Chapter 28: The Crimson Tongue

The moment their boots hit the ground floor, Lothe and Seana exploded into motion.

A spear wrapped in dark violet Qi and a blade glowing with crimson energy cut into the horde like two shearing blades, carving a path through the sea of decay.

Purple and red arcs crossed continuously. Lothe drove the Inferno Dragon Spear forward, impaling a zombie’s forehead before sweeping the shaft sideways with raw momentum.

The impact crushed the skull of a adjacent wolf, sending three more shambling figures tumbling backward across the marble floor.

Seana was right beside him. Her Blood Moon Sword moved with surgical efficiency.

One moment her blade sheared through a wolf’s neck, and the next it pivoted, slicing cleanly through the windpipe of a lunging infected.

Blood painted the white tiles.

The arrival of the pair instantly broke the crushing pressure on the front line.

Students who had been on the verge of collapsing stood frozen, watching the two fight without a single inch of hesitation.

"They’re... pushing them back..." someone muttered in disbelief.

Behind the front line, Ruth tightened her sweaty grip on the pair of silver daggers she had unlocked minutes earlier.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, and every survival instinct urged her to retreat.

But as she looked at Seana’s steady, unyielding back, her breathing slowly evened out.

Senior Seana isn’t running... so why should I?

Taking a deep, ragged breath, Ruth stepped forward.

A lone, grey-skinned zombie stumbled toward her, its rotten fingers reaching out.

Fear threatened to freeze her limbs, but Seana’s words echoed in her mind: ’Feel the Qi. Guide it naturally’.

She willed the faint, warm energy inside her chest down into her wrists. The silver daggers moved almost on instinct.

She ducked beneath a clumsy claw strike, slashed her left blade across the zombie’s neck, and spun past its shoulder to plant the second dagger behind its ear.

The corpse collapsed into the mud.

Ruth stared at the body, her hands trembling as she looked down at the blood-stained steel. "I... I actually did it..."

Not far away, Melody gritted her teeth, nocking a yellow-feathered arrow onto her bowstring.

She had never held a real bow before; everything she knew came from archery videos she had watched before the world ended.

"Please..." She pulled the string back to her jaw, her fingers burning from the strain. "...don’t miss."

Thwip!

The arrow flew through the air with a sharp whistle.

Puchi!

The tip buried itself straight into a zombie’s eye socket, exiting out the back of its skull.

Melody blinked, a breathless, tear-stained laugh escaping her lips. "It hit..."

Seeing the younger girls succeed, the other survivors who had received system items found their courage.

They stepped into the line despite their shaking legs, holding their shields and blades up to form a defensive wall, supporting one another as they gradually reclaimed the hall.

Hope, fragile and bloody, was returning.

Nyren paused for a fraction of a second, watching Seana weave through the swarm.

Every strike was precise, every sidestep calculated. Not a single movement was wasted.

"...She’s terrifyingly good," Nyren whispered.

Oren couldn’t take his eyes off her either.

The sword skills he had glimpsed yesterday had impressed him, but what she was displaying now was on a completely different level.

To the left, Adrian forced a wolf back with a burst of compressed air before glancing at Lothe.

Lothe’s spear was a dark, lethal storm. Every thrust opened a skull; every sweep cleared a three-meter arc.

Without declaring himself a leader, Lothe had unknowingly become the spearhead of the entire counter-attack.

Professor Sy watched in silence while guarding Lucan’s flank, a faint, proud smile touching his weathered face. "So this... is what natural combat talent looks like."

Lucan didn’t respond. His circular steel chakram spun around his forearm before spinning outward, decapitating two zombies in a single arc before returning to his palm.

The longer he fought, the more smoothly the Qi circulated through his meridians.

Slowly, the battle tilted in humanity’s favor.

Bodies piled up across the library lobby as infected and wolves fell under the combined defense.

For the first time since the assault began, a clear path opened toward the shattered main entrance.

Lothe drove his spear through another infected skull, pulling the blade free with a quick twist.

[You have slain a Level 2, Tier 3 Zombie.]

[You have absorbed it’s Qi.]

Notifications stacked up in his mind, but Lothe ignored them. Counting experience meant nothing while surrounded by teeth.

His [Spatial Perception] expanded outward, monitoring every movement, vector, and strike within range.

Every zombie... every wolf... every student’s position... everything entered his mental grid.

Then—

His pupils contracted.

Something was moving through the horde.

Fast. Far faster than any ordinary infected.

Without warning, a pale, emaciated figure burst from the center of the crowd, weaving between the shambling corpses with unnatural, liquid agility.

Its skin was stark white, stretched tightly over prominent bones, and its veins pulsed with black sludge.

Its crimson eyes locked onto Lothe.

And it grinned.

The smile vanished as fast as it appeared. The pale zombie shot across the floor like a white streak, moving with deliberate, calculated steps. Unlike the mindless infected, it didn’t stumble or howl.

This one’s different, Lothe thought, his grip tightening on his spear shaft.

The creature suddenly dropped low, disappearing behind the body of a massive mutated wolf.

A split second later—

Splat!

A thick, blood-red tongue shot out from behind the wolf’s carcass like a flexible spear, stretching six meters through the air straight for Lothe’s throat.

Lothe’s [Spatial Perception] reacted before his eyes could process the trajectory.

He jerked his head to the left. The grotesque, barbed tongue grazed his shoulder blade, missing his neck by an inch, and punched clean through a massive oak bookshelf behind him.

Heavy textbooks exploded into shreds of paper as the muscle recoiled backward into the creature’s jaw.

The surrounding students froze in horror.

"What... what the hell was that?!"

"Is that a tongue?!"

Professor Sy’s expression turned dead serious. "A specialized mutation..."

The pale zombie slowly stepped over the wolf’s carcass. Its white skin vibrated, and its clear, crimson eyes stared at Lothe with a cold, terrifying intelligence.

Its long, wet tongue slid across the blood-soaked tiles like a serpent before retracting back into its mouth.

The chaotic library suddenly went dead silent.