Vorn “…”
I forced my face into stillness, a Calm mask. I felt as if time had slowed down for a few seconds.
- Survival must not be my objective.
- I must take risks.
- Mana current on the 40th.
- Staircase A is blocked.
- Floor 52, System Crate through staircase A.
Vorn rose from the couch, turned his back to Lilith, and laced his hands behind him as he stared through the floor-to-ceiling window at the ruined city below, silent, thoughtful.
I said. “We move.”
Lilith frowned. “Where.” She was confused; she had fought enough for the day, secured her ranking, and by extension, his. She doubted if anyone could even come close to them when the ranking went live.
However, Vorn couldn’t see her confusion continued as he continued, “There is a system crate on floor 52 staircase A, and we must obtain it.”
Lilith's eyes almost widened when she heard that, “I did not sense it,” she said with a tinge of urgency.
My stomach dropped so hard I swear my soul tried to leave through my shoes.
If she didn’t see it, then either the Memento lied, or
No.
The Memento showed fatal fragments. It wasn’t going to build an entire fake world-structure to spite me. A different choice could lead to a different death; however, it remains the same world.
She missed it, because she didn’t take the same path as in causality memento, this is my bet.
I exhaled slowly, as if I was exhausted from dealing with a child, “Did you check staircase A and its surrounding” Vorn said slowly.
Lilith hesitated for a moment before denying it: “When we killed the level 2 zombie on staircase A, I felt an ominous mana current below us near staircase A, so I checked the floors below us through staircase B, C, and only did a fast probe…”
Before she could continue, I raised my hand as if bored or tired, with my back still facing her.
“That mana current you felt,” I said slowly, “comes from around Floor 40.”
“Now come,” I continued. “Go to Staircase A. Use your mana sense. Tell me what you see.”
I turned to face her.
Then, without waiting for an answer, and without even looking at her, I started walking toward the door she had come through, toward the level 2 zombie corpse.
Behind me, I heard her steps as she followed, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
‘I must act tough; one of the reasons I got killed before is that I was too cowardly.’
‘But why do I feel like this? I am a little different from the one in the causality memento. Is it because she didn’t find the system crate here?
‘It is possible, she got greedy when I mentioned it, so the reason I got killed before is that the system crete made my cowardness obvious after all, she thinks I'm mysterious and powerful, how could I not risk my life for a system create.’
Just as I was lamenting my luck for mentioning the system crate, I entered the staircase and the smell of blood and gore assaulted me, however my face remained expressionless as I turned to Lilith who was behind me.
Without me having to say anything, her nexus core started to shine, and her eyes turned cold, luminous blue as she said.
“Countless level-one. Packed tight around the mid-fifties, they are not wandering. They are positioned,” she said simply. “They are facing every entrance to these floors.”
My throat tightened.
“And… three level 2 signatures.” Her voice didn’t change, but the words were heavier. “Close to the entrance to staircase A, that’s why I didn’t notice them.”
“As for the System Crate, it is near them.”
Lilith’s eyes faded back to normal, and the deathly pressure around the Nexus Core eased. She turned to me, still cold and still calm, but a flicker of excitement flashed in her gaze, too sharp to fully hide.
“A head-on fight is inefficient,” she said as her gaze flicked toward the mutilated level 2 zombie on the ground. “What is your alternative?”
Vorn looked at her calmly with a faint smile of approval, ‘Why are you asking little me? Can’t you just control one of them to make a massacre again? Nevertheless, I can’t ask you that, can I? Because if I ask and it turns out that you can’t, then I will be foolish and get killed by you, you monster.’
“Why should we fight them? Our objective is the system crate, not a costly fight.”
As I said this, the plan was already formulating in my head; its original purpose was to escape this building when needed, but now it should be modified.
As we were going down from the roof, I remember seeing a room, its door was open, and I saw inside large water tanks, a diesel pump, and countless other pieces of equipment. Isn’t this the method to drive the zombies out?
All I need to do is open them, flood the staircase, and escape. A small modification, let Lilith close all the doors of the staircase up to the 52nd floor door and drown these zombies.
Right, Lilith will also need to close the staircase to the 51st floor with a spell to block water flow, which isn’t difficult.
“You will shape the battlefield.” If I'm going to take a risk, then you will face most of it. “Close every stairwell door above fifty-two as you descend, no side exit or entry.”
“And open the door for the 52nd floor when you receive my signal,” I continued, “You also need to erect a barrier on the stairwell that leads to the 51st floor.”
Lilith was confused, although it did not show on her face.
Just as she was about to ask Vorn a few questions, he left with strides to the upper floors while stepping on corpses and gore.
‘You like to kill over a little disagreement, right? Then I hope you get wet when I flood this goddam place, yes, I'm that petty.’
Lilith looked at Vorn’s back, frowning, ‘Does he seem… disappointed?’
Vorn walked up a few floors, which left him exhausted. ‘Why is this body so weak? Do I really have to spend allocations on other stats this early, after
all if I were being chased by a zombie, wouldn’t I be food by now?’
After grumbling for a while, Vorn reached a door labeled ‘MER.’
It didn’t look fancy like other floors, filled with equipment, tanks that reached the ceiling, diesel pumps, water plumbing, and countless other machines.
‘This time I'm very satisfied with my plan, even though the water won’t drown the zombies, it would throw them into disarray.’
‘And if Lilith is smart and capable, she might be able to open different doors to different floors and flesh them out of the 52nd floor, and she would be able to take the system crate without a fight.’
As Vorn entered the room, he failed to notice the electric sparks and exposed wires at the corner of the room.
He shuts the valves on each tank first because he wants to open them all in one clean moment.
In the dark, the nearest tank looked like every other tank. The faded labels on it meant nothing to him.
He picked up a wrench from the ground and started loosening the pipes on the two tanks closest to the door, followed by the others.
After a few minutes of grueling work, all the pipes were on the verge of falling. As long as Vorn opens the valve, water would flow out like a river.
He held two valves—one in each hand. After mentally preparing himself, Vorn twisted both.
Metal clanged as the pipes dropped.
Then came the sound of liquid pouring.
Vorn hurried to the next tank to open it when he felt something was off.
Water didn’t pour like a river.
It didn’t rush.
It oozed, heavy, dragging itself out in a thick, dark sheet.
Oily and greasy stench assaulted his nose, and then it clicked ‘diesel’.
The corner of the room snapped blue.
Vorn turned his face to look and was in complete silence.
Then he ran
He ran up the corridor, instinct screaming for the roof, until a buried safety rule surfaced through the panic: in a fire, you don’t flee to the roof. You don’t trap yourself at the top of a chimney.
He stopped, risked a glance over his shoulder.
And the idea of running downward disappeared from his mind as he saw the growing fire.
Vorn kept on running, his brain working overtime searching for an exit that didn’t turn him into cooked meat.
Then it clicked.
‘Lilith said Staircase B and C were safe, at least the upper levels were, even in causality memento he himself mentioned escaping through stairwell B, C for some reason.‘
Lilith looked at Vorn’s back, frowning.
Does he seem… disappointed?
She watched him go.
Then she moved.
Mana gathered around her nexus Core as the door behind her slammed closed with a clean metallic clang, and its frame sealed as if welded. If Vorn was here, he would probably die of old age before being able to open it.
Door two: shut.
Door three: shut.
Undead scraped and moaned behind walls, drawn toward the densest presence of mana.
Toward her.
An undead came from below, eyes dim, roaring.
Lilith’s expression didn’t change.
A thin line, no thicker than a thread, slipped from her fingertips.
The creature stopped mid-step. Its head separated a heartbeat later and hit the floor with a wet sound.
Then another followed.
Then three.
Then six.
They came with hunger, an instinct that treated her Nexus Core like a lighthouse.
And Lilith killed them as they came.
Then she shut the next door.
Floor 53 sealed.
Floor 54 sealed.
Each closure was a small cost, the kind of cost that drained you slowly.
Her eyes flickered as she thought of her status.
?SYSTEM PANEL?
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
MP: F (56%)
The 350 points Vorn had transferred without hesitation were vital; without them, sealing the stairwell while intercepting zombies would have been impossible.
A heavy scrape came from above, more bodies pressing into the stairwell’s doors.
Lilith raised her hand again.
Shut.
Shut.
Shut.
Then she turned her attention downward, because she didn’t know his full plan.
Disturbance could come from below.
So she sealed the floors beneath her with the same cold discipline.
Floor 51: shut.
…
…
Floor 47: shut.
No distractions. No flanking.
Then
Heat.
Not mana heat.
A rising pressure in the air that didn’t belong to the undead.
Lilith’s eyes turned luminous blue.
Her Nexus Core brightened.
She sensed it instantly.
Fire.
Falling like a cascade.
And… for the first time, Lilith cursed in her head, ‘Is he insane? Does he know what the temperature will become in here?’
The first thought that came to mind was to leave stairwell A.
However, she knew that she couldn’t; Vorn wouldn’t ask her to do something meaningless.
A barrier on the stairwell that leads to the 51st floor.
Why?
‘Two reasons…’
First: containment.
Keep the fire, heat, and smoke concentrated long enough to damage the level two undead, and anchor them in until they weaken.
Second: the unknown pull.
Mana current around Floor 40. Unverified threat.
Do not provoke it. Do not let anything spill downward toward it.
He didn’t say it out loud… but the intent was obvious.
Seal every exit to Floor 52. Keep Staircase A as the throat.
Burn the guards.
Lilith’s face hardened.
As she lifted her hand.
Two hours after the worst of the fire died down.
I sat on a step in Staircase B, back against the wall, listening to the last roars that echoed through the concrete.
The air here was… barely breathable. Smoke had thinned, but the heat still lived in the walls.
I tried to leave once.
I cracked the door toward the corridor.
Toward Staircase A, and a wave of heat rolled over me so hard that it felt like my skin would melt off.
And stumbled back into Staircase B.
Therefore, I’m not “moving.” I’m marinating.
Going down was worse.
Because of what might be on the stairs.
If I met a single level one Zombie in a bad mood, I’d be a snack before my brain could finish screaming.
So I sat.
And listened.
Between the alternating waves of guilt and panic, I hoped Lilith wouldn’t die a horrible death.
I didn’t plan a massacre. I planned a flood.
I planned water.
I’m a genius by accident. The End Games should give me an award called “Survived Despite Himself.”
The System, of course, didn’t care about my emotional development.
[[System notice]]
You have eliminated 861 life forms. You have been rewarded with 86.1 shop points.
[[System notice]]
Due to your influence, 312 life forms have been eliminated. You have been rewarded with 31.2 system points.
So every roasted corpse is worth 0.1.
Amazing.
Keep rewarding me, I’m weak and in need of money.
The roar in the building finally softened into something closer to a tired hiss.
I leaned my head back against the concrete and closed my eyes.
Heat pressed in from every direction, but here, behind this door, in this stairwell, there is a safe place.
Then—
Footsteps.
My eyes opened.
My entire body went cold.
My hand went to the closest thing resembling a weapon: a broken metal pipe I had taken from debris earlier. It was pathetic. It would not save me. But it gave my hands something to do besides shaking.
I held my breath and listened.
Step.
Step.
Closer.
I tried to stand, but my legs went weak.
The footsteps stopped right in front of the door.
I immediately felt cold, wait, cold, it’s really cold.
For a half-second, my brain simply… gave up.
The door opened.
And more cold air spilled in.
Smoke curled away from it as if afraid of its presence.
Lilith stepped through the doorway, calm as ever, with a blue box hovering beside her.
A faint chill clung to her presence, pushing the heat back in a thin, invisible boundary.
Her eyes found me, pinned me.
And I almost blurted out ‘I totally planned this.’