Just as the soldier in the front warned, a horde of zombies soon appeared in front of the caravan of buses, blocking them from going forward.
All the other buses quickly took a different turn, distracting and separating the horde into two smaller groups further down in the other streets.
Unfortunately, the tank mutant kept following Xiaoyun's bus, seemingly refusing to let them go as they continued to drive around the cities in circles.
"Everyone ready!"
The moment the driver pulled a hard turn to the left, the soldiers on the right of the bus immediately started opening fire on the zombies.
"Right side fire! Ignore the tank mutant!"
The bus leader yelled out as more and more zombies replaced their dead peers within seconds.
After firing two whole magazines' worth of shots, the soldiers finally stopped as the driver had managed to turn the bus back around to continue forward.
Xiaoyun remained seated as he was assigned to the left side of the flank. But still, he could see the tank mutant just a few steps away.
It was one of the few times he was able to see it up close. Its raw muscle was more than enough to snap the bus in half if it ever got into contact.
As the bus sped up and drove forward for an entire minute down the road, the zombie horde continued to chase until they had hard turned to the left.
"Left side fire! Don't bother shooting at the tank mutant!"
Without any hesitation, Xiaoyun pulled his trigger, firing his rifle right at the zombie horde as rows upon rows of zombies were mowed down.
Not a single soldier let go of their trigger as the zombie horde continued to advance through the wall of bullets rapidly.
"Stop firing!"
As soon as the firing stopped for a millisecond, the bus driver had already started to turn the whole thing back around.
The zombies just ate the bullets every time as they kept getting closer, but not close enough, as they repeated the same strategy three different times.
Soon, the entire zombie horde was either dead or gone, except for one major problem that made everyone on the bus look a little frightened.
"Bus number 3, Corporal Jixi, the tank is chasing us, over." The bus leader reported through the walkie-talkie.
"Return to Unit Twenty-four, we had rescued the unit. Now we have set up a trap for the tank, over."
As Jixi's voice came out of the walkie-talkie, everyone on the bus looked reassured as the bus driver started flooring the gas.
"Copy that... Everyone, sit tight! We're heading back now!"
The bus driver quickly took a sharp turn, drifting the entire bus for a second as it left a long tire mark.
They were back to where they started just after five minutes, with all the soldiers from the other buses standing in the distance.
Right in the middle was a big gap, seemingly to let the bus drive right through as the tank mutant continued to chase after them in the back.
"Everyone, go go go!"
As Xiaoyun and all the other soldiers hopped off the bus, the soldiers on the side of the road had already begun firing their guns at the tank mutant.
"Use your grenade!"
Several soldiers threw their grenade right at the tank mutant, landing it right on its foot as it exploded into a bunch of dust.
"Don't stop firing!"
Jixi's voice instantly snapped the soldier back to reality as they kept on firing at the smoke until the dust settled.
Right before everyone's eyes, the tank was still standing there. But its arms were severely damaged as if they had been used to block the explosion.
It slowly lowered its hand, revealing its mostly intact upper body as all of the soldiers looked stunned by it.
No one could believe it was somehow still alive. But soon, a single soldier's gunfire snapped everyone back to reality again.
An endless number of bullets penetrated right through its head as the tank mutant could no longer block them with its arm.
In a matter of seconds, the tank mutant was knocked over onto the floor, causing a tremble on the ground.
"We did it!"
All of the soldiers were instantly overjoyed as the tank mutant was finally defeated. But a voice instantly ended the celebration.
It wasn't Jixi or any of the high-ranking officers. Rather, it was the massive trembling sound in the distance.
"Everyone, get in the bus!"
Everyone rushed to their assigned bus, including Xiaoyun, who had literally just stepped out of the bus and fired three bullets at the tank mutant.
But before some of the soldiers could reach the bus entrance, something in the distance suddenly appeared in the sky.
"Jockey!"
Xiaoyun was the first to yell out loud, firing his rifle at the black dot in the sky as it dropped from nearby buildings.
All of the soldiers nearby immediately tried to fire their guns as well, but the sheer speed and the lack of space between each other made it nearly impossible.
"Spread out!"
As more and more soldiers listened to what Jixi had ordered, it made it much easier to kill the mutants coming down.
However, some in the middle were still caught as they couldn't move anywhere other than watch the black dot appear right on their heads.
"Fuck!"
Xiaoyun was one of the soldiers in the middle, as his entire vision was covered by a jockey who landed on top of his head.
He could feel the jockey dragging him toward a direction and punching his face nonstop, followed by sharp cuts to his face.
Only when a gunshot rang into Xiaoyun's ear did the pain stop as the jockey slowly slid down onto the floor.
"Thanks."
"No problem."
As more and more soldier took care of the jockeys that attacked their peers, soon, all twenty jockeys were dead on the floor.
Just as Xiaoyun was about to take out a bandage from his backpack to patch up the wound on his face, a voice appeared out loud.
"Everyone, get on the damn bus now!" Jixi yelled again as the soldiers started going inside the bus again.
After thirty seconds, all the buses start driving as they can see a massive zombie horde in the hundreds of thousands in the distance.
It was creating a massive dust storm as it almost overshadowed the sun for a second if they didn't drive away fast enough.
As the buses drove away from the zombie horde, Xiaoyun's bus leader's walkie-talkie spoke out again.
"All buses immediately return to base, except for buses seven, eight, and nine. Go back to the store and pick up the people. Over."
"Copy that."
After taking several turns on the road trying to lose some of the zombies, the three buses arrived at the store.
Unfortunately, there was still a small group of zombies chasing after them, including the one that Xiaoyun was on.
"Everyone open fire! " One of the bus leaders yelled out as the zombie horde had gotten too close for comfort.
The soldiers started firing, but it barely made a dent, as another zombie from behind just replaced every zombie they shot down.
"Grenades out!" The bus leader yelled out.
All the soldiers started throwing their grenades at the horde, including Xiaoyun, who started making grenades to throw out.
Despite a massive explosion clearing almost several rows of zombies, more zombies replaced them.
"We're almost out of ammo! We need to go, now!"
As Xiaoyun's bus leader yelled out loud, the other two bus leaders finally gave him the go signal as all the civilians had been picked up.
Within seconds, all of the soldier rushed back inside their buses, driving away as the massive horde reappeared in the distance.
The zombie horde was just a few steps away from catching the last soldier entering the bus itself.
---
"What happened? Why return so early?"
Yezi curiously asked, noticing it was only three o'clock when the rescue mission was supposed to last until five.
"A new zombie wave is coming out of the city. This time it seemed to be uncontrolled as they were chasing us even outside of the city outskirts.
Luckily, we were able lose them. But there was a tank and a jockey mutant that used up most of our ammo."
Jixi replied as he stepped out of the bus first, followed by more and more soldiers exiting the bus from behind.
"Shit, I need to tell Yiming and Xiaoyun about this... Wait, why are there three buses missing?"
"They went to pick up other people we left at the store. They will arrive here in thirty minutes, the last time I heard from them."
"I see... Everyone, please get into formation again. Everyone must go through checks before they are dismissed for the day!"
Several militia members, along with doctors, quickly came up to the soldiers with a bunch of medical equipment.
When the final three buses arrived at the training camp, it was way past five o'clock in the afternoon.
Yezi, Yiming, and Jixi were all standing in the training field, with all the other soldiers having long been dismissed.
Everyone started coming out of the three buses. The three bus leaders were the first to step out as they saluted towards them.
"Sir, the civilian and soldier from the store had arrived safely!" One of the bus leaders spoke out.
"Good, the three of you are dismissed... However, people who are injured are not dismissed yet."
Yezi warned the soldiers after seeing that almost two-thirds of the soldiers in the three buses had some sort of injuries on their faces.
None of them resisted as they quickly handed their rifles over to the militia members waiting in line for the doctor's treatment.
Xiaoyun was also in the same boat as he himself had bandages wrapped up all over his bleeding face from his fellow soldiers in the bus.
"Ma'am, will my face fully heal?" One of the soldiers whose face was almost filled with scratched marks nervously asked.
"You're lucky to be alive... It will heal back certainly, but not back to whatever it was originally."
The more Xiaoyun watches the soldier being treated by the doctors, the more his heart aches, as there wasn't much more the doctor could do for them.
Back over in the security room...
Yezi and Yiming were standing next to three doctors with a shocked expression as they handed them a piece of paper.
"There's no sign of zombie infection, including the one that had just arrived. Only cuts and bruises." One of the doctors stated.
"Isn't that obvious? If they are infected, they would have turned long time ago." Yezi pointed out.
"How injured are they again? Same as the last batch, right?" Yiming asked.
"Yep, the same wound as the one previously. Only bruises or cuts on their face from some sharp fingernail." The second doctor replied.
"Those jockeys mutants must have no infectious ability, or their viruses are different from normal zombies." The third doctor pointed out.
"Hm... I have a feeling none of the mutants have any infectious ability. Well, that's assuming you live through their bloodlust to kill you."
As Yiming came up with his own conclusion, both Yezi and Jixi fully agreed with the idea, except for the three doctors.
"We need to carefully examine their injuries and do more testing before we can come up with that kind of conclusion." The first doctor warned.
With both doctors agreeing with the first doctor, Yiming didn't try to argue back as the six of them stepped back out to the field.
"Okay, everyone, please get back on the bus. Your wounds are too severe to be treated here on the field.
You'll be going to the hospital for a few days. Don't worry, the medical bill will be covered, and you will be paid while you are in the hospital."
As Yezi ordered it out loud, no one went against it as they all headed back into the bus one by one.
"You don't have to go. You can go home and rest." Yezi offered as he dragged him aside, not letting go inside the bus yet.
"I don't want special treatment... Besides, I haven't gone to the hospital in this town yet. I want to try it out."
Xiaoyun's stubbornness made Yezi back down, allowing him to get back into the bus as the three of them watched the bus drive away.
---
"Everyone, please follow me."
As one of the doctors led the soldier out of the bus and into the hospital, several nurses immediately came out to guide them into individual rooms.
Xiaoyun could see some of the injured soldiers who were already in some of the rooms, seemingly to be the first batch of buses that arrived in Luoping first.
Finally, it was his turn to be put in one of the hospital rooms.
"Please stay in here. Another doctor will be here soon to clean up the bandages and examine your health."
As the nurse closed the door and left, Xiaoyun didn't rush to lie down on the bed as he walked around the room.
"Man, this feels more like a prison than a hospital."
Xiaoyun murmured as he walked right past the bed and the nightstand. There was barely any 'medical' equipment or anything nearby, except for a water bottle.
After taking a sip, he eventually leaned back down onto the bed as exhaustion soon took over his body.