The blue-orange flames still devoured the Hive's remains, filling the B3 lab with the sickening stench of scorched tissue and chemicals. The only sound left in the tomb was the soft crackle of fire chewing through colossal meat.
Shi-hun stood at the titanium vault door, arms trembling from accumulated exhaustion—K9 pack, chimera swarm, every last round emptied into the boss core. Yu-jin's unconscious body draped over his left shoulder like an iron weight that made every muscle scream in protest.
He was about to step across the threshold and leave this hell behind.
Then the world froze.
Not fatigue. A low-frequency pulse rolled through his skull—deep, resonant, like a colossal bronze bell struck inside an empty cathedral.
Golden light exploded across his retinal display, brighter than any blue notification before. He squinted behind the gas mask. Ice crawled down his spine, then flipped into liquid warmth flooding every cell.
[Supreme System Alert: Host has fulfilled all hidden criteria.]
[Criterion 1: Catastrophic Boss (Ground Zero Hive) eliminated.]
[Criterion 2: Lifespan exceeds 300 days (current: 329 days).]
[Initiating core system upgrade… 10%… 45%… 89%… 100%.]
The percentages raced upward while a strange lightness replaced the pain.
[Congratulations, Host. You have officially entered Level 3.]
[Main Feature Unlocked: System Shop]
[Support Feature Unlocked: Matter Disassembly]
[Physical Enhancement Feature Unlocked: Personal Stat System]
[Special Reward for Level-Up & Ground Zero Clear: +5 Free Stat Points]
Shi-hun stood motionless as data flooded his mind like a direct hard-drive download. His brain processed it faster than any human ever could.
He opened the Personal Stat System immediately—the table that exposed every physical limit that had nearly killed him before.
[Current Host Stats]
STR (Strength): 11 (adult human baseline: 10)
SPD (Speed/Reaction): 12
INT (Intelligence/Processing): 15
PSI (Mental Stability/System Control): 12
Shi-hun analyzed the numbers with cold precision. Every time a K9 slammed him, every time a chimera pinned him down—purely because his STR and SPD were still ordinary meat. In a world of monsters, a pistol and a brain were no longer enough. He needed a body that could match them.
Five free points. He allocated without hesitation, following the cold arithmetic of survival.
"System. Add STR +2, SPD +2, PSI +1."
[Allocation confirmed. Cellular restructuring commencing.]
The warmth inside him turned into white-hot fire. Shi-hun dropped to one knee, teeth grinding until his jaw nearly cracked. Every muscle fiber tore and rewove itself denser than steel cable. Bones popped and creaked as if being coated in titanium.
The PSI increase felt like cold wind sweeping through his brain. Phantom pain from every clone death vanished. Sight, hearing, spatial awareness sharpened as if the smoke had been ripped away.
When the heat faded, Shi-hun rose. He clenched and opened his fist. The power packed into his forearm was immense. Yu-jin's body on his shoulder now felt like a feather.
Beneath the gas mask, his lips twitched into a thin, bone-chilling smile. The taste of breaking the human limit. The taste of absolute power over life and death. It was sweet.
He was beginning to crave it. To crave the profit harvested from weaker things.
And the rest of Level 3 shattered physics itself.
In Level 2 he had needed a physical template in hand or line of sight. If he dropped the Glock mid-fight, he could not duplicate another. Level 2 chained him to the laws of matter and weight.
But Level 3's Matter Disassembly let him absorb and erase any real-world item, converting it into a permanent "digital blueprint" stored inside the System Shop.
Once an item lived in the shop, he could summon it from thin air—anytime, anywhere—without ever carrying the original again.
To test it, he pulled the glowing Pandora Catalyst Serum from his pack.
The titanium-cased syringe pulsed blue in his palm. Unique-tier. Priceless. If he kept it physical, it could break, be stolen, be lost.
Disassemble, he commanded, feeling no attachment.
[Confirm disassembly of Pandora Catalyst Serum (Unique tier)? Warning: Physical item will be completely destroyed to create digital blueprint.]
"Confirm."
The syringe shattered into millions of blue-and-gold data pixels, swirling up through his fingers and vanishing into nothing.
The System Shop window opened instantly.
[Catalog updated]
[Category: Ultimate Evolution Items]
— Pandora Catalyst Serum [Price: 200 days / 1 syringe]
Shi-hun smiled with quiet satisfaction. The price was monstrous—fitting for a boss drop. Buying one would cost him half his lifespan. But the important part was simple: it was now safe inside the system. No one could take it. And if he farmed enough days later, he could summon as many as he wanted.
He glanced toward the stairwell leading to the surface… then stopped.
He was not leaving yet.
He turned back into the ruined bio-lab. To anyone else, this place was hell. To the owner of the System Shop… this was the richest mine on earth.
***
Shi-hun stepped back into the inferno.
Heat warped the air. The stench of charred chimera and Hive meat hung thick. But the new STR and SPD, plus the mask, let his body endure it like a pleasant breeze.
He moved fast and methodical, eyes no longer those of a survivor but of an appraiser. He went straight to the dented medical supply cabinet.
One hand—now far stronger—ripped the ruined hinges off like paper. Inside: sealed foil packs of Ciprofloxacin antibiotics.
He touched the box. Disassemble.
The entire carton dissolved into blue pixels and vanished.
[Catalog updated: High-Potency Ciprofloxacin (Price: 0.5 days / pack)]
Lower drawer: shockproof metal case with two EpiPens. Disassemble.
[Catalog updated: Emergency Adrenaline Auto-Injector (Price: 2 days / unit)]
He swept onward like a digital reaper. Hazmat suits—disassemble. 99% ethanol bottles—disassemble. Blood plasma bags, saline, surgical scalpels, ammonium nitrate precursors, combat tourniquets, hemostatic gauze—everything disappeared into blue light the moment his fingers brushed it.
Twenty minutes later the lab was stripped bare. His backpack remained almost empty—only the Project Pandora file, a water bottle, and a little bread. Everything else now lived inside his mind, ready to be summoned for the price of days.
When nothing valuable remained, he turned around, lifted Yu-jin's body with effortless new strength, and started up the spiral stairs.
"Time to leave the grave," he muttered.
***
Even with STR 13—thirty percent above human peak—carrying her weight up from B3 still drew cold sweat down his temples.
Thankfully the lockdown had been isolated to B1 downward. Past the first-floor fire door, the freezing blood-stink gave way to humid outside air thick with smoke.
Shi-hun kicked open the shattered glass entrance doors. The first daylight they saw was not golden hope. It was a sickly gray-orange filtered through choking black smoke.
Seoul had become hell on earth.
Skyscrapers and luxury condos lay half-collapsed. Columns of black smoke rose from dozens of fires, turning midday into twilight. Ash fell like endless black snow, coating wrecked cars and bodies strewn across the streets.
Silence. A silence so loud it squeezed the heart. No sirens. No horns. No voices. Only his boots crunching ash.
Shi-hun scanned for threats. Standing in the open was suicide. He needed cover while Yu-jin recovered.
He tightened his grip and moved carefully through the maze of wrecked vehicles toward a small single-story commercial building just outside the university fence. The neon sign above read "Hanyang Veterinary Clinic." Front glass shattered, but the walls still looked solid.
He laid Yu-jin on the back seat of an abandoned sedan outside the shop, drew the Glock, and stepped over broken glass to clear the interior.
Dim. Empty animal cages. Blood trails leading into the examination room. He kicked the inner door open.
Grrrr…
A former veterinarian zombie in a blood-soaked lab coat spun toward him. Half its face gnawed to the jawbone. It snarled and lunged.
Shi-hun stayed calm. No need to waste 9mm.
This was the perfect test of Level 3 coordination and new SPD 14. He opened the shop window for a split second and selected Surgical Scalpel.
[Purchase confirmed: Surgical Scalpel. Lifespan deducted: 0.1 days]
The moment the zombie reached him, the razor-sharp scalpel materialized in his right hand from thin air.
With superhuman reaction, Shi-hun sidestepped the slow claw, sliced the blade across the creature's throat, severing windpipe and spinal cord in one clean motion.
Black blood jetted across his hand. The body collapsed without a sound.
[Kill confirmed. +1 day. Current lifespan: 330 days]
Watching the light die in its eyes, Shi-hun paused. The feeling of the blade parting flesh, the simple act of taking life… it no longer disgusted him. It sent a strange, warm thrill through his chest.
Beneath the mask, the corner of his mouth curved into a thin, twisted smile.
"Pay 0.1 days… harvest 1 full day back," he whispered, voice soft with growing pleasure. "Best investment I've ever made."
The seed of sadism had begun to take root.
He cleared the back rooms, dragged a heavy medicine cabinet across the broken front door to barricade it, then carried Yu-jin inside and laid her on the stainless-steel exam table. He leaned against the wall, slid down to the floor, and forced his eyes to stay open.
In this world, the man who slept without a guard was already dead.
***
Three hours passed. Outside, the sky had turned the color of dried blood.
Yu-jin still slept.
Shi-hun crouched by the window, peering through a two-inch gap past the medicine cabinet.
He did not see them first. He heard them.
A diesel engine growled through the silence—not a normal car, but the deep, unmuffled roar of a heavy truck.
A six-wheeled armored black truck rolled out of the smoke and stopped at the corner, fifty meters away. It looked like a steel demon—front grille welded with spikes and steel plates, windows grated, and a mounted heavy machine gun on the flatbed.
But it was not the truck that narrowed Shi-hun's eyes.
Five men jumped down. Not soldiers—patched armor, full-face helmets, gas masks. Every one of them carried shotguns, pistols, and machetes.
They were not zombies. They were human. Scavengers. Survivors who had shed morality and become their own law—looters and hunters in a world without rules.
"Strip every fucking building on this block!" the tattooed giant who seemed to be the leader bellowed. "Food, meds, valuables—everything! If you find dumb zombies, blow their heads off. If you find living people hiding… take everything they have. If they resist, load the women on the truck. Men… slit their throats and leave them for the crows."
His crew laughed. A bald man dragged a bound, bleeding teenage boy off the truck, slammed him to the pavement, and kicked his ribs until the kid screamed. The boy spat blood, his swollen eyes looking toward the dark clinic with pure despair, pitying whoever was hiding inside.
"Hey boss! Look—veterinary clinic. Might have painkillers or bandages we can loot." One with a shotgun pointed the barrel straight at the clinic where Shi-hun hid. "Front glass smashed, but something's blocking the door… bet there's rats hiding inside."
"Then drag them out," the leader ordered.
Three men clicked off safeties. Weapons rose. The sound of heavy boots grinding against broken glass echoed loudly in the dead silence of the street, each step a countdown to the slaughter.
Shi-hun pulled back from the gap, retreating into the dark examination room. His mind was ice. No fear—only cold calculation. He was not prey. He was the hunter watching fresh meat walk into his trap.
The virus made strong monsters. But humans who abandoned decency… were the weakest beasts of all when they met something higher on the food chain.
He glanced at unconscious Yu-jin. If they broke in, a straight gunfight against shotguns and a heavy machine gun would be a losing trade.
He needed an edge. And the System Shop gave him infinite edges.
No need to search for bottles or rags. He simply closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, opened the shop catalog, and selected what he had already disassembled earlier.
Digital fingers moved: 99% ethanol, medical gauze, Zippo lighter.
[Purchase Molotov Cocktail Set? Total cost: 2.5 days]
Shi-hun's smile widened in the dark—feral, crooked, wrong. His black eyes gleamed with vicious delight as he pictured the screams and burning skin waiting outside.
In a world where law had become ash… the one who moved faster, thought ahead, and was more ruthless… was the only winner.
"Confirm."
Blue light flashed. A glass bottle of flammable liquid, gauze, and lighter appeared instantly in his hands. The sudden weight of the cold glass in his palm and the sharp, toxic sting of ethanol biting his nose made his twisted smile widen.
He stuffed the gauze into the neck, let it soak, thumbed the Zippo open with a soft click. The tiny flame danced across his twisted grin.
He slipped into the blind corner behind the medicine cabinet…
ready to give his visitors a warm welcome from hell.