Squelch!
The sound of a sharp blade piercing through flesh and trachea was particularly clear in the silent environment.
The Round-faced Man's ecstasy froze on his face, his eyes bulged, and his hands tightly clutched his neck, yet he couldn't stop the blood from gushing out frantically.
Warm blood sprayed through the gaps between his fingers, splashing onto the rusty door frame.
He stared at the woman in front of him in disbelief, his body falling straight backward.
"What are you doing?!"
The Skinny Tall Man, his face splashed with blood, retreated with weak legs, screaming as he pointed at Isabella.
Isabella pulled out her short blade and coldly flicked away the blood droplets.
"If you want to live, get in here now! The blood will soon attract all the zombies within miles!"
The Skinny Tall Man looked at his twitching companion on the ground, then at Isabella, whose ways were even more devilish than that magician's, momentarily freezing in place.
He didn't dare gamble on whether Isabella would give him a stab as well.
But when he heard the roars of zombies in the distance, he didn't dare hesitate for a second longer and charged through the door as if his life depended on it.
Isabella slammed the lock button next to the door.
The blast door closed again, completely cutting off the darkness and the smell of blood outside.
A deathly silence returned to the corridor, with only the heavy breathing of the two echoing.
Isabella took a handkerchief from her pocket and slowly wiped the blood off the hilt, her voice sounding devoid of warmth.
"Don't look at me like that. You think I want to kill? If you want to blame something, blame the setting."
"I missed a point earlier. In the novel, when the rescue mission was issued, the military already knew the protagonist's wife was infected with the virus."
Hearing this, the Skinny Tall Man's pupils constricted.
"You mean..."
"That's right. There are actually only two evacuation spots. There have always been only two."
Isabella sheathed the cleaned short blade.
"If we didn't deal with him, once the three of us reached the evacuation point at the same time, the system rules would still judge it as overloaded."
"Instead of everyone dying together, it's better to let him serve his final purpose. Use his death to simulate the setting where the protagonist dies outside the door. After all, if no one dies out there, it might be judged that the evacuation conditions haven't been met."
The Skinny Tall Man felt chilled to the bone, finding the woman before him a thousand times more terrifying than those mindless monsters outside.
Everything was calculated flawlessly.
Use the monsters' hands to kill the two strongest, then personally eliminate the most defenseless one.
Finally, safely evacuate with him, the useful tool who drove the car.
So perfect.
But just as Isabella was about to turn and head deeper into the corridor—
A voice, familiar enough to make one's marrow turn cold, rang out without warning in the narrow corridor, carrying a hint of lazy mockery.
"Impressive, truly impressive."
These four simple words were like a heavy bomb exploding in this space.
Isabella's body instantly stiffened, as if she were pinned to the spot by an invisible steel nail.
She could even hear the sound of her cervical vertebrae turning, with an unmaskable tremble, as she looked toward the left bit by bit, extremely slowly.
In the shadows on one side of the corridor, a familiar-faced man leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, looking at her with a smile.
Beside him, the girl named Herta remained expressionless, without a single water stain on her clothes.
"You..."
Isabella's lips trembled violently; she couldn't even speak properly.
"How did you..."
Before she could finish her question, a bone-chilling cold instantly enveloped her.
In the blink of an eye, hard ice rapidly spread up from her legs, freezing her waist, abdomen, chest, and arms.
Finally, the ice stopped climbing at her neck.
Isabella was frozen into an ice sculpture; except for her head, she couldn't move a single inch of her body.
The severe cold seeped into her internal organs, making even her breath carry ice shards.
Qi Zhimu stood up straight, the smile on his face deepening as he walked over to Isabella, looking down at her to admire the extreme terror in her eyes.
"Splendid, truly a splendid explanation."
Qi Zhimu even raised his hands and clapped twice.
"I must praise you; you've calculated human nature with absolute clarity."
He extended a finger and lightly tapped the hard ice on Isabella.
"To thank you for your diligent guidance and that unreserved disclosure just now, I've decided to give you a grand gift."
"A reward of a'stand guard outside the door' package. What do you think? You must love it, right?"
Isabella's eyes widened, deep terror welling up in her pupils.
...There was a bleeding corpse lying outside the door!
Before long, the outside would be surrounded by swarms of zombies!
"No! Sir! I beg you—"
Before she could finish, a visible violent air current rose from the ground, swirling the immobile Isabella into the air and throwing her out the door like discarded trash.
The ice sculpture slammed heavily onto the ground. Through the gaps, Isabella could clearly see the scene inside the door.
She screamed and shouted in horror, no different from a lunatic.
"Why! Why aren't you dead! That octopus clearly dragged you down! That was a Mutant Sea Monster that even the military was helpless against! Why!!!"
Qi Zhimu didn't get angry; only a trace of pure mockery showed in his eyes.
The rest was only cold indifference.
He opened his mouth and, with clear lip movements, slowly mouthed a few words to Isabella outside the door.
"Magic is amazing, isn't it?"
"What magic?! Let me die with understanding!"
"I just hypnotized you all. Everything you were going to do today, you already obediently told me everything last night."
Qi Zhimu lightly snapped his fingers.
In an instant, Isabella had an epiphany; her mind cleared, and she recalled some fragments.
All her confusion was answered.
The Q&A that lasted less than ten minutes last night made her heart sink into an ice cellar.
Under hypnosis, the plan she had fully disclosed was even more detailed than her conscious narration.
Zombies began to appear, sprinting toward the coordinates that emitted the scent of blood.
They hadn't tasted food for a long time.
At this moment, Isabella knew she was doomed. She glared deathly at Herta and spat out a final, venomous curse.
"Herta! The reason Azure Star became like this, and why we became like this, is all because of your great-grandfather!"
"You can't leave; you're destined to pay the price and die here. The Virtual Substance Lifeform beside you won't trust anyone; he'll definitely kill you after getting the promised benefits!"
"Don't bother worrying."
Herta returned Isabella's gaze with a look as if seeing an idiot, dealing true damage to finish her off.
"The benefits I promised him are simple: to be eaten by him. Even as food, it's countless times better than you, who are about to become zombie fodder."