There was no wall marking the campus line. But the line between inside and outside was real.

  The moment they crossed that invisible boundary, everything changed. The carefully maintained, orderly bleakness of the campus vanished, replaced by the true mess left by time and nature. Trash everywhere. Abandoned cars. Weeds pushing through concrete.

  And zombies. More of them.

  “Tsk…” Pandora glanced at a zombie in a tattered school uniform hunched over something in a street corner, devouring it. Couldn’t help the mental complaint. There were a lot of them. After generations of seniors, they still weren’t wiped out?

  But it made sense. The population base of a modern city was huge—nothing like a medieval town. And maybe… the Academy was somehow “restocking” the city with fresh zombies? To keep the numbers stable? Or maybe the whole Academy packed up and moved every few years?

  Random thoughts flickered through her mind as they walked.

  On the road, Pandora spotted a few discarded modern vehicles, but most were wrecked beyond use. Finding a working bicycle would be a miracle. She wasn’t that lucky.

  But she wasn’t in a rush. Her top priority wasn’t finding a home. It was…

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  “Open up! Maintenance check!” Pandora moved down the street, using a certain “Physics Persuader” to pry open one tightly shut door after another.

  The moment a door gave way, she shot inside like lightning. A flash of swordlight gleamed in her hand.

  At second rank, after three months honed in the “Red Moon Nightmare,” killing these scattered ordinary zombies—once regular people—took no effort at all.

  Elsa stayed by the door, watchful.

  Pandora swept through the interior alone, clearing the few remaining stragglers. Then a flash of white light, and the monsters—clothes and all—transformed completely into alchemical resources for her system.

  【Extraction Successful】

  【Flesh: 8 Units】

  【Flora: 2 Units】

  【Salt-Gold: 1 Unit】

  【Ether: 2 Units】

  【Soul: 7 Units】

  【Extraction Successful】

  【Flesh: 13 Units】

  【Flora: 1 Unit】

  【Salt-Gold: 1 Unit】

  【Ether: 4 Units】

  【Soul: 9 Units】

  One system notification after another chimed in her mind.

  The Soul Points, stagnant for three whole months, finally began to climb. And they were climbing fast. Satisfyingly fast.

  This was the real reason she hadn’t acted on the frozen Soul Points during campus life. It was simple. That teaching assistant Poppy, with her eerie “Smoke Fox” power and cautious nature, had already given the answer.

  The zombies here weren’t like Live Iron Golems—artificial constructs. They were real, once-living people. Because of that, inside their plague-twisted, rotting shells, fragments of their old souls still lingered.

  “So…” Pandora cleanly severed a female zombie’s spine, rationalizing her work internally. “What I’m doing is basically…” She looked at the child-sized zombie snarling and lunging from the side. No emotion stirred in her eyes.

  “...freeing them from an eternal cage. I guess that’s a good deed.”

  With that, she returned this pair—likely mother and child in life—to permanent peace. Swordlight flashed, white light shimmered, and the bodies vanished into system resources.

  “Let’s go. Next one.”

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  Pandora strode out the doorway, signaling Elsa to follow.

  Sure, there’d been combat classes on campus for three months. But those never let her cut loose. Her second-rank strength was always held back. Rules everywhere.

  Now? She was unleashed.

  That long-missed thrill—driving cold steel into rotten meat—washed back into her. It made her blood burn. A raw, primal excitement from deep in her soul almost made her stop and hunt for stronger prey right then.

  But reason won. She knew why she was collecting these Soul Points. Elsa had been stuck at first rank too long. It was time for her 【Reshaping】...

  Pandora’s figure vanished around the next corner.

  The foggy street looked untouched, silence broken only by the wind whining through hollow cars.

  But several minutes after the quiet returned, the door Pandora had forced open—fresh wood splinters still on the frame—was slowly pushed wider by a rough, grimy hand.

  A tall figure, shrouded in a big hooded cloak, slipped silently into the freshly cleared scene.

  He was an experienced “Hunter.” His crew called him “Vulture.” It fit his style. He never went after powerful, dangerous mutated zombies. That was for maniacs or real heavyweights.

  He preferred prey that looked soft and couldn’t fight back.

  Under the hood was a face hardened by months of harsh living into pure cold cruelty. Greasy, matted hair was braided into a few strands over his shoulders. His muddy eyes held a naked, carrion-feeder’s hunger.

  He gripped a steel blade, polished to a cold, icy sharpness. Even the spine was etched with vicious-looking blood grooves for extra killing power.

  This was his tool.

  He’d been watching the two girls for a while. From the moment they left campus, his gut told him they were prime targets. The one in front looked like a spoiled rich kid—clothes too clean, complexion too pale, like she’d never done a hard day’s training. Someone like that wouldn’t have real fight in her, even after three months.

  And the follower beside her? Quiet. Steady. But her gaze was too blank. More like a trained guard than a real killer.

  In his eyes, they were perfect. He just needed the right moment to split them up, then use his best methods to stir panic, take out the troublesome-looking one in the chaos, and enjoy his “dessert” at leisure.

  He was looking forward to it. To stripping that girl clean amid her screams.

  But.

  The moment he stepped into that house for his standard pre-hunt check, his long-numbed heart was seized by an invisible hand. A chill shot up his spine to the top of his skull.

  “What… the hell?” he muttered.

  The smell of blood in the room was thick. The walls, the ceiling, the floor… everywhere was splattered with fresh, dark red spray, some spots still dripping.

  This slaughter had happened less than ten minutes ago.

  But… where were the bodies?

  With that much blood, he expected to see hacked-up zombie corpses. Or at least the girl, collapsed from exhaustion or blood loss. But there was… nothing.

  He moved in cautiously, searching every corner—bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, storage. He checked under beds, inside closets.

  Nothing. The whole place was empty. Only that sickening blood smell and a dead, cold silence proved something had happened here…

  What the hell was going on? What had those two done?

  This wasn’t about easy prey anymore. This scene was outside all normal patterns. For the first time, this experienced hunter felt fear of the unknown.

  “What did they do… Where are the bodies?”

  Vulture walked back out. His confusion now outweighed any predator’s excitement. He took a deep breath of the cold, fog-and-blood air, forcing calm. His eyes locked on the far end of the street.

  There, his two “prey” had just run into a mutated zombie. A nasty one. A “Pregnant Corpse,” nearly second-rank strength.

  Its body was twisted and gaunt, but its belly was huge—a grotesque, veiny balloon. Under the thin skin, something fetal-shaped squirmed. Its posture was wrong, but its speed was unnaturally fast. In a breath, it charged from around the corner right at the girls.

  Seeing it, Vulture’s pupils shrank. If that were him, that charge would kill him instantly. A near-second-rank mutated zombie wasn’t something a first-rank like him could handle. He only had one more year of “experience” than these newcomers, that’s all…

  And yet—

  One stroke.

  Just one.

  That blade of light moved so fast he almost missed it. Like a flash of crimson lightning. It cut without the slightest drag.

  In Vulture’s eyes, the Pregnant Corpse’s movement seemed to slow down infinitely. He saw the scarlet blade trace a perfect, flawless arc along the creature’s neck. It met no resistance, like cutting soft tofu.

  Then, the ugly head flew. A black arc of blood painted a tragic, beautiful death-curve in the air.

  But it wasn’t over.

  That perfect stroke, as if seeing the future, reversed instantly for a sideways slash—

  Clang!

  A sharp, metallic ring. The terrifying arm that suddenly burst from the corpse’s belly, stretching out, was perfectly blocked by the maid’s simple-looking horizontal slash.

  The whole sequence flowed. No wasted motion. Elegant as a dance.

  But even with sword skills that terrifying, the danger wasn’t gone. The headless body still thrashed. Its horrible, twisted belly screamed.

  That’s when the girl who’d been standing behind the maid, looking helpless, took a single step forward.

  It seemed like she attacked. But also like she didn’t. Vulture couldn’t see what she actually did.

  He only saw the gaunt, grotesquely swollen mutated zombie simply go limp and collapse. Completely lifeless. The squirming belly stiffened and went still.

  As if all its vitality had been drained by that one light step.

  What… was that?

  What did she do?!

  Vulture’s mind went blank. He’d thought that pale-faced girl was the one being protected. Now he knew how wrong he was.

  They were never “prey.”

  Not from the start.

  They were… something far more terrifying than the Pregnant Corpse. More terrifying than him, the “hunter.”

  Monsters.

  The raw strength the two girls showed filled the hooded Vulture with a terror that went down to his soul.

  Yet, mixed with the terror, a deep, burning confusion churned inside him.

  He had no doubt now—the blood in the house was their work. They’d killed the zombies there…

  But where did the bodies go? Why vanish into thin air?

  Pushing down his fear, a fierce curiosity stirred. He felt on the edge of glimpsing some huge secret, and unconsciously, his murky eyes widened.