Chapter 75: Tyrant
Wu Fan looked at the options on the screen and fell into a long silence.
Tyrant,
Zombie Dog,
Licker,
Executioner Majini,
Nemesis.
He needed to choose one, something usable, something capable of fighting, something that could let those people in Woodbury know what it meant to be "not to be trifled with."
He threw his shoe at the guys in the Group of Sages who were shouting about surrendering, leaving them stunned.
The voting results from the rest of the Group of Sages were already laid out there.
"Tyrant," Wu Fan said.
The icon on the screen lit up.
He chose the Tyrant T-103, though there were other forms, of course.
Black trench coat, humanoid disguise, high intelligence and execution ability; after taking heavy damage, the coat would tear, evolving into the Super T-103.
At least it looked like a person.
It didn't drool all over its mouth like a Licker, and it didn't have tubes all over its body like Nemesis.
He clicked the confirm button, and his points dropped from twenty-one thousand to twenty thousand six hundred.
Five hundred points, gone.
"Red Queen, where will the manufactured Tyrant exit from? It can't be the elevator, right?"
"The incubation pod will be transported to the helipad via a conveyor belt," the Red Queen replied.
The Red Queen's voice was as calm as if she were reading a weather forecast: "It is recommended to purchase a transport helicopter for deployment."
The corner of Wu Fan's mouth twitched.
Incubation pod, conveyor belt, helipad, transport helicopter.
You buy a biological weapon and you have to buy supporting equipment; you buy supporting equipment and you have to buy transport; you buy transport and you have to buy fuel and ammunition.
One layer after another, like a bottomless pit that could never be filled.
He opened the aircraft page and found the V-22 Osprey, a rotorcraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing, carrying cargo, transporting people, and mounting missiles.
Three hundred points.
He clicked confirm, and his points decreased by another chunk.
The Puma was pushed into the hangar next door, and the Osprey was parked on the lift platform.
Two o'clock in the morning.
The conveyor belt on the Hive helipad started up.
The sound of the motor was very soft, like someone humming in the distance.
The incubation pod slid slowly out of the transfer port. Its thick metal walls and the glass viewing window revealed it was filled with light green nutrient solution as it descended rapidly.
When the light hit it, a human silhouette could be seen.
The green light on the pod door lit up, and white steam hissed out from the gaps, like a boiling kettle.
A hand reached out from inside.
It was large, with thick knuckles, short-trimmed nails, and skin that was the pale color of someone who hadn't seen sunlight in a long time.
With five fingers spread, it gripped the edge of the pod door, causing the metal to creak.
The pod door was pushed open, and the remaining nutrient solution poured out, flooding the helipad.
After the white steam dissipated, a figure stood up from inside the incubation pod.
Two point five meters tall.
It was wearing a black trench coat, with a stand-up collar and double-breasted buttons. Its shoulders were broad, like a coat hanging on a hanger, but the hanger itself was empty.
It stood there, motionless, like a sculpture.
Bald, no eyebrows, high cheekbones, deep-set eye sockets, gray eyes, and no expression.
Wu Fan sat in the cockpit of the Osprey, watching those gray eyes through the surveillance screen.
It stared directly at the camera, without flinching or hesitation.
"Go to Woodbury, find the Governor, and eliminate him. If you encounter armed resistance, you may eliminate them as well."
The Tyrant turned around, boarded the Osprey, and opened the cabin door.
Its gait was steady, each step the exact same distance, the hem of the trench coat swaying gently behind it.
...
The night watch in Woodbury was the hardest to endure.
Between two and four in the morning, when people were most sleepy, eyelids felt like they were weighed down by lead.
Carlos leaned against the railing of the guard tower, yawned, and squeezed out tears.
He shifted his rifle, resting it on his shoulder, and squinted at the pitch-black woods.
He couldn't see anything.
"Hey, don't sleep," a companion's voice came over the walkie-talkie.
"I'm not sleeping," he muttered.
A buzzing sound came from the sky. It wasn't the wind; it was the sound of an engine. A helicopter.
Carlos looked up at the sky—he couldn't see anything; it was too dark, and the moon was obscured by clouds.
The sound came from far to near, circled overhead for a while, and then flew off to the south.
He pricked up his ears and listened for a while, confirming the sound had indeed faded, before letting out a sigh of relief.
"Did you hear that?" the walkie-talkie chimed again.
"I heard it. It flew away."
A dull thud came from the woods. It sounded like something had fallen from a great height and hit the ground.
Carlos raised his rifle, his scope trained on the edge of the woods. There was nothing there.
The person in the adjacent guard tower was also looking over there, the searchlight turning to sweep its beam back and forth across the treetops.
"What was that?" "I don't know. Did something fall?" "Should we go check it out?"
There was a silence of a few seconds. "Forget it! It's not safe at night. Let's wait until dawn."
A Walker crawled out of the bushes at the edge of the woods, its gray-white figure flickering in the searchlight beam.
It walked in the direction of the dull thud, tilting its head as if listening to something.
The woods were very quiet. The Walker disappeared into the shadows.
Then, a crisp sound—like a watermelon being smashed.
Something flew out of the woods and landed with a splat in the beam of the searchlight.
It was a Walker's head. It had been crushed, like a stepped-on soda can.
Carlos rubbed his eyes. A person walked out from the edge of the woods.
Very tall, very tall, wearing a black trench coat, bald, casting a long shadow in the searchlight beam.
"Stop!" Carlos raised his gun, his scope trained on the bald man's forehead. "Take another step and I'll shoot!"
The man didn't stop. The guard towers nearby started shouting too—two, three of them—all focusing their searchlights on him.
Black trench coat, gray eyes, no expression on his face. He stopped in front of the iron gate.
Carlos let out a sigh of relief, his muzzle still pointed at his head.
"Who are you? Where did you come from? State your name!"
The man didn't speak. He raised his hand and placed it on the iron gate.
Then the iron gate moved. It wasn't pushed open; the entire door was ripped off its frame. The sound of the hinges snapping exploded in the night like a string of firecrackers.
The iron gate was thrown to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Carlos's gun went off. The guns in the nearby guard towers went off too. A dozen guns opened fire simultaneously; bullets struck the trench coat, the shoulders, and that bald head.
The man raised his arm to shield his eyes. Bullets hit his arm, sparking—like hitting a steel plate.
"Monster!" someone screamed. Getting a gate knocked down was understandable, but ripping an iron gate off by hand was so exaggerated it was insane—it was more shocking than tearing a Japanese soldier in half with your bare hands.
When the man charged in, the searchlight on the guard tower was knocked over by him, shattering glass everywhere.
He stood in the center of the plaza, his trench coat riddled with bullet holes, the gray fabric curling up to reveal the black muscle underneath.
He looked down at the bullet holes on his body, then raised his head, his gray eyes sweeping over everyone who was still shooting.
"Shoot the head! Shoot him in the head!" Carlos shouted.
A volley of bullets hit that bald head. His head tilted back, then straightened again.
A few bullet casings were embedded in his forehead, looking like gray moles. He reached up, touched them, picked the casings out, and threw them on the ground.
Carlos's hands were shaking. His magazine was empty, but he was still pulling the trigger, the click-clack sound echoing across the empty plaza.
The man—the thing—stood in the middle of the plaza, the hem of his trench coat lifted by the night wind, revealing black combat pants and military boots underneath.
"This world is crazy enough," someone muttered. "The Walkers are crazy enough, and now there's a monster that bullets can't kill. What the hell is wrong with this world?"
The Tyrant backhanded people away with his bare hands, their screams silenced as they hit the ground.
Everyone fired their guns, and fear began to spread.
One person holding a machete tried to hack off the Tyrant's leg, but it was like hacking into steel.
In the end, the Tyrant grabbed their head and crushed it like a tomato.
The crowd fled in disarray.
He turned his head, his gray eyes sweeping over the surrounding buildings, and then he walked in the direction of the Governor's quarters.
His gait was still as steady as ever, each step the same size and speed.
No one dared to stop him.
.....
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