That proved one thing: Leon had fully earned the title of Bristleback.

Leon could take three of Shane's body slams, get back up clean each time, and keep coming.

Shane grew increasingly interested in the newcomer. At the start, Leon had been a mess, clumsy, full of holes, getting pinned down and beaten on by Shane.

But half an hour in, the improvement was obvious. The footwork steadied. The rhythm came back. Leon started reading Shane's timing accurately and firing off crisp counters.

The more they fought, the more unsettled Shane got. Shane even caught a punch and stumbled.

This kid had serious combat talent, absorbing experience mid-fight, digesting it on the fly, converting it into action right there in the moment.

Shane wasn't the only one who noticed. Orion, Crane, Jade, and the rest of the fighters watching from the side all saw it too.

Leon panted, eyes narrowed. One hand raked the loose hair back from their face, then settled back into a stance.

Shane wasn't about to go easy. The two came together again.

Lin Feng stood with his arms folded, watching in silence.

Shane's hand-to-hand wasn't anything special, but Shane was experienced. Laying Leon's foundation? That was the right fit.

For the advanced work later, there was Jade, there was Orion, there was Crane. No need to worry.

Especially Crane. Former operative. The skill level went without saying.

Crane noticed Lin Feng looking over and straightened up involuntarily. This guy's not thinking about going a round with me too, is he?

Lin Feng caught the shift in Crane's expression and frowned inwardly. This guy's not thinking about picking a fight with me, is he?

Their eyes met. Without a word, both of them took two steps toward the center of the space.

Shane and Leon, still mid-spar, picked up on the change in atmosphere. They broke apart by unspoken agreement and drifted to the side.

Two seconds of silence from the crowd. Then Merle spoke first.

"This guy's not gonna get beaten to death by Lin, is he?"

They'd all seen what Lin Feng was capable of. Not in a fight — during labor — but holy hell, the strength was staggering and the stamina seemed like it had no bottom.

Daryl fell into rare hesitation, voice uncertain. "Probably not. Lin knows his limits. Just don't know if this guy can take it."

Right now, Crane looked rough. Pale and worn down, the kind of look that said someone had only just crawled back from a serious illness.

Jade said nothing. Jade knew that was the Antizin, and knew exactly what Crane was capable of. What Jade didn't know was Lin Feng's level.

Because there was zero trace of training on Lin Feng. None at all.

At least the stance Lin Feng was holding right now looked like a complete beginner's.

Honestly? Same tier as Glenn. Worse than Leon, even.

Crane's posture was loose, almost reluctant, like someone dragged into the ring who just wanted to get through the formalities. Lin Feng didn't buy it for a second. Perception 7 was screaming at him.

This person is dangerous.

He knew a fight was won by whoever seized the initiative. Lin Feng lunged forward two steps, exploded from a dead stop, and whipped a vicious roundhouse straight at Crane's kidneys.

Crane's pupils shrank. Lin Feng's burst speed was completely outside what Crane had calculated for. Staggeringly fast.

No choice but to eat it head-on, Crane stepped back half a pace to break out of range, then immediately read the timing and snapped a kick into Lin Feng's supporting leg.

A clean move. Land it solid and the opponent's center of gravity collapsed, handing over control of everything that followed.

What Crane never counted on was that this brute did not care. Lin Feng's whole attitude said: you want to kick me? Go ahead.

SMACK!

Crane's right foot connected with Lin Feng's left leg and knocked him off balance. Crane closed in, right fist driving downward from high to low, aimed straight at Lin Feng's cheek.

Lin Feng bent his arm up to block. A sharp pain shot through his upper arm. He clocked it immediately: Strength at least 7.

Crane was rattled. What the hell? A full hammer punch and he didn't go down? Is this guy some kind of bio-weapon product too?

Lin Feng had finished sizing things up and did not care about any of that. Knocking Crane's arm aside, he opened up, punches coming faster and faster.

To his surprise, Crane kept pace. Every strike was slipped or parried, and several times Crane ate the hit on purpose to fire back, fists cracking hard into Lin Feng's body.

Lin Feng just absorbed it and pushed forward. No retreating. He kept the pressure on, kept the rhythm in his hands, never giving Crane room to actually fight.

Because the moment he got pulled into Crane's rhythm, his odds of losing went up fast.

Crane was suffering. Lin Feng's offense was a torrential downpour, relentless and suffocating. Every bit of technique Crane had was getting buried under it, leaving nothing but reactive defense.

The exchange was blistering. The speed of it sent a ripple through the crowd.

"What the hell... are both of these guys monsters?"

"That continuous punching speed... doesn't he get tired?"

"He looks like he's still accelerating..."

"Fuck..."

The noise didn't touch either of them. They were locked in completely.

Then Lin Feng deliberately let his attack slow by a fraction. A gap opened. Crane drove a punch through it, straight into empty air.

Crane's pupils snapped tight. Bad.

Crane tried to pull back immediately, abort the move, switch tracks.

Too late.

Lin Feng's right hand shot out and locked around the wrist. He twisted his body, stepped in hard to cut off Crane's line, and dropped his shoulder.

Power surged up from the ground. The shoulder drove into Crane's chest like a battering ram. Crane's vision went black at the edges, the air hammered clean out of both lungs.

Lin Feng didn't pause. He used the rebound to step back, right hand yanking the captured wrist forward as his knee came up.

Crane's balance, barely recovered, shattered again. One stumbling step forward, straight into Lin Feng's knee, which drove hard into Crane's gut.

The finish was a downward left elbow, tip of the elbow descending directly onto the back of Crane's skull.

"No! Lin!"

He froze.

The shout snapped him back. A single drop of cold sweat traced down his forehead.

Under that level of focus, his body had outrun his thoughts. He'd nearly failed to stop.

Too close. If that elbow had landed clean, at his speed, at his strength, there was a real chance he'd have just sent Kyle the Superman into the ground for good.

Crane finally got some air back, looked up, and walked face-first into Lin Feng's elbow. Another hiss of pain.

"Holy shit! I'm actually starting to think you were trying to kill me, bro!"

Lin Feng let go of the wrist, arranged his face into perfect innocence, and helped Crane straighten up.

"How could that be? Crane, I figured you'd break the hold and counter. This is my first time doing close-quarters combat. I honestly didn't think it'd be this easy."

The crowd stared.

Holy shit — you beat him and then you twist the knife?!

➤ Next: Camp Free-For-All 3

Chapter 100 - Camp Free-For-All 3

For three straight days, every time Crane looked at Lin Feng, there was an undeniable flicker of resentment in those eyes.

Because Crane had eventually confirmed it beyond any doubt: Lin Feng genuinely had zero hand-to-hand combat experience. Last time really had been the first time Lin Feng had ever fought anyone up close.

And Crane, a rigorously trained operative, one who had even been infected and mutated by the Harran Virus — had failed to last three minutes.

Who was Crane even supposed to complain to about that?!

By the fourth day, Crane had made peace with it. Because Jade hadn't even lasted thirty seconds before Lin Feng put Jade down with a shoulder throw.

Looked at that way, Crane was still impressive. Lin Feng was just a freak.

So fine. Can't win, can't win. Nobody had it easy.

Over those few days, everyone had spontaneously started sparring with each other. Strikes were kept restrained, but accidents happened anyway.

Marcus had essentially gone back to the old job, holding clinic again, same as the early days.

Everyone else held up well enough. Except for Glenn and Leon. Those two barely had a moment where they didn't smell like medicine.

Lin Feng was getting bored. After fighting him once, nobody came back for a second round.

Jade took a shoulder throw and nearly went to meet great-great-grandmother.

Merle tried to kick Lin Feng in the groin, caught a whip kick in return, flew back two meters, and settled down.

Daryl came in angry, swung hard, caught an extra hit for the trouble, and got put to sleep.

Orion moved well — quick footwork, trying to stay mobile and pick shots — but half a second too slow on one move, and a single punch put him out cold. When Marcus tried to wake him, Orion nearly clocked Marcus too.

Contra was the most stubborn of the lot. After getting slammed, Contra actually clawed back upright through sheer willpower, still dazed, only to eat another punch and finally go down for good.

Don't ask about Shane and Rick. Those two had gone at it between themselves, and it was a brutal one, though afterward, both swore it was just normal sparring.

Marcus's diagnosis: suspected cracked ribs. Both of them. One had two, the other had three.

Shane edged it on points.

After that day, though, the two seemed to come around. The next time they talked, the stiff, keep-it-professional awkwardness was gone.

The rainy stretch lasted six and a half days, finally stopping on the afternoon of the seventh. No sun, that came the next morning.

After breakfast, Lin Feng led everyone over to the threshing ground. They pulled back the heavy waterproof tarps and a wall of mildew hit them straight in the face.

The wheat had gone moldy. Widespread, thorough, basically all of it ruined as food.

Lin Feng felt a pang of regret, then accepted it and moved on. It took most of the morning to deal with.

The disposal method was exactly as crude as you'd expect: they found a spot, dumped everything, done.

This was the apocalypse. Careful processing and waste management could wait. Heading into town to scavenge was a better use of time.

So after lunch, Shane took the traceurs out again, this time targeting construction materials. Lin Feng didn't write up any list. The only instruction was simple: if you see it, bring it back.

The camp had enough food. They had time. Security needed to come next.

Lin Feng's original idea was a perimeter wall, but after running the numbers, he dropped it. Too much material, too long a build, supporting infrastructure was a nightmare, and they had nobody with actual construction expertise anyway.

Then Abraham brought something up: circular combat bunkers.

Wouldn't need many. Four or five would do it.

Two at the camp entrance to handle threats from outside; the rest positioned inside, so if Volatiles ever broke through, the elderly, the women, and the children would have somewhere to shelter.

Lin Feng thought that tracked. They could realistically build a couple, and it turned out Contra already knew how to put them together.

As for Lin Feng, he didn't leave camp that day.

Because while Beth was washing his clothes, the military map that had been pressed flat underneath everything else came loose and slipped out in full view.

Lin Feng slapped his forehead. When Merle first handed it over, he'd made a mental note. Then the summer harvest had started, and it had completely slipped his mind.

Somewhere in the back of his head, he'd written it off as low priority. Nothing urgent. The harvest came first.

He unfolded the map. Seven triangular markers, scattered at various distances, each one filled in with a red square.

He didn't think much of it at first. But after working through a careful estimate of the distances, he realized the closest coordinate wasn't far from the farm at all.

Roughly 15 miles, by his calculation. Out in the mountain wilderness somewhere.

None of this had appeared in the original canon. Or maybe Rick's group had simply never triggered this questline. As for the other factions, none of them seemed to have touched it either.

A military map. Remote terrain. Deep in the hills.

Lin Feng turned the possibilities over. Secret laboratory. Restricted military zone. Maybe even an armory.

He stopped himself. If it were any of those things, it shouldn't be sitting openly on a map at all.

This looked more like a reconnaissance sweep, a unit moving through, marking what they found, logging confirmed positions.

Except that didn't fit either. If this were a proper recon map, it would be important enough to carry back and hand up the chain of command.

Instead it had been left behind. Abandoned in a police station.

The more he thought about it, the murkier it got. His brain was starting to short-circuit.

Then he stopped.

Why was he overthinking this? Take some people out there, look at it, find out.

Lin Feng turned the idea over one more time, and felt a flicker of genuine anticipation for tomorrow.

➤ Next: The Business of Bragging