Chapter 12: Nightfall and the Dead
The Black Port Key shimmered with unreadable code as Zayn Arif turned it over in his hand. There was no lock nearby, no door to fit it into. Just the abandoned port and the last lingering traces of AshenRook's presence.
Max leaned on a bent steel railing, eyes scanning the frozen ocean. "You feel it too, right?"
Zayn nodded.
The air had changed.
Not just the silence now—but pressure. As if something heavy was pushing into the environment. Like the map was being overwritten from underneath.
[System Alert: Nightfall Event Detected – Zone Conditions Changing]
[New Status: Sector\_5 – Infected State Active]
[Timer: 04:00 Until Hostile Spawn]
Zayn stiffened. "Hostile?"
Max's face paled. "We need to find shelter. *Now.*"
[New Event Triggered: Emergency Survival – Infection Protocol v3.1]
[Objective: Survive Until Dawn – Duration: 15 Minutes]
[Respawn Disabled – Support Loadouts Restricted]
[Environmental Shift: Simulated Virus Type – Unknown Behavior Set]
The sky above them dimmed unnaturally. What was once frozen twilight deepened into an opaque, dark red hue. The clouds turned like smoke, slow and dragging, as if someone had added thick oil to the light engine.
Zayn heard it before he saw it.
A moan.
Faint, garbled, and far too wet-sounding to be human.
He turned.
From the edge of the container field, something shuffled forward.
At first glance, it looked like a player model glitched mid-animation—body hunched, head tilted too far, joints slightly twisted. But then came the others.
More of them.
\[Infected Models Identified – Variant: Revenant.ZMP]
\[Behavior Profile: Aggressive – No Ranged Capacity – Packs of 4–12]
\[Tip: Aim for Core Node – Glowing Spot at Chest]
Max swore. "Of course it's the Revenants. Old test assets they buried after the Halloween events. They're not supposed to spawn anymore."
"Then why are they here?" Zayn asked, backing toward a nearby warehouse.
Max looked grim. "Because someone turned them back on."
They reached the warehouse just as the first pack arrived.
Zayn slammed the rusted door shut, jamming it with a piece of broken pipe. The interior was half-loaded—crates without textures, a ladder that led to nothing, a vending machine frozen with an old Season 7 promo skin still flickering.
[Environment Secured – Temporary Safe Zone Established]
[Incoming Wave Detected – 00:58]
Zayn ran to a window slit and looked out.
The infected had no gear. No HUDs. They moved in jerky, unpredictable lurches. Some had torn avatars, revealing flickering skeleton code beneath the skin. One still wore a half-intact guild emblem.
"This isn't just an event," Zayn muttered. "These were players."
Max didn't answer.
Instead, he handed Zayn a modified shotgun—a scavenged model built from broken loot tables.
"Limited shells. We'll have to time every shot."
The timer hit zero.
[Wave 1 Incoming – Survive the Assault]
[Enemies Remaining: 12]
The door shook violently.
Zayn braced himself, raising the shotgun.
The first Revenant broke through in a crash of code and fragments. Its face was blank, jaw unhinged far wider than any model should allow.
Zayn fired once—too high.
The head burst, but it kept moving.
Max shouted, "The chest! Aim center!"
The second shot landed true—right into the glowing core just under the collarbone.
The Revenant disintegrated into red particles.
The others poured in.
For several minutes, it was a blur of motion and noise. Groans and growls. Shells ejecting. Glass breaking. Zayn found himself moving on instinct, ducking under swinging arms, kicking crates to slow the horde.
[Wave 1 Cleared – Brief Recovery Window: 02:00]
Zayn slumped against a support beam, panting.
Max handed him a drink pouch. "Simulated stamina booster. Won't help your real body, but it'll keep you going in here."
Zayn took it without a word.
The second wave came faster.
And worse.
This time, one of the infected crawled along the ceiling. Another leapt a full six meters from outside into the upper rafters. They were evolving. Learning. Adapting to his playstyle.
[Wave 2 Initiated – Mutated Behavior Detected]
[Enemies Remaining: 16 – Sub-Type: Splitters and Climbers]
Zayn's shotgun ran dry by the eighth kill.
He switched to a pipe.
Max covered the right flank with a jury-rigged EMP grenade, which temporarily froze two of the Splitters in mid-pounce.
Zayn brought the pipe down hard on one's core—again and again, until it stopped twitching.
Blood. Or something like it. Smeared his screen.
[Wave 2 Cleared – Recovery Window: 01:00]
Zayn knelt over one of the defeated creatures.
Its model began dissolving, but for a moment, he saw the name tag.
[GUILD: AEON\_BLAZE] – \[Player: R1V3R]
Zayn whispered, "She was in the top 30 once. I saw her on the leaderboards."
Max looked over his shoulder. "Then she's been here longer than we thought."
The ground shook.
[Final Wave Approaching – Mutation Level 3: Alpha Revenant Present]
[Boss-Type Detected: "THE HOLLOW"]
[Survive for 300 Seconds – OR Eliminate the Threat]
The doors burst outward this time.
And the thing that entered… was wrong.
Tall. Slender. Wearing a long cloak made of glitched textures and failed rendering. Its face was a blank player mask—except it wept lines of glowing code. Its arms were too long. It floated instead of walked.
[THE HOLLOW]
[Health: 1000 HP – Regenerates Slowly – Core Weakness Shifts Position Every 30 Seconds]
Zayn raised his pipe.
Max stepped beside him with a broken flare gun.
Zayn whispered, "We fight together."
And they did.
Through the dark. Through the madness. Every hit they landed caused the Hollow to scream in a voice that sounded like a hundred logins failing at once.
They moved like they had always trained for this.
Not to win.
But to endure.
And when the timer hit zero, the Hollow let out one last echoing cry—
Then shattered.
[Event Complete – Infection Survived]
[Reward: Core Memory Spark x1 – Unknown Usage]
[Progress: 31%]
Zayn dropped the pipe.
The sun returned.
The infected were gone.
Only silence remained again.
But this time, it wasn't empty.
It was earned.