Chapter 1 A New Beginning

Su Mo carefully recalled the situation and ran towards the rear. If his memory served him correctly, when the E齿 (E Chi) Beasts attacked, all the heavy weaponry had come from behind. This meant there must be a military camp behind the defense line, where the tank battalion was likely located.

Events proved Su Mo right. Near the outskirts of Dawn City, he found a huge military camp.

As soon as Su Mo approached, he was stopped by a group of female guards, led by a middle-aged woman with short hair.

"Are you with our guild? You look unfamiliar."

"New here," Su Mo explained after a moment's thought.

The guard captain took out a device and said to Su Mo, "Show me your wristband."

Although Su Mo wasn't sure what they wanted to do, he raised his left hand.

*Beep*

"Name: Su Mo, Status: Dawn Guild, Tenth Legion, Twelfth Team, ID: 54288, Assigned to Tank Battalion."

"Su Mo, are you the 'team wipe' guy?" the middle-aged woman asked, frowning.

Su Mo felt a little awkward. Bad news really did travel fast.

"Sister Li, Zi Nuo told us not to make things difficult for him," a sister beside her reminded.

"Forget it, go in," Sister Li said with a frustrated wave of her hand.

"Thank you," Su Mo said, hurrying inside. Inside the military camp, players were logging in and rushing towards the armory.

Each area of the camp had a distinctive flag. Su Mo quickly located the Tank Battalion area.

He rushed over, but he was still too late.

With a roar, players in tanks drove past Su Mo, leaving the area empty, with not a single tank in sight.

Su Mo stood there, a bit of a headache coming on.

Just then, a maintenance worker, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, walked out. He sized up Su Mo, blew a smoke ring, and said, "You must be the new guy."

"Yes, is there a tank available here?" Su Mo asked.

"Tank? There aren't any extra tanks for you here. Go back and rest for now."

The old man turned and left, ignoring Su Mo.

It wasn't that the old man was trying to make things difficult. The guild's large weapons were usually assigned to specific players.

Although Su Mo was assigned to the tank battalion, he wouldn't get a tank until new weapons were added to the inventory.

At that moment, a burly man ran past, then backtracked.

He looked Su Mo up and down, noticing that he didn't even have a backpack and was just standing there dumbly.

"Hey, buddy, new here?"

"Yeah," Su Mo replied, not thinking too much of it.

"Here!" The burly man took off a QBu99 sniper rifle equipped with a scope from his back and tossed it to Su Mo.

"This?" Su Mo was surprised.

"Take your weapon and follow me. I can tell you're new and don't know anything. It's okay, I was the same when I first got here."

The big man led Su Mo towards the supply depot on the side.

Afterward, the good-natured man took Su Mo to get a supply pack containing basic survival supplies and a two-way radio.

Then, he led Su Mo towards the front defensive line.

Although Su Mo felt a little out of place, he tried his best to adapt.

Before long, they reached the front line.

The area was full of trenches, and in the distance, a horde of zombies was approaching like a tide, creating a spectacular sight.

If ordinary players or small guilds encountered this, they would probably be scared out of their wits and run away.

But they were facing players from the Dawn Guild, who were not pushovers. They quickly demonstrated strong teamwork.

They set up Gatling guns and fired intensely, mowing down groups of zombies.

Although the zombie horde was large, the Dawn Guild had received advance warning and was well prepared, using various coordinated fire to suppress them.

When some of the stronger zombies broke through the fire blockade, they were immediately bombarded with heavy weapons, torn to pieces by shells.

As the saying goes, all fear comes from a lack of firepower, and that was definitely true.

The big man and Su Mo moved past one firing point after another, entering an adjacent trench.

"Buddy, I'm Zhang Kui, what's your name?"

Zhang Kui was in a good mood and chatted with Su Mo across the trench. In fact, he had joined the Dawn Guild by chance. He hadn't been in the guild much longer than Su Mo, and he didn't know many people. And because he might be a little unsophisticated and the guild was mostly women, he didn't have any good friends.

"Su Mo," Su Mo replied simply.

"That name sounds familiar. Did you offend someone when you joined the guild? How come no one's showing you the ropes? Usually, there's an old hand to guide the new ones."

......

Zhang Kui babbled on.

Su Mo didn't answer. Instead, he lay in the trench and started shooting at the zombies in the distance.

*Bang*

One shot, one kill, just like target practice.

Seeing Su Mo shooting so seriously, Zhang Kui thought he was nervous and comforted him, "Hey, don't be so tense. This zombie tide is nothing to us. The reason they called us up in such a hurry is more for training. Let me tell you, when there are a lot of zombies in the early stages, let those with heavy weapons do the work. We can just squat here and rest. Our biggest role is to wait until the zombie horde has been thinned out before we start moving."

Su Mo thought about it and felt that Zhang Kui made a point, so he stopped.

"That's right. Let me tell you, this Dawn Guild is really good, the benefits are top-notch. Especially the cafeteria. If you go early, you might even get some low-pollution greens. You know how precious greens are...."

Zhang Kui was getting more and more excited.

Of course, you couldn't blame Zhang Kui. Someone like him, who worked at the bottom, rarely got to eat such things.

Pollution levels were rated from 0-10.

0 was the most expensive, starting at thousands per *jin* (斤, a Chinese unit of weight, approximately 500 grams).

1-5 was slightly polluted, costing hundreds per *jin*.

6-10 was low pollution, costing tens per *jin*.

Anything over 10 was moderately polluted and inedible.

Overconsumption would cause cell death, organ failure, and various diseases and terminal illnesses.

This shows how precious and popular pollution-free food was in this world.

......

Zhang Kui kept rambling on to Su Mo.

Su Mo listened quietly without saying much.

After a while, Zhang Kui got a little tired. He yawned and said to Su Mo, "Hey, watch out for me while I take a nap. I worked a black job last night and stayed up too late."

"Okay," Su Mo replied tersely.

"Thanks."

After Zhang Kui finished speaking, he closed his eyes and fell asleep in no time.