Rewrite the Apocalypse dream (by Dee Cari) novel Chapter 303

Chapter 303 Why Do We Want Rats?

Finished

The wooden floorboards violently splintered as a massive, hideously deformed Level 4 zombie crashed upward into the laundromat. It possessed savage strength, its muscles bulging beneath frostbitten skin as it let out a deafening, guttural roar. Immediately behind it, a swarm of twelve giant mutated rats-each looking to weigh about twenty pounds-scrambled out of the dark hole, their yellow teeth gnashing and red eyes glowing.

Wendy’s team reacted instantly, but instead of forming a unified front against the main threat, they immediately focused all their firepower on the rodents. Edward raised stone barriers to trap/three rats, while Chase and Cory aggressively swung their pipes to crush them. Samantha threw streams of water to freeze the remaining ones in place.

To Joanna, the tactical movement was incredibly transparent. Wendy’s team was deliberately leaving the dangerous Level 4 zombie entirely for her squad to handle. It was a calculated test of their true capabilities.

“Watch the flanks!” Briggs roared, playing the part of a panicked Level 3 fire user. He purposely mistimed his movements, throwing a wild, unstable burst of flame toward the Level 4 monster. The fire scorched its shoulder but only enraged it further.

The beast swung a massive, mutated fist, shattering an iron laundry cart and sending metal shrapnel flying across the room as it lunged directly at Joanna.

The Level 4 zombie let out a savage roar, its massive fists swinging with bone-crushing force. To the eyes of Wendy’s team, Joanna’s squad looked like they were barely surviving the onslaught.

In reality, they were putting on a masterpiece of theater. RJ locked her eyes onto the beast, her brow furrowing under her heavy scarf as she unleashed her full mental control. She didn’t just stun it-she flooded the zombie’s decaying nervous system with psychic weight, forcing its explosive, savage movements. to heavily drag as if moving through wet concrete.

To the onlookers, it simply looked like the monster was clumsy or disoriented by the chaos.

“Now!” Briggs shouted, continuing the act by throwing a distracting, smoky burst of fire near the beast’s face.

With the monster completely slowed down and vulnerable, Will and Joanna surged forward. Will moved with sharp, desperate-looking military precision, driving his metal spike repeatedly into the side of the creature’s knee to buckle its massive frame. As the beast crashed heavily to the floor, Joanna feigned a loud gasp of exertion, lifting a heavy iron pipe and aggressively hacking away at its thick skull. She dialed back her immense strength just enough to make it look like a brutal, exhausting struggle, but after three heavy, rhythmic strikes, the Level 4 zombie finally went limp, its skull shattered.

Across the room, Wendy’s team finished off the last of the twenty-pound rats, their breathing heavy as they stared over at Joanna’s crew in absolute awe.

Joanna stood over the corpse, deliberately panting and leaning on her pipe as she wiped fake sweat from her forehead, her approachable high ponytail slightly disheveled. She reached down, pulled the glowing Level 4 core from the debris, and dropped it into her pocket alongside the others.

“We got it,” Joanna breathed out, looking over at Wendy with a tired, innocent smile that completely masked her sharp, dangerous suspicion. “That was way too close.”

The rats had level one cores, but only four of them actually possessed one. Samantha put on a sly smile,

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Chapter 303 Why Do We Want Rats?

Finished

stepping over the carcass of a twenty-pound rodent as she looked at Joanna. “Hey, we will trade you a level two zombie core for two of the rats.”

frowned, his face mask twitching as he looked between the giant rodents and Samantha. “Why do we want the rats?”

Chase scoffed loudly, wiping grime from his hands. “For the meat, dummy.”

Will swallowed hard, looking deeply uneasy at the thought of eating a mutated apocalyptic rodent.

Joanna spoke up before the silence got awkward, keeping her voice light and approachable./Sure, but we trade after we get back.”

Her team immediately shot her a collective side-eye. Their expressions practically screamed: Do we really need to eat rat meat just as a cover? They had a whole villa packed with fresh food inside her storage space, making the idea of roasted mutant rat stomach-turning. Joanna caught their looks and smirked a bit at their horror, but she said nothing to explain herself.

With the first floor cleared, both teams began to search the rest of the building. They headed upstairs, but the upper level only contained a few small, ransacked offices and absolutely nothing else of value. The only notable find was a tiny, half-empty bottle of laundry soap sitting on a shelf. Andrew-one of the quiet survivors in Wendy’s group-grabbed it desperately, clutching it to his chest as if it were pure gold.

Realizing the laundromat was completely picked clean, the two groups turned their attention toward the heavy doors leading to the apartment complex next door.

Leaving the barren offices behind, the two teams stepped out of the laundromat and broke the rusted padlock on the side door of the adjacent apartment complex. The moment the door groaned open, a heavy, suffocating silence pressed down on them.

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