nucmednet Chapter 10 Sunday Shopping Mall Beginning
Chapter 10 Sunday Shopping Mall Beginning
The first disaster of the apocalypse: mutants, commonly known as zombies in movies and TV shows.
Without a source, without a cause, without a solution, they appeared out of nowhere, just like the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs.
One second your friend is laughing and joking around with you, the next second they'll turn into a monster and eat you up.
The mutated humans are ugly in appearance, lack reason, and only possess the most basic biological instinct to eat. They are insatiably greedy for flesh and blood, and the more they eat, the bigger they grow and the stronger they become.
They can even merge with surrounding objects during mutation, like slimes in games, and acquire their traits.
The mutants exhibit varying degrees of mutation. Some become faster, some develop skin as hard as steel, or some become like rubber men, able to stretch their bodies at will and grow hundreds of tentacles.
They are extremely resilient; they can survive even with half their body cut off. Once they grow to a certain size, they are even bulletproof and endless, impossible to kill.
This first disaster served as a stark wake-up call for humanity, teaching them a lesson learned in blood.
Your era of peace has ended; now is the apocalyptic era.
In the small manor.
Miao Yin leaned casually against the coffee table, her slender, fair fingers fiddling with the black prayer beads. Then, she spread her fingers and the beads fell to her wrist. She picked up the teapot, and the scalding hot tea flowed straight down, swirling and turning in the Jianzhan teacup before settling into stillness. The misty steam blurred her vision.
She propped her head up with her other hand, gazing at the fallen petals scattered on the ground outside the window.
On the first day of the apocalypse, the flowers and plants in the manor withered, the fish in the river floated belly up on the surface of the water, emitting a foul stench, and flies buzzed around.
A tablet was propped up on the coffee table, displaying the latest news: the highest-level warning issued by the government, and a live stream of the military fighting monsters.
In the thick white fog, a humanoid monster, several meters tall, relentlessly approached the residential area. Soldiers on the front lines fired at it frantically, hurling grenades at it without restraint, blasting it into large fragments.
But none of these actions could stop the monster's advance. Several dark figures flashed through the white mist, and the frontline personnel were cut in half at the waist, their blood splashing onto the roadside flowerbeds.
"Scatter!!! Scatter all!!!"
Someone in the crowd shouted, and the surviving soldiers quickly moved away, hiding in the buildings on both sides. But the frail human bodies were far inferior to the deformed creatures.
Amidst human screams, the monster waved its tentacles, and many people, before they could even react, were pierced through the belly and hung in the air, strung together like "candied hawthorns," with "sugar" gushing down.
"hahahahahahahaha!!!"
The monster let out a sharp, mocking laugh, its massive body writhing in the mist.
Looking at the black tentacles piercing through their stomachs, their eyes were filled with pain and despair, but they still endured the excruciating pain and raised their guns one last time.
"boom!!!"
A missile pierced through the white mist, exploding into a large area of flames, and the blinding light illuminated the battlefield.
The camera was blasted away by the violent airflow and crashed to the ground, splashing black, unidentified liquid onto the lens and darkening the image.
On the other side of the camera, people see their own fearful eyes reflected on the screen.
The comment section below is flooded with messages.
"My mom has turned into a monster! Someone, please save me!"
"What are the government officials doing? Why aren't they clearing these monsters out of here?! Is this how they use my taxes?!"
"Waaaaah, I'm so scared..."
"This is divine punishment! It's divine retribution for our environmental destruction! Humanity is guilty!!!"
"What the hell are the police doing?! Killing monsters?! My son was just born, are you going to take responsibility if anything happens to him?!"
How can humans fight against such monsters?!
"..."
"..."
Are we... all going to die?
Suddenly, the comments section stopped scrolling, and a circle appeared in the center of the screen.
Miao Yin looked at the time.
September 7, 11:00.
Humanity has lost the online world.
Exactly the same as in my previous life.
This also means that the external situation has completely spiraled out of control.
She shut down the computer, pressed a button to power the iron bars, and stepped out of the place for the first time since the apocalypse.
A brand-new SUV was parked outside, its pure black metal shell reflecting a cold light. The crash bars around the vehicle resembled a ring of armor, exuding a wild, mechanical aura.
Miao Yin skillfully sat down and began adjusting the seat and starting the engine.
When she was a wanderer in her past life, her favorite car was this kind of wild car. When the speed reached its maximum, it could smash deformed people into mud.
Miao Yin stepped on the gas, and the car sped off with a horn, heading towards the city center.
Her destination was the Yau Yat Shopping Mall in Jingzhou.
As the largest shopping mall in the area, the Sunday Mall consists of three buildings connected by a circular design. Each building has eleven floors and is very tall and magnificent.
The shop is lined with stores, ranging from high-end clothing and bags to cheap ice cream shops, car show venues, large chain supermarkets, and even children's playgrounds.
People can buy everything they need inside. The mall has tens of thousands of visitors every day, and even many foreign friends come here by word of mouth.
Just as the apocalypse arrived, they held a huge promotional event, attracting a large number of customers to the mall to take advantage of the deals.
As a result of the large number of guests, a few criminals sneaked into the control room, intending to cut off the power and then take the opportunity to steal some high-end luxury products to sell.
Ironically, the two thieves who cut the power were clumsy; they managed to drug the staff, but then they were stumped by the fancy control room.
The two couldn't figure out what was wrong, so they ended up cutting all the wires with scissors and pressing several buttons they didn't even recognize.
Of course, in the end, the power did go out and the surveillance cameras were turned off.
However, they also locked the mall's doors.
Nearly 20,000 people were simultaneously trapped in a dark shopping mall.
The foolish thief himself got locked up; he couldn't take the stolen goods out.
Fortunately, the emergency exit was still open, but because of the large number of people, everyone was crammed into the small passage. Before a few people could get out, the apocalypse began.
Screaming, tearing, gnawing.
In the despairing darkness, corpses piled up in the mall.
This flesh and blood became the best nourishment for the deformed people, and they grew rapidly, taking over a territory.
The survivors went through great hardships to get here in search of food, only to become food for the mutated humans.
It wasn't until a corner of the mall was blown up by a superhuman that the mutated people inside escaped, and everyone realized what a slaughterhouse it was.
From then on, everyone called Sunday Mall "Hell Mall".
These mutant humans dislike sunlight. During the day, they usually hide in the shadows until a human passes by, at which point they suddenly attack and devour their food.
They are very sensitive to sound, and the noise caused by the speeding off-road vehicle attracted many deformed people wandering the streets.
They burst out of the dark alley, howling as they pounced. Miao Yin pressed down on the accelerator, accelerated, and rammed them away, crushing them with her wheels.
Seven or eight more mutated humans pounced on the car, their long tentacles wrapped around the crash bars, their heads banging wildly against the car windows.
Suddenly, the car window rolled down a bit, and black and red flames flowed out from the gap, turning into a raging inferno outside the car, tightly enveloping and burning the mutated man's slippery body.
Flames burned from the skin and flesh all the way to the bone marrow, emitting a foul, cooked meat smell. The mutated people let out painful, shrill screams, struggled, and fell off the vehicle, rolling more than ten meters on the concrete ground, leaving a charred trail.
Miao Yin closed the car window, then made a sharp turn and swerved, throwing the last deformed person clinging to the back of the car off as well.
Looking at the deformed man with broken limbs in the rearview mirror, Miao Yin's surging adrenaline finally subsided. She leaned back in her chair, her face filled with barely suppressed excitement.
Yes, this is the environment she's familiar with; only this kind of stimulation can excite her!
The SUV drove into the underground parking garage, which was pitch black except for a faint green light emanating from the emergency exit.
Miao Yin tucked the car into the storage compartment and walked into the emergency exit.
The lock on the emergency exit door was inexplicably dented, causing the entire lock cylinder to get stuck inside the door, locking the door completely.
Miao Yin used her supernatural power to melt the door lock and open the door.
Dozens of corpses lay piled on top of each other on the stairs, and the passageway was filled with a nauseating, fishy smell of excrement and blood mixed together, fermented over a long period of time.
It's obvious at a glance that they died from being trampled, not from the actions of the deformed people.
Miao Yin pinched her nose and avoided it with disgust.
She was wearing new shoes today and didn't want to get them stained with this rotten stuff.
Having finally reached the first floor of the mall, she quickly left the passageway.
Pushing open the door, a bright and spacious view suddenly appeared.
The exterior of the shopping mall is mostly made of glass, so even without electricity, it is still quite bright inside under the midday sun.
The once thriving shopping mall is now half-ruined, with collapsed walls, shattered glass doors everywhere, and elevators broken in mid-air with several pieces of metal hanging precariously.
Miao Yin looked down and saw large patches of black blood congealed on the white floor tiles, with several pieces of human tissue crawling with maggots rotting there pitifully.
There were no bodies.
Oh dear.
She was secretly amazed, her dark eyes narrowing with pleasure.