Chapter 383: Moving Forward

After a quick bite, Xu Mo returned to the area where the wolves had been active the previous night.

It was a relatively low-lying patch of grassland, where the dry grass had been trampled into a mess. A large, dark red stain on the ground stood out starkly against the withered yellow blades.

Getting closer, he could see they were dried bloodstains that radiated outward. Amidst the blood, various things were scattered.

Zombie remains. Or rather, what was left of a zombie after it had been torn to shreds.

Xu Mo squatted down and examined the scene carefully.

The remains were scattered—bits of flesh and bone everywhere. The bones bore clear bite marks, with deep indentations left by canine teeth.

Xu Mo stood and scanned his surroundings.

Based on the evidence, the wolves had cornered a zombie here last night and picked it clean.

As for why they hadn’t attacked the SUV, they probably hadn’t noticed it. Or perhaps they had, but couldn’t be bothered. After all, they were full.

This fit with wolves’ typical behavior; they wouldn’t attack prey larger than themselves unless they were starving.

Xu Mo straightened up, cast one last glance at the grisly feeding ground, and returned to his vehicle.

「Sometime after three in the afternoon」

Xu Mo spotted a village ahead.

It was called a village, but its original form was long gone. Most of the buildings had collapsed into rubble, with only a few crooked walls left standing.

Xu Mo parked the SUV two hundred meters from the village and went to investigate.

The village was built on a gentle slope, surrounded by open wasteland. Behind it lay a dry riverbed, overgrown with dead grass.

The devastation was even more complete than Xu Mo had imagined. Nearly all the houses had collapsed. A few walls remained standing, but they were covered in deep claw marks that ran from the top all the way down to the foundation.

Xu Mo crouched down to inspect the ground.

There were dried bloodstains on the ground, so old they had turned black and brown; an untrained eye wouldn’t even recognize them as blood. Skeletal remains were scattered around the stains.

Xu Mo stood up and scanned his surroundings, realizing the village was nothing short of a slaughterhouse.

Remains, bloodstains, and claw marks were everywhere.

‘Monsters.’

The thought surfaced in Xu Mo’s mind. Only a monster’s claws could leave marks that deep. Furthermore, judging by how the remains had been devoured, these monsters treated humans as food.

‘But the question is, are these human remains, or zombie remains?’

Xu Mo suspected they were zombie remains. If humans had been slaughtered, there should have been signs of a fight. But he had looked all around and found none. This meant the dead hadn’t fought back before they died—or rather, they couldn’t, because they were already zombies to begin with.

But whatever the truth was, the place made Xu Mo uneasy.

It wasn’t fear, but a strange, unsettling feeling.

Xu Mo made one more circuit of the area. After confirming there was nothing of value, he turned to leave.

He hadn’t gone far when suddenly, the hair on his neck stood on end and goosebumps prickled his skin.

‘Danger!’

Without a moment’s hesitation, Xu Mo dove forward.

In that same instant, he heard a gunshot.

BANG!

The bullet whizzed past his head and slammed into a wall behind him, kicking up a spray of fragments.

Xu Mo hit the dirt, his heart pounding in his chest. ‘I’m being ambushed! By a living person!’

He instantly understood the source of his unease. It wasn’t the remains in the village; it was someone watching him from the shadows. Watching him with malicious intent.

He’d had the feeling of being watched even before entering the village; he just hadn’t registered it in time.

‘They probably weren’t just waiting here to ambush someone. Judging by the sound and direction of the shot, the shooter is hiding behind a tree outside the village, about three hundred meters away.’

But whatever their intentions, they’d just revealed their position.

He quickly brought up his Barrett, searching for the target through the scope.

The tree was to the east of the village, a dead poplar. From his angle, Xu Mo could see a small section of a gun barrel peeking out from behind the trunk.

‘Hiding behind a tree?’ Xu Mo scoffed.

Xu Mo aimed for the trunk and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

The tremendous gunshot echoed across the wasteland. Through the scope, he saw the dead poplar shudder violently as bark and splinters exploded outward. The bullet had torn straight through the trunk and hit the person behind it.

A pained scream cut through the air, followed by the thud of something heavy hitting the ground.

Then, Xu Mo saw someone scramble up from the grass near the tree and start running frantically into the distance.

It was a man in filthy camouflage. He ran in a panic, constantly glancing back over his shoulder, his face a mask of terror.

‘There’s another one.’

Xu Mo raised his Barrett and pulled the trigger again. The bullet kicked up dirt right in front of the man, halting his escape.

“Don’t move,” Xu Mo warned.

The man whipped his head around as if shocked awake. When he saw Xu Mo aiming the rifle, the black hole of its muzzle pointed right at him, he froze completely.

“Mercy…” His voice was raspy. “Mercy… It wasn’t me… It was him… He’s the one who shot…”

Xu Mo ignored him and took his gun.

“Who are you people?”

The man’s lips trembled, but he couldn’t get a word out.

Xu Mo pressed the muzzle of his rifle to the man’s forehead.

“I asked. Who are you people.”

The cold steel of the muzzle sent a shiver through the man. He finally spoke.