"Stop it. You''re going to scare them away with that attitude. No wonder why you''re still single."

"How dare you hurt your superior like this——"

"I''m only speaking the truth——"

As the second soldier jokingly said it back, he quickly ran to the other soldiers to prevent himself from being put into a chokehold.

"Come here."

"Hell no!"

After a few minutes of back-and-forth chase, the corporal eventually stopped as the other soldiers separated them.

"You two, stop fooling around. Can you grow up a little?" The senior soldier murmured as they realized how childish they looked.

"Hmph! You''re lucky."

---

Meanwhile, over at the camp''s HQ tent.

"Commander Yezi, the Western parts of the city are fully cleared."

A soldier reported as he walked into the tent, holding a few pages of printed pictures in his hand.

Inside, it was a detailed map with all the buildings in those directions crossed out.

"Thank you."

As the soldier headed out, Yezi turned his attention to the four Colonels in the tent.

"There''s still a long way to go..." One of the colonels murmured.

"Small progress is still progress. Just two or three more months, and we''ll have the city center cleared."

Another colonel stated, his voice sounding much more optimistic, which sharply contrasted with the gloomy mood in the tent.

"Tan Pi, how much progress have you made in the rural areas?" Yezi suddenly asked as he shifted the topic away from the city.

"We have only scratched the surface... It just takes too much time to walk to each of the nearby towns and villages.

All of them are already complaining about how they are marching nonstop every single day."

"Tell them that they are going to swap with Ningjing''s job next week."

"Yes sir!"

As Tan Pi happily accepted the order, Ningjing''s face immediately changed from laughing inside to a massive frown.

"Commander, my troops had already gotten used to urban combat——"

"Your troops had been fighting for half a month. They deserve a little break in the rural countryside."

Ningjing didn''t speak any further as she accepted the order, leaving the other three colonels a little nervous inside.

"Bai Bing, how''s the defense set up from Wuzhou?"

"We had set up a defensive perimeter right here... We should be able to stall them for a while if they attack us."

As Bai Bing pointed at the highway, Yezi''s face held up a frown as if he wasn''t satisfied with the answer.

"How long is a while?" Yezi questioned.

"Um... About an hour."

"That''s good enough. Remember, you''re just there to buy time. There''s no need to fight to the teeth."

"Yes sir."

"What happened to it?" The corporal curiously asked as the other nine soldiers of his squad moved closer.

"You haven''t really seen many mutants in the city, right?"

The corporal nodded, but the soldier didn''t say anything else besides holding up an empty palm.

"Here, you happy?"

The soldier quickly nodded as he accepted the one food stamp that the corporal handed.

"So apparently, Commander Yezi assigned Colonel Mingxu to clear the metro..."

A few minutes of explanation later...

"So yeah, just make sure not to go near any metro or fire your gun near one at all.

I heard that they had been having a few soldiers to seal all the metro entrances with concrete."

"Thank you."

As the soldier from the other squad left the area, the nine soldiers in the 116th squad all looked extremely concerned.

"Corporal, you think we''re going to be sent to the metro?" One of the soldiers curiously asked.

"Are you stupid? It''s already blown up. How are you going to go there without——"

Before the other soldier could say anything, their walkie-talkie suddenly turned on with transmission.

"All missions on hold. Please report back to your designated camp. There will be another announcement later. Over."

"Well, there goes our workload. That guy wasn''t joking." The third soldier murmured as he realized how serious the situation was.

"Why would he be joking about that? Are you brain dead?" The fourth soldier questioned as he looked in disbelief towards him.

"Hey, how am I supposed to tell if he was just making it up or not——"

"Enough. Just can you two quiet for a second?"

The two soldiers fell into silence as they all sat around in the circle, waiting for the other announcement.

As they waited in their area, more soldiers began to return until almost everyone they knew was back at their camp.

"Please head towards the center of your camp. Your Colonels will be making an announcement."

The ten members of the 116th squad got up from the ground, along with all the other soldiers who had received the same message.

As soon as they arrived, they could see their Colonel standing right in the middle.

"Good evening, everyone. I''m going to disperse some rumors and be upfront with you all.

To start, the 28th Company was trapped in the metro. But it wasn''t because of some grudge or anything.

The metro turned out to be full of zombies, contrary to the scouting report that it was mostly empty.

It turned out the zombies were hiding somewhere the scout didn''t search, which trapped the 28th Company.

After a short silence, the Colonel continued.

"And yes, the artillery shell was used to blow up the entrance while they were still inside.

But before you conclude that it is some sort of infighting, please listen to this audio.

As the Colonel took out his walkie-talkie, it was slightly different from most walkie-talkies as there were a few extra buttons.

With a click, an audio began to play.

"Colonel Mingxu! There are thousands——No, Millions of zombies! We need reinforcement——"

As gunshots and static sounds played, the entire camp was dead silent as a few of them could reconganized the Captain''s voice.