TWD - Zomboid - Chapter 311: The Antidote's Effect Leaves Everyone Stunned (Patreon)

Meanwhile, Chris and Crane, riding in one of the escort helicopters, were also staring gravely at the scene below.

No wonder the Commonwealth had chosen this place for the demonstration.

This was a forbidden zone that even God seemed to have abandoned.

If that man named Luke could really produce something capable of clearing even a small patch of clean ground here, then it would be impossible to overstate its value.

A nuclear bomb?

They might actually have to hand one over!

If the Commonwealth could neutralize the virus, then it could also spread one.

The Commonwealth already knew where their city-state was located, while they still had no idea where the Commonwealth itself was.

That was the Dark Forest Law.

The side discovered first was always at the greater disadvantage.

Inside the main helicopter, Luke lowered his binoculars and glanced around.

Everyone was still visibly stunned.

Perfect.

That was exactly the reaction he wanted!

Now it was Rebecca's turn to do her part.

Inside Graham's helicopter, Rebecca was pointing toward the walker horde below while explaining something to the president.

Graham made the sign of the cross over his chest.

God!

Look at this.

His country had been overrun by Leviathans!

The timing was about right.

Luke picked up the onboard communicator.

"Rebecca," he said in a low voice. "Prepare for deployment. Pick an open area if possible so the results will be easy to demonstrate."

Rebecca's reply came quickly over the radio.

"Understood. I think the open area on the eastern side of the city would work well. It'll make the experimental results very easy to observe."

"Good!"

"Are the deployment systems ready?"

The other teams responded in the affirmative.

Luke looked out the window.

If he remembered correctly, the open area east of the city was one of Atlanta's major freight hubs. The terrain was wide and unobstructed, with no tall buildings blocking the view.

That entire area was now packed with walkers as well.

A massive black swarm covered the ground, numbering at least several tens of thousands.

The proportion of mutants within the horde was extremely high.

Within Luke's field of view alone, he could already see several Tyrants, along with countless Hunters, Suiciders, and Toads weaving through the walker tide.

This PowerPoint presentation was definitely going to be convincing!

"Begin the drop!" Luke ordered.

Two Commonwealth helicopters equipped with deployment systems immediately broke away from the formation.

They lowered their altitude and dove toward the open area east of the city.

As they passed over the walker horde, the spraying systems mounted beneath the helicopters suddenly activated.

Clouds of milky-white aerosol burst from beneath the aircraft, spreading silently downward like thin wisps of cloud toward the walker tide below.

This was the improved version of the Harran virus antidote.

After being aerosolized, it no longer required direct contact.

Instead, it became a medicinal mist that traveled with the airflow and seeped into every corner of the horde.

Some of it might even drift into other areas.

As for how much effectiveness it would retain by then, that was entirely up to luck.

Rebecca began explaining in a calm voice.

"Mr. President, please watch carefully."

She pushed up her gold-rimmed glasses.

"The Harran virus is the source of the mutations affecting this particular group of walkers. Our antidote specifically targets the protein structure of the Harran virus itself."

"It won't harm normal humans. It only affects organisms infected with or altered by the Harran virus."

"As for what happens next, there's no need for me to explain it. You can watch for yourself."

"Seeing it with your own eyes will be far more convincing."

The white medicinal mist slowly descended, blanketing the walker horde across the open ground.

At first, nothing happened.

The walkers covered by the mist continued shuffling slowly.

Only a few elite mutants noticed the helicopters overhead and seemed intent on finding a way to bring the noisy aircraft down.

Graham frowned slightly.

The antidote...

Wasn't it working?

Just as doubts began to form in his mind, something suddenly changed.

At the very center of the mist, the walkers abruptly froze.

Then, almost as if their bones had been removed all at once, their previously rigid bodies began convulsing violently and uncontrollably.

One.

Two.

Ten.

A hundred...

Starting from the center of the mist, those unnatural spasms spread rapidly outward like ripples across water.

The scene below the helicopter quickly became unsettling.

It was as if something inside the convulsing walkers was breaking down.

Their skin visibly lost its color and began to crack.

The mutated tissue wrapped around their bodies rapidly withered and fell away, turning into wisps of black ash that scattered into the air.

The larger mutants reacted even more violently.

One Hunter raced frantically along a high wall, darting through the shadows of the buildings as it tried to escape the affected area.

Its tightly packed muscles began trembling violently while it was still in midair.

A moment later, the Hunter let out a piercing howl.

Then Graham watched with his own eyes as the creature fell from above.

Before it even reached the ground, its body had degraded until little more than a skeleton remained.

Whether that was caused by exposure to the sun or directly by the antidote was impossible to tell.

(The effect here is exaggerated to the extreme. In reality, it obviously wouldn't be this powerful.)

Within just a few breaths, the once-formidable creature was dead.

The bloated Suiciders fared no better.

The pustules covering their bodies burst one after another, their swollen forms rapidly shriveling before they collapsed limply to the ground.

They didn't even get the chance to explode.

Death spread silently.

Starting from the center of the medicinal mist, a visibly clean patch of ground began expanding at astonishing speed.

If this was a miracle from God, then God was sitting inside a helicopter.

The open ground that had once been packed with walkers was being cleared section by section at a speed that made their hair stand on end.

But walkers couldn't feel pain.

Even the elite mutants among them, despite sensing that something was wrong, no longer had time to react.

An invisible hand was already interfering with their very ability to survive.

A few minutes later, the open area that had once been packed with tens of thousands of walkers had actually been cleared across a huge section.

Only a small portion remained unaffected.

Those walkers weren't Harran virus mutants.

But that was already more than enough.

The helicopter cabin was completely silent.

Nothing could have been more convincing than what they had just witnessed.

Graham stared fixedly at the ground below, his face filled with undisguised shock.

For a long time, he couldn't say a single word.

What a slap in the face!

It really was a slap in the face!

He had spent enormous sums maintaining teams of experts.

To deal with the endless emergence of mutants, the city-state had poured staggering amounts of manpower and resources into building an enormous anti-walker defense system.

Yet even with that system, victory against a horde numbering in the tens of thousands could never be guaranteed.

Especially not a horde containing so many mutants.

Some of those creatures were ones they had never even seen before.

And yet they had died silently beneath the white mist.

All of this had come from the work of a single researcher!

"In the Commonwealth, there are several people besides me who are smarter than I am," Rebecca said.

"The Plagas virus was once implanted in your daughter's body. That's an entirely different situation."

"I can't do anything about that virus myself, but someone else has already developed a slow-release agent and a cleanser..."

"Mr. President, Mr. Li speaks very highly of me, but I'm only one small part of the Commonwealth's research team."

"You have no idea what kind of people you're dealing with."

Rebecca spoke with unmistakable pride.

She hadn't forgotten that Luke was the one who had given her a secure environment to work in.

He had even gone out of his way to obtain samples for her and assign additional assistants.

Sure, the bastard was usually infuriating and refused to make any great contribution to science himself.

But...

He could end the apocalypse.