Demon Lord's Reincarnation

Seeing Ruben pull out a corpse—or a partial one at that—each time he'd sink in the four prongs of his pitchfork to the smorgasbord of expired pounds of flesh made me realize he had some bit of strength in him since the way these corpses were stuck to each other was even more than conjoined twins squished by a hydraulic press.

Weird metaphor aside, it'd definitely take a while for a single pitchfork to do all that work but I soon became desensitized to the surprises when Quinn came in bearing the last one.

I had to say it, "Dude. It's hours before lunch, the fuck you brought your fork for—"

"YOU— SHADDAP! IT'S EMBARRASSING AS IS!"

While everyone was trying to avoid Quinn's ire, it didn't take long before the part of the railway we were in was very much at capacity and it allowed the deadheads below to step onto their fallen comrades.

And since they were just getting squished and squeezed by the ones trying to get to us—and as more of them fell, it allowed for a slightly higher elevation, making them the most fucked up slope made of flesh and bone.

But despite all that, as much as Brownie and Brian were itching to do some actual work, I held them off like an owner pulling on their dogs' leash to allow more deadheads to climb up just for less work from Quinn and Ruben later.

We just made them hobble towards us right before the steps but right as I was about to let go of my dogs' leash and join in myself, Kuzma fucking flew from the other side of the platform just to join us in our assault. He easily bridged the distance with a single jump—after dropping most of his gear, of course—and he just went on a rampage wielding his two handaxes.

In turn, the rest of us just let loose the same way but shit was over in less than a few minutes.

I glanced at Kuzma's weapon of choice and chuckled, "Two axes, huh?"

"Yeah—"

"I thought you'd pick a—"

He cut me off, "A sickle and a hammer? I left it back home."

"HAH! We're gonna be good friends chicken-man."

"Naw, nahhh~ Don't call me that!"

And as the others tried to dig more deets from his nickname, more and more deadheads managed to climb or get pushed up the platforms just to get put down by ourselves. Kuzma wouldn't have jumped over here if there were climbers from the other side but with how fast Artem and Katya work side by side, there was barely enough for them to go through but I just had a thought:

"What about the side entrance to the mall?"

Kuzma stepped back and looked at me, "What side entrance?"

"There are two side entrances! One for this shopping mall and one for this love hotel— they're located at the bend right when you get up the first set of stairs—"

"Ah! Nah, nah, it's closed-off shut with the roll-ups though I'm sure it has its inhabitants."

"We'll clear it after we close off this station first."

"Alright."

On that note, our system of sorts was still moving slowly for all of us but it still produced results. Because from our side, looking to the right was where most of the deadheads were coming from—and it was where the other stations should be—but to the right was one of the places where the trains would be parked, and we could see the numbers from that side dwindle.

And even if a portion of the protective barrier was broken—from the time one of the trains derailed and hit the highway—it was easy enough to patch it up but seeing less and less of them from that side didn't mean it was clear of the dead.

In addition, our sub-goal was to close off the path to the right so we could safely clear the path to the other side and see if the other trains were still functional. There was the issue of the shopping mall and the love hotel too but it was a sub sub-goal compared to this one.

But yeah, it didn't take long before our factory line of clearing the undead leveled up from one radio call and a couple of dudes riding a motorcycle to deliver fresh tools for the trade:

"Hellooo~ A shipment of pitchforks for Sir Ishiyama?"

"Here! Here!"

Then Kayta shouted from the other side, "Hey! Where's ours?!"

"C-Coming! I mean— one of us is— There he is!"

"Why'd you need a picture of me for this pitchfork?!"

"P-PROOF OF DELIVERY MA'AM!"

"I'LL RETURN IT SO BUZZ OFF! WE'RE WORKING HERE!"

"Y-YES! APOLOGIES!"

'Good thing Morales' outpost is very close… Pretty obvious a university like that has some lying around… who knew we'd use these though… heh.'

As weird enough to use tools to transfer hay to transfer walking meat, it really did make the job easier. We didn't even need to wait for the dregs to climb up since we could just punch a hole in their heads and lift them up in one go though the trick was to pick a side where there was enough space to go around.

Because even if I could lift a deadhead up among the crowd, it would still need more strength and I can't be caught off-guard by doing this type of work. It's pretty honest, sure, but I was still looking our for possible threats like Kaley was scanning around with rifle in hand.

And yeah, I'd hate to say this again but who fucking knew a pitchfork would come in clutch because it saved us a lot of time since we took three fucking hours just to have a gap on the railway so we could have our people brought in the barriers for closing up this station. Enjoy exclusive chapters from empire

It was nothing pretty but it was solid enough to bar anything from coming in or climbing up—since it was higher than the barriers of the station itself and it was on a reverse decline—but we had to hose down the station for the nth time because of the gunk and whatever fucking mixture of dirt, blood, and whatever was on the flooring and the railway itself.

Brownie glanced at our barrier momentarily, "The fuck? Who took the time to make that? Shit's awesome! Solid as fuck!"

Alright, it's pretty.

In any case, I had a group watch the barrier still—while picking off some that they could—while I came in with blade and pistol drawn to the place where they dock their trains with Kuzma and Tatiana.