Chapter Ninety-One: Crisis Descends

Even though Dawn City now has at least two million people, the vast majority are still only first-rank fighters, and there is no way second-rank fighters make up more than thirty percent.

Third-rank fighters are already the backbone of every major faction, or, put another way, the strength of a small-faction leader.

Fourth-rank fighters are even rarer; there cannot be more than fifty in all of Dawn City.

At present, Fang Xia already has five fourth-rank fighters in his team, and by the time this wave of zombie rain ends, there will probably be around eight.

But against an army of hundreds of thousands of zombies, that kind of force is nothing.

Not to mention that within that horde lurk an unknown number of fourth-rank zombies and one utterly unstoppable fifth-rank zombie.

When everyone finally fully absorbed what Fang Xia had said, a shade of despair rose in every face.

Was this what the apocalypse meant? No matter how hard one struggled, one would still be ground beneath the wheels of fate, leaving nothing behind.

"Pull yourselves together. A fifth-rank zombie is not impossible to kill, and a city of millions can still stand against a few hundred thousand zombies."

"Though in your present condition, you really are beyond saving."

If one could live, who would choose death?

Everyone looked up at Fang Xia, a flicker of hope passing through their eyes.

"Brother Fang, then what should we do now?"

As the chief steward, Liu Rui was the first to react.

"Do you remember the last time we went outside the city? We left a lot of alcohol blocks on the bridge."

Everyone knew about that. At the time, it had been Li Xiaochun who led people to find firewood and lay it out there.

"Zombies will swarm in from all around Dawn City, but from our direction there is only that one route across the bridge. As long as we seal off the bridge, at the very least we won't have enemies at our backs."

This was the first solution Fang Xia had come up with, and the alcohol blocks left behind last time could be put to use perfectly.

"Li Qianwan, I'll need you to handle this."

Li Qianwan nodded in bewilderment, not even knowing what she was supposed to do.

"Today is the fourth day of this new wave of zombie rain. In another three days, it will stop, and the zombies outside the city may act at any moment. When that happens, I need you stationed at the bridgehead. The moment the zombies show any movement, set it on fire."

"Have Liu Rui arrange a few people to protect you."

No one knew from which direction the fifth-rank zombie would come, but it definitely would not be the first to charge in. As long as the flames took hold, any number of zombies that came would be nothing but meat sent to die.

"Liu Rui, how many alcohol blocks do we still have?"

Last time he had already told Liu Rui to gather more, but not much time had passed afterward, so he did not know exactly how many there were.

"We don't have many alcohol blocks, but I did manage to get some of these."

A gas cylinder suddenly appeared in the living room, and Liu Rui smiled with satisfaction.

Damn, this is way more impressive than alcohol blocks.

"Then when the time comes, arrange for a few people to protect Li Qianwan, and toss all of these onto the bridge while you're at it. How many are there?"

"Thirty-four."

Liu Rui gave a number.

So many? Fang Xia had thought it would already be good to have ten or so. He had not expected they would find this many.

If all of them were thrown up there, the blast might even blow the bridge apart.

He had once seen news of firecrackers collapsing a bridge.

"Fine. We still wait until the zombies move before acting, so the bridge doesn't get blown apart only for us to end up with enemies at our backs."

Everyone's gaze turned toward Li Qianwan.

Swallowing, Li Qianwan nodded.

She was a fire-type awakener, so this task was most suitable for her. It could not be that once the zombies began attacking the city, someone would still be made to slowly light the fuse with a lighter, could it?

"Starting tomorrow, during the day, clear the zombies at the bridgehead. Do it every day. Make sure that once the zombie rain ends, Li Qianwan can move into position immediately."

Liu Rui nodded. It was not a major problem; she would start making arrangements tomorrow.

"Brother Fang, should we tell the others?"

The zombie assault on the city would target all survivors, not just their team. It would be good to spread the word so everyone could prepare.

"I'll tell Chen Gang about it. Don't reveal it to anyone else for now, so as not to cause panic."

If everyone knew they had less than a week left no matter what they did, Dawn City would surely descend into utter chaos. They would not even need to wait for the zombie assault; tomorrow's zombie rain alone could wipe out more than half the city.

"Understood."

Everyone nodded.

"Jingyi, how many third-rank upgrade crystals have you exchanged for on your side?"

The business hall had always been under Jingyi's management, and she had also handled the exchange of upgrade crystals personally.

"There are too few third-rank upgrade crystals. Even though our exchange rate is very generous, we still only got seven."

It looked as if, before the zombie assault, advancing to fifth rank by relying on third-rank upgrade crystals was impossible.

"Still, we exchanged quite a lot of second-rank ones. Give us two more days, and we should be able to raise another fourth-rank fighter."

The promotion from second rank to third rank was now handled by Liu Rui and the little loli, while the first-rank upgrade crystals, aside from the portion kept with Jingyi for exchanges, could be used to produce plenty of third-rank fighters every day.

The upgrade crystals sold through cigarettes still accounted for the vast majority.

"Keep the fourth-rank ones in reserve for now. First produce more third-rank fighters and see whether any other abilities awaken."

Third rank was a watershed. Whether someone awakened an ability determined their future ceiling.

When resources were limited, it was only natural to prioritize upgrading those who possessed abilities, and the stronger the ability, the better.

So far, no one could say for sure how many different abilities humans might awaken.

In his previous life, even after six years of the apocalypse, it had not been fully figured out.

Many people who awakened special abilities would not tell anyone.

Just like Bai Xing and Liu Rui: apart from Fang Xia and a few others close to them, no one else knew exactly what their abilities were.

Only the more obvious ones, like fire-type abilities or toughness abilities—those that were immediately apparent when used—and those with a larger base, the kinds most people awakened, were easy to identify.

After he finished explaining everything, dawn was nearly breaking.

Having learned of such a grave matter, no one felt like sleeping anyway.

Besides, Fang Xia had only outlined the general direction; the finer details still had to be handled by Liu Rui and the others.

"What are we having for breakfast?"

Fang Xia suddenly asked.

"Noodles. I'll have them make some right away."

On the first floor, aside from the four bodyguard sisters, there were already two cooks living there as well. The stoves had long since been set up; they simply had not been given the materials to show their skills.

Still, breakfast could be made—noodles, rice noodles, even steamed buns and dumplings could be made by hand.

In any case, they had more ingredients than they could possibly use.

Thinking about it now, all the preparations Fang Xia had made before the apocalypse had been for one purpose: to support the first group of thirty-one young women. With people, they could seize more resources.

Unlike many teams now, which had only begun to band together after Dawn City was established.

In the earliest days of the apocalypse, one person could barely keep themselves alive, let alone support a whole crowd.

Besides, the appearance of airdrop crates had also numbed many people, leading them to mistakenly believe that supplies from before the apocalypse were no longer so important.