TWD - Zomboid - Chapter 247: Didn’t Kill Him in One Shot? (Patreon)

The moment Saddler finished speaking, thousands upon thousands of followers came charging down from the cliff, roaring with fanatical fervor.

There were so many of them that they looked like a massive tidal wave, even more overwhelming than a walker horde.

Saddler himself remained where he was, silently watching everything unfold.

The sea wind howled.

Luke stood by the shore and slowly drew the dragon-head knife from his back.

“Luis, get the engine started.”

Ashley’s legs had gone weak with fear, and Luis quickly hauled her onto the speedboat.

Luke checked the Essence he had accumulated.

After killing Mendez, Ramon, the Mighty Lake Monster, and the Little Giant, his Essence count had reached 82/100.

At this point, the massive crowd of villagers rushing toward him looked more like a giant pile of experience points.

Luke had originally planned to board the boat and leave. Wesker could deal with the final boss of Los Illuminados himself.

But since Saddler had personally shown up, he couldn’t blame Uncle Luke for bringing out the heavy artillery.

“Bruce, get on the boat too!”

Luke shouted, and the big white dog immediately jumped onto the bow, snarling viciously at any villager who dared come close.

Luke, meanwhile, charged straight into the black mass of people like a tiger descending a mountain.

The dragon-head knife became a flashing streak of steel. Wherever it passed, nothing remained standing.

Several afterimages seemed to burst into existence around Luke as he moved. With his agility pushed to its limit, he became almost impossible to track, tearing through the crowd as if no one were there.

With this many enemies, however, some inevitably sprouted Plagas.

The instant Luke sensed one, he raised his gun and fired, blowing apart both the parasite and the host’s head.

Within just a few minutes, a small mountain of corpses had piled up beneath his feet.

But there were simply too many of them.

One wave fell, and another immediately rushed forward to take its place.

It was as brutal as a college job fair during graduation season.

Now that was immersion.

Just as Luke was getting carried away mowing through the crowd, a graceful figure in red dropped lightly from the rocks and settled against his back.

“Why aren’t you on the boat, sweetheart?” Luke cleared his throat and deliberately lowered his voice into a deep, dramatic rumble.

“You’re enjoying this way too much, aren’t you?” Ada fired both pistols at once, blasting several Plaga-mutated villagers charging toward them into bloody mist. “Aren’t we supposed to be escaping?”

“Who knows if there are more Mighty Lake Monsters around the island? I won’t feel safe until Saddler is dead!” Luke casually came up with an excuse.

“Fair point.”

Ada nodded as if it made perfect sense.

“And if we leave Saddler alive, he’ll eventually become a problem for our Commonwealth too.”

She moved with the grace of a cat, slipping and weaving through the enemies beside Luke. Her grappling gun struck wherever she aimed it.

Ada really knew how to use that thing.

Luke had always thought of a grappling gun as a mobility tool, but apparently it worked just fine as a weapon too.

One solid hook was enough to yank a villager into the cliffside and break half the bones in his body.

Ada’s shooting was nearly flawless, and she frequently picked off enemies hiding in Luke’s blind spots.

Luke used the dragon-head knife to knock incoming crossbow bolts out of the air.

The bolts whistled sharply as they flew toward him at incredible speed, but by now they posed almost no threat.

Back-to-back in the middle of the surging crowd, Luke and Ada moved together with perfect coordination, like partners who had already fought side by side countless times.

“This reminds me of that assignment at Hilltop. Shame the only place where we could’ve gotten some privacy was the old Village Chief’s house. His place was pretty spacious.”

Luke swung his knife backward and split apart a Plaga-mutated villager lunging at Ada.

Literally split him apart.

From head to toe.

“Really? What a shame.” Ada narrowed her eyes as she avoided the spray of blood, a faint smile curling at her lips. “I was planning to give you a proper reward. I’ve been wanting to try some of those kinky little ideas too.”

On the boat, Luis and Ashley stared in disbelief.

In the middle of that massive crowd, one figure in red and one in black were fighting while joking around as if they weren’t in a life-or-death battle at all.

They looked more like a pair of lunatics flirting on a date.

“...Are they actually on a date?” Ashley muttered.

She watched Luke laughing and talking even while surrounded by countless monsters, then looked at Ada, who could fight right beside him and watch his back.

The budding feelings in Ashley’s eyes faded into pure envy.

People like those two...

There was no room for her between them.

High above on the cliff, Saddler watched coldly, a trace of unease appearing in his eyes.

He had unleashed thousands upon thousands of followers.

It was an army he had built one Plaga host at a time.

As far as he was concerned, no ordinary human should have been able to survive beneath a tide like this.

They were all Plaga hosts, and most had already sprouted their parasites.

Yet those two Asians were carving a path straight through the horde like a pair of meat grinders, completely defying common sense.

It was beyond anything Saddler understood.

“Mere mortal bodies... and yet you dare profane the Lord’s miracle?”

Saddler slowly raised a hand and removed his hat, revealing an ashen-gray face.

He was finally going to fight personally.

Saddler suddenly launched himself into the air, carrying a dark, destructive presence with him.

His attention locked onto Luke below, and he shot downward.

While still in midair, Saddler’s withered body began to swell and distort.

His black robe tore apart piece by piece, exposing the insectoid body beneath, a grotesque mass of jointed limbs and hardened carapace that had long since ceased to resemble anything human.

In terms of sheer size, he was several times larger than Ramon.

No wonder Saddler had become the ruler of these parasites.

The thing looked terrifying.

It was also the largest monster Luke had encountered so far.

This was Saddler’s true form.

“Luke, he’s coming!” Ada’s expression changed.

She immediately darted aside and tossed him the RPG she had already prepared.

Luke slid the dragon-head knife back into place behind him.

It was practically a Resident Evil tradition.

Monsters kept growing bigger and bigger, and Ada always somehow had an RPG ready for the right moment.

Why?

Because she’d prepared it in advance, of course.

Luke caught the RPG and rested it on his shoulder.

“Leader, have a taste of my big gun too!”

Luke dropped to one knee and aimed at the descending Insect King.

“Whoosh. BOOM!”

The rocket screamed through the air and struck Saddler directly in the center of his body.

A massive fireball erupted, swallowing the enormous creature in blazing heat.

“Aaaargh!!”

Saddler let out a piercing shriek that seemed to shake the entire island.

Wasn’t the RPG Ada brought loaded with a thermobaric warhead?

As the smoke and dust began to clear, Luke’s expression tightened.

Saddler wasn’t dead.

Most of his massive body had been blasted apart and charred black, exposing stark white bone underneath. The remaining insectoid mass convulsed violently from the pain.

But the surviving core was already devouring the corpses of nearby followers at a speed visible to the naked eye, rapidly rebuilding the destroyed parts of its body.

Unlike in the game, Saddler didn’t have such obvious weak points in reality.

There weren’t a couple of convenient giant eyes waiting for Luke to shoot.

“Ada, don’t tell me you gave me all the good stuff and kept the cheap gear for yourself.” Luke tossed away the empty launcher and looked at her.

Ada seemed just as surprised.

One RPG hit, and it still hadn’t killed Saddler instantly?

“That shouldn’t be possible!”