Chapter 45: Combat Skill Card: Basic Hand-to-Hand Combat!

Chapter 45: Combat Skill Card: Basic Close-Quarters Combat!

[This is a special basic close-quarters combat skill card. Upon use, you will acquire basic combat skills. Do you wish to use it?]

Lu Feng saw the information provided by the inspection feature.

This was yet another skill card.

However, unlike the previously crafted lifestyle skill card for producing Breeze Tea, this was a combat skill card.

Lu Feng directly chose to use it.

The basic combat skill card dissolved in his hand.

The next moment, information began to flood into his mind just as it had before.

It was all related to combat—not only deeply branded into his mind, but also manifesting as a special kind of muscle memory, as though he had practiced these fundamental combat techniques countless times.

This was a truly wondrous sensation.

Furthermore, although these basic combat techniques were simple, every single move was exceptionally decisive and ruthless, entirely devoid of flashy embellishments, resembling lethal techniques meant for killing.

Clearly, these were moves tailored for the apocalyptic era.

"Boss, what should we do next?" Lin Jiao stepped forward to ask.

The roars of surrounding zombies echoed endlessly.

The commotion from the previous fight had already disturbed several zombies in the vicinity.

"Help me find a rope," Lu Feng instructed while simultaneously beginning to connect the loudhailer and the amplifiers.

A moment later, Lin Jiao returned from the Lin's Combat Martial Arts Hall with a piece of rope.

Lu Feng decisively used the rope to bind the loudhailer and amplifiers together, intending to suspend the setup from the second floor into the empty space above the first-floor lobby.

There was no doubt that once the loudhailer blared, the zombies on the first floor would be the first to be attracted.

This would prevent the loudhailer from being destroyed immediately.

Having secured the rope, Lu Feng said to the four of them, "You all leave this area first; I will handle the rest myself."

Hearing this, Lin Jiao and the other three nodded decisively and headed upstairs.

Once a commotion started, not only would zombies swarm in like madness, but mutant beasts might also emerge from who knows where; they certainly did not possess their boss's ability to vanish and leave at will.

Lu Feng descended via the stairwell to the corner of the first floor.

Peeking out, his vision was instantly filled with dense packs of zombies.

Before those zombies could react, he decisively exited the game and returned to his apartment.

Opening the valves of two gas cylinders, he brought them directly into the game. He then laid the two cylinders flat and rolled them out from the stairwell across the lobby floor.

Similarly, without waiting for the zombies to react, he retreated back to the stairwell, brought more gas cylinders into the game one by one, and sent them rolling out using the exact same method.

In an instant, cooking gas began to diffuse throughout the surrounding area.

Because the gas cylinders had been tampered with, releasing multiple tanks simultaneously would cause the density of the gas to instantly generate heat that roasted the cylinders. Once the flames at the nozzles flowed backward, a terrifying explosion would occur.

Having properly arranged the gas cylinders, Lu Feng rushed back up to the second floor at top speed, retrieved the bound loudhailer and amplifiers, secured them directly above the gas cylinders, turned on the playback, and suspended them mid-air.

"In your heart, flying freely..."

A loud, rhythmic piece of music instantly resounded through the department store.

Moreover, enhanced by two amplifiers, the sound waves were intensely jarring.

Compared to this sound, the square dance speakers of middle-aged women in reality would look utterly inferior.

The moment the music sounded, the surrounding zombies immediately stirred into a frenzy, and the zombies on the ground floor rushed like mad toward the location of the gas cylinders.

The zombies on the second floor also surged indiscriminately toward Lu Feng's position.

Lu Feng had no desire to deal with these zombies right now; he went straight upstairs to the third floor and found a concealed spot to look down.

At this moment, Lin Jiao, Xu Bin, Chen Tao, and Chen Hao had also reached the upper level. Hearing the music start, they instinctively paused.

Without a doubt, none of them had ever heard this song before, yet they inexplicably felt it had a strong sense of rhythm, and it was even quite catchy.

The four of them looked down through the railing, their eyes widening slightly. The first-floor lobby was completely in a frenzy; the roars of countless zombies intertwined as they converged directly beneath the loudhailer.

Furthermore, more and more surrounding zombies were being attracted, gathering like a tidal wave, densely packed.

Judging by sheer numbers alone, there had to be at least a thousand of them.

If the four of them were to be surrounded by so many zombies, they would undoubtedly be completely screwed.

Unable to reach the loudhailer hanging above, these clustered zombies could only roar madly.

Clearly, they paid no attention to the gas cylinders continuously releasing gas all around them.

A piercing shriek rang out at that moment.

Hearing the sound, Lin Jiao and the other three instinctively ducked their heads—it was the cry of that mutant beast.

Lu Feng immediately spotted a slaughterhound crawling out from a corner of the lobby, charging toward the area beneath the loudhailer at maximum speed.

This slaughterhound, just like the previous two, was the size of a calf, with crimson eyes and a ferocious appearance.

Seeing this, Lu Feng did not hesitate in the slightest. He took out a prepared lighter, ignited it, and tossed it downward.

The slaughterhound charged beneath the loudhailer, leaped up fiercely, opened its jaws, and bit down on the loudhailer, followed by a crisp snapping sound. Naturally, the music stopped abruptly.

Landing on the ground, the slaughterhound clearly froze for a moment; this loudhailer was not the delicious meal it had expected.

Right at that moment, the lighter carrying a wisp of flame fell. The gas lingering in the air was ignited, and this entire volume of air was instantly engulfed by a sheet of flame, creating a scorching zone.

Simultaneously, the gas cylinders were ignited, and the flames from the cylinder valves forced their way backward under the intense heat of the surrounding space. Then, the anticipated scene unfolded.

Boom! ~

Boom! ~

Terrifying explosions echoed wildly, and streams of fire dragons burst forth accompanied by a horrific wave of heat.

That terrifying tearing force shattered and shredded all the zombies blocking its path, tearing their bodies apart into countless pieces.

The slaughterhound was no exception; after letting out a miserable howl, it was directly blasted into the air by the shockwave generated by the explosion, its body torn apart as blood splattered in all directions.

In Lu Feng's mind, a dense stream of system notifications popped up:

[Congratulations on slaying a zombie. Gained 5 EXP!]

[Congratulations on slaying a zombie. Gained 5 EXP!]

……

[Congratulations on slaying a mutant beast, Slaughterhound. Gained 100 EXP!]

[Congratulations on slaying a zombie. Gained 5 EXP!]

…

[Congratulations on leveling up!]

[Congratulations on slaying a zombie. Gained 5 EXP!]

……

When the notifications finally stopped, a mixture of blood and foul, rotting odors had already permeated the surrounding air.

Lu Feng leaned over to look down at the first-floor lobby. At just a single glance, a wave of nausea rose within him, followed by a strong urge to vomit.

He had never witnessed the scenes of "mountains of corpses and seas of blood" described in ancient texts, but he was now looking at a scene where limbs and severed remains formed mountains and rivers flowed with blood—except that all the blood was pitch-black and reeking of decay.

The spectacle was utterly tragic.

Fortunately, having dealt with that mutant zombie earlier, he had already experienced a small-scale preview of limbs and wreckage scattered across the ground.

Lin Jiao and the other three instinctively poked their heads out again the moment the explosion occurred.

However, when they looked down into the first-floor lobby once more, they were met with this catastrophic scene.

Within that perimeter, a dense crowd of zombies had been instantly cleared out of the entire area.

No matter how powerful the explosion of several gas cylinders was, it had its limits; it was impossible to eliminate all of those zombies—only those in the very center had been wiped out.

The next moment, the surrounding zombies swarmed back in, covering that region once again. Any zombies whose bodies had been blown apart but were still clinging to life could only be pitiably buried underneath them.

A moment later, Lin Jiao and the four of them descended with expressions of utter shock.

"The mutant beast has been dealt with. Try your best to scout the remaining six floors below," Lu Feng said, looking at the still densely packed zombies below. For now, there was nothing he could do; he couldn't even retrieve the crystal core from the mutant beast.

There were still far too many zombies, and the few gas cylinders had already been exhausted.

He would just have to wait for his cousin to deliver more gas cylinders later on.

He should perhaps consider whether he should open a gas cylinder agency of his own.

Scanning the area a few more times and finding that nothing had dropped from the kills, he exited the game with another thought.

Returning to his apartment, Lu Feng took a deep breath before checking his character attribute panel:

Character: Lu Feng

Gender: Male

Level: 6

Strength: 9 (Average human 5)

Agility: 9 (Average human 5)

Stamina: 9 (Average human 5)

Mental Power: 0

Combat Skill: Basic Close-Quarters Combat!

EXP: 635/3200

That previous wave of explosions had wiped out hundreds of zombies in the dense horde, directly pushing him up a level.

Moreover, this time around, leveling up had increased his Strength, Agility, and Stamina by a full point each, rather than the previous 0.5.

A new combat skill entry had also appeared on the attribute panel—precisely the basic close-quarters combat skill he had just acquired.

This prompted him to try executing the techniques according to the memories ingrained in his mind.

He unleashed two swift, fierce strikes in rapid succession.

Furthermore, his movements were exceptionally natural, as though he had performed them countless times already, flowing forth effortlessly.

Truly miraculous!