Once they'd agreed on the plan, Yang Bin tightened his grip on the ladder and moved to the door, shooting Zhao Kun a look.

Zhao Kun nodded and ripped the door open.

Before the two zombies outside could react, Yang Bin swung the ladder like a battering ram and slammed it into both of them.

The impact launched them off their feet.

Zhao Kun's eyes went wide. He'd known Yang Bin was strong, but seeing it up close was something else entirely.

Yang Bin was already charging out. Zhao Kun didn't dare hesitate-he followed immediately.

The two zombies hit the floor and scrambled back up, lunging again.

Yang Bin wound up and swung the ladder in a full arc. The force smashed both zombies flat a second time.

But the noise had done its damage. Every zombie in the corridor snapped toward the sound.

Over twenty of them came pouring down the hallway in a frenzied rush.

"Go!"

Yang Bin barked the word and both men sprinted for the stairs.

Behind them, twenty-plus zombies howled and gave chase.

They reached the Rooftop door in seconds-but Yang Bin stopped.

"I'll hold here. Take the food up and split it with the others."

"We're right at the door. Why not just come in?" Zhao Kun frowned.

"That long ladder snapped-it can't brace the iron door anymore. If twenty zombies hit the Rooftop, we're all dead." Yang Bin's voice was flat and serious. "The stairwell's narrow. Three zombies at a time, max. This is the best chokepoint. I'll hold them. You eat fast and get back here."

Zhao Kun glanced back at the horde surging up the stairs. He nodded without another word, shoved the iron door open, and stepped onto the Rooftop.

The zombies hit the top of the stairwell moments later. Yang Bin planted his feet and swept the ladder across the landing.

The front runners were blasted backward, crashing into the ones behind and toppling them like dominoes.

But zombies didn't know fear. They fell, got up, and charged again.

Yang Bin kept swinging, kept knocking them down.

It wasn't enough. More piled up from below. When the front ones fell, the bodies behind propped them upright, and they just kept coming-mindless, relentless, utterly indifferent to damage.

Up on the Rooftop, the others saw what was happening. Nobody wasted a second. They wolfed down the food in a few desperate bites.

Zhao Kun grabbed the bunk-bed ladder Yang Bin had torn free. Skinny Monkey snatched up the tall stool. Old Hei and Chen Hao snapped the already-cracked wooden ladder in half at the middle, each shouldering a broken section. Then all four rushed to help.

Credit where it was due-the reason any of them were still alive came down to this: when it mattered, they fought together.

The two groups didn't like each other. Trust was thin. But against zombies, every single one of them went all out. No one held back, no one hid behind someone else. That was why Yang Bin kept the alliance going.

With four more bodies on the line, the pressure on Yang Bin dropped immediately.

Five people against twenty-some zombies-bad odds on paper. But they held the high ground on a narrow staircase, each armed with something heavy. For now, the zombies couldn't break through.

"Bin-ge. Here." Chen Hao fished half a piece of bread from his pocket and held it out.

He'd grabbed the bread during the split, taken only a few bites, and saved the rest.

Yang Bin smiled and shook his head. "Eat it. I'm not hungry."

This didn't surprise him at all. Chen Hao had been like this since they were kids-always thinking of him first whenever he had anything.

"But you haven't eaten since last night either. You've fought more than anyone. How can you not be hungry?"

"I'm really not. When have I ever been polite with you? Eat. You need the energy or you won't be able to swing that thing."

"Fine."

Chen Hao didn't argue further. He stuffed the bread into his mouth.

"Yang Bin." Zhao Kun's voice cut through the sounds of impact and groaning. He was frowning at the endless stream of bodies below. "We can't keep this up forever. They don't get tired. We do."

Yang Bin nodded. He thought for a moment. "Hold them. I need a minute with the ladder."

"Go."

Back on the Rooftop, Yang Bin grabbed a loose brick and hammered out the three horizontal rungs connecting the ladder's rails. Two iron pipes dropped into his hands.

Not solid steel, but the walls were thick. Sturdy enough.

He returned to the stairwell and handed one pipe to Chen Hao. Then he addressed the group: "Keep them pinned. I'll kill them."

He locked eyes on the zombie at the front of the pack, and his arm shot forward.

The iron pipe punched straight through the zombie's skull.

It sank into the brain. The zombie froze mid-lunge, then went limp and crumpled.

"!!!"

"Holy shit! Bin-ge!" Chen Hao's voice cracked with disbelief.

The others stared. Everyone knew how hard a skull was. Yang Bin had just driven a blunt iron pipe clean through bone and into brain matter. The raw force that required was terrifying.

Yang Bin wrenched the pipe free and grinned. "Not bad. Works pretty well."

"Let me try." Chen Hao's eyes lit up. He lined up on a zombie's head and thrust with everything he had.

The pipe hit dead-on-but it didn't punch through. It caved in a shallow dent and sent blood spraying, nothing more.

"......"

"Just block them," Yang Bin said. "I'll handle the killing."

"Yeah. Okay." Chen Hao pulled the pipe back, embarrassed.

What followed was a slaughter.

Under the stunned gazes of the others, Yang Bin worked the iron pipe with mechanical precision, reaping zombies one after another. Each thrust found a skull. Each skull gave way.

The more he killed, the smoother his technique became. One strike, one kill. No wasted motion.

But the numbers refused to thin. The noise was a beacon. More zombies kept arriving-ones that had been lurking in seventh-floor dorms, ones from near the sixth-floor stairwell.

The stairwell wasn't like the Rooftop. Up top, sound barely carried downward, and even if a zombie heard something overhead, it would just stare at the ceiling with no idea how to reach the source. But in the stairwell, every impact echoed clearly. Zombies could pinpoint it. They came from the seventh floor. They came from the sixth.

Time ground on. Yang Bin's arms grew heavier with every kill. They felt like lead. He could barely raise them.

His body was far stronger than before-but punching an iron pipe through bone took serious force every single time. No amount of enhanced stats made that sustainable forever.

This kind of intensity would break anyone.

But gradually, the tide turned in their favor-not because the zombies stopped coming, but because the dead ones piled up. Corpses choked the stairwell, stacking higher and higher, forming a barricade of flesh and broken limbs. The zombies behind had to claw over their own dead just to advance.

A few more minutes passed. The stairwell was almost completely blocked with bodies. Finally, no more came.

Yang Bin dropped where he stood, hitting the ground hard. His hands shook uncontrollably. He couldn't have lifted the pipe again if his life depended on it.

"Bin-ge, you okay?" Chen Hao crouched beside him, worry plain on his face.

"Fine. Just exhausted." Yang Bin shook his head. "Give me a minute."

Maybe it was because they'd seen too much by now, but nobody vomited-even with the stairwell packed wall-to-wall with mangled corpses. Their faces were white as paper, though. Yang Bin suspected it had less to do with mental fortitude and more to do with the fact that they'd just eaten their first food in over a day, and nobody could bear to waste it by throwing up.