"Then we'll clear them," she said, her tone closer to a vow than a question.
Alone, she would have been swallowed in minutes. But with Ethan, Luke, and the monstrous Spawn at her side, she believed—no, she knew—they could butcher two hundred corpses and claim the road as their own.
Ethan studied her for a moment. The blood on his hands, the weight of exhaustion pressing on his shoulders, the haunting truth that no matter how many zombies they felled, humanity was still rotting away day by day. Yet… he nodded.
"Yes."
The fight was not over. The real war was only beginning.
---
After resting for more than two hours, Ethan's group once again set out toward Xing Ning Road. Their muscles still carried the faint ache of battle, but there was no time to linger. The city would not wait for them; the dead never waited.
The moment they stepped onto the wide stretch of Xing Ning Road, the air thickened with decay. The distant groans of wandering corpses echoed between shattered buildings, and the stench of dried blood still clung to the cracked pavement.
One after another, scattered zombies came stumbling into view. Their eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, jaws gnashing, arms twitching with hunger.
Ethan's gaze sharpened. "Keep formation. Spawn takes point."
Spawn surged forward like a demon unchained, its massive bone axe carving arcs of gore through the nearest corpses. Each strike painted the street crimson, limbs scattering like butcher scraps. The creature's monstrous figure drew the swarm in, absorbing their fury like a wall of death.
Luke, wielding his blade with steady precision, moved at Ethan's side. He was less reckless than Spawn but no less effective, his strikes honed through repetition and necessity.
And Grace… even covered in blood and dirt, she radiated a wild kind of beauty. Her long hair, tied loosely behind her head in a bun, was matted with sweat, her cheeks flushed from exertion. But her eyes blazed, sharp and unyielding, as she thrust her blade with elegance and deadly skill. A former fencing expert, every movement of hers was sharp, fluid, and exact, a grim reminder of the woman she once was before the world was swallowed by rot.
With the four of them combined, the scattered dead stood no chance. Zombies fell one by one, their bodies collapsing in heaps of gore. By the time the sun had begun to dip lower, Xing Ning Road had been scoured clean.
But the cost was heavy. They had slain more than two hundred zombies. Grace's shoulders rose and fell violently, her chest heaving as she pressed a hand to the wall for support. Sweat soaked through her clothes, her pale skin glistening beneath the grime. Luke's arms trembled slightly as he lowered his weapon, fatigue etched into every line of his face.
Ethan watched them both carefully. He could see the exhaustion in their posture, the faint tremor in their steps. Pushing them further would break them. Survival demanded strength, but it also demanded restraint.
"That's enough for today," he said firmly. "We're going back."
Neither of them argued.
---
Four days later, Ethan lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling when the apartment's lights flickered and died.
[Note: They are talking about the 4th day that he was healing, not 4 days after he just killed hundreds of zombies.]
At first, silence. Then the realization hit.
The power was gone.
For thirteen days since the world had fallen into madness, the grid had somehow endured—an invisible lifeline of technology holding back total collapse. Its faint hum had been a fragile comfort in the endless nightmare, proof that the world they once knew still existed in some small way.
But now, it was over.
The apartment plunged into suffocating darkness. No soft glow of lamps, no hum of refrigerators, no background noise of civilization. Only silence—thick, oppressive, and absolute.
The psychological weight was immediate. The girls trapped in their rooms clutched at each other, fear twisting their beautiful faces. To them, the dark was no longer peaceful; it was a prison, a coffin that reminded them of how vulnerable they had become. Grace pressed her lips together, her proud features shadowed, eyes flashing with something between defiance and despair. Even she, strong as she was, could not hide the unease that flickered across her elegant face in the pitch black.
The loss of power meant more than darkness. It meant spoiled food, failed water pumps, silent communication lines. It meant cities turning feral, survivors tearing each other apart over scraps. Civilization had not just cracked—it had shattered.
Ethan sat upright, his mind running at full speed. This changes everything.
The nights would be longer. The roads would become traps, even deadlier than before. The stench of rotting food would draw more undead. Survivors would grow desperate. And desperation was often deadlier than the zombies themselves.
The others felt it too—the suffocating sense that hope itself had been buried with the blackout. Yet within Ethan, a different fire burned. The world had stripped him of everything, but it had not stripped his will to survive. If anything, the loss of power only sharpened his resolve.
He would endure. He would adapt. He would not simply cling to life—he would carve a place in this ruined world with blood and steel.
---
Later that night, after a meager supper of preserved rations, Ethan sat alone on the sofa. In his hand was the prize from their battle—a skill book. Its faint glow pulsed like a heartbeat, a promise of power waiting to be unlocked.
He traced his fingers along its surface, his mind sharpening with possibilities. In a world sinking into deeper despair, this was no longer just a tool—it was hope, a weapon against the inevitable decay of mankind.
And Ethan would use it.
The darkness might have swallowed the world, but he was determined it would not swallow him.
[[Critical Strike – Level 1]
Type: Active
Effect:
Empowers the user's next physical attack with devastating force, causing it to deal double its base damage. This amplification excludes weapon modifiers, elemental effects, or other enhancements—relying purely on raw physical execution. Perfectly timed, it can turn even a modest strike into a lethal finishing blow.
Activation Cost:
7 Stamina Points
Sustain Cost:
None
Duration:
Applies only to the next single physical attack. If no attack is made, the effect is wasted.
Cooldown:
None — can be repeatedly activated as long as stamina reserves remain.
Compatibility:
Usable with any melee or ranged physical weapon, making it versatile across multiple combat styles.
Description:
One of the most fundamental offensive techniques, Critical Strike channels a fighter's entire willpower and body strength into a single, decisive blow. Though simple in design, its true mastery lies in timing—striking at the moment an enemy's guard falters or when a fatal opening is exposed. Many seasoned warriors owe their survival to this skill, having felled stronger opponents with one perfectly placed attack.]