Chapter 323 - 163: Riverside

Chapter 323: Chapter 163: Riverside

THUD... THUD... THUD...

It sounded like thousands of people stampeding.

’Thousands of people??? More like thousands of zombies!!!’

Xu Mo’s pupils contracted. His first thought was that something had targeted him again.

’Just like on the outskirts of Luochuan City, when Void sent zombies to surround me, pushing me step-by-step into a corner. Is the same scene about to play out again?’

Xu Mo’s hand reached for his Triangular Spike, then pulled back and went for the Barrett instead.

’No!’

’Luochuan City had such a large population, so many zombies, and it only produced a single Void. How could something of that level exist out here in the middle of nowhere, dozens of kilometers from the nearest town?’

The tremors grew closer, clearer.

Xu Mo’s mind raced.

’What are these zombies running from? What are they running toward?’ Xu Mo made a quick decision: he had to get out of here first.

Restarting the engine, Xu Mo slowly drove the vehicle off the road and onto an open patch of wasteland. After finding a relatively concealed spot to park, he looked in the direction the tremors were coming from.

Two or three minutes later, the things appeared. Through the front windshield, Xu Mo saw a massive horde of zombies.

They burst from the darkness, shrieking and roaring like a surging black torrent. There had to be at least a thousand of them, maybe more. They converged from different directions, their target clear: the river.

Then Xu Mo watched as the horde of zombies charged into the river.

Xu Mo saw it clearly. The zombies at the front reached the riverbank and, without the slightest hesitation, leaped directly into the water. The second wave followed, then the third, then the fourth—they plunged into the river one after another, and the once-calm surface instantly began to roil.

GLUG, GLUG, GLUG—

It was the sound of gulping. Thousands of zombies were drinking at the same time, and the sheer density of the noise was enough to make one’s skin crawl. They buried their heads in the water, swallowing mouthful after mouthful as if they hadn’t had a drop to drink in their entire lives.

Then, there was movement in the water. Xu Mo saw the surface near the bank suddenly explode as a massive fish leaped out, latched its jaws onto a zombie’s neck, and dragged it under. Immediately after, more fish began to attack. They shot out from below, biting at the zombies’ legs and bodies, pulling them into the depths.

The attacked zombies shrieked, thrashing in the water and flailing their arms to grab their assailants. But the fish were too fast, too agile. They would strike and retreat, giving the zombies no chance to fight back.

Then, something even stranger happened. A zombie that had been bitten by a fish turned and sank its teeth into another drinking zombie beside it. The newly bitten zombie then lunged at a third.

A chain reaction erupted in an instant. The horde, which had just been drinking water, suddenly began to attack each other.

Xu Mo sat in his car, watching the brutal slaughter on the riverbank from several hundred meters away.

The zombies grappled in the water, tearing and rolling. Some had their necks snapped and collapsed into the river; others, with their legs bitten off, struggled to crawl back to shore. Some gave up on drinking entirely and began to furiously attack everything around them—including the mutated fish and the other zombies.

The water’s surface kept erupting as mutated fish shot out, seized zombies, and dragged them into the deep. Zombies flailed in the water, grabbing the fish’s bodies and tearing at them with their teeth. Fish scales flew and black blood flowed, turning the entire river into a boiling cauldron.

Within minutes, the riverbank had become a bloodbath.

Xu Mo gripped the steering wheel, a chill running down his spine as he watched the scene unfold.

He had seen hordes, he had seen slaughter, he had seen all kinds of death. But the scene before him still made his scalp tingle.

Those zombies weren’t being controlled or driven by anything. They were just—

’Thirsty?’

Xu Mo thought back on the continuous high temperatures of the past few days, on the zombies hiding in the shade, too afraid to come out. He remembered their strange behavior—roaring but not attacking. ’They’re afraid of the heat. They need water.’

This river was the only water source nearby. The zombies scattered across the wilderness would instinctively converge on it at night when the temperature dropped slightly. Then they would drink, get attacked by mutated fish, attack each other—and die here.

This was the law of survival in the apocalypse. It wasn’t just humans who had to adapt; the zombies were adapting, too. They feared the heat, so they hid during the day. They needed water, so they gathered at night. The mutated fish needed food, so they waited in the river for the zombies to serve themselves up.

It was a complete ecosystem. Brutal, bloody, but efficient.

Xu Mo watched the slaughter by the river, silent for a long time.

A few more minutes passed, and the commotion by the river began to subside. Most of the zombies were dead. The surface of the river was blanketed with a dense layer of corpses; some were still twitching faintly, while others were completely still.

The mutated fish still darted through the water, dragging bodies into the depths to enjoy their bountiful feast. A few surviving zombies struggled onto the bank, soaked to the bone, and staggered away into the darkness.

Xu Mo started the engine and slowly drove away. He drove for a long time, until he could no longer hear the shrieks from the river, before finally stopping the car and sitting in the darkness.

’I’ll just have to make do and spend the night here.’

The next morning, when Xu Mo woke up, the sky was already bright.

He had parked in a patch of wasteland, open and exposed on all sides. Xu Mo walked to a higher vantage point and glanced toward the river. Its surface was as calm as a mirror, showing no sign of what had happened last night. The bodies had likely all been dragged away and devoured by the mutated fish, leaving not a single trace behind.

Xu Mo stood by the bank and watched for a moment before turning around, getting back in his car, and continuing upstream.

After driving for about two more hours, Xu Mo finally saw a bridge. It was an old stone bridge, not very wide, but it looked sturdy enough—more than enough for an off-road vehicle to cross.

The off-road vehicle drove smoothly across the bridge, its wheels causing a slight vibration as they rolled over the gaps between the stone slabs. A dozen or so seconds later, the vehicle drove off the bridge and came to a steady stop on the other side of the river.

Xu Mo got out of the car and glanced back at the bridge. The stone lion at the bridge’s entrance stood there silently, watching this strange passerby. Xu Mo could feel something in the water staring at him, but he couldn’t be bothered to even look.

"Bye-bye~"

After waving goodbye to the stone lion, Xu Mo turned, got back in his car, and continued onward.

Ahead lay the same endless wilderness. The sun hung high in the sky, scorching the earth. The temperature began to rise again, and shimmering heat waves distorted the distant scenery.

Xu Mo turned on the radio again and slowly adjusted the dial. A hissing static came from the speakers—still nothing.