Chapter 532: Joint Mission

Nina Jacobs chose the Strength Element Superpower for Justin Lawson.

When it came to building one’s physique, the Strength Element Superpower was arguably the most beneficial. Becoming a Superpower User vastly improved a person’s physical constitution, but while other elemental superpowers mostly relied on mental or external bodily exertion, the Strength Element was the sole exception in purely enhancing raw power.

It would be rather strange for someone in his sixties to suddenly awaken a superpower at this juncture, so she deliberately waited until they left the base before using the First Superpower Card on him. She just hoped it wouldn’t draw the suspicion of anyone with ulterior motives.

Nina held a route plan provided by Myra Lawson. Their destination today was a large bridge in the suburbs of City D. Beneath the bridge flowed a river that spanned across City J and City D. Ever since the extreme cold hit, an endless stream of zombies had been pouring down this river from the direction of City J.

"City J doesn’t have a base, so it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it a Zombie City," Myra Lawson explained over the walkie-talkie from a vehicle up ahead, briefing Nina in the car behind her. "Furthermore, this river leads straight into the heart of City J’s downtown area, so the sheer volume of zombies is exceptionally massive."

Today, they needed to find a suitable location to horizontally blockade the river. Fortunately, the river wasn’t entirely too wide, but zombies were still constantly emerging across the sixty-meter span of the water and its surrounding banks. They had to find a way to cut off the source on the river first.

"Understood."

Nina already had a general grasp of the situation. Heavy weaponry could continuously bombard the river’s surface, but it wouldn’t be able to stop the source itself, and the team would eventually be swarmed by the surrounding horde. Therefore, she had to figure out a way to sever the source first—perhaps by using her Fire Element Superpower from yesterday to melt a section of the icy river.

"All of us will coordinate with you. Just let us know whatever you need," Myra stated.

Nina turned off the walkie-talkie and addressed the others in the car. "That’s the situation. Today, everyone just needs to help kill the zombies."

As long as there were no unforeseen accidents, Nina believed Myra’s plan shouldn’t have any issues.

"We haven’t been out for so many days, and these zombies outside look like they’re completely immune to the cold," Wayne Abbott said as he drove.

When the extreme cold first hit, the zombies had been frozen solid into icy corpses. Back then, they had treated it like a game, effortlessly killing plenty of immobilized zombies while out on runs. If it hadn’t been for the unbearable freezing temperatures, they would have loved nothing more than to camp outside and slaughter zombies all day long.

To think that after only a few days, the zombies had reverted to how they were before.

"Yeah, the anatomy of these zombies is truly bizarre. It’s almost as if they were designed to be our natural predators." Over the past few days, Paisley Paige had treated quite a few frostbite patients, profoundly experiencing just how difficult it was for humanity to survive in this day and age.

"Now that you mention it, someone used Blood Stopping Spray to treat frostbite and found out it actually works wonders," Leo Hale said regretfully. "It’s just a shame that the little shop selling the Blood Stopping Spray vanished. If I had known, I would have stocked up on it earlier."

"A while back, Captain Pearson and his men were still searching for the shop owner around City D, but they found absolutely nothing," Holden Shaw said, sharing the information Chase Gallagher had scouted out.

"Did they find any clues?" Nina, who had been studying the route map this whole time, looked up and asked.

Chase shook his head. "No. We only know that the shop owner used to show up frequently, but roughly four months ago, she vanished into thin air. Some say she might have been eaten by zombies, while others say she moved somewhere else."

"Are there a lot of people looking for her?" Nina asked again.

"Besides the rescue teams, there must be quite a few of her regular customers asking around. When too many people start digging into something, all sorts of rumors pop up. Perhaps neither of those two possibilities is actually true.

"However, I heard that some of the people from Arisdale Base are also asking about the Blood Stopping Spray." Chase’s intelligence-gathering skills were as excellent as ever.

Hearing this, Nina didn’t express an opinion, but a hint of scrutiny entered her eyes as she looked back down at the map. It wasn’t surprising that people in the City D Base were asking about Claire Warner. But for people from City A to be asking around as well... that was suspicious.

"I still have some Blood Stopping Spray stocked up," Nina said. "You can come to me if you ever need any."

It seemed it was best for Claire Warner not to make another appearance until she got to the bottom of this.

Along the way, the convoy had stopped dozens of times, simply because the number of zombies on the road was steadily increasing. However, with hundreds of rescue team members escorting them, Nina only needed to wait in the car.

To prevent hypothermia, the rescue team rotated the personnel who disembarked each time. The members of the Stellarys Team were no exception. But after Leo Hale and Wayne Warner stepped out to kill zombies for a while, Leo returned looking utterly shell-shocked.

"Is Wayne a Dual Element Superpower User now?!"

Wayne had actually acquired the Thunder Element Superpower. Now, he was essentially a zombie’s worst nightmare, easily dominating them in both close combat and long-range attacks.

"Yeah, he awakened it by accident back in Keldorn," Nina said without batting an eye.

Leo felt another wave of envy, considering that a Dual Element Superpower User was one in a million.

A few vehicles broke down along the way due to the freezing weather, but Myra had prepared for this in advance. They simply retrieved spare vehicles from the storage of a Space Superpower User, ensuring they didn’t lose any time.

The walkie-talkie crackled to life, broadcasting Myra’s voice. "Nina, the bridge at our destination has been destroyed. It looks like someone repaired it in the past, but we’re starting to clear the surrounding zombies now. It will take about an hour."

"Understood. Give me twenty minutes."

Nina had been here before. When she originally went to rescue Wayne, she had traveled across this very same abandoned bridge, and that repaired surface was the handiwork of her Earth Element Superpower. It was just that an hour was simply far too long.

Twenty minutes?

Myra stared at the densely packed horde of zombies outside the window. Did Nina mean that in twenty minutes she was going to...

Meanwhile, Nina, dressed in a lightweight cold-proof suit, vaulted out through the roof of her vehicle. The Stellarys Team’s car was protected right in the middle of the convoy, and the zombies were mostly swarming the front and rear vehicles, making her current position relatively the safest.

"That’s too risky." Seeing Nina emerge alone, Adrian Paige immediately prepared to step forward and assist her. If anything unexpected happened to Nina, their plan for today would completely fall apart.

However, Nina merely raised her hand slightly, and a massive Fire Dragon instantly coiled in the air above her head. The Fire Dragon opened its maw, unleashing a barrage of swift and searing Flaming Blades at the zombies closing in on her. The blades burned at an astonishing speed, instantly incinerating the zombies into charred corpses one after another.

Several Mutated Zombies had already locked their sights on Nina. Just as a Wind Element Mutated Zombie eagerly lunged at her, a series of stone pillars erupted from the ground to block its path!

ROAR!

The Wind Element Zombie tried to dodge, but in a mere instant, it found itself trapped inside a completely sealed stone cage. Magma seemed to bubble within the confines of the stone. The zombie slammed into the bars in a desperate attempt to break free, but the moment it touched the walls, blazing flames instantly swallowed it whole!

Several superpower attacks from the Mutated Zombies shot upward at Nina, only to be blocked by a translucent sand shield.

By now, the surrounding ground had been engulfed in a raging inferno, and the outer rim of zombies howled. With a turn of Nina’s palm, the flames on the ground gradually coalesced into Fire Dragon Rolls several meters high. The swirling vortexes of flame roared as they crashed into the horde of zombies!

Even in this extreme cold weather, their Attack Power didn’t diminish in the slightest.