Inside the residential block, Solis wiped gore from the edge of Black Sword Shusui after bisecting a lone zombie. He was about to relocate when a rolling string of explosions thundered across the city.
"!!"
He froze.
That came from the direction of the police station.
He rushed to a shattered window. A column of flame and debris clawed skyward over the Boston Police HQ district.
Military strike? was his first thought.
But he'd studied the World War Z mission before coming to the Tower. No army intervention within the 10‑hour window. And with global collapse, even the United States's regular forces were unlikely to mobilize cleanly.
If not military… then only one answer made sense.
A Samsara player did this.
No native would stand and bomb a zombie ocean. Only players with kill objectives—and respawn grace in other worlds—would risk something that loud.
Decision made, Solis set his jaw and sprinted toward the blast plume. With his D‑class stats, city traversal through undead streets was survivable—if he kept moving.
Police HQ C4 reserves spent, Fenric moved to Next Phase.
He dragged open the main doors.
"Roar! Roar!"
The clogged entrance vomited fresh undead, drawn by the earlier explosions and pounding EDM lure.
Fenric stood behind a mounted Vulcan rotary cannon (Gatling type), heavy battery leads clamped, ammo feed belted. He settled into the brace, sighted center mass into the incoming swarm—
—and squeezed.
Whirrrrr.
The six‑barrel cluster spun up, then spat fire.
DADA‑DADA‑DADA!
A bullet storm ripped across the lobby. Flesh shredded; limbs vaporized; torsos cored out. With fire rates clearing well over a thousand rounds per minute per barrel under sustained feed, the weapon painted a molten bullet arc—a fire dragon of tracers.
Where it swept, zombies liquefied.
You killed a zombie. Progress: 9,976 / 10.
9,977 / 10.
9,978 / 10.
…
28,213 / 10.
…
Five blistering minutes later, the feed drums and belts ran dry. Fenric had dumped tens of thousands of rounds—(it felt like he'd chewed through 30,000 rounds of stock)—but high rate meant plenty of over‑penetration and misses. Even so, the kill counter surged toward 30K.
He released the trigger. The Vulcan spun down whining; the barrels glowed red‑hot, heat shimmer rippling.
The doorway was now a corpse dam—layered meat, spent casings, and smoke stacked nearly to the lintel. The stink was indescribable.
He exhaled, stepped back, and let the weapon cool.
Ammo at HQ wasn't infinite. Time to rotate tactics.
Fenric slung a few rifles and headed upstairs. Midway he paused, ducked into a break room, dragged a Simmons mattress from a room, and heaved it out a window to the street below—future jump pad? impromptu lure? Always good to have options.
On the roof, rows of high‑explosive grenades waited where he'd staged them earlier.
Below, new waves of zombies flowed in, climbing over the corpse wall.
He pulled pins and started pitching grenades in measured arcs.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
HE grenades didn't match C4 or Gatling kill rates, but blast + shrapnel still carved bloody troughs through the densely packed dead.
Frankly, Fenric was already satisfied. The mission asked for 10 kills. He'd crossed 30,000. Even with diminishing returns, his evaluation after extraction should be outrageous.
He lobbed another string.
Boom!
—--
From distant rooftops and broken windows, multiple figures watched the spectacle—a lone Samsara player on a police roof coolly farming a city's worth of undead.
Among those watchers: a young man running with a black‑edged blade.