Chapter 343: The golden fruit 54.

One strike landed against the side of its head.

The zombie flew across the corridor and crashed through a glass storefront.

It rolled once and immediately stood again.

Yan Cijin looked at Bai Li.

"You could have warned me."

"You saw it."

"I did."

"Then I did not need to warn you."

Yan Cijin shook her head.

"Your logic is terrible."

The zombie lunged again.

This time Bai Li did not wait.

She stepped forward, met its charge, turned her shoulder, and redirected the entire body sideways. The creature crashed into a support column hard enough to leave a spiderweb of cracks around it.

Before it could recover, Yan Cijin swept low and cut through both legs.

The zombie dropped.

Bai Li’s palm struck its forehead.

The head hit the floor.

The corridor became silent again.

Yan Cijin looked down.

"That was easier than I expected."

Bai Li examined the corpse.

"It was only level two."

"That is supposed to reassure me?"

"Yes."

"It did not."

Bai Li reached down and removed the crystal core.

It was darker than the cores they had collected below. There was a faint gold thread running through it.

Yan Cijin noticed.

"The fruit is affecting them."

"The stronger ones are adapting faster."

"Which means the next one will be worse."

"Probably."

Yan Cijin stared at her.

"You could at least pretend to worry."

Bai Li smiled.

"Why?"

Yan Cijin had no answer.

They continued.

Their progress through the seventh floor became a strange rhythm of silence and violence.

The monsters did not come in groups at first. They watched. They moved through stores and service corridors. Some tried to ambush them from above. Others crawled along the ceilings. One had grown thin enough to hide inside a ventilation shaft, using long fingers to hook itself onto metal beams before dropping down from the darkness.

Bai Li and Yan Cijin adapted quickly.

The moment one disappeared, the other watched the blind spot.

The moment one attacked from above, the second shifted position.

They did not need to speak much anymore.

A glance was enough.

A change in breathing was enough.

A tiny movement of Bai Li’s fingers could tell Yan Cijin which direction she wanted her to cover.

At one point, three level two zombies rushed them from opposite sides.

Yan Cijin took the left.

Bai Li took the right.

The third jumped over both of them.

Yan Cijin twisted in mid-step, caught its ankle, and slammed it into the floor.

Bai Li struck the first one through the chest.

The second came from behind.

Yan Cijin kicked backward without looking.

Her heel hit its jaw.

The zombie’s head snapped sideways.

Bai Li finished it before it could recover.

Three bodies lay around them.

Yan Cijin adjusted her sleeve.

"That was almost coordinated."

Bai Li looked at her.

"Almost?"

"I am still thinking about it."

"Think faster."

They moved on.

The golden glow became brighter.

On the walls, signs of the fruit’s influence became impossible to ignore.

Plants had begun growing through the cracks in the building.

Not normal plants.

Thin vines with metallic-looking leaves had pushed through concrete and curled across the ceiling. Tiny golden flowers grew along their stems, each one releasing a faint sweet smell.

Yan Cijin stopped near one.

"Do not touch it."

Bai Li already knew.

"Poison?"

"Maybe."

"Then why did you stop?"

"Because the flowers are not growing randomly."

Bai Li looked around.

The vines all pointed in the same direction.

Up.

Toward the rooftop.

"They are following the fruit."

"Or the fruit is feeding them."

Neither sounded good.

They walked past the flowers.

A faint humming sound started somewhere in the building.

At first, it sounded like electrical interference.

Then it stopped.

Then it started again.

Yan Cijin frowned.

"Do you hear that?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

Bai Li listened carefully.

The sound was too steady to be machinery and too rhythmic to be wind.

"A call."

Yan Cijin’s expression changed.

"For what?"

Bai Li looked upward.

"Them."

Something screamed from above.

The sound shook dust loose from the ceiling.

A second roar answered.

Then a third.

The seventh floor came alive.

Doors exploded outward.

Three level two zombies rushed from the nearest storefront.

A creature with four arms dropped from the ceiling.

Another crawled across the wall with its body bent at an impossible angle.

Yan Cijin smiled.

"There they are."

Bai Li drew her weapon.

"Stay close."

"I always do."

The first wave hit.

Bai Li moved like she had already watched the fight happen.

She stepped between two claws, turned, and drove an attack through a zombie’s chest. The force sent it crashing backward into a jewelry display. Glass exploded around it.

Yan Cijin spun under a sweeping arm and cut upward.

The four-armed creature lost two fingers, then screamed and attacked faster.

Yan Cijin did not retreat.

She stepped inside its range.

One strike.

Two.

Three.

The creature’s knees collapsed.

Bai Li kicked another monster away from her.

It slammed through a wall.

She followed immediately and finished it before it could rise.

The fight lasted less than a minute.

When it ended, the floor was covered in bodies.

Yan Cijin breathed out slowly.

"They are getting faster."

Bai Li picked up another crystal core.

"Yes."

"And stronger."

"Yes."

Yan Cijin gave her a look.

"Could you give me one reassuring answer?"

Bai Li thought for a moment.

"We are also getting stronger."

Yan Cijin smiled.

"That works."

They climbed again.

The eighth floor was much darker.

Half the emergency lights had died, and the surviving ones flickered irregularly. The floor had once been filled with restaurants and entertainment spaces. Now it looked like a maze of overturned tables, smashed counters, hanging signs, and broken escalators.

There were also bodies.

Lots of them.

Some belonged to zombies.

Some did not.

Human remains were scattered around the corridor, but the strange thing was that there were no blood trails leading away from them.

Bai Li crouched beside one.

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TO BE CONTINUED.