Apocalypse: I Can See Health Bars
Chapter 37: Luring Away the Horde

Chapter 37: Chapter 37: Luring Away the Horde

[220/220]

Lin Fan’s HP instantly rose to 220!

Ever since his ears had fully healed along with his rising HP, he’d noticed his hearing had become much sharper than before. Not only could he hear fainter sounds, but he could even vaguely discern the direction of their source.

That was why Lin Fan had detected the two zombies and prepared himself in the split second the glass shattered.

The surging power in his arms gradually subsided, and his mind was now crystal clear.

After swiftly killing the two zombies, Lin Fan quickly scanned his surroundings before relaxing.

Most of the zombies were still attacking the car with the wailing alarm.

Only a few zombies on the periphery had noticed the commotion, but because they were still far away, they turned back to rejoin the horde as the fighting ceased and his stealth took effect.

Instantly killing two stragglers didn’t mean he could take on an encirclement of a dozen zombies.

Besides, quickly dispatching two zombies would also serve as a deterrent to any survivors lurking in the shadows. After all, with the horde being led away, scavenger teams like the ones from yesterday would likely become more common.

Since making such a racket would get him noticed anyway, he might as well kill the zombies with lightning speed to save himself a lot of trouble in the future.

The stealth crystal was very effective. As long as he ended fights quickly, the chances of being discovered were greatly reduced.

Seeing no sign of any survivors, Lin Fan didn’t dwell on it.

Warily watching the storefronts to his right, he continued eastward until the car alarm behind him finally stopped.

He reached into his pocket, then threw something at another car...

Section by section, he lured the zombies outward. After hitting seven or eight cars, he had finally led the horde from the base of his apartment building all the way to the intersection where the small lane below met the north-south Tianshui Road.

The alarm from the last car even drew over the zombies wandering in the middle of the main road, causing the horde to grow even larger...

Looking at the dense horde of zombies swarming the other side of the road, Lin Fan couldn’t help but think how nice it would be to have a few Molotovs. He just wondered if zombies killed by fire would still increase his HP.

’I’ll make a couple of Molotovs later and find a spot far from the building to test it out,’ he thought.

Since parking was prohibited on both sides of Tianshui Road, there were no cars for Lin Fan to hit aside from a few wrecked or burnt-out shells in the middle of the road.

He tried hitting two seemingly intact cars that had crashed into the road barrier, but no alarms went off. Their batteries were probably dead, or they had short-circuited after two days in the rain.

’Looks like this is as far as I can lead them...’

Lin Fan walked into the middle of the road. An SUV had smashed into the barrier, its hood completely torn off. It was a total wreck.

A zombie was stuck in the driver’s seat, its arm outstretched toward the noise at the intersection.

With a single thrust of his spear, he finished off the zombie, which only had 126 HP left.

Lin Fan climbed onto the roof of the car and gazed into the distance.

He had lived in this area for over twenty years, traveling this road every day for school and work, but this was the first time it had ever felt so alien.

The nearby zombies had all been drawn to the car alarm at the intersection, but countless more could still be seen shambling slowly in the distance.

Because the disaster had erupted so suddenly—news reports even speculated it had started simultaneously everywhere in the middle of the night—there hadn’t been any panicked, overnight mass exoduses. Most vehicles were still parked safely in their residential complexes and on the streets outside.

There were actually fewer cars on the main roads.

Lin Fan had previously guessed the main roads might be completely gridlocked with chain-reaction pileups, but that hadn’t happened.

Most of the accidents involved cars flipping over after hitting the barriers or losing control and jumping the curb.

The middle of the road, on the other hand, was quite clear. Aside from the zombies, there were no obstacles blocking the entire way.

So, Lin Fan set off the alarm on one more car at the intersection, skirted around the horde, and turned to head back toward his apartment building.

With nearly all the zombies lured away, Lin Fan went ahead and unequipped the stealth crystal.

The crystal’s durability had dropped by a total of 53 points, leaving only 767.

Goes to show how time flies. Over eight hundred minutes of durability had seemed like a lot, but in the blink of an eye, nearly an hour’s worth was gone.

As Lin Fan, still lamenting the crystal’s lost durability, neared his building, he suddenly heard the faint roar of a zombie.

He focused his eyes and saw it was his old friend—the one that was just a head and shoulders.

With the horde of zombies downstairs before, Lin Fan hadn’t been able to even find its health bar. Now, he could see it only had [45/300] left...

’Did the horde trample it?’

He raised his spear and put it out of its misery.

He had killed two zombies earlier, one in the car, and now this old friend.

In total, he had obtained 4 bottles of purified water, 1 smoked chicken, 1 roast duck, 2 pieces of scrap metal, and 1 steel wire.

Although the roast duck was tempting, Lin Fan resolved not to touch the food in his storage space unless it was a matter of life and death.

This food and water was his emergency reserve for a day when he might truly have no other options left.

Lin Fan’s HP also reached [240/240].

He could feel his physical condition steadily improving as his HP increased.

It was like a snowball effect; he grew stronger with every zombie he killed.

Lin Fan looked up and saw Su Qing was still at the window watching him. She held out one end of the rope and waved, asking if he wanted her to lower it.

This was what Lin Fan had requested. Before he left, he had instructed Su Qing to pull the rope back up after he was gone.

He’d said that when he returned, he would find a way in through the clinic.

So he waved at Su Qing, signaling that she didn’t need to throw down the rope.

Then he waved his hand at her again, this time more impatiently.

He was telling her to go do whatever she was supposed to be doing.

’Don’t you have work to do?

Why are you always standing there watching me...’

Seeing Su Qing make a face at him from upstairs, which meant she had fully understood his meaning, he paid her no more mind and walked toward the minivan on the other side of the road.

This vehicle was one of the spoils from apartment 401, and now it was time to put it to use.

He opened the van’s doors, threw all the junk inside onto the street, and sat in the driver’s seat. Weaving around a few cars that had crashed together, he drove east along the road.

...

Upstairs, Su Qing watched the man who had brought her so many surprises and shocks, her eyes practically glowing.

He’d succeeded!

Although she didn’t know what that strange ability was that made him flicker in and out of sight, he had really led all those zombies away!

And he’d done it in such a calm, yet somewhat "flamboyant" manner.

She was so envious.

Even if it wasn’t as graceful, she also wanted to be like Lin Fan, to walk the streets again.

Since Lin Fan had driven off, it meant he had other plans.

’I have to work harder, too.’

With that thought, Su Qing returned to the living room. She didn’t pick up the light spear Lin Fan had given her, but instead found the spare weapon he had left behind—the heavy spear.

Lying down on the yoga mat, she began exercising, using the spear shaft as a dumbbell.