Chapter 209 - 194: Corpse Tide Fortifications, Construction Begins

Chapter 209: Chapter 194: Corpse Tide Fortifications, Construction Begins

On the seventeenth day of the apocalypse, Yu Dong, the combat team, and the logistics team headed to a scouted, prime location for building fortifications, bringing with them a convoy of heavy construction machinery.

They drove east along Binhai Avenue, passing through the Xiangti Bay Community.

They arrived at a city park. Its layout was simple and open, without any complex terrain.

North of the park, just across the street, was Ocean University.

This was their target. It held an entire university’s worth of zombies.

According to Qiao Ping, the school had over 20,000 students and teachers combined. Considering the outbreak happened before any school holidays, most students were either on campus or nearby.

That meant they would have to face a genuine corpse tide of 20,000.

Yu Dong’s group arrived at the city park in their vehicles and heavy machinery.

Once in position, the combat team fanned out to clear zombies. The number of zombies in the park was limited, and the visibility was excellent. To the now-proficient Crossbowmen, they were no different from a group of living targets.

They were all quickly eliminated.

Yu Dong stepped out of his vehicle and stood on the main road leading north to the university. He looked from side to side... and was very satisfied.

"This is the spot. It’s two kilometers from Northern Ocean University, which gives us plenty of room to work."

This time, he planned to build a professional, reusable fortification designed to annihilate corpse tides. It would require a large-scale transformation, and the empty city park was basically a blank slate, allowing him to operate freely.

"Boss, are we starting right now?"

Sun Shan had already received the "Corpse Tide Defense Map" that Yu Dong had drawn. They had spent the previous night debating and revising it through several drafts. The current version was the one he and the other engineers deemed feasible.

"Yes. Time waits for no one. The sooner the better. Let’s get straight to it!"

Based on Yu Dong’s knowledge from his past life, mutated zombies would only become more numerous. At first, the military only encountered sporadic climbing zombies that snuck into their bases, but later, they were crawling all over the streets.

When Yu Dong had died, as the corpse tide surged forward, vast numbers of climbing zombies had leaped out from the horde. They had ricocheted off external fixtures like air conditioning units, scaling the building until it was completely overrun.

If it hadn’t been for the sheer number of climbing zombies, they wouldn’t have died on the 31st floor in his past life. Regular zombies couldn’t have piled up to that height.

But a massive corpse tide contained too many climbing zombies—they were simply countless.

It was now the 17th day of the apocalypse, not yet at the three-month mark. Based on their clearing operations over the past few days, they hadn’t encountered a single one in the rural areas to the west. It was only yesterday, at a construction site slightly closer to the city, that they met their first climbing zombie.

Right now, climbing zombies were still a rarity.

Yu Dong had to seize this opportunity. ’I know the best time to kill zombies is within the first ten days of the apocalypse,’ he thought. ’The second-best time is now.’

’I must always race against time!’

This was the fundamental reason why he and Wang Dingbei rejected Lin Mo’s "spiritual encouragement" plan. There was no time to slowly cultivate a team with wills of steel.

’As long as we keep them supplied and they do their jobs, that’s good enough.’

"We have to be fast. Faster. Extremely fast!"

"Sun Shan, I need you to rush this. This project must be completed and operational as quickly as possible."

"Whatever you need—manpower, materials, support—just ask. These corpse tide defenses must be built both quickly and well."

Sun Shan, who had been happily playing the role of a tower-defense architect at the base these past few days, suddenly realized... ’It’s overtime.’

"I guarantee it’ll be done!"

Yu Dong waved to Huang. "Huang, your logistics team has plenty of professional construction workers. Have them give Sun Shan their full support. Get all your people moving. This rush job is going to be exhausting, so not only will I give them the same cigarette and alcohol perks as the combat team, I’ll also double their daily points."

"You got it, Dongzi! I guarantee we’ll get it done damn fast!"

Incentives were also a must.

As they discussed and assigned tasks, a few engineers were already consulting the blueprints, surveying the area, and marking out the lines. Once the entire outline of the fortification was drawn in ink, the machinery roared to life!

RUMBLE...

A bulldozer took the lead, clearing away the small obstacles scattered around the park.

Five large excavators began digging at the location marked for the corpse pit.

A tower crane delivered by a large truck was being positioned, assembled, and calibrated. Dump trucks, under the direction of engineers, began unloading materials. A concrete mixer started churning on-site, preparing to pour.

Numerous members of the logistics team began assisting the operators of the heavy machinery.

A massive construction site had sprung into operation!

The combat team split into six-person squads and spread out to clear all nearby zombies, preventing them from interfering with the construction.

Liu Ye’ye and Shen Xinyi sat on the roof of a large truck, launching two reconnaissance drones into the air.

"Xinyi, I’ll check out the university. You patrol the surrounding area."

"Okay, Ye Ye~"

Shen Xinyi linked her arm with Liu Ye’ye’s, operating her controller with both hands. They were very close, true sisters of the apocalypse.

Liu Ye’ye smiled and linked her arm with Shen Xinyi’s as well.

Her drone flew over the university. The entire campus was filled with zombies, shambling about slowly.

As it passed over the science building, the drone’s camera caught sight of five students trapped in a lab. They were sallow and emaciated, clearly on the verge of starvation.

And they, in turn, had noticed the approaching drone.

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey!"

One of the girls pointed at the drone outside, calling softly to her companions.

The others rushed to open the window and began waving their arms frantically.

Liu Ye’ye hesitated for a moment, then piloted the drone closer to them. She stopped it at a safe distance from the building, ensuring it was out of their reach and difficult to hit with anything they might throw.

"Help us! We can’t get out! The building is full of zombies."

"We haven’t eaten in a week... We’re so hungry."

"Please help us. We’ll do anything."

"Thank you~ Thank you~"

The five of them were so desperate they started bowing to the drone.

Liu Ye’ye hesitated again. The drone circled twice before flying off toward other parts of the campus.

The five students watched it go, a glimmer of hope in their eyes.

After flying a full circuit around the university, Liu Ye’ye found many other students in similar situations. They were trapped in various locations, unable to escape because the zombie density was just too high.

Unarmed and without any protective gear, it was unrealistic for them to fight zombies that were stronger and faster than them.

Most of them were suffering from hunger and thirst.

After her survey, Liu Ye’ye brought the drone back. The zombies at the university showed no signs of agitation; they hadn’t noticed the noise from the construction site.

"Xinyi, there are so many students trapped in there. We have to help them."

Shen Xinyi had also just finished her reconnaissance. She used her walkie-talkie to report several locations to the combat team, directing them to clear out some lurking zombies.

"Once Yu Dong finishes the fortifications, we can lure all the zombies out of the university and take them down. The students will be rescued then."

"But..." Liu Ye’ye thought of the sallow, starving students she had just seen. "They might not make it that long... We have to find a way to help them first."

"Drop food to them? It’s theoretically possible, but... what if they try to grab our drone? We’d have to use one of our FPV airdrop drones to deliver food."

"I don’t think they would... We’re trying to save them, so why would they take our drone? They don’t have a controller, so it would be useless to them anyway."

’There’s no reason for them to snatch the drone,’ Liu Ye’ye thought, ’but the cost of losing one would be high.’ Suicide drones could also make the trip, but those things aren’t durable. Their payload is low, and they fall apart after a few uses. They’re just consumables.

In contrast, the airdrop drones were made of better, more stable materials, and the base only had sixty of them.

They could carry a 20kg payload, making it easy to drop bombs—or deliver a small package of food.

But these things were strategic assets. They couldn’t be resupplied anywhere in Yanhai City; you’d have to find a specialized drone factory.

Every one lost was one less they had for good.

"If we’re going to deliver anything, we need to take precautions so they can’t just keep the drone..."

"Yeah, I’ll go ask Yu Dong."