Chen Wan picked up her machete and moved.
Qin Ke and Yi Yi were right behind her. Jiang Yanxin, who was not suited to close quarters, drew her sidearm. She genuinely couldn't understand why two alphas and an android were going in for hand-to-hand combat when firearms existed — but she didn't ask.
She steadied her expression, raised the pistol, and aimed at Zhang Qiang.
She thought of the white building — the days without proper food, barely a sip of water, the things these people had said to her and Yang Yang. She thought of what she and Yang Yang would have become if Chen Wan hadn't come. Chen Wan was right. Every single one of them deserved this.
The one with the red hair saw that Jiang Yanxin hadn't charged in with the others and decided to take advantage of the perceived weakness — she was an omega, she'd be the easy one to control first. He ran at her.
Jiang Yanxin raised the gun without hesitation and fired. He went down. Her precision, amplified by her substantial mental energy reserves, was nearly on par with Chen Wan's — though not quite at the level of Qin Ke's firearms ability.
The shot made Zhang Qiang's group hesitate.
One of them yelled: "She has a gun — watch her!"
Jiang Yanxin smiled coldly. By the time they'd registered that, Chen Wan had already put down four or five of them.
Chen Wan moved at speed, dropping two before they could react, cutting through those nearest to her, grabbing one by the collar and throwing him more than ten meters — her white shirt and face now streaked with blood.
Yi Yi showed no mercy. Four men came for her. One was kicked away at full force, and the other three were put down with her blade in short order.
Qin Ke — after what Zhang Qiang's people had just said — needed no weapon. She climbed one man's back, locked her arm across his throat, and held until he went still.
In a minute and a half, the situation had completely reversed. Zhang Qiang now had himself, Sun Yuejie, and three others. Dongzi had gone pale at the sight of the three blood-covered women.
"Brother Qiang — what do we do, they're not human, those women are—"
"Useless. All of you." Zhang Qiang shrugged off his jacket and threw it aside. "You want to fight dirty, Chen Wan? Fine. You're all going to die here anyway."
His skin began to change — the pale yellow shifting to a mottled black and yellow, hair spreading rapidly across his body, his frame swelling beneath the transformation.
Jiang Yanxin watched the process begin and fired three shots without ceremony. There was no reason to wait for it to finish.
Chen Wan and the others, reasoning similarly, drew their own weapons. No need to stand and watch. They opened fire.
Dongzi dove behind cover and called out: "Sister Chen — we know each other, sort of — please, I don't want to die—"
"Did you ask the omegas you hurt whether they wanted to die?" Chen Wan's voice was quiet. She fired once. Dongzi went down. Sun Yuejie followed.
Zhang Qiang had taken five or six rounds mid-transformation. He completed it nonetheless — a massive saber-toothed tiger, blood seeping from wounds at his shoulder and belly, one foreleg crippled by a shot from Jiang Yanxin. He hadn't expected them to start shooting during the transformation. He hadn't expected them not to wait.
He forced himself upright through the pain and let out a series of deep, resonant roars — a threat display, an attempt to drive them off.
Chen Wan looked at him with mild interest and asked Yi Yi, "Is this his ability?"
"Beast transformation. He can take the form of an animal, with corresponding physical enhancements. But he's not a match for us." Yi Yi sounded entirely undisturbed.
Chen Wan nodded and raised her weapon.
Zhang Qiang had gambled on fear. Getting none, he lunged — a burst of speed, one enormous paw driving directly at Chen Wan's face.
Chen Wan had the speed and agility modifiers. From Zhang Qiang's perspective, her destruction was mathematically certain. From Chen Wan's perspective, every movement he made played out like it was happening underwater — she read the paw before it arrived, shifted, and in the same motion grabbed a fistful of fur at the back of his neck and swung herself onto his back.
He bucked and rolled, trying to shake her off, the roaring continuous. The noise alone was enough to have attracted a crowd — zombies had gathered at the facility gates, and the smarter Level 2 ones had already climbed over the Level 1 bodies to get inside. Dozens of them pressed toward the yard.
Zhang Qiang's voice, filtered now through a strange metallic resonance, came out thick and cold: "Let go. Or we both die here. The zombies are already inside. Your choice."
Chen Wan laughed softly. She brought the machete down against the side of his neck — tiger hide was tough, but with her strength modifier, it went in. She raised the blade, set the tip against the exposed flesh of the wound, and drove it through.
Zhang Qiang's movements slowed. Then stopped.
The zombies coming in through the gate were a more pressing problem. Qin Ke, Jiang Yanxin, and Yi Yi were holding the line with firearms, but the numbers kept replenishing.
Jiang Yanxin pulled the illustrated book from behind her back, opened it, and summoned Zeus.
She had briefly considered Hephaestus — fire would be efficient. But they still needed to load material from the warehouse. Setting everything ablaze would be counterproductive. Zeus it was.
He swept his spear once across the incoming horde. Electricity branched through the densely packed bodies in chain reactions — one zombie to the next, conducting through contact, burning as it went. Within seconds, what had been dozens of zombies was a field of charred remains. Zeus looked to Jiang Yanxin for further instruction.
Chen Wan had an idea. She glanced at the RV, then at Jiang Yanxin. "While he's here, could he charge the RV? We run on solar, which is fine, but since he's already out..."
Qin Ke stared at Chen Wan.
Jiang Yanxin considered this for approximately two seconds and nodded. She relayed the command to Zeus, with the careful additional instruction that the current should be matched to the RV's electrical specifications — no burning things out.
Qin Ke's expression went somewhere between disbelief and resignation. One person suggested it. The other agreed without hesitation. Somehow this tracked perfectly.
Under everyone's collective gaze, the king of the Greek gods extended his lightning spear and charged the RV's electrical systems. Thirty seconds later, every battery and capacitor aboard was full. Zeus looked to Jiang Yanxin, received a small dismissive wave, and faded from sight.
Qin Ke looked at Chen Wan and Jiang Yanxin. Both appeared entirely unbothered. She could not find the right word for them.
"Good idea, right?" Chen Wan grinned at her. "We were running low on fuel. Now we can switch to electric."
"Great idea," Qin Ke said flatly, having run out of more specific responses.
"Right — let's go load." Chen Wan waved everyone toward the warehouse.
Walking in, Jiang Yanxin voiced something she'd been turning over. "Zhang Qiang had an ability. How?"
Yi Yi smiled. "Fortune favors the bold. My guess is he'd read apocalypse fiction before all this started, figured out that crystal cores were worth eating, and simply decided to try it. When the initial effects were positive, he kept going. Given enough cores over enough time, awakening an ability is the natural result. He's probably not the only one. Ability users are starting to emerge in larger numbers."
Chen Wan nodded. "The crystal cores in this world don't cause discomfort — they don't require a trigger event, they don't require being infected. If someone has the nerve to eat them and the patience to keep at it, they'll eventually awaken. It's more accessible than most stories make it out to be."
"Which means ordinary people now have a real path to becoming ability users," Yi Yi agreed. "Assuming they're willing to take the risk."
She paused, then added: "I also picked up seven more people in that building just now — they didn't come down during the fighting, which suggests at least some level of caution. Zhang Qiang's remaining people should be dealt with completely, but there may be victims among those seven."
Chen Wan nodded. "Materials first. Once Yan Yan's things are loaded, we go upstairs and see what we're dealing with. Zhang Qiang's people don't get to walk away — but if there are people he brought against their will, that's a different matter."
Jiang Yanxin frowned thoughtfully. "There may well be."
"Very likely," Chen Wan said quietly. Given what they'd already done, it wasn't a stretch at all.