blade despite everything—it wasn't as sharp anymore.
"Fine, do my best. Worst case, I get captured and taken back."
After a squad passed, Wu Zhong sprang up and ran for the fence.
To be fair, the base's defenses were much looser up here—most personnel were rushing toward the source of the explosions.
There, a gale swirled rain and debris, with a purple glow in the haze.
Boom boom boom!
A beam of purple light shot out—an explosion capable of blasting through metal walls or punching a plasma pit in the ground.
"It's Infinite Summer… he's still creating me chances." Wu Zhong dismissed surrender and, amid the chaos, ran to the base wall.
The wall was tall, topped with barbed wire.
There was probably no electricity—the power grid seemed destroyed; Wu Zhong had seen several underground cables blasted and shredded along the way.
This was likely Infinite Summer's deliberate sabotage.
The main purpose was probably to weaken those air-shield users who relied on power hookups.
"Slash!"
Wu Zhong jumped and slashed, cutting the barbed wire, then vaulted the wall into wooded, brushy hills.
The base was remote, built around the mountain's air raid shelter.
Once he escaped, he was immediately in the wilds.
The mountain paths were muddy, and the storm still raged.
Wu Zhong sprinted in the rain, but not far behind came gunshots.
"Bang!"
"Freeze!"
Someone had spotted him.
He turned and realized the people were not from inside the fence—there were patrols outside as well!
The woods around the base were not a true no-man's land; various hidden outposts were scattered about.
They hadn't panicked because of the internal chaos; they stayed alert and caught sight of him.
"Don't shoot…" Wu Zhong dared not run and quickly raised his hands.
"Drop and cover your head!" The patrolman was large and lumbered toward him.
At that moment—boom!
A massive explosion erupted behind them; a violent shockwave knocked both Wu Zhong and the patrolman over.
"What the—"
Wu Zhong watched a building inside the base collapse, a blast wind spewing out, the ground below glinting gold.
"This… that's Captain Lu's move, right?"
Wu Zhong's forehead glistened with sweat. Infinite Summer's energy had been purple, while Lu Guangqi's was golden yellow.
This towering explosive light wave matched the technique Lu Guangqi had used when battling Ji Meng.
Its force was enormous. In the stormy distance, gold light shone; the purple was no longer visible.
"There's no way Infinite Summer was killed instantly, right?"
Wu Zhong grimaced but had no time to interfere.
Seeing that the fierce fight had drawn the patrol's attention, he pulled the pin on a grenade, tossed it, and ran!
"Boom!"
He heard a grenade explode behind him and expected to laugh, but he only heard the patrolman's laughter while feeling nothing wrong himself.
"Huh? I heard it but nothing happened to me? Is it an area infection?"
Wu Zhong turned and estimated he was about thirty meters from the patrolman.
So the grenade forced laughter only within thirty meters—outside that radius, nothing happened.
Calmer, he stowed his last grenade.
He barreled through the forest using hands and feet to scramble.
Forced laughter was a horrible effect; regardless of someone's abilities, their combat effectiveness plummeted.
It was worse than concussion grenades or tear gas—another grenade was required to end it.
Obviously, these outer patrols didn't have such equipment; they'd have to wait for Unit 985 specialists.
Using that to his advantage, Wu Zhong shook off his pursuers and ran deeper into the woods.
Mount Lu was a range with some famous peaks and attractions but also large tracts of natural land, including protected areas.
Wu Zhong didn't know the way. Climbing over three ridges, he still couldn't find a road.
"Where the hell did this lead me?"
Exhausted, he sat down and drank some spring water to rest.
"Ugh… my whole body hurts…"
"And I'm so tired; my heart's pounding…"
"Did I get infected by zombie toxin? Am I turning?"
He re-bandaged his wounds, worried about being bitten by zombies.
If zombies existed, then being scratched or bitten could mean infection—almost common sense.
"Howl! Woo-oh-oh!"
Suddenly Wu Zhong heard howling—or rather, dog barking.
He looked back and saw three big guard dogs standing on distant rocks, staring at him!
They looked like German Shepherds but huge, moving like wolves through the mountains.
"Oh man, dogs are chasing me for real!" Wu Zhong scrambled to his feet and ran.
He noticed collars on their necks and realized they belonged to Unit 985—likely tracking dogs like police K9s.
Can a human fight dogs? It depends.
When he was a teenager, Wu Zhong had once fought stray dogs barehanded; he won but got mauled.
These shepherds now were much stronger—half a person tall, wolf-like.
There were three of them!
If it came to blows, he felt doomed.
"Don't chase me!"
As he ran, they closed in. He hurled a stone.
He aimed well and hit the one closest to him.
But thud!
The rock bounced off as the dog plowed into it. Worse, the dog showed no hesitation.
Not a hair was disturbed!
"What? Not a single hair out of place?"
Wu Zhong was stunned, and he threw more stones.
No matter how hard he threw, the dogs weren't hurt and kept up their speed!
Looking closely, these dogs raced through the brush, repeatedly scraping against rocks and branches, but suffered no damage.
In contrast, Wu Zhong's body was already torn up with countless fresh wounds.
The fastest dog had leapt at him from behind.
Wu Zhong swung his blade and chopped at the dog's head!
"Vrrr!"
His palm went numb from the shock; the knife nearly slipped from his grasp.
"What?"
"What the hell kind of dogs are these? Impervious to knives and bullets!"
His scalp tingled—these weren't ordinary dogs.
His cut could split a zombie skull, yet it couldn't take so much as a hair from the dog's head.
"Awooo!"
About to be bitten, Wu Zhong rolled aside, half-kneeling, and imitated a dog's bark.
"Woof woof woof! Woo-ho… arf!"
He did the dog barks with all his might and grit—baring his teeth and crazily barking like a dog.
He didn't know why it might work, but since Infinite Summer had emphasized it, he followed the advice.
Oddly enough, his dog-barking froze the three big shepherds.
They hesitated, pacing and barking at him, but they stopped pursuing.
Seeing this, Wu Zhong slowly backed away and barked at them more, until his mouth went dry and his throat felt like smoke. When he couldn't bark any longer, he had gotten distance and turned to run.
"It actually worked?"
"But why?"
He ran, questions full in his head.
In his life he'd seen many strange things, but nothing compared to the past couple days.
A plum that always made him thirsty, the irresistible tangled mess, a grenade forcing laughter in a radius, an air shield tied to electricity, a cultivation system that required money, and now dogs that knives couldn't pierce.
All these anomalies made him increasingly bewildered.
By comparison, zombies and ghosts felt almost commonplace.
He was full of questions about this world, curiosity and confusion that he'd have to swallow until Infinite Summer explained them.
"I managed to get away— you should be able to too, right?"
Wu Zhong murmured, but then heard barking again.
"Howl!"
He turned in shock—the dogs had caught up to him again… damn it!
He had no choice but to bark at them once more.
When the three big dogs closed in, he had to turn back and start the barking standoff again.
He barked his lungs raw, and the dogs hurled themselves at him, barking too but not advancing.
"Excellent trackers and impervious to blades and bullets—but when they hear the pursued person barking like a dog, they stop and bark back… until they no longer hear it, then they resume tracking."
Wu Zhong worked out the dogs' pattern carefully and had it figured out.
Using the delay to lengthen the distance, he fled again.
But humans ultimately can't outrun dogs; scent and persistence let them catch up.
"When will this end…"
Third time, fourth time, fifth time…
He was tracked by the dogs all the way, understanding by now that he couldn't shake them for good.
After several rounds of barking, his voice was hoarse and raw; he knew that if they caught up again, he might not be able to bark at all.
Luckily, after winding through the mountains, he finally came out and saw the road.