Lucian, Abel, and Nora showed great teamwork fighting side by side.
It was especially smooth now that Nora was actively guiding them with her sharp, newly awakened senses.
"Lucian, duck!" Nora yelled.
Trusting her without a second thought, Lucian rolled across the dirt just as a barbed fox tail whipped through the empty air where his head had been a moment ago.
Slash!
Lucian drove his blade across the fox’s chest before stabbing it cleanly through the side, keeping pace with the rest of the squad.
Their front line was well protected thanks to the three heavy hitters leading the charge.
Lucian and the others in the rear only had to fight beasts that managed to slip past the head of Formation Six.
’Well, this is fine I guess,’ Lucian thought.
His relief, however, did not last long.
"Now only fifteen foxes remain, formation two!" Alexander yelled.
Hearing the order, both Lucian’s and Abel’s expressions instantly soured, while Nora shot them a teasing smirk from a few paces away.
Their compact double-arrow formation shifted outward. The group spread out from the flanks, stretching into what was almost a wide, flat line.
"I seriously hate him," Abel grumbled, adjusting his grip on his spear.
"Don’t spout nonsense," Lucian replied, shaking his head as a fresh wave of snarling foxes and thrashing tails charged their direction.
Alexander and the rest of the front line deliberately slowed their pace.
By falling back slightly, they turned the line into a shallow, horizontal V shape, forcing the cadets in the middle and rear into direct combat so they could fight to their hearts’ content.
"I wish Nora was here now," Abel muttered under his breath.
Because of the wide formation shift, she was now posted all the way on the opposite side of the line.
"Charge!" Alexander bellowed from the center.
’Why does this guy act like some commander?’ Lucian thought dryly, before pushing forward with the rest of the group.
Two foxes charged straight into his path.
Lucian dodged the first with a quick roll, then delivered a hard kick to the second beast’s jaw just as its claws scraped against his combat suit. The tough fabric held, leaving him unharmed.
’Let’s test that feeling once again.’
Stepping forward, Lucian grabbed the stunned fox by the nape of its neck and threw it violently into another beast, knocking them both to the ground in a tangled heap.
In one clean, heavy motion, he brought his sword down and cut through them both.
Once again, that mysterious, warm spark flickered deep inside his chest.
THUD!
"Agh!"
Lucian groaned as a heavy blow slammed into his back, throwing him forward onto his hands and knees.
Spinning around, he saw it was the fox he had dodged a moment earlier—one he had left for the people behind him, namely Alexander, to finish off.
Looking up, he caught Alexander’s cool, unbothered gaze.
’I will certainly take revenge one day.’
Lucian gave him a thoroughly nasty glare.
Not that he could actually do anything about it right now; Alexander was an S-rank prospect for a reason, backed by raw power and elite lineage.
’Well, soon enough...’ Lucian thought, pushing himself back to his feet.
"Alright, let’s move to score more points!" Alexander called out, looking down at the scattered fox corpses.
A collective groan rippled through the exhausted squad.
The guy was an overachiever through and through.
Half an hour later, the squad made it back to the hidden clearing.
"Are you sure you don’t want to rest?" Dimitri asked their pilot, crossing his arms as Lucian walked up to the aircraft.
"No, let’s move, I can handle it anyway," Lucian said, climbing up the steps and slipping into the cockpit.
Behind him, Abel was giving him a deeply strange look.
Midway through the final clean-up, Lucian had fought like an absolute madman, hunting down every lingering beast with such fierce enthusiasm that even Alexander had looked shocked, wondering if the stress had finally caused him to snap.
SWOOSH!
Ignoring their stares, Lucian powered up the VTOL thrusters and smoothly navigated the craft through the sky, charting the course back to the Academy base.
His mind was completely occupied by one burning realization.
’Killing monsters really generates karma.’
He reviewed everything he had felt during the drill. His ability was entirely different from normal awakenings.
Did only killing monsters generate karma? Or could it be earned through other methods?
For the entire fifty-kilometer return flight, he thought of nothing else.
They landed safely at the hangar bay, checked in their gear, and parted ways.
Lucian said a quick goodbye to the group and headed straight back to his dorm room, his thoughts still racing.
He had initially considered going to a cultivation world, but the terrifying memory of Mount Wudang’s destruction and the old Blood God made him hesitate.
What if something similar happened?
He had zero desire to get his vitality sucked dry again.
Besides, he still didn’t have full control over where he ended up.
’Wait, didn’t it, like, respond to my desire to go to that specific world?’ he wondered, pausing by his desk.
Before his first awakening, he had specifically been thinking about trending martial arts movies. If the mirror genuinely responded to his thoughts, his ability was practically an anywhere door.
Being naturally curious about science and fiction, his imagination began to wander.
"Can I travel to other timelines or maybe even past or present?" he muttered aloud.
If that was the case, getting rich and finding safe resources would become ridiculously easy.
After resting his aching muscles, Lucian grabbed a quick dinner and returned to his room. It was only six in the evening.
’Let’s sleep early,’ he told himself, though he knew six o’clock was laughably early for someone his age.
Driven by pure excitement, he tossed and turned under the sheets, unable to sleep for nearly an hour. Eventually, the exhaustion of the field drill caught up to him, and his mind drifted off into slumber.
A moment later, Lucian opened his eyes inside the familiar, boundless dark space.
Looking at the silver mirror floating before him, Lucian decided to satisfy his curiosity and test whether his ability could truly take him to other eras of his own world.
He focused his intent on Earth, picturing the past and present.
In response, mysterious silver symbols swirled across the glass, shifting until an image formed on the surface.
It was... Earth?
’!!!’
Lucian’s eyes widened in disbelief.
The globe reflected in the mirror looked sickly and decayed, wrapped in two massive, rust-covered iron chains that bound the continents together like a prisoner.
« Anchor Established. »
« Modern World – Earth, Zombie Apocalypse »
"What the hell?" Lucian gasped.
A Zombie Apocalypse Earth?
He had only wanted to test the waters, but somehow he had stumbled onto a ruined, nightmare version of his own home.
’Is this a parallel Earth or the future?’
Whatever it was, he couldn’t just walk away without looking into it.
Steeling his nerves, Lucian pressed his palm against the mirror.
The mirror rippled like liquid mercury, and in the next instant, Lucian vanished.
***
Lucian collapsed onto the fractured, overgrown pavement with a heavy impact.
He looked down at himself.
His combat suit was gone; he was now wearing ordinary, casual modern clothes—a worn jacket, dark jeans, and sneakers.
Straightening up, he found himself standing in front of a grand, Western-style stone building that looked like something out of the European renaissance.
Above the towering columns, weathered metallic lettering displayed Chinese characters, along with English translations below.
’Shanghai Gold Exchange?’
Though several characters were broken and missing, Lucian was able to piece the meaning together with ease.
His ability’s built-in translation was working perfectly, allowing him to read the text with ease.
’Was I directed here because of my hidden desire to get rich quick?’ he wondered.
The street was eerily silent. Lucian turned around to survey the wider area, and the sight made him freeze in his tracks.
Across a wide, dark river, massive skyscrapers loomed against the night sky, but almost every single one of them was half-destroyed.
Concrete towers had snapped in half, steel girders twisted like dry twigs, and blackened scorch marks scarred the skyline. Even the stone road beneath his feet was littered with deep craters and rusted vehicle chassis.
’Did a massive war happen here? But how does that tie into zombies?’
Deciding it was best to get out of the open, Lucian slipped inside the entrance of the Gold Exchange.
The interior was pitch black.
Not a single street lamp or interior bulb was working. Broken concrete and ceiling tiles covered the lobby floor.
Stepping cautiously to avoid crunching glass, his foot bumped against a loose steel pole roughly four feet long.
He picked it up, testing its weight. The solid metal gave him a small sense of security.
He spotted a circular reception counter near the lobby and moved behind it, looking for any clue about where—or when—he was.
A dust-covered desk calendar sat half-buried under scattered paperwork.
Lucian wiped the dust with his sleeve.
The printed year read: 2051.
’So, twenty-one years into the future.’
Currently, back on Earth, the year was 2030.
– Graa...
A faint, wet growl drifted from beneath the heavy wooden reception desk.
Lucian stopped moving. Gripping the steel pole with both hands, he edged around the counter to check behind a fallen partition.
Curled in the shadows was a woman bound to the base of the desk.
Her skin was a sickly, mottled white, her cheeks were sunken in, and dried, blackish blood was caked thick around her jaw. Her eyes were completely clouded and unfocused.
The moment Lucian leaned in, the creature snapped.
BAM!
She thrashed violently, slamming her rotting torso against the heavy desk and rattling the wood.
– GRAAA!
She unleashed a harsh, wet shriek. Almost instantly, low, answering groans echoed from deeper within the corridors.
– Graa... Graa...
They sounded weak and sluggish, but there were dozens of them.
Lucian didn’t hesitate. He drove the steel pole straight into the woman’s throat, twisting the metal hard to crush her vocal cords and sever her windpipe.
The harsh, wet shriek collapsed into a faint, suffocating gurgle.
Low, rhythmic scraping began to echo through the adjacent corridors.
Reacting instantly, Lucian darted toward a nearby quiet area free of sound.
He found himself inside an inner showroom lined with glass display cases that held gold bars and antique jewelry.
Then, the hair on Lucian’s arms stood up.
The temperature in the room was noticeably cold—and within seconds, it plummeted even further. Frost began creeping across the floor tiles, crackling as it spread.
’This is definitely not normal.’
Lucian backed away, and as he turned, the end of his steel pole accidentally grazed a standing glass pedestal.
CRACK!
The sound was abnormally sharp.
’Huh...? That’s not glass?’
Before he could pull back, the frost detonated.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The remaining cases blew apart. From the shadowed center of the room, a terrifying figure stepped into view.
It was the corpse of a woman, but unlike the weak zombie in the lobby, her skin was as pale as marble, marred only by thick, yellowish pus oozing around her left collarbone. Her entire lower left jaw was torn away, exposing blackened teeth, while wild, snowy-white hair framed two glowing crimson eyes.
– THIEF!
A furious, screeching voice sounded directly inside Lucian’s mind.
Spikes of jagged blue ice condensed out of thin air, launching toward his chest with terrifying speed.
"Fuck!"
Lucian threw himself sideways, hitting the floor as ice spikes impaled the drywall behind him, shattering like crystalline bullets.
He didn’t stick around to fight. He scrambled back to his feet and bolted through the doorway at maximum speed.
– KRRAAAAA!
The white-haired zombie released a deafening roar that shook the ceiling. Down the corridors, the sluggish growls suddenly turned into frantic, bloodthirsty snarls.
Lucian burst out of the shattered front entrance of the Gold Exchange and sprinted toward the riverbank.
Glancing over his shoulder, a wave of terror washed down his spine.
THUD! THUD!
Bodies were tumbling out from broken buildings nearby, hitting the pavement and scrambling up immediately. Behind him, a horde of zombies poured out of the Gold Exchange’s main doors, sprinting after him like an enraged mob.
’So the rest are ordinary infected... it’s just that one!’
That thought still did not bring comfort. He had no sword or armor.
– GRRAAAA!
The ordinary zombies were clumsy, but their sheer numbers were overwhelming.
Thankfully, Lucian’s academy conditioning gave him a clear advantage in raw running speed.
Looking back once more, he saw the white-haired mutant emerge onto the street, frost spreading across the ground around her like a creeping glacier.
She stopped at the edge of the building’s plaza, glaring at him with glowing red eyes but refusing to pursue past her territory.
Lucian didn’t stop to ask questions. He ran flat-out toward the wide river.
After ten minutes of frantic sprinting—which felt like an eternity—he reached the riverside, with nearly five hundred zombies giving chase.
Lucian took one deep, desperate breath, diving headfirst into the pitch-black river.
The water was shockingly cold, giving him goosebumps.
’How is that zombie still aware?’ Lucian thought, kicking his legs hard against the current.
’Aren’t zombies supposed to follow instincts, or do the awakened ones differ?’
Behind him, dozens of reckless zombies leaped blindly in the river, only to drown.
"Haa... haa..."
Lucian hauled himself onto the opposite bank, coughing up river water.
He had tossed the steel pole during the swim, so he didn’t have a weapon now.
Collapsing on the mud, he caught his breath and surveyed his new surroundings.
This side of the river was quieter.
A handful of isolated zombies stood wandering aimlessly among the trees, staring blankly at the empty sky.
Lucian caught his breath and pushed himself up. Scanning the ground, he found a heavy, fist-sized river rock and closed his fingers around it.
About thirty paces away, a single zombie dressed in a tattered business suit stood facing a shattered streetlamp, completely oblivious to his presence.
’Will this give me karma?’ Lucian wondered. He hadn’t killed the reception zombie back at the exchange.
Slipping silently across the damp grass, Lucian closed the distance.
THUD!
With a brutal swing, he brought the stone down hard against the back of the creature’s skull.
The suited zombie jerked violently, opening its mouth to screech. Lucian struck again, hammering the rock across its jaw with a sickening crack.
The creature collapsed against the trunk of a dead tree, its body going limp.
Panting, Lucian crouched down and quickly checked the corpse’s pockets. He found a cracked leather wallet and a dead smartphone.
Slipping the card from the wallet, he read the printed text:
[Wang Trading Company]
[Wang Li]
Twitch!
Suddenly, the cold fingers of the corpse twitched, giving him a slight fright.
’It’s not dead yet?’
Suppressing his repulsion, Lucian grabbed the head, planted his boot on the zombie’s shoulder, and wrenched it back until the spine snapped completely, finally severing the connection between head and neck.
"Uggghhh!"
A wave of intense nausea hit Lucian as the foul stench of rotten marrow and greenish pus burst out from the body.
He turned his head and vomited, coughing bitterly.
’So no karma?’ he frowned, feeling disappointed.
’I can’t make noise while moving around here,’ he warned himself, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
’And I have to avoid those awakened variants at all costs.’
Lucian stood up and scanned the ruined street. Since this place looked like a hub, he wanted to gather information about what had happened.
He could not keep speculating all the time.
Lucian was entirely unaware that high above the city, on the sixtieth-floor of a shattered skyscraper, a dark silhouette stood.
It had tracked Lucian’s every movement from the second he crossed the river.
Two ominous crimson lights flared in its hollow eyes.
Without a sound, the figure jumped—dropping into the ruined city like a falling meteor.