Chapter 175. The End of the World

   【Random Free Dungeon is being selected. Free Dungeon selection successful. Deploying now…】

     In an instant, Wang Xue found herself in a different environment, but it wasn’t the familiar white space of the survivors.

     She tumbled through the air, transitioning from a bright and spacious living room to a chaotic commercial street, and only managed to right herself in time to avoid landing on the ground covered in purplish-black bloodstains.

     All that could be seen on the street were twisted cars, shattered glass, dirty backpacks, and other debris. The stench was so foul it was nauseating. Most impossible to ignore were the zombies wandering aimlessly down the street.

     The zombies were covered head to toe in purplish-black. Their faces had severe rotting spots, their eyeballs were either sunken or bulging, their hair had mostly fallen out, and their fingernails were long and hard.

     Looking closely at their deformed features, one could tell that they were mostly Caucasians in life, suggesting this was likely not the China apocalypse world.

     Having smelled the long-absent scent of fresh blood, the zombies all became active, opening their bloody maws and making “heh-heh-heh” sounds of extreme excitement, with what appeared to be foul-smelling saliva dripping from the corners of their mouths.

     They moved towards the direction of the living, some very slowly, even tripping over things on the ground and crawling forward, while others were very fast and ran more agilely.

     “Damn it!”

     Wang Xue reached out, and a cyan sword instantly appeared in her hand. Gripping the sword and drawing it from its sheath, she kicked backward against the twisted BMW behind her.

     Leaping high into the air, her sword left only afterimages as she swung it. Blackish-red blood sprayed everywhere, and the heads of the first wave of zombies surging from all directions fell in a neat, synchronized manner.

     This move was called the White Ape Swordsmanship. It had some connection to Sima Xuankong, the founder of the Emei Sect, but it wasn’t created by him. Instead, it was created by a woman from the Yue state, and was also known as the Yue Maiden Swordsmanship.

     Wang Xue’s talent points were concentrated in speed, making agile swordsmanship and boxing a better fit for her.

    With each sword strike, a circle of zombie heads was severed and then smashed into a pulp by heavy force.

     There were not only humanoid zombies but also animal zombies. The easiest to overlook were the small animal zombies, and the most annoying were the zombie birds that still retained their instinct to fly.

     Putting aside the zombie animals, the humanoid zombies in this world really resembled those in the ‘Doomsday Supermarket’ instance, either an evolved or weakened version of them.

     The number of zombies kept increasing, and Wang Xue let out a breath of frustration.

     While she was flying over the eaves and walls to moved swiftly away from the center of the target area, she wreaked havoc everywhere, using cars, steel frames, and even walls to crush those disgusting zombies.

     Ten minutes later, Wang Xue, standing on the roof of a medium-sized office building, looked at the doomsday scene below and frowned: “Check personal tasks.”

 

   【Free Dungeon: 《The End of the World》】

     Task: Hunt 100,000 Zombies (1921/100000)

     Note: The first survivor to complete the main task will receive 8000 points, the second survivor to complete the task will receive 5000 points; the third survivor to complete the task will receive 3000 points; survivors who complete the task from fourth to one hundredth place will receive 500 points; survivors after the hundredth place will receive 0 points.

     Warm Reminder:

      • Survivors invited into the free dungeon by a scroll share tasks and rewards with their teammates and will not receive additional points.

      • When the number of zombies in the Dungeon world falls below 500,000, or when the total population of the Dungeon world is less than 5,000,000, the free Dungeon will automatically close, and survivors will be forced to exit. Survivors who have not completed the task will fail.

      • Death in the Dungeon means death in reality; task failure means death in reality.】

 

     “A battle ranking in a free dungeon?” Wang Xue grinned. “The zombie world is where my friendship with Sister Jing blossoms. Are these two dungeons connected?”

     She had already noticed that her current body data was exactly the same as in reality, even her clothes were her home cotton pajamas, giving her a strange feeling of unease.

    Wang Xue took a piece of cloth from her spatial jade bracelet, tore it into strips, and wrapped it tightly around her face. She then sprayed a full two bottles of magic potion (produced by Watson) all over herself. This potion was meant to resist miasma, but Wang Xue used it as an air freshener.

     Without wasting any more time, she began her zombie-reaping journey.

     Such a simple dungeon, such disgusting zombies… it’s better not to let Watson and Sister Jing come in and suffer. The scroll is even more expensive than the first-place reward!

     “*Music*!”

     Zombies didn’t seem to count as living beings anymore. Their five senses weren’t affected by music; they only instinctively pursued blood and light, like animals. Wang Xue was playing it for herself.

     Killing zombies was truly simple.

     During the process, she encountered a small number of survivors. Wang Xue confirmed they weren’t locals of this world and paid them no further attention.

     And when they saw Wang Xue’s afterimage, where her sword passed through piles of corpses without a drop of blood clinging to it, they kept their distance. They couldn’t afford to shoot down this many zombies.

     But just as Wang Xue’s task count reached 85886/100000, the system suddenly announced a message:

   【《The End of the World》 Announcement: Congratulations to survivor Lani Shannon for being the first to complete the main task (100000/100000), reward: 8000 points!】

     “My 5000 points!”

     After a heartbroken wail, Wang Xue dared not delay any longer and sped up. She had almost cleared this city, so she would head to the next city, which was full of zombie concentration points.

     After some more time passed, she finally heard,

   【Congratulations to survivor Wang Xueqing for completing the main task (100000/100000), reward: 5000 points. Would you like to be announced in 《The End of the World》 as “Wang Xueqing”?】

     “No, no, no, are you kidding me?” Wang Xue nearly slipped and fell onto the filthy street. “Wang Xue, announce it as Wang Xue!”

 

   【《The End of the World》 Announcement: Congratulations to survivor Wang Xue for being the second to complete the main task (100000/100000), reward: 5000 points!】

   【《The End of the World》 Announcement: Congratulations to survivor Tom for being the third to complete the main task (100000/100000), reward: 3000 points!】

   【……】

     …

     A series of three announcements almost made Wang Xue overlook the information the system gave her:

   【Survivor Wang Xueqing detected as having completed the task. Exit the free dungeon immediately?】

    “This free dungeon is truly free,” Wang Xue muttered with a slight smile. “First time participating in such a free dungeon.”

      Wang Xue didn’t choose to leave the dungeon immediately. She wandered around several doomsday cities in this world, and truly found no living locals. Even the animals had all been eaten or zombified. It was a truly despairing end of the world.

     She headed from the city towards the suburbs.

     In the suburbs, she finally saw a small group of locals in a village, who could also be considered doomsday survivors. Each of them was emaciated and sallow-faced, looking extremely haggard.

     By the time Wang Xue arrived, two blonde-haired, blue-eyed survivors had already had some “interaction” with the locals, showcasing their incredibly high combat power.

     Now, these locals were at least outwardly well-behaved. The way they looked at the survivors was a mixture of fear, envy, jealousy, and greed.

     Wang Xue didn’t introduce herself. She also had a friendly exchange with the two blonde-haired, blue-eyed survivors using her sword – which involved nearly sending them flying with a single strike.

     Soon, the two survivors, speaking awkward Mandarin Chinese, “warmly and enthusiastically” shared the information they had already gathered with Wang Xue.

     Locals:

   【???】

   【!!!】

   【What are they talking about?】

   【Why are they all so powerful?】

   【Where did they suddenly appear from, the East? Is it a custom for this Eastern woman to wrap her head?】

     After a brief exchange with the two survivors, Wang Xue confirmed that she was in a city in west-central France, Europe.

     “……Whoops, I can’t swim, so it’s hard to fly to Asia to confirm if there’s a connection between ‘The End of the World’ and ‘Doomsday Supermarket’.”

     And there are a few key points.

      First, the formation of this apocalypse.

     Starting in the winter of 2019, various countries around the world experienced a relatively severe flu. At the time, we thought it was just the flu, but on December 21st – a day the locals will never forget – some of those who had the flu suddenly mutated and turned into zombies.

     “They have no reason, only the desire to eat people. Those who are bitten or even scratched will also be infected…”

     Of course, some mutations also occurred among humans. These people might have increased strength or speed, or possess some chosen abilities, increasing their resistance to zombies.

     However, human mutations couldn’t compare to the zombies.

     Wang Xue glanced at the mutations the locals mentioned. One was a strength-type ability user. Compared to ordinary people, they might be something, but compared to survivors, or even zombies, they were indeed lacking.

     In short, that’s how this world is now.

     Finally, Wang Xue asked a seemingly unrelated question: “What was the population before the zombie outbreak?”

     “9.2 billion.”

     500,000 x 100,000 = 50 billion.

     Thankfully, that also includes various zombie animals. The number of animals on Earth is far greater than that of humans. Between the dead and the required minimum of 500 million living people, and the 50 billion zombies the survivors must hunt, the latter is clearly much larger.

     In any case, as survivors complete their tasks one by one, the danger level in this world will drop sharply. The locals of this world have a chance to survive, after all, they’ve been through a lot and some have physical mutations.

     Is the Survivor App doing a charity clean-up this time?

     After bidding farewell to the two survivors, Wang Xue didn’t continue killing the zombies that were useless to her. After visiting the next survivor base, she silently recited “Exit free dungeon.”

     The familiar darkness enveloped her vision.

      Wang Xue blinked, and in an instant, she was transported from the desolate doomsday city back to her bright and spacious living room. But why did the air still have that foul, fishy smell? And was she still wearing the headscarf she used to cover her face?

     “Zombie dungeon?”

     Ye Mo smelled the familiar odor and immediately and swiftly selected equipment from her spatial storage.

     An amorphous alloy glass cover instantly enclosed Wang Xue completely. Upon hearing this, Watson seriously cooperated, taking out detoxifiers and air purifiers to begin treating the surrounding air.

     Wang Xue looked up at the ceiling, speechless.

     Subsequently, Watson continued to conduct a series of experiments using different kinds of animals. He confirmed that only the freshly spilled zombie blood on Wang Xue’s knife possessed blood-borne transmissibility, while the rest of the blood on her had already lost this characteristic.

     He concluded that the zombie virus was not airborne, and that zombie blood likely lost its blood-borne transmission properties after being exposed to the environment for more than 5 minutes.

     This aligned with the information Wang Xue had obtained from the locals in the dungeon.

     Ye Mo couldn’t help but touch the back of her neck. Back then, she had just entered the dungeon when she was sprayed with zombie blood all over her back. Even now, recalling that scene, she could still feel the desperate will to survive she had at the time.

     Just in case, they still performed a purification treatment on Wang Xue and the items on her.

     After resolving the zombie virus issue, the three of them finally exchanged information. Wang Xue learned that she had experienced a body-crossing(身穿 – shenchuan, a term for being transported into another world in one’s current body/Isekai), and the time she spent in the “The End of the World” dungeon was equal to the time she had disappeared from the real world.