Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Red Storm
The barrier shattered.
Rose’s eyes rolled back, the green glow extinguishing like a snuffed candle, and she went limp. Lucian caught her before she hit the ground, slinging her across his back as the tornado collapsed inward on itself — no longer contained, the wind exploded outward in every direction, sending debris flying.
Lucian didn’t stop moving. He cut through the dissipating wind with Light Steps, blade flashing, dropping the last three zombie spiders that had been pressing against Rose’s failing barrier. Black blood covered him — his own mixing with theirs — but he barely felt the wounds.
A shriek split the air behind him.
Victor Renault stood in the clearing, arms raised, mouth open in a sound that was half laugh, half scream. The tornado was reforming around him — smaller now, concentrated, a spinning vortex of wind that hummed with B-rank mana.
Dean jumped Victor with a punch from behind but was blocked by a wind barrier. The shield crackled but held — layered air currents compressed into a defensive shell, each layer absorbing and redirecting the kinetic force.
Dean didn’t stop. He pulled back and hit it again. And again. And again.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Each impact sent shockwaves rippling through the clearing. The wind barrier shuddered, layers peeling away one by one. Dean’s knuckles split, blood seeping through the skin — the density of his fists was so high now that his own body was struggling to contain it.
"JUST DIE!" Dean roared, and threw everything into one final punch.
The wind barrier shattered.
His fist connected with Victor’s shoulder. The impact was catastrophic — bone cracked, flesh tore, and the evolved zombie was launched sideways through three trees, each one exploding on impact.
Victor hit the ground and started to rise.
Clara was already there.
"Ice Lance!"
A dozen frozen projectiles launched from her palms, each one needle-sharp and glowing with A-rank mana. Victor raised his remaining good arm, and a gust of wind deflected most of them — but three punched through, embedding themselves in his chest and thigh.
Victor snarled.
Zombie wolves and lizards poured from the trees — a dozen of them, coordinated by the Hive Mind, rushing Dean and Clara from every angle.
Schlick. Schlick. Schlick. Schlick.
Dean grabbed the first wolf by the jaw and crushed its skull with increased density. Clara impaled two lizards on a single ice lance and flung them into a third. They moved with brutal efficiency, never stopping, never giving Victor time to recover.
It was then that Lucian broke through the treeline.
Rose was unconscious on his back, her breathing shallow but steady. Lucian himself was a mess — shirt torn, skin laced with cuts, covered in blood that wasn’t his own. Behind him, the ground was littered with the corpses of the beasts that had been inside the tornado.
"Lucian!" Ryan ran toward them.
Lucian slid Rose off his back and into Ryan’s arms. "Take care of her. Keep her safe."
"But—"
"Now, Ryan."
Ryan swallowed, nodded, and carried Rose toward a rocky outcrop at the clearing’s edge.
Lucian turned to face Victor.
The evolved zombie had pulled the ice lances from its body, grey flesh already knitting around the wounds. Its green-tinted eyes locked onto the trio with burning hatred.
"Light Bolt!"
A concentrated beam of light pierced the air toward Victor’s head. The zombie leaned sideways — wind carrying it out of the beam’s path with serpentine grace — and the bolt scorched a black line across the ground behind it.
Lucian was already moving.
Light Steps.
He appeared at Victor’s left. Light Blade formed. Slash. Victor dodged. Light Steps. Right side. Slash. Dodge. Light Steps. Above. Downward strike. Wind deflection.
They danced — Lucian’s silver hair and crimson eyes a blur of motion, Victor’s body flowing around each attack like smoke. The zombie’s Wind Control wasn’t just offensive; it enhanced its evasion to near-perfect levels, carrying its body out of harm’s way before Lucian’s blade could connect.
Annoying, Lucian murmured.
Lucian feinted left, activated Light Steps, and appeared directly in front of Victor. No blade this time — just a fist, hardened with blood, enhanced by vampiric strength, amplified by the Zombie Slayer title’s damage bonus.
BOOM.
The punch connected with Victor’s stomach.
The zombie’s eyes went wide — shocked — and it was launched backward, feet tearing furrows in the ground, wind scattering in every direction. It crashed through a boulder and lay still for a moment.
Core Realm damage output. The title is no joke.
"I’m so glad you’re okay!" Clara shouted from across the clearing, ice already forming around her feet.
"Frost Domain!"
The temperature plummeted. Ice exploded outward in a fifty-meter radius — a frozen hellscape that covered the ground, climbed the trees, and encased every F-rank beast in the area in solid ice. Clara placed one hand on Dean’s shoulder and one on Lucian’s, and a pulse of warm mana excluded them from the freezing effect.
Zombie beasts emerged from the forest edge. More wolves. More spiders. Two E-rank boars.
"Lucian." Dean’s voice was calm despite the blood streaming down his arms. "We end this now."
Lucian drew the Sword of Aikis from shadow storage. The starsteel blade hummed in his grip, reflecting the frozen light of Clara’s domain.
"Agreed."
They moved as one.
Dean charged from the left, his density-increased body plowing through the frozen beasts like a freight train. Clara attacked from the right, ice lances and frozen blades cutting down anything that got close. Lucian went straight down the middle — Sword of Aikis singing through the air, Light Bolt firing from his off hand, each attack precise and lethal.
Victor met them.
Wind screamed around the zombie, forming blades of compressed air that sliced through the ice domain. It was wounded — Lucian’s punch had cracked its ribs, and the regeneration was slower now, sluggish — but it still fought with the ferocity of a cornered animal.
"YOU... CANNOT... KILL... ME!" Victor shrieked, throwing both hands forward. "I AM... THE NEXT... STAGE—"
Dean took the wind blast head-on. His body had become so dense that the air currents simply parted around him, and he closed the distance in three strides. His fist connected with Victor’s jaw.
CRACK.
Victor’s head snapped sideways. Before it could recover, Clara’s ice encased its feet — solid, dense, A-rank frost that locked it in place.
"NOW!" Clara screamed.
Lucian moved with the Sword of Aikis dragging behind him, carving a line in the frozen ground.
Victor’s eyes found him. Green tint fading to pure terror.
"No... NO—"
Lucian raised his free hand.
"Scarlet Threads."
Dozens of crimson threads erupted from his palm. Cables like, thick as rope, hard as steel, and they wrapped around Victor’s body with crushing force.
Arms. Legs. Torso. Neck. Every limb bound, every joint locked.
Victor strained against the threads. Wind howled around him, trying to cut them, but blood manipulation was S-rank and wind control was only B. The threads held.
Lucian stopped in front of the trapped zombie and looked into its eyes.
"Unlike you," he said quietly with smirk, "I don’t need to evolve to be the next stage to be strong."
He clenched his fist.
The threads constricted.
Victor’s body compressed — squeezed, like a fist closing around a balloon. Blood — dead, black, corrupted — seeped from every pore, every orifice, every crack in the zombie’s flesh. The threads drank it in, absorbed it, and squeezed harder.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHH—!"
Lucian raised the Sword of Aikis.
"Light Blade."
The starsteel blade ignited with white fire, layering energy over metal, amplifying the cutting power by thirty percent.
He swung.
Schlick.
Victor Renault’s head separated from his body.
The threads loosened. The corpse dropped as the wind died.
And across the forest — across the city — every zombie stopped moving.
The Hive Mind was dead.
Silence.
Lucian stood over the corpse, breathing hard, blood dripping from his nose, his ears, his fingertips. The Sword of Aikis hung loose in his grip, its light fading.
Dean sank to one knee, both fists split open and bleeding freely. Clara leaned against a frozen tree, her face pale, frost still clinging to her eyelashes.
Ryan emerged from behind the outcrop with Rose in his arms. She was still unconscious but breathing steadily.
The system erupted.
╔═══════════════════╗
║ ⚔ COMBAT NOTIFICATION ⚔ ║
║ EVOLVED ZOMBIE SLAIN: ║
║ ◀ VICTOR RENAUULT ▶ ║
║ Late Core Realm | Stage 2 Sentient ║
║ Reward: +5,000 EXP ║
║ ———————————————— ║
║ Hive Mind Collapse: ║
║ All connected zombies within 5km radius have been neutralized. ║
║ Zombie Beasts Slain: ║
║ • F-Rank Beasts: 47 (+470 EXP) ║
║ • E-Rank Beasts (Early): 8 (+800) ║
║ • E-Rank Beasts (Mid): 2 (+400) ║
║ TOTAL EXP GAINED: +6,670 ║
╚═════════════════════╝
╔═════════════════╗
║ ★ SYSTEM LEVEL UP! ★ ║
║ Level 7 → Level 8 ║
╚═════════════════╝
║ NEW EXP METER: 6,650 / 20,000 ║
║ LEVEL 8 REWARDS: ║
║ ├─ System Credits: +5,000 ║
║ ├─ Bloodline Seal: -2% ║
║ │ (91% → 89%) ║
║ └─ ◀ MIND PALACE ▶ (Passive) ║
║ Host’s mental resistance to mind-control, illusion, and psychic attacks increased by 40%. Provides partial immunity to Pyshic-type abilities. ║
╚══════════════════════╝
╔══════════════════════╗
║ SYSTEM CREDITS: 6,200 SC ║
╚══════════════════════╝
Lucian stared at the notifications blankly.
Mind Palace. Partial immunity to Pyshic type abilities. A bit late for that, system.
His legs gave out.
He sat down hard on the frozen ground, the Sword of Aikis clattering beside him, and looked at his hands. They were shaking. Not from fear — from exhaustion. His BE counter pulsed weakly in the corner of his vision.
╔══════════════════╗
║ BE: 12 / 100 ⚠ CRITICAL ║
║ HP: 34% ║
║ MP: 8% ║
╚═══════════════════╝
Twelve BE. If I get into another fight right now, the regeneration stops. I need blood.
"You look like shit," Dean said.
"Look who’s talking."
Dean actually laughed.
Clara limped over and sat down beside Lucian. Her hand found his — cold from the Frost Domain, trembling from mana exhaustion — and squeezed.
"That was fun," she said quietly.
"Which part?"
"All of it."
Ryan approached carefully, Rose still unconscious in his arms. "The zombies outside... they’ve all stopped moving. Just... standing there. Like puppets with cut strings."
"Hive Mind is dead," Lucian said. "Without Victor, they’re just mindless drones again."
"Can we get out of here?"
Lucian looked at the forest around them — the bones, the blood, the frozen corpses of beasts, the headless body of an evolved zombie that had nearly killed them all.
"Yeah," he said. "We can get out of here."
