Shen Cong drove Vajra toward Mudan Road Bridge — but only to find open ground ahead where he could turn around. He’d already decided: he was crossing the river via the Yuxi Grand Bridge on Provincial Road 208.

Before that, though, he had one thing left to do.

He was going to ram Wang Gen to death.

He couldn’t prove Wang Gen had arranged the bridge demolition. No hard evidence. But he didn’t need evidence — personal conviction was enough. Either his theory was right and Wang Gen had conspired with Tao Daqian to kill him, or Tao Daqian had acted in good faith and Wang Gen was still a dangerous man who’d eventually move against him. Either way, the conclusion was the same.

On top of that, Wang Gen’s reputation among survivors was already rotten. Forcing people to hunt evolved fish, leaving a trail of corpses. And then saying it out loud — that he no longer considered ordinary people the same species.

He’d thrown out the last thing that made him human.

So Shen Cong had zero guilt about this.

“Blame Tao Daqian’s little note,” he muttered. “No note, I would’ve just suspected the bridge and taken the long way around. I wouldn’t have wanted the trouble. But you people came after me first — so now it’s kill or be killed.”

A persecution complex, fully activated, is a dangerous thing.

And right now, Shen Cong was demonstrating exactly what that looked like in practice.

When he spotted Wang Gen’s group tearing toward him in the Hummer, the last flicker of hesitation went out like a candle.

If they didn’t mean him harm, there was no reason they’d be moving this fast.

Ram.

There was only one answer: ram.

A dump truck doing eighty kilometers an hour was basically lethal to any pedestrian it touched. Vajra doing eighty was basically a guarantee that anything it grazed went airborne.

Screeeee—

Wang Gen wrenched the Hummer around in time — SUVs were far more nimble than Vajra — but the trailer hitched behind him had nowhere to go. And Shen Cong had already adjusted course, cutting deliberately toward the Hummer even as it swerved to the roadside.

A heartbeat later.

BOOM.

Vajra’s dozer blade caught the trailer dead-on and launched it.

It genuinely flew. Several meters off the ground before it crashed down in the distance, and from inside came a chorus of screams.

The Hummer nearly went with it — only the hitch coupling shearing clean off saved it from following the trailer into the air. In raw mass, the Hummer against Vajra was a child against an adult. Vajra barely registered the impact. The other side went flying.

But that one brutal pass was all Shen Cong was going to get. At over ten meters long, Vajra couldn’t turn on a dime.

He hammered the brakes.

The air-drum brakes screamed, nearly smoking, before Vajra finally ground to a halt twenty meters down the road. Shen Cong didn’t waste a second — straight to the cab, camera feeds up, side window open, Type 64 in hand, already shooting at the Hummer.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

He wasn’t a marksman, but every round found the windshield.

And bounced off.

He lowered the pistol. Handgun rounds didn’t have the kinetic force to punch through Activity shielding anymore. He needed bone-gold.

He was already reaching for the crossbow when Wang Gen hit back. The Hummer’s window dropped, and a QBZ-95 assault rifle barrel came out.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG.

Just as Shen Cong’s pistol had done nothing to the Hummer, Wang Gen’s rifle did nothing to Vajra.

Wang Gen processed this immediately and stopped firing. He kicked the far door open and bellowed toward his compound: “What are you idiots standing there for?! Get your gear and BLOW THAT DAMN IRON BRICK TO PIECES!”

Then toward the crashed trailer: “Tao Daqian! Dahaizi! You dead or what?! If you’re breathing, get over here NOW — this son of a bitch is thornier than I thought!”

Tao Daqian’s voice drifted back from the wreckage: “Brother Gen — Dahaizi’s out cold. I’m okay.”

“Get your gun and suppress his window! Pin him down! I’m going for the explosives!”

He said it loud. Tao Daqian heard it.

So did Shen Cong.

Tao Daqian started taking shots at Shen Cong’s window — not precise work, but landing close enough. And Shen Cong filed away what he’d just learned: explosives. Wang Gen’s people really did have demolition charges. That settled every remaining question about the bridge.

Darkness was thickening around them.

The failing light was giving Wang Gen’s people trouble with their aim. That bought Shen Cong a layer of cover. He shifted back from the window, let Tao Daqian’s shots miss, raised the crossbow, charged a fang arrow with Activity, and sighted on the Hummer.

Thwack.

The bolt crossed the gap like lightning and struck the windshield dead center.

CRACK.

The sharpened Activity core tip — slower than a bullet, but carrying the full force of Sharpening — hit hard enough to fracture the glass. Not hard enough to shatter it entirely. Close.

He nocked a second bolt.

Wang Gen’s eyesight was sharp. He could see Shen Cong in the window, could see the raised crossbow, and his scalp prickled — that was definitely a bone-gold weapon. A ranged bone-gold weapon.

Can’t let him shoot again. Get the Hummer moving, get behind a building, grab the charges.

Wang Gen turned the key. The Hummer surged — he’d done his own modifications over the years, and the acceleration was well beyond stock. The vehicle was already swinging around, cutting off his direct line of fire.

Shen Cong shifted his aim without hesitating. Tires. Always the weak point. Even Vajra’s wheels had needed partial armor after the Dog-Croc caved one in — and even then, part of the tire still sat exposed.

The fang arrow punched through the Hummer’s front tire.

BANG.

The wheel exploded. The Hummer lurched, front end dipping hard, nearly slamming into a chunk of roadside rubble.

Before Shen Cong could nock a third bolt, figures came pouring from the compound — handguns up, firing at Vajra.

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

Muzzle flash lit the dark in bright orange threads.

Rounds pinged off Vajra’s armor plate with bright, clean sounds. Aim was poor, but the volume of fire was enough — Shen Cong pulled back from the window and shut it. He moved to the rear window of the cabin, cracked it open, fired back a few times with the pistol.

Missed.

Pistol’s useless for this. Switch to the slingshot. Clear out the regulars first, then deal with Wang Gen.

He wasn’t cornered yet — not even close to the point where retreat made sense. The situation was still his to manage.

He sealed the rear window and opened a fist-sized firing port in the armor.

Slingshot out. He laid a pouch of soldier-mandible pellets and a pouch of worker-mandible pellets within reach, charged them with Activity, drew back the bands, and began shooting through the port. His slingshot accuracy matched his crossbow. Lower raw power, yes — but more than enough to kill an ordinary person. Since surpassing the strength of five bulls, he’d long since stopped calculating how many bands he could draw. The pellets he launched now weren’t quite at fang-arrow force, but they hit harder than any pistol round.

In the domain of Sharpening, bone-gold left firearms well behind.

He settled into the port, found his angle, and waited.

A man broke cover, raised his gun, fired at Vajra.

Shen Cong’s hands were faster. A worker-mandible pellet left the sling.

It took the man in the forehead.

The back of his skull opened like a red fan, and he dropped without another sound.

“One,” Shen Cong said, voice flat and cold — mimicking the tally-counting slingshot archer from Zombieland — and kept his eye on the port.

(End of Chapter 76)