Chapter 792: A Giant Pit!

“Chirp chirp!”

While Wu Lue was retrieving equipment from the car, Flash stood on a large rock, pointed to the distance, and squeaked urgently. Without waiting for everyone to react, it leaped back onto Shen Linrui’s shoulder, its little nose and whiskers twitching incessantly.

“Sensing zombies again?”

Lu Yubo glanced at Flash, who was hiding in the pocket of his down jacket, and couldn’t be bothered to look in the direction it was pointing. He teased, “You say you can easily kill zombies, so why be afraid if there really are zombies?”

“You can’t say that… we can easily kill zombies too, yet we’re still afraid, haha.” Duan Wuhu was frustrated at Lu Yubo’s constant bickering with a little mouse and tried to mediate the situation.

“Flash, did you sense many zombies nearby?”

Its repeated unusual behavior made Shen Linrui a bit uneasy, so he inquired more thoroughly.

Flash shook its head, its eyes darted, and it stuck out a claw, raising one finger: “Chirp!”

“One?”

“Chirp!”

“Alright, you can rest now!”

Zhao Dezhu waved his hand, thinking to himself, is it necessary to be so tense about one zombie?

Duan Wuhu felt something wasn’t so simple and approached them, saying, “Captain Shen, has Flash always been this afraid of zombies, even just one?”

Shen Linrui shook his head. He was only very close with Flash’s owner; he hadn’t spent much time with Flash. He bowed his head to ask, “Flash, why would one zombie scare you? Is it a very powerful zombie, mutated kind?”

Hearing the question, Flash opened its little mouth, its whiskers springing out from the pocket. It shook its head, then nodded, acting fiercely with claws bared.

“It doesn’t clearly indicate whether it’s a mutated zombie, but it is very powerful.”

“So it’s probably talking about a big brute, then!”

Lu Yubo chimed in this time without doubting Flash again; its reasoning was valid, and questioning further would be unreasonable.

“A big brute is no big deal, just keep an eye out.”

“Yeah, if you can kill one, you can kill a second, and a third!”

No one paid much attention; they had encountered a big brute on the way and already had the experience to deal with it.

This is the “superpower” of humans, being able to grow from experience after each event!

“Brother Pu, come on, point in the direction!”

Wu Lue hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation. He held the remote control, launched the drone, then sought guidance from Pu Chanyong, directing it toward Dragon Head Camp.

As the drone took off, everyone’s eyes fixed on the screen. From a bird’s-eye view, the entirety of Mountain and Sea District came into view, and the word “devastation” could hardly capture it.

“Wow, this is almost like a nuclear blast. That was my home over there, and I can’t even recognize a hair of it! Hey, there’s no strong nuclear radiation here, is there? Who has a radiation detector? Let’s see how many hundred Roentgen this place has!”

Pu Chanyong, seemingly carefree, muttered shocking thoughts upon seeing the ravaged city.

Duan Wuhu covered his forehead, “A hundred Roentgen… You learned ‘Roentgen’ from watching that TV show, right?”

“Yeah, so what? Isn’t Roentgen a radiation dose unit?”

“You think Roentgen is a piano! One Roentgen equals ten millisieverts; one millisievert equals a thousand microsieverts, so one Roentgen equals ten thousand microsieverts. A few hundred microsieverts can harm human health. Ideally, radiation exposure should not exceed two Roentgen per year, and if we had a few hundred Roentgen around us, we’d last less than half an hour!”

Duan Wuhu knew a lot about nuclear radiation because he had seen that TV show, and also Weijun had given him some educational insights.

“Well, even if it’s not hundreds of Roentgen, we can’t withstand a few Roentgen either, right?”

Pu Chanyong seemed deeply concerned about this problem and continued to inquire.

“Relax, the mutated zombie explosion doesn’t yield radiation.”

Duan Wuhu originally didn’t intend to answer such a naive question but noticed the worry on the faces of the folks from Dragon Head Camp, forcing him to explain: “After the explosion at Celestial Horse Island was averted, the camp’s science team tested it and found only microseiverts, and the radiation source was unrelated to the explosion.”

Hearing this reassurance, everyone felt relieved. Zombies they could see and fight, but nobody could withstand invisible radiation.

During the conversation, the drone already crossed the city and approached Dragon Head Camp. Suddenly, a clean view appeared on screen, offering a sudden sense of clarity.

“Is this… is this the right place?”

Wu Lue couldn’t believe what he saw in the open area.

“This… is… this is…”

“Captain Shen, is this really our camp?”

“Oh my god, this is… this, I, damn.”

When the screen unfolded, the drone finally hovered over the open area, revealing a spectacular view that left everyone speechless!

Dragon Head Camp was built leaning against an ancient town and a grand fortress, but you couldn’t spot any old traces there. At least you have to have something to leave a trace, and now there’s nothing left—a gigantic crater lay on the ground! The earth was like a tub of ice cream, and the heavens had scooped out a chunk with a spoon!

The five members of Dragon Head Camp stared blankly at the deep pit on the ground, which connected to the coastline, now partially filled with seawater and showing signs of freezing. The bowl full of seawater held scattered debris and zombies!

The walls of the pit were so smooth, just like the pit north of Celestial Horse Island, only this pit was bigger, deeper, more exaggerated!

Within a few dozen meters of the surrounding structures, everything was nearly annihilated, leaving just bits connected to the foundation, without any ruins. Yet because the blast shattered the coastal ice layer, seawater had flooded back and formed a frozen crust, appearing like a massive mirror beneath the dark sky, an odd yet desolate sight.

Damage wasn’t confined to just Dragon Head Camp; erosion hit many spots along the coastline too.

Gulp.

Sorrow welled in Shen Linrui’s heart as he knelt toward the Dragon Head Camp ruins, tears streaming from his eyes, all hope shattered.

He cried out, “Wife, oh wife…”

Lu Yubo initially thought Captain Shen’s girlfriend had died at the outbreak, surprised to learn she was in Dragon Head Camp all along, truly a wrenching revelation.

As Shen Linrui wept, the other members from Dragon Head Camp felt a sting in their noses, joining Shen Linrui in kneeling toward the camp and murmuring to send off their fallen brothers.

“Chirp, chirp chirp…”

Flash mimicked them, crouching on a piece of concrete block, prostrating toward Dragon Head Camp, devoutly paying homage to its owner.

Those headed toward Mountain and Sea felt heavy-hearted too—not for personal reasons, but because these were hundreds of lives, representing a significant proportion of Qin City’s total population!

“Bow and mourn for the warriors who sacrificed at Dragon Head Camp!”

Duan Wuhu called on the other three to bow toward the Dragon Head Camp ruins.

This was something Zhang Su specifically reminded them to do before setting off—to ensure emotional connection was made. Along the way, Duan Wuhu worried about achieving that. But as they say, when the chips are down, genuine emotions surface without pretense.

Hong the Fourth, eyes red, thought about the separation and loss of loved ones, and with the somber mood washing over him, tears fell again, as he bowed quietly amid low, sobbing sounds.

Of ten men, five or six brought to tears, embodying the saying, “Men don’t cry easily—but it’s not because they don’t feel pain.”

In a world torn apart, where humanity vanishes and morals crumble, if there’s truly a brotherhood bound by loyalty or couples and partners reliant on each other, those connections were deeper than in any civilized society before.

For those five from Dragon Head Camp, it was a spiritual anchor, an incredibly important phase of survival after the apocalypse, simply gone—so utterly and purely gone, feelings too deep for words.

Back in school, you’d take some clothes home on the weekend; now the whole camp had vanished. The five of them felt like rootless duckweed, with everything that remained in the camp scattered too.

Like a divine blow cutting all ties with the past.