Chapter 211 - 196: T-shaped Path and Corpse Pit

Chapter 211: Chapter 196: T-shaped Path and Corpse Pit

Day 22 of the apocalypse.

Yu Dong stood at a high vantage point, a satisfied look on his face as he surveyed the completed zombie horde structure.

"Good. This is exactly it!"

Sun Shan and Huang Zhiqiang had built exactly what he wanted.

Wang Dingbei had also made a special trip today to see just what kind of reusable anti-horde fortification Yu Dong had cooked up.

They were currently standing atop a tall building in the Bihai Building District. Looking north, they had a perfect bird’s-eye view of the entire fortification and could even see Ocean University just across the street.

The fortification was located in City Garden, not far east of the Xiangti Bay Community. It was on the north side of Binhai Avenue; another two kilometers north was Ocean University.

The entire structure was built right on the route students from Ocean University would typically take to get to the beach.

"This location was well chosen. It keeps the fight off Binhai Avenue, so we can deal with them to the north. That way, Binhai Avenue can still be used later. And if we ever lure over a horde we can’t handle, we can divert them from the avenue right into this fortification to kill them with the traps."

"Exactly. This is a reusable anti-horde fortification. Any large hordes we lure in the future will be sent here."

After spending so much manpower and resources, Yu Dong had no intention of stopping after clearing out just one university’s worth of zombies. That would be far too wasteful.

Wang Dingbei continued to observe the fortification’s layout.

The main body of the structure was a large, T-shaped channel constructed from numerous shipping containers. The middle formed a path. Tower cranes had been used to lift the containers into place, forming the walls of the "T." Three deep pits had been dug: one at the junction of the "T" and one on each of the two arms.

The long, vertical part of the "T" was an extension of the street, leading all the way to the road at the main entrance of Ocean University.

This was the path Yu Dong had left for the zombies. After being lured out from the entrance, they would stampede down the road, following the long part of the "T" until they reached the junction...

WHOOSH~~~

...and fall straight into the first corpse pit Yu Dong had prepared for them.

Once the first corpse pit was full, the zombies would run down the left and right channels of the "T" and fall into the pits on either side.

This would continue until all three six-meter-deep pits were filled. (See diagram below ↓)

"So that’s how it works... The structure is simpler than I thought." Wang Dingbei understood how Yu Dong planned to clear the horde after just a brief look.

"The simpler the structure, the more controllable it is. The key to dealing with a horde is shaping their path... Control their route, then eliminate them in a concentrated area. If we can’t kill them fast enough, we can divert them into the buffer zones on either side. Once we kill all the zombies in the three corpse pits, we’ll have won."

"With fire?"

"Mhm. Fire is much better than bombs for dealing with a horde. We’ve lured them away from their original area, so using high explosives isn’t ideal. This way, we can eliminate the zombies inside the fortification while keeping the noise under control."

"In that case, our oil reserves are probably going to take a big hit..."

Wang Dingbei felt a pang of regret.

Only in the apocalypse did one truly understand how critical oil was.

Trucks and cars needed fuel to run, generators needed fuel, and all sorts of heavy machinery needed fuel!

Each of those behemoths, capable of moving mountains and breaking rocks, were unbelievably thirsty for fuel.

The large diesel generator they’d brought from the construction site had been constantly supplying power to the front line for all kinds of electrical equipment.

The lightning-fast five-day construction period was the result of five excavators and a host of other machines operating at high intensity.

Just running the machinery and the on-site generator had consumed 10 tons of diesel and a small amount of gasoline from the base’s storage.

Such was the price of modern industry.

Oil was everything.

And to burn a horde of 20,000... Wang Dingbei felt it would probably take several more tons of fuel to incinerate them completely.

Currently, not counting the fuel stored on the cruise ship for its own navigation and power generation, the base’s fuel reserves were limited.

Before the apocalypse, Yu Dong and Xufeng had purchased 300 tons of gasoline and 300 tons of diesel, all in barrels. This stockpile was the main ingredient for the napalm bombs Zhou made. Gasoline was used the most, because that stuff burned fast and hot, quickly reaching extreme temperatures to deal with the zombies.

Zhou said diesel could also be used, but it burned a bit slower, so he rarely made them with it.

Then there was the oil depot at B Port. With the help of some professional port personnel, Yu Dong and the others had already surveyed its reserves and figured out how to quickly pump out the fuel for use.

Because Huangyang Port wasn’t a major crude oil transport hub, most of the oil tanks here were for refueling the port’s ships. As a result, the reserves were average and consisted mainly of marine fuel oil (heavy oil) and diesel, with only a small amount of gasoline.

Furthermore, they might have arrived after a period of high fuel consumption, as several of the tanks weren’t full.

There were 1,700 tons of heavy oil, 860 tons of diesel, and only 70 tons of gasoline.

Gasoline was exclusively for making incendiary bombs and powering cars. They had already used a lot of the Molotov cocktails Zhou made. A standard one-liter Molotov cocktail required 0.5 kg of gasoline, with the rest of the space filled with foam, white sugar, and an oxidizer.

Although each one didn’t consume much gas, they couldn’t stop using them. In their continuous battles over the past few days, they must have used nearly a thousand of them.

Zhou’s chemical workshop was still producing them in a steady stream. As long as they continued to clear zombies, the Molotov cocktails would always be in use.

Gasoline was definitely prioritized for Molotovs and vehicles. It was a non-renewable resource and couldn’t be wasted.

The diesel reserves were in better shape. That stuff was great for power generation!

The resource Ji Luo’s group wanted to trade for most was diesel. The last time Yu Dong went over, he gave them six barrels of diesel, which was about one ton.

According to Ji Luo’s power consumption estimates over the past few days, if they used it sparingly, it would be enough to power the research institute for more than a month. The main power draws were Meng Dongqing’s experimental equipment and the freezer storage.

For future development, both diesel and gasoline were critical resources.

As for the heavy oil... aside from the specialized engines on ships, it was difficult to use elsewhere. Zhou said it needed to be processed before it could burn well, but they didn’t have the technology for that yet. They would need to secure a professional chemical plant.

Therefore, fuel reserves were a resource that the leaders of the cruise ship base paid close attention to—even more important than food or medicine. To Wang Dingbei, using several tons of fuel to burn a single wave of zombies felt a bit extravagant.

"Fuel is too useful. I’m reluctant to use it all on burning zombies... Since we’ve built this corpse pit and trapped the zombies inside, we can use some other alternative fuel to burn them."

"Other fuel?"

Wang Dingbei didn’t get it at first, not until Yu Dong pointed to a dump truck coming from A Port:

"Wang, look. The fuel has arrived."

It was filled with small, fine pieces of coal!

"It’s coal from D Port! You plan to burn the zombies with coal?"

Wang Dingbei hadn’t expected Yu Dong to choose this solution. He pressed, "Will coal burn hot enough to destroy the zombies?"

"It’ll definitely burn slower than a napalm bomb, but we have a huge quantity of it, and it burns for a long time. A zombie’s rotting body isn’t made of steel, it’s just a carbon-based lifeform. The temperature of burning coal is more than enough to reduce them to ash..."

"But what if there are too many zombies? They’ll pile up, cut off the oxygen, and smother the fire below. How will it keep burning then?"

"One of the boiler masters in our logistics team already thought of that. He had us lay down a lot of stones and ventilation pipes at the bottom. On top of the stones, we built a metal grille out of rebar—a simple grate structure. This leaves plenty of space for oxygen to get underneath the coal. We also got three industrial blowers from the coal processing plant at D Port. We can pump air through pipes to the bottom of the three corpse pits. It’ll definitely burn strong enough!"

"Nice! Your logistics team is full of talented people. Before the apocalypse, I used to sit in the police station every day and watch the coal from D Port come and go, piling up all over the port. And now you’ve found a use for it like this. You kid, you manage to come up with something new for me every single day."

"Hahaha, earning Officer Wang’s approval isn’t easy. After all, a Reincarnator isn’t necessarily a good person. What if I had... other ideas?"

Hearing Yu Dong’s sarcastic tone, Wang Dingbei laughed and retorted:

"Look at you... so petty. Was Officer Wang targeting you personally? I was targeting the power in your hands! If I didn’t keep you in check and you started doling out vigilante justice... wouldn’t we become some kind of cult? Your words carry so much weight. In the future, when you run into lazy people, dishing out some private punishment would be so quick and satisfying, wouldn’t it?"

"My brand of vigilante justice would be for everyone’s good! Time waits for no one; a swift resolution is the right way! Forget it, let’s not talk about this. Let’s go down and take a look. Once the fuel is laid out, we can start dealing with the horde."

"Alright."

Huangyang Port was most famous for coal transport. It was a major coal import hub for the north, with a dedicated railway line for shipping coal to various provinces.

D Port was perennially piled high with an uncountable amount of coal. Wang Dingbei only knew that it would be very difficult for them to ever use it all...

If this stuff worked well this time, it would be a fantastic way to kill hordes. They could replicate it on a large scale in the future.

In the three massive corpse pits, the coal trucks had already dumped many loads.

A thick layer of coal was spread across the bottom of the pits. Wang Dingbei saw that it was at least a meter deep!

"That’s a whole lot~ This stuff could burn for a whole day, no problem."

"This is just one layer. There’s more to come."

They had more than enough coal. Yu Dong wanted to ensure maximum destructive power and incinerate all the zombies in one go!

Afterward, a large number of logistics personnel spread all sorts of flammable materials—oil-soaked rags, scrap wood, old tires, and so on—on top of the coal.

Then they added another layer of coal on top. Finally, they opened a barrel of gasoline and doused the topmost layer of coal. Now, all it would take was a single spark... to ignite the massive corpse pit and turn it into a gigantic, high-temperature crematorium!

Wang Dingbei moved closer to inspect the containers that channeled the zombies’ path. They were stacked two high, and their edges were coated with lubricant, making them slick and slippery. The very top of the containers was also studded with hand-sharpened steel spikes.

"These are to stop the climbing zombies, right? Not only are they hard to climb, but even if one gets up, it won’t be able to walk. One step and it’ll be impaled on the spikes."

"Mhm. There aren’t too many climbing zombies yet, but we have to take precautions. Otherwise, if we kill a bunch of normal zombies only to let the climbers escape... that would be a real pain."

"Indeed."

Climbing zombies that could hunt were a fatal threat to any settlement. If one snuck in during the middle of the night and attacked a few people, and those people then turned and rose again... it could potentially overwhelm the entire community.

In addition to their own weight, Yu Dong had filled the containers with sand dug from the beach as ballast. He also had numerous braces built to support the path-channeling containers from the sides, making them sturdy enough to withstand the impact of a massive number of zombies.

The two outer corpse pits were also surrounded by a large amount of scaffolding and wire mesh to prevent the zombies from spilling out once the pits were full.

Once the fuel in all three corpse pits was ready and the entire fortification was sealed, Yu Dong gathered everyone.

"Let’s go! We’re heading back to the Bihai Building District to fight a semi-automated horde battle!"

Yu Dong had no intention of leading his people to the front lines to fight the zombies hand-to-hand.

He knew that no matter how good the plan was, it was only feasible in theory. In reality, any number of accidents could happen. If the horde didn’t follow his designated route and failed to enter the corpse pits... it would be a major disaster.

Fortunately, in this life, Yu Dong always planned an escape route before doing anything.

If they failed... they would quickly retreat via the roads from Bihai Building, drive back to the cruise ship base, and begin a defensive siege.

After all the preparations were complete... Yu Dong looked toward Liu Ye’ye.

"Ye Ye, this battle is up to you and your team of drone pilots."

"Mhm!"

From a position with an excellent field of view, Liu Ye’ye and the pilots she had trained launched a swarm of drones of all shapes and sizes, sending them flying toward Ocean University!

The first zombie horde war, led by an army of drones, had begun!