Cannon fodder in the Interstellar

With the support of supplies from the capital base, the teams going out to fight zombies in the Northwest Base, after finally having their fill, became even fiercer in their zombie-killing efforts.

On the thirteenth day after Ruo Manni and Hebrew Adam arrived at the Northwest Base, the number of zombies surrounding the base had been reduced to just over two million.

Seeing the situation turning against them, the remaining zombies began retreating in all directions.

Since this kind of collapse, where the zombies disperse after failing to breach the base, had occurred at every base that had been relieved, no one found it unusual.

Although everyone would have liked to take advantage of the moment to eliminate all the zombies and prevent any future threats, the zombies scattering in all directions was a sign of their defeat. However, after days of constant fighting, all those who had been engaged in the battle were utterly exhausted. They were only managing to keep fighting by sheer willpower. Chasing the zombies and engaging in guerrilla warfare was beyond their capacity at that point.

After the zombies scattered in all directions, the battlefield was left with heaps of zombie corpses. These had once been humans, and now they lay dead without dignity at the hands of humanity. It was indeed a tragic sight.

But the surviving humans, who had been through so much suffering, no longer had the sensitivity to mourn. The entire Northwest Base was celebrating their narrow escape from disaster. Everyone let out a sigh of relief and was about to thank the two young saviors when they realized that, at some point, they had quietly left.

Those who had been keeping track of these two young people felt immense gratitude. They had saved over a million people—a monumental achievement. Yet, after their victory, they quietly departed, leaving no chance for anyone to even say “thank you.”

Ruo Manni and Hebrew Adam didn’t save others for the sake of gratitude. Once the crisis was over, they left without a second thought. After leaving the Northwest Base, they headed south and used the same method to resolve the zombie siege at four other bases.

As always, once the siege was broken at each base, they immediately left, without even a single contact with any survivors during the journey.

However, when they helped the F City Base, the closest to B City Base, they encountered a special forces team of over a thousand soldiers.

These soldiers looked disheveled, their odor detectable from kilometers away. Their faces, hidden under their helmets, were covered in dirt, and at a slight distance, zombies might have mistaken them for one of their own.

It was clear these soldiers were utterly fatigued, their exhaustion written all over them.

Ruo Manni and Hebrew Adam knew that the capital base had been relieved, they had immediately sent out seventy-five rescue teams, totaling over 100,000 soldiers, to assist other besieged bases.

Each rescue team consisted of around 2,500 people, and these teams had been fighting on the front lines for over a month, rescuing many bases.

Ruo Manni saw that in this one rescue team of seventy-five, fewer than 1,500 members remained. This meant that at least 1,000 of their comrades had fallen during the journey.

Looking at the exhaustion in their eyes, Ruo Manni thought of her older brother and Brother Song, who had also held similar positions and had once been in such situations themselves.

Brother Song had even made the decision to stay behind and hold off the enemy so that his comrades could escape. If it hadn’t been for meeting people like them, Brother Song would have died long ago.

A sense of sorrow suddenly welled up in her heart. Initially, the two of them had planned to quietly leave once they saw reinforcements arriving, but Ruo Manni couldn’t bring herself to move.

Hebrew Adam glanced at her, then at the soldiers, and sighed. “Let’s help them.”

The two of them turned around and rejoined the battle. They had been through countless battles, and even without using their special abilities, their strength was several times greater than the average person. Working as a pair, they quickly killed zombies.

Although the number of zombies on the plains was large, there were many survivor bases, and this small base only had about 1.2 million zombies surrounding it. With Ruo Manni and Hebrew Adam working together with the rescue team, they managed to kill 400,000 to 500,000 zombies in just half a day, and the remaining zombies immediately scattered and fled.

As they worked together, the military had already taken notice of them. When Ruo Manni and Hebrew Adam tried to leave, they were immediately called out to: “Please wait a moment!”

The captain of the rescue team shouted. Hearing his hoarse voice, not only Ruo Manni but even Hebrew Adam couldn’t simply walk away.

Two soldiers walked over to them. Despite their sharp eyes, Ruo Manni and Hebrew Adam couldn’t make out their faces, which were covered in dirt and grime.

In stark contrast to the two soldiers, Ruo Manni and Hebrew Adam had spent most of the day fighting, yet both were still clean and tidy.

Perhaps because of this, the two soldiers hesitated to approach them directly and instead stood three meters away, bowing respectfully.

Ruo Manni quickly jumped aside. Hebrew Adam, not fully understanding the significance of the gesture but seeing Ruo Manni move, also quickly stepped to the side.

“Why are you giving us such a grand salute?” Ruo Manni asked, a bit embarrassed.

“Thank you,” the captain said sincerely. “If it weren’t for you wiping out the sixth-tier zombies, we would have never had enough people to deal with them.”

Ruo Manni and Hebrew Adam looked at each other in surprise, as the captain was very tall, wearing loose, dirty combat gear, and speaking with a hoarse and broken voice. They hadn’t noticed anything unusual earlier.

Now, almost face to face, they realized that the captain was a woman, and a young one at that.

Ruo Manni understood why the female captain had said that. When the four of them had been sweeping through the sixth-tier zombies, a small country that they hadn’t reached yet had experienced a zombie outbreak.

The outbreak was led by a sixth-tier zombie, which had the ability to destroy concrete walls, and the human weapons available couldn’t kill it…

The final result was that more than 500,000 people in that base were wiped out, and even the nearest base had its gate broken open, with half of the people killed or injured.

If Ruo Manni and Hebrew Adam hadn’t noticed something was wrong through the satellite and rushed over to kill the sixth-tier zombie, and also helped that base by killing all the fifth-tier zombies, that base would have definitely been annihilated half a day later.

It was easy to imagine that, if they hadn’t killed the sixth-tier zombies first, many bases across the country would have suffered massive losses. The rescue teams they encountered would have faced complete destruction, leaving them unable to save anyone.

“We don’t need your thanks. We are also human, and we just wanted to save people to save ourselves. This is within our capacity. You are the ones who truly sacrificed yourselves for others,” Ruo Manni shook her head and said.

Ruo Manni didn’t feel worthy of the thanks. They could have done more, but out of concern that interfering too much might affect humanity’s natural evolution, they had only helped in a measured way, not fully exerting themselves.

The female captain seemed to want to say something, but a series of coughs interrupted her. Then someone beside her spoke on her behalf: “Our captain has a slight cough, she’ll be fine after a while.”

The man’s voice was also a bit hoarse, but it was clear that it was caused by thirst, not illness like the captain’s.