Aaron Palmer, having just dried his hair, wailed, “Brother Kevin! Next time I’m trying to show off in front of a girl, don’t tear me down!”

His expression was more deeply aggrieved than a ghost banished to limbo for eight centuries.

Kevin Keane gave him a mild glance, his tone merciless. “Not even food can shut your mouth. Nancy Sullivan isn’t even here this time, so what’s the point of strutting around like a peacock?”

Aaron’s expression twisted in embarrassment, but he continued to argue. “I wasn’t purposely strutting for Nancy! I’ve always been handsome, suave, sunny, and extraordinarily powerful… I could just stand there breathing, and Nancy would still think I’m incredibly capable!”

Rhonda Dawson listened in stunned silence, deeply shocked by his sheer shamelessness.

Blake Blue chimed in to burst his bubble. “I don’t think Nancy feels that way at all.”

Miles Dawson didn’t let him off the hook either. “The dream guy of every girl in the base? Then how come whenever we’re hanging out with you, we always end up in shouting matches with people? Your good looks aren’t doing us any favors.”

Aaron choked on his words. Too lazy to keep arguing, he let out a dry, hollow laugh. “That’s because we’re always wearing masks! It stifles my handsomeness! Luna, Sister Wendy, aren’t I handsome?”

Rhonda perfunctorily picked up a slice of beef and dropped it into his bowl, praising him with a gentle smile. “Yes, Aaron is very good-looking.”

Kevin raised an eyebrow and looked at Luna Dawson. “Little Boss, who is better looking, him or me?”

Luna had been sipping her porridge and enjoying the show. Suddenly singled out, she let out a confused, “Huh?”

Kevin refused to let it drop, pressing for an answer. “Am I better looking, or is Aaron?”

Luna recovered her wits. She looked at Aaron’s expectant face, then at the awkwardly expectant Kevin. “Well, you’re both handsome. Brother Aaron is overtly flashy, and you’re secretly flashy.”

“HAHAHA!” Everyone couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

Kevin was speechless.

Blake doubled over with laughter. Swallowing a mouthful of cold noodles, he swept his gaze over the group. “Alright, enough joking around. We need to talk business.”

He briefly summarized the infiltration plan for Walsh Pharmaceuticals they had finalized in the meeting. Tomorrow morning, the group planned to sneak into the factory through the underground pipes of the industrial park’s sewage treatment plant. They would enter the research facility directly from below, bypassing the majority of the zombies wandering the factory grounds and the industrial park.

Kevin nodded and chimed in, “You all saw it today. Something is wrong with these zombies, and there are likely quite a few hidden High Order monsters. Besides, it’s been over half a year since the apocalypse began. How could there still be an official rescue broadcast?”

Blake looked out at the pitch-black night sky beyond the tent, the desperate roars echoing over and over in his mind. “The zombies… it’s like they’re setting a trap. The survivors of Decron were all lured here and subjected to a devastating massacre.”

Luna picked up half a raw marinated crab, chewing it with a loud CRUNCH. “…That little girl in red didn’t seem to dare cross the boundary. Her attack felt more like a probe directed at our group of intruders.”

Rhonda recalled the zombie in red’s gaze, which had been a mix of excitement and scrutiny. This level of thinking and weighing options was something they had never seen in previous zombies. A violent shudder ran down her spine. “Luna, I think it was… very interested in you.”

Kevin’s brows furrowed deeply. “They stopped attacking the moment they reached the Oakhaven intersection. It’s like a sense of territorial awareness, just like how predators in nature have their own hunting grounds.”

Blake added, “The way it looked at Luna and Rollo was complicated. There was fear, but also excitement. It was a very contradictory feeling…”

Luna nodded. The reason she hadn’t charged in head-on today was because she was wary of the faint, almost imperceptible superpower fluctuations from other Fourth Order monsters nearby. If she had rushed out, the surrounding High Order zombies might have swooped in to take advantage of the chaos, and their entire squad would likely have suffered heavy casualties right here on Oakhaven.

The sensation of being evaluated by a zombie was incredibly strong. It was weighing the combat strength of Luna and Rollo against the other High Order zombies in Decron. They had learned how to calculate their odds.

Miles downed his bowl of chilled tofu pudding with crushed ice in one gulp and let out a satisfied sigh. “I feel like this place, Decron, operates on its own set of rules. The zombies here have already formed their own ecological chain.”

Luna gave him an affirming look. “Right. That zombie in red didn’t have any Spiritual superpower fluctuations. Its powers were Gold and Earth, yet all those low order zombies were under its command. It’s more like a broodmother’s control, or a hive mind…”

Rhonda’s voice grew tight. “Which means that in this thick fog, these zombies have truly evolved.”

As much as Luna didn’t want to admit it, Rhonda was right. They had evolved. Something that hadn’t happened even two years into the apocalypse in her previous life was now staring her in the face just seven months into this one.

Kevin tapped his finger lightly on the table. “They aren’t simply driven by the primal instinct to devour the living anymore. They can think. This is premeditated hunting.”

Right at that moment, a faint, lingering sobbing drifted up from the building next door, sounding almost like the wind howling through the alleyways.

Everyone instantly went on high alert. They paused with their chopsticks in mid-air, and the world plummeted into a terrifying, heart-stopping silence. Holding their breath, they focused all their senses on the movements outside the building.

“SOB… SOB… WHIMPER… SOB…”

An extremely suppressed and faint whimper tore through the curtain of rain, plucking at the taut nerves of everyone inside the guesthouse like a cold steel needle.

Compared to the relatively relaxed resting atmosphere of the Sunset crew on the seventh floor, the members of the other squads downstairs didn’t dare drop their guard for a single second. They had drawn the heavy curtains, terrified that even a sliver of light might leak out and betray the presence of the living. On the third floor, the few members of the Omni Squad tasked with tonight’s watch relied solely on the moonlight and their night vision goggles to observe the outside environment.

They carefully tore open the packaging of their compressed biscuits. Few spoke; they merely chewed mechanically. The room reeked of a mixture of sweat and the stench of corpses clinging to their combat uniforms from the day’s battles. Everyone chewed in silence, deliberately suppressing even the sounds of their breathing and swallowing.

The dilapidated perimeter wall of the neighboring safe zone, along with the gaps torn open by some unknown force, were as pitch-black as a bottomless stomach, constantly waiting to digest the next wave of survivors.

One of the squad members carefully pushed the window open a crack to listen more closely. Free from obstruction, the wind and rain swept right over the back of his hand and into the room, carrying the musty, damp, and sweltering stench of decay straight into the nostrils of the night watchmen.

The crying sound seemed to have found an opening, slipping through the crack in the window and echoing far more clearly. Several of them stood up and looked toward the adjacent building. There was nothing but unfathomable darkness. The crying carried a bloodcurdling, bizarre quality heavily laden with invisible pressure.

Perhaps, in that absolute darkness, some incomprehensible entity was currently peering at the fresh prey that had just wandered into this dead zone.

Space on this small commercial street came at a premium. These were two private buildings packed closely together, separated by nothing but two courtyard walls. The straight-line distance to the building next door was merely a few meters.

Ian Wyatt leveled his assault rifle toward the source of the sound on the second floor. His breathing was suppressed to an absolute minimum, his heart thudding dully in his chest in time with the sobs.

Ever since they entered Decron, everything had been steeped in an eerie strangeness. This midnight crying felt more like the predatory claws of this dead ghost town stretching out to strike.

Ian raised his right hand slightly, signaling the five-man night watch team to heighten their vigilance and prepare for any sudden emergencies.

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