Surviving the apocalypse with a wife and a system! [GL]

Her knife arm never really slowed.

The Whisperfang dagger was not long, but that made it quicker in close quarters. She was using that to full advantage now. A longer blade might have looked more impressive, but it would have gotten in the way in a fight like this. The dagger let her change direction instantly. It let her stab, cut, hook, twist, and pull without overextending. Each time she drew it back, she was already moving to the next target.

The zombies were losing ground.

Even if they did not understand it, their numbers were dropping fast. The pressure they had created at the beginning was gone now. In its place was a battlefield made of corpses, blood, broken limbs, and the sound of Bai Li’s calm breathing. She moved toward the next group as if she had already decided they were finished too. There was a tiny smear of blood on her cheek from the earlier gunshot wound, and the red mark made her expression look sharper somehow. The pain did not bother her enough to matter. It only reminded her that she still had to be careful. Gunshots were still possible. Other people were still dangerous. The world had not suddenly become easy just because she was winning this one fight.

A zombie stumbled at her with its arms flailing.

Bai Li caught the wrist, turned the joint, and snapped the creature off balance. Then she drove the dagger into the neck at the soft point just below the jaw and let the monster collapse on its own weight.

Another came in too wide.

She let it overreach, then moved inside its guard and split the throat with a short horizontal cut.

Another zombie behind it was slower, so she used the body of the one in front as a shield and stabbed through the gap between the fallen shoulder and the neck. The blade found its mark. The thing crumpled.

The quiet in her face never changed.

That was what made the scene feel even colder than the blood did.

Bai Li did not look excited. She did not look angry anymore either. She looked like a person doing a job that she was very good at and very unwilling to waste time on. Her body and her dagger moved together in a way that made the whole fight feel brutally smooth. The zombies were strong in number only. Everything else about them was weak. Sloppy reaction. Poor angle. No real intelligence. No proper timing. No adaptation. Once Bai Li found the pattern, she could dismantle them with almost insulting ease.

She pressed harder.

A group of four came from the side together, and she answered by cutting through the front one before the others could use its body as cover. Then she stepped through the space it left and stabbed the second under the chin. The third tried to grab her shoulder and got its arm sliced open all the way to the elbow. The fourth stumbled into the others, and Bai Li finished the whole mess with one upward cut that opened the line from chest to throat.

Then she was gone again.

The pace of the fight had turned fierce enough that the remaining zombies were starting to drift apart. They were no longer standing in a useful pack. They were separate now. Confused. Drawn in different directions by the smell of blood and the noise. Bai Li took advantage of that immediately. She hunted them one by one, but not in a boring way. She used the broken edge of a wall to hide her step, used a parked car hood to break line of sight, used a tilted concrete slab to force a zombie to stumble before she struck. Every little thing in the courtyard became part of her route.

One zombie lost sight of her for a second and turned in the wrong direction.

Bai Li used that second to step in and cut its throat from the side.

Another wandered too close to the blood soaked center and got caught on a fallen body. Bai Li approached from a slight angle and finished it with a stab through the temple.

A third was still trying to reach the place where Hu Xuecheng’s body had landed. Bai Li slashed it in the back of the neck before it could get there.

The number dropped again and again.

Thirty.

Then twenty five.

Then less.

Bai Li did not bother counting every single one out loud, but she knew the rough number left because her eyes were good and her instincts were better. The remaining zombies were getting weaker as a threat by the minute, not because they were actually weak, but because she was controlling the pace. The fight had become hers. The courtyard had become hers. The monsters were just moving pieces now.

She drove the Whisperfang dagger into another skull.

Twisted it.

Pulled it free.

Stepped aside.

Cut the neck of the one trying to attack from her blind side.

Caught the next by the throat and shoved it backward into a broken concrete edge hard enough to stun it long enough for the dagger to finish the job.

Another one came too close too fast, and Bai Li answered with a brutal upward stab under the jaw that split the mouth and left the body twitching briefly before it slumped.

By the time the last few zombies were left standing, Bai Li’s breathing had grown a bit heavier, but her eyes were still calm. Sweat dampened the edges of her hair. Her sleeve was stained. The cheek wound still stung faintly every time she moved her head a certain way. But the fight had not shaken her. It had sharpened her.

The remaining zombies finally stumbled into a weak and uneven line near the far edge of the courtyard. Bai Li took a quick look at them, measured the spacing, then moved in with no hesitation. She cut through the first before it could lift its hands.

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TO BE CONTINUED.