Chapter 7: Resolve
1282 Words
As night descended on this hellish land, blazing flames and lights illuminated half the city’s sky.
Screams and roars never ceased, but the city’s chaos starkly contrasted with the silence of the room.
A deathly stillness permeated the room. Everyone was silent. Campbell, still clutching his ever-present baseball bat, leaned back on a chair with his eyes closed, resting.
By the window, a lone cigarette ember glowed in the otherwise dark room.
Quinn, along with the night guards, remained awake. She lay on a makeshift bed formed by chairs, half-squinting as he stared unblinkingly at a dark corner of the room where Rita was.
The quiet corner had been silent throughout. In the deep darkness, nothing was discernible. Following Campbell’s precautions, the lights in the room were turned off. Even though ordinary zombies’ vision was entirely impaired, Quinn hadn’t objected.
It had only been a day since the apocalypse began. Quinn didn’t dare reveal how much she knew about zombies in front of Rita and Campbell.
In hindsight, she might have overthought things.
Listening to Lloyd’s snores nearby, Quinn was amused and impressed by his friend’s strong nerves.
Calming her thoughts, Quinn gently summoned his "Angel-Hunter System," causing a black collar to appear around her neck. This subtle change went unnoticed in the dark room. Without the surrounding halo this time, Quinn entered the strange space for the second time.
The floating space remained eerily unchanged. Among the boundless darkness, Quinn noticed a difference from last time: countless faint lights filled the darkness, making her feel like she was in the cosmic sky.
[The apocalypse officially begins.]
[Angel-Hunter Quinn gains one lottery draw opportunity.]
[The next mission will be released in '1h'.]
The sudden screen conveyed these three messages. Skipping the first two, Quinn’s eyes fixed on the last one——what was a mission?
[Mission system activated.]
[The system will release hunting missions based on the host's region, with varying time limits. Specific rewards will be given upon completion. Please strive to complete them.]
Though the synthetic voice remained emotionless, Quinn detected a hint of...respect?
Was it an illusion?
Dismissing the unrealistic thought, Quinn glanced at the mission time and then ignored it. He would only understand when the time came.
Next, he opened the lottery function. The familiar, festive wheel appeared, divided into six equal segments: Familiars, Items, Armor, Weapons, Skills, Bloodlines. Under Quinn’s direction, the wheel began to spin slowly.
Familiars, Items, Armor, Weapons, Skills, Bloodlines... the segments passed by one after another, slowing down with time until it stopped on ‘Items.’
“Items?”
Quinn pouted regretfully. Honestly, after getting the katana, she had been most looking forward to armor. In this apocalypse, any wound caused by zombies was deadly due to infection. Good armor meant another life.
[Items lottery confirmed.]
The wheel changed, now divided into twenty smaller segments: Blood Clotting Spray, RG88 Night Vision Goggles… and even a Yellow Crane Tower cigarette.
Items could be valuable, but luck played a major role. Winning in the items segment felt like gambling; good luck could yield unimaginable rewards, but bad luck could result in something as worthless as a bottle cap. The value disparity was huge.
"Okay, let's get started!"
The pointer spun again, circling the wheel repeatedly until it finally stopped.
Huh?
Seeing where the pointer landed, Quinn let out a soft exclamation. The next moment, an injector filled with an unknown green liquid and a paper resembling instructions appeared in her hand.
[Crystal-Core Composite Adrenaline Injector]
Adrenaline itself was a common drug, both before and after the apocalypse. What surprised Quinn was the prefix: Crystal-Core Composite.
Crystal cores, as the crystallized form of the virus and energy carriers, had been a major focus of human development and utilization since their discovery. The most common method was injecting first-tier viruses into normal human test subjects to evolve them into first-tier evolved humans.
This [Crystal-Core Composite Adrenaline] was essentially a short-term enhancement drug.
In her previous life, Quinn, as a liaison between J Province’s civilian hunters and the military, had learned some top secrets. If she remembered correctly, a similar drug was developed a year after the apocalypse but was soon replaced by [First-Level Enhancement Drug] due to limitations on the user’s physical strength, time constraints, and severe side effects.
[Description: Adrenaline injector infused with crystal cores, 20ml.
Effect: Enhances various physical attributes.
Duration formula: Muscle strength × Injection volume (ml)/s.
Significant side effects, use cautiously.]
So, with her current physical condition, would it only be effective for about three minutes? Superhuman?
Frowning, Quinn sighed. Better keep it——it might come in handy someday.
Storing the lottery rewards in her storage space, Quinn exited the "Angel-Hunter System" space. Though she knew time passed more slowly there, unexpected events could still happen.
Twenty minutes.
Checking her phone—3:42. In the outside world, twenty minutes had passed, confirming the time ratio between the strange space and the outside world was 1:2.
Hiding her collar, Quinn instinctively glanced at Rita’s corner. The dark corner was still quiet, but something felt off.
Suddenly realizing something, she quickly got up and turned on her phone’s flashlight. In the silent corner, there was only an empty chair——Rita was gone.
!!!
Campbell hadn’t noticed?!
Quickly shining the flashlight towards them, she saw Campbell slumped over his bat, and the other guard in a similar position, a lit cigarette ember still glowing on the floor.
Carefully approaching, she checked their breathing. Slow and rhythmic——both were merely asleep. It seemed Rita had used some method to make them sleep, indicating she didn’t intend to kill them.
From what Quinn had learned today from the "Angel-Hunter System" and Rita’s few words, she guessed that Rita stayed at the mall because she had a target to hunt there.
The still-burning embers indicated Rita hadn’t left long ago.
Quinn stomped out the ember, moved to the door, and carefully unlocked and opened it. A gust of foul, blood-scented wind hit her face. The employee corridor was brightly lit, but two corpses on the ground and the distant howls made her shiver.
The corpses’ clean wounds suggested Rita’s handiwork. Quinn couldn’t think of anyone else with such sharp weapons. The third-floor supermarket had kitchen knives, but the wounds differed greatly from those caused by proper killing tools.
The restless zombie horde never ceased, like perpetual motion machines defying the law of conservation of mass, meaning they were active 24h daily.
Cautiously exiting the corridor, Quinn dodged a few wandering zombies and hid behind a counter. Looking down through the glass window, she saw the first-floor hall.
The burning truck was now a heap of charcoal, with a few zombies wandering around, scattered remains, and dried blood everywhere. The first-level zombie she worried about was nowhere to be seen. The once bustling scene now like a hell.
The overturned vehicle still blocked the main entrance, trapping both zombies and humans inside this giant cage. The only way out seemed to be the hole made by the truck.
But from her angle, she couldn’t see the hole.
Not on the first floor?
After observing for a while, seeing no zombie disturbance, Quinn prepared to retreat to the counter corner. Suddenly, a howl and breaking glass came from above, and a bloody figure crashed down in front of her, landing with a heavy thud.
Upstairs!
Looking at the ceiling, she heard chaotic footsteps and frenzied zombie howls. Quinn estimated there were at least several hundred zombies above her.
Standing silently, Quinn returned to the employee rest area.
Whether to escape Rita’s pressure or protect Hana and Lloyd, they had to break out tomorrow!
- Writer
