Chapter 1

"Bang!"

Finding someone inside the convenience store, a man in his forties frantically rushed forward, slamming against the metal fence, shouting wildly:

"Help! Open the door! Let me in!"

Zhang Hu instinctively stepped forward, bending down to unhook the latch and lift the gate, but Li Chenzhou forcefully pulled him back.

"Ah~!"

Zhang Hu turned to look at Li Chenzhou, just about to speak, when the man outside suddenly let out a shrill scream. At the same time, Zhang Hu felt a warm liquid splash onto his neck.

Two hideous zombies pounced on the man from behind. One of them bit into the back of his neck, tearing off a bloody strip of flesh.

The other zombie ripped away the entire right half of the man's face, revealing gruesome teeth and cheekbones. Blood splattered as the man desperately reached his arms into the convenience store, trying to grab Zhang Hu, gurgling sounds escaping from his profusely bleeding throat...

The horrifying scene caused Zhang Hu, known for his reckless and bold nature and frequent brawls, to instinctively take a few steps back, bumping into a shelf. The girl couldn't help but hug her younger brother and scream.

"Shhh!"

Li Chenzhou raised his index finger, calmly turning back to the girl and gesturing for silence. Zhang Hu, managing to regain some composure, looked at the zombies outside and asked with difficulty:

"Are... are all the zombies we'll face in the future like this?"

By now, the bitten man had already transformed. The three zombies outside jumped and clawed, desperately trying to get into the convenience store, emitting hungry roars, their scarlet eyes filled with cruelty and violence.

"No!"

Li Chenzhou slowly walked to the door, watching the monkey-like agility of the zombies, and said softly:

"These are just the most common zombies. As time passes, enhanced zombies and mutated zombies will emerge from them. Compared to these, those guys are even more terrifying!"

"How... how do you know all this?"

Zhang Hu's voice trembled.

"How I know isn't important. What's important is that it's all true."

Li Chenzhou pointed to the street outside, now overrun with zombies:

"We only have one path ahead of us: either we kill them all, or they kill us and turn us into them."

Turning back, Li Chenzhou looked at the siblings:

"We... have no way back!"

Silence fell over the convenience store, broken only by the roars of the three zombies and the sound of them slamming against the metal bars.

Zhang Hu and the siblings looked at the swift and agile zombies outside, their eyes filled with deep despair.

If the zombies before them were the slow-moving, brainless type from the movies, they might have held a sliver of hope.

But could they really deal with zombies that ran faster than normal people, with bodies that weren't stiff at all, jumping around like monkeys?

Running? They couldn't outrun them. Fighting? Even if you could kill one in a one-on-one fight, who could guarantee they wouldn't get hurt? And in a fight with zombies, getting hurt meant death.

"You don't need to worry too much!"

Just as Zhang Hu and the others were losing hope, Li Chenzhou's voice rang out. He stood at the door, calmly watching the three zombies that refused to leave:

"It's not just the zombies that can become stronger; all living things can, including us. Besides, zombies are still just zombies. Although they're agile, they have no intelligence. All their actions stem from their instinct to crave flesh and blood!"

As he spoke, Li Chenzhou crouched down, smeared some of the man's blood from the ground, and, avoiding the arms reaching through the bars, smeared the blood on the gate.

"Roar!"

The three zombies immediately scrambled towards the blood. One of them, managing to get to the front, pressed its head against the gate, desperately licking the blood-stained metal.

"Thwack!"

Li Chenzhou drew his dagger and, through the bars, pierced the zombie's skull. The zombie stopped moving instantly. After Li Chenzhou pulled out the dagger, the corpse slid down.

The empty spot was immediately taken by another zombie. The moment its head came close, the dagger pierced its forehead from the same position and at the same angle. Then, the third zombie suffered the same fate...

"See? With just a little blood, without even changing position, you can easily kill them with a dagger."

Li Chenzhou turned back to look at Zhang Hu.

Zhang Hu looked at the three zombie corpses on the ground, then at the dagger and baseball bat in his hands, and finally looked up at the chaotic street. He suddenly nodded, a fierce expression appearing on his face:

"There's no other way anyway, so... let's just go all in!"

Li Chenzhou smiled and nodded. Just as he was about to speak, a strange voice suddenly echoed in his mind:

"Ding! Detecting that the host has killed a mutated creature, the Killing System has been successfully activated! Rewarding a random talent."

Killing System?

Li Chenzhou was taken aback. He hadn't heard of anything like this before. Could it be... a perk of being reborn and transmigrated?

At the same time, a pale blue virtual screen appeared before Li Chenzhou, displaying his personal attributes. In addition, a flood of information poured into his mind, instantly clarifying the functions of this Killing System:

Host: Li Chenzhou

Kill Points: 3

Evolution Level: 0

Rank: Recruit

Strength: 5

Agility: 7

Endurance: 7

Spirit: 20 [(5+5) x 2]

Talent: War Fog (Passive: Increases Spirit to the upper limit and doubles it! Active: When activated, creates a fog around the user that isolates sight, hearing, and smell. The user and designated allies are unaffected. Requires continuous consumption of Spirit! Maximum radius of ten meters.)

Skills: None

Followers: None

Looking at this attribute panel, Li Chenzhou was first stunned, then overjoyed – not because of the attributes themselves, but because of the talent: War Fog.

For ordinary people, the highest attribute value is 10 points, which is only possible for athletes or elite soldiers. For normal people, it's usually around 4-7.

Li Chenzhou's Spirit attribute reached 20 due to the passive effect of his talent. But for Li Chenzhou, the most important aspect of this talent was the active skill.

Although this active skill was purely support-oriented, Li Chenzhou, who had lived in the apocalypse for a full ten years, knew exactly how terrifying a fog that could isolate sight, hearing, and smell could be.

Moreover, the Killing System not only provided Li Chenzhou with this heaven-defying talent, but it also came with a Killing Shop.

Food, potions, weapons, equipment, vehicles, and all sorts of other goods were dazzlingly displayed. From a small loaf of bread to a flying war fortress the size of a mountain, anything you could imagine, and things you couldn't, could be found in this shop.

Of course, to buy them, you needed to pay enough currency. The currency of the Killing Shop was Kill Points, and they were obtained through killing.

When Li Chenzhou, and his followers, killed any creature, Li Chenzhou would receive Kill Points corresponding to the creature's life force. His current three Kill Points came from the three zombies he had just killed.

Therefore, the Killing System could be described as fairly simple: frantically kill, then use Kill Points to buy goods in the shop, make yourself stronger, then continue killing, continue buying, continue getting stronger...

(Note: Creatures with insufficient life force will not be counted. To those who want to comment that masturbating would give you billions of Kill Points, go wash up and go to sleep!)

"Big brother! I want to ask you for a favor. You're a strong person, and in a world like this, only strong people like you can survive. So, I want to ask you to take my sister with you!"

Just as Li Chenzhou was about to take a good look at what good things were in the shop, the young boy, holding his sister and leaning on his crutches, came before him and said earnestly:

"My sister is strong and has a lot of strength. She won't be a burden to you. At least she can carry food or something. She can do it. And... she's also very pretty. Besides, if you promise me, even though I'm crippled, I can still play some role. For example, when you plan to leave, I can volunteer to go out and attract those zombies according to your instructions!"

"Xiao Lei! What nonsense are you talking about? If he dares to let you go out, I'll..."

Before Li Chenzhou could answer, the girl glared at the boy, but was interrupted before she could finish:

"You'll what? Sister! Don't you understand yet?"

The boy pointed outside:

"What kind of world is this now? The apocalypse! We haven't experienced it, but we've seen movies and read novels, right? Before, we had this little store, and you could take care of me. Although it was a little hard and tiring, we could manage to get by, so I never said anything.

But now, you can barely protect yourself. It's impossible to take care of a cripple like me anymore. I won't say anything else, but just take these two big brothers as an example. If they were the kind of people without any bottom line, they could grab me now, put a dagger to my neck, and force you to strip naked to satisfy them. What would you choose?"

The boy's eyes were bloodshot, and tears streamed down his face:

"Sister, you're so pretty. Many people were constantly harassing you before. In the apocalypse, this will become an original sin! If you don't attach yourself to a strong person, your fate is destined to be quite miserable.

We only have two choices now. One is that you continue to struggle in this world with me. If that's the case, what I just said will definitely happen. I can even foresee our ending.

I'll leave this world with resentment and despair after witnessing you being ravished by several, or even more, ferocious men, and you'll forever live in that hellish torment until you die.

The other choice is to sacrifice me to save you. Sister, you've taken care of me for eighteen years. Now that the apocalypse has come, it's time for me to repay the debt. Just promise me. At least this way, I... can leave this world with a glimmer of hope and blessings for you! Please, sister!"

With that, the boy dropped his crutches and slowly knelt before the sobbing girl...