The night held still.
Ash drifted through the smoke, the moon hidden behind veils of black. The horde froze mid-step—as if some primal instinct warned them that death had already arrived. Even the survivors in the wrecked transport held their breath.
Then, he moved.
A long, storm-dark coat lashed the air as the stranger stepped from the haze. His red eyes burned in the smoke, steady, unblinking.
The two Staccato P pistols gleaming in his grip, silencers whispering as their pointers painted thin crimson lines across ruined concrete. Twin short swords rode his back, their hilts glinting each time firelight struck.
No words. No warning.
A Rank-two lunged, claws wide.
Thwip.
Its skull ruptured before its arm even reached full swing. The corpse toppled as a puppet with its strings cut.
Another zombie darted forward. Thwip. The body collapsed mid-stride, a neat hole drilled through its skull.
He advanced, steps soundless, coat sweeping like a shadow. The pistols fired in rhythm—silent flashes, red eyes tracking with inhuman precision. Each shot landed between the eyes, no hesitation, no waste.
But it wasn't the accuracy that froze the squad's breath—it was the speed. His arms moved like echoes, faster than sight, as though the bullets were an extension of thought, not flesh.
The silence broke.
The horde roared and rushed, driven by hunger and fear.
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
Skulls burst in quick succession, faster than the team could blink. Bodies piled, gore spraying in arcs across rubble. The man barely shifted his weight, yet every movement killed. His coat snapped once, twice—each time accompanied by another three corpses falling lifeless at his feet.
Kara's staff quivered in her hands, her lips parting soundlessly. No human moves like that. Even her mana senses, sharp and attuned, struggled to follow the blur of his arms. She felt it in her bones—whatever he was, he wasn't mortal.
Ethan's shield sagged under his arm. His mind reeled, breath ragged. Too fast… too exact. He'd fought monsters, seen men break themselves into legends on the battlefield. This wasn't that. This was something colder. The bullets didn't just hit their marks—they found them as if guided, as if fate itself bent around his will.
Philip's sword hovered, sweat stinging his eyes. His instincts screamed to fight, but the stranger's presence pressed him down like a storm. Predator, he thought, chest tight. Not ally, not enemy. Predator.
The weary civilians, their eyes wide with a mixture of dread and disbelief, peered through the jagged openings of the damaged transport.
Silence enveloped them; the sound of their sobs momentarily halted as they strained to see beyond the swirling gray smoke. What met their gaze was neither a soldier nor a savior—a figure materialized amid the chaos, a harbinger of an uncertain future.
As the relentless tide of zombies collapsed in disorderly heaps, a profound transformation began to take place within the hearts of the onlookers.
Their fear, once palpable and suffocating, began to tremble and shift like wind through dry leaves, morphing into something unexpected yet potent—hope.
It was a flicker, fragile and terrifying, like a candle's flame in an impending storm, illuminating the darkness and suggesting that perhaps, just perhaps, salvation could emerge from the annihilation.
Thwip. A Rank-two exploded mid-leap, its skull shattering before it cleared the rubble. Thwip. Another collapsed, brain-painting stone. Thwip-thwip-thwip. Three more fell in the span of a heartbeat.
The horde faltered. Even the mindless hesitated, claws scraping concrete. They sensed it too—the unnatural.
Mary's voice crackled faintly in the comms, strained. "I don't know who he is, but I think it would be better to be vigilant and ready for anything." The words hung heavy.
Kara's blood ran cold. Ethan's grip whitened on his axe. Philip's gaze narrowed.
And he moved. Faster. Deadlier. As if the pistols were not weapons, but extensions of something buried deep in his soul.
The man paused only once. His red eyes swept the squad, then the civilians, then the field of corpses at his feet. The gaze was not human—it was measuring, weighing, deciding.
Then, without a word, he raised his pistols again.
The zombies shrieked and surged.
And the storm began anew.
...
Unlike the rest of the squad—who whispered questions of ally or enemy—their archer and support mage went still. No speculation. Only raw fear.
Eryn's breath caught in her throat, a sharp gasp that echoed her mounting fear. The sword in her grip quivered, reflecting the turmoil within her as she fixed her gaze on the figure slicing effortlessly through the relentless horde.
Each swing was a dance of deadly precision, but it was Jace who truly revealed the weight of the terror that hung heavy in the air. His complexion had drained to a ghastly shade of bone, a stark contrast to the chaos around him.
His lips barely moved, whispering silent prayers or perhaps cries of despair, as if the mere sight of the mysterious man wielding such power had utterly hollowed him out.
He looked less like a man watching a battlefield and more like someone staring into a nightmare made flesh. His gaze refused to break away, horror etching every line of his face.
When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse, laced with dread.
"How the hell… is he still alive?"