Chapter 5: The Police Department

“Reverse! Back up, hurry!” Claire shouted anxiously.

Just as Fang Qingzhou restarted the engine, intending to throw the car into reverse and crush every last zombie, a horn suddenly blared from behind them.

Fang Qingzhou whipped his head around, only to see a hundred-ton truck barreling toward them, completely out of control.

“Get out of the car!” Fang Qingzhou yelled, shoving hard against the door.

Getting bitten by zombies was still better than getting crushed into paste by a hundred-ton truck, but the zombies were still pressing against the outside, and the door would not budge.

“It won’t open!” Claire cried from her side, facing the exact same problem as the zombies blocked her door completely.

Fang Qingzhou drew his pistol, intending to use his two precious bullets to take out the zombies outside and shove the door open to escape.

But there was no time. The massive cab of the hundred-ton truck already filled his entire rearview mirror.

“Hold on!” Fang Qingzhou only had time to shout those two words.

“Boom!!”

A deafening crash exploded in his ears. It was as if someone had hit fast-forward on the world; every sound turned shrill and warped.

Fang Qingzhou felt like a baseball struck by a bat, hurled violently back and forth inside the cab.

The airbag deployed with a pop, slamming hard into Fang Qingzhou’s face. A sharp, numbing ache shot through the bridge of his nose as warm liquid trickled from his nostrils, slipping past his lips and into his mouth, spreading a metallic, salty tang across his tongue.

【Bristleback effect triggered. Damage resistance doubled. Host’s impact damage significantly reduced.】

Who knew how much time had passed, perhaps a few seconds or maybe a dozen, before Fang Qingzhou’s consciousness slowly returned.

He felt the entire world spinning. Sounds reached him muffled and distant, as if filtered through a thick layer of cotton. His eyelids were heavy as lead, and it took everything he had just to crack them open.

Before his eyes lay utter ruin.

The front end of the police cruiser was completely deformed, the hood crumpled like paper. The windshield was spiderwebbed with cracks radiating outward from the center.

Fortunately, the hundred-ton truck had struck other vehicles on the roadside first, which cushioned the blow and slowed it down before it slammed into their cruiser. Had it been a direct, full-speed collision, they would have already been reduced to mincemeat.

Soon, however, Fang Qingzhou caught the strong stench of gasoline. Nursing his spinning head, he pushed the door open and scrambled out. The instant he got clear, the cruiser behind him exploded.

The powerful shockwave threw Fang Qingzhou off his feet, slamming him into the door of an adjacent car and crushing it inward with a massive dent.

【Bristleback effect triggered.】

Fang Qingzhou sprawled on the ground, coughing violently, feeling as though he might throw up his internal organs.

Taking two impacts like that in a row would have left any ordinary person crippled, if not dead. Fortunately, he was a Bristleback now. It hurt like hell, but not a single bone was broken.

“Damn it… There isn’t even a Vehicle Destroyer^[1] title on my status panel, so how did it still explode… Could this be Leon’s hidden trait?…”

Clutching his stomach, Fang Qingzhou climbed to his feet and muttered under his breath, staring at the cruiser that had been reduced to a fireball.

Then he suddenly remembered Claire was still in the vehicle. Surely the female lead of Resident Evil wouldn’t die just like that? He hastily shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Claire, are you alive?!”

Moments later, Claire’s voice came from the other side of the blazing cruiser.

“I’m fine! How are you?!”

Hearing Claire’s voice, Fang Qingzhou let out a sigh of relief.

He knew one of the heroines of Resident Evil wouldn’t go down that easily. She probably had a Protagonist Aura of her own, or maybe she had also invested points into the Bristleback skill like him.

“I’m fine, but looks like we’ll have to split up!” Fang Qingzhou shouted back.

A wall of fire from the burning wreck stood between him and Claire, and waiting for the flames to subside was out of the question. The explosion had attracted all the nearby zombies, and they were already converging on their position. If this kept up, they really would be bitten to death.

“You go first! We’ll regroup at the police station!” Claire called back.

“Be careful!” Fang Qingzhou didn’t hesitate any longer. With pistol in hand, he took off running.

Dozens of zombies followed closely behind him, though fortunately, their movement speed was not fast.

Even so, the commotion drew more and more zombies in his wake. The moment he could no longer run, he would be torn to shreds.

“Come on, damn legs, move faster!”

Gritting his teeth, Fang Qingzhou ran for his life, but as his stamina gradually drained, his speed inevitably began to drop. The zombies, however, had endless stamina, and the distance between them steadily shrank.

Finally, when the zombies were barely a meter behind him, he caught sight of the Raccoon City Police Department.

Fang Qingzhou summoned his final burst of strength and surged into a desperate sprint toward the precinct’s heavy iron gate. Reaching it, he swung the massive door shut behind him and threw all his weight into yanking down the metal bolt.

The bolt locked firmly into its groove, letting out a sharp metallic clatter in the rain.

The next instant, countless zombies slammed violently into the iron gate.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Cold, rotting hands slapped wildly against the iron bars. The entire gate shuddered and rattled violently under the assault. Raspy, guttural snarls sounded right in his ears, while the sickening stench of decay seeped through the cracks and flooded his nose.

Fang Qingzhou stumbled back two paces and bent over with his hands braced on his knees, panting raggedly as his chest heaved like a beached fish on the verge of suffocation.

He had survived.

Through a car crash, an explosion, and the pursuit of a zombie horde, he had actually survived.

After his breathing steadied a little, Fang Qingzhou slowly straightened up and looked up at the building before him.

It was not a traditionally styled police station, looking more like a medieval church. If not for the sign reading “RACCOON CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT”, no one would ever have believed this was a police station.

Fang Qingzhou had no time to dwell on the building’s oddities. Behind him, the iron gate was groaning under the strain as the zombies slammed into it harder and harder. The bolt rattled in its slot, looking as if it could burst loose at any second.

He turned and ran toward the main entrance of the police station, taking the steps two at a time and shoving the doors open.

Beyond the doors was a massive hall, complete with an enormous statue of a goddess. Yet within the cavernous space, there was not a single person, nor a single zombie.

Fang Qingzhou didn’t let down his guard. Gun raised, he began checking his surroundings, soon spotting two faintly glowing objects on a desk ahead.

Stepping closer, he saw that they were half a box of 9mm bullets and a bottle of first aid spray.

“Is this the effect of the Li Sanguang title?” Fang Qingzhou picked up the half-box of bullets, and the faint glow radiating from it instantly vanished.

He checked inside and found ten rounds left. That would ease his ammunition crisis slightly, ensuring he wouldn’t be completely defenseless if he ran into zombies again.

The real world wasn’t like a game with one-button reloading, and bullets couldn’t be conjured from thin air. Eagerly tearing open the ammo, he carefully pressed each round into the pistol magazine one by one.

Only when the magazine was completely full did his long-strained nerves finally relax.