The world had changed, and without a doubt, the people had changed with it. Hours ago, a girl like the naked beauty Grey had seen would never have gotten this close to him — she would have slapped him dead across the face and screamed bloody insults for staring, not apologized for her own nakedness.
The world had changed. Civilization was no different, and certainly for nothing but worse.
So Grey remained extremely cautious.
The way she had gone entirely unnoticed until the final second, close enough to touch him before he’d registered a single footstep, made his stomach churn with quiet unease.
If someone could close that kind of distance on him undetected, after everything he’d already survived tonight, then it stood to reason she might well be one of the two others who had killed a Level One Evolved before him.
Now he was left with a single question, one that would decide everything that happened next. What was the motive of this woman?
He didn’t have to wait long for an answer. The door creaked open once more, and the girl stepped back out into the dim red light of the hall.
Her long black hair was pulled back now, damp at the edges, her expression carrying far more shyness than the wide-eyed shock from before. She’d changed into a white crop top already blotched with old stains, and jeans darkened along one thigh with blood that clearly wasn’t hers.
’At least she found clothes. Small mercies.’
By now, Grey had healed enough to stand upright without strain, joints popping as he rolled his shoulders. Bolt sat beside him, tongue working methodically over a still-raw patch of fur along its flank.
As the girl closed the distance, a notification bloomed silently across Grey’s vision — one he hadn’t expected at all.
{Bloodline System: You have encountered Talent, Invisibility}
[Copy Conditions: Form a Leader–Slave contract with Silver]
Grey’s eyes lifted from the text, understanding dawning cold and clear. ’So that’s how she got close enough to touch me without so much as a whisper of warning.’
He looked at her again, and this time it was like seeing an entirely different person standing there. ’It’s her talent. Not strength. I was about two seconds from being ambushed by a girl who probably can’t do a single push-up.’
Silver was still several feet away when Grey lifted a hand, palm out, a silent command for her to stop exactly where she stood.
"I’ll ask you a few questions," Grey said, voice flat and even. "You will answer without lying."
His dagger shimmered into existence in his other hand — not raised, or threatening, simply there, a fact stated rather than a threat made. Silver’s throat worked visibly as she swallowed, her shoulders folding inward like she was trying to make herself smaller.
"Trust me. I’ll know if you lie. So answer truthfully."
She hesitated for exactly one heartbeat, then nodded.
Grey let the silence stretch a moment longer than it needed to — not out of cruelty, but because right now, silence was information too. He watched how she held herself in it. Then he asked.
"Who are you? What were you doing in the boys’ hostel? How did you end up here? And what are your intentions?"
She froze. Her eyes searched his face, hunting for some flicker of warmth, some scrap of humanity she could hold onto.
What she found instead was pure, unfiltered ferocity. A stillness with teeth behind it. It was like staring into the eyes of something that no longer separated human life from the monsters it had already carved through to survive.
Her hand rose to her own throat without her seeming to notice, and she swallowed again, audibly this time.
It took her that long just to find her voice.
"I’m Silver Brigan," she said finally. "I snuck — I snuck into the boys’ hostel to see my boyfriend, and he... he tried to eat me. I had to. I killed him."
The words came out clipped, disjointed, like she was still trying to convince herself they’d actually happened.
’Worst date debrief I’ve ever heard,’ Grey thought, keeping his face carefully blank.
"After that, I saw the system announcement, and I could turn invisible. I don’t know how. I can’t even explain how I got it — it just... happened."
Her fingers twisted together as she continued, knuckles pale.
"I used it to get past the monsters on the upper floors, until I reached the one on this floor. It could still sense me somehow, even without seeing me. I hid in a room and didn’t come out until I saw you kill it." Her cheeks colored, the memory of exactly what she’d witnessed catching up with her all at once. "You’re the first real human being I’ve seen since all of this started."
Grey exhaled a long breath through his nose.
Her story didn’t sound rehearsed. If it was a lie, it was a masterclass in the frightened-girl routine, delivered with all the trembling, broken cadence of someone who genuinely believed every word.
Unlike Grey, who had absorbed the reality of the apocalypse almost instantly and had already killed — maybe dozens of times over, counting every twisted human mutation along the way, without so much as a flicker of hesitation, she was still anchored to the world that used to exist.
’Damn. She actually called it a disease.’ ’She probably still thinks the government’s got tanks lined up outside, ready to level the place into a crater and issue a very solemn press release afterward.’ That was the normal thing to think, in a situation like this. The rational thing, even.
Or maybe the entire apocalypse was one grand, seamless illusion, engineered start to finish by some strange pathogen eating away at everyone’s perception.
Both theories were, in their own way, perfectly logical.
’Thank God I’m supremely illogical.’ Grey sighed in quiet relief, somewhere deep inside where no one else could hear it.
There had never been a better time in his life to be proud of having zero patience for common sense.
He could already picture it — most of his lecturers dead by now, or shambling around some campus courtyard as mindless corpses. Somehow, picturing Professor Adeyemi as a zombie didn’t feel like that much of a downgrade.
He turned back to Silver and leaned forward slightly, enough that she flinched.
"What you’re seeing isn’t a disease," he said. "And right now, you’re expendable to me. Dead weight, at best, something that’ll slow me down when it matters most. Which brings up an interesting thought — killing you right here, and seeing exactly how much that adds to my strength level—"
She flinched hard, stumbling a step back, her whole frame trembling, eyes wide with a fear that needed no explanation.
Grey yawned, unhurried, stretching his arms overhead until something in his shoulder popped, then tucked both hands into his pockets like the moment before had never happened. At this Bolt gave him a look that could only be described as dude.
"You could serve me as an underling instead," he said. "Given that you can turn invisible, a scout would actually be useful. If you agree to it."
The system flashed before both their eyes at once, the same message rendering in perfect sync for each of them to read.
[You have been offered the Bond Title ’Slave’ by Grey.]
[Do you accept?]
{Silver has accepted}
Grey blinked, caught genuinely off guard. ’What— she accepted that fast? I figured she’d need at least a minute or two to actually think it over.’
He turned back to Silver, one corner of his mouth curling upward. ’Is that really all it takes to copy her skill?’
{Bloodline System: You have copied Talent — Hiding Virgin} {10x has taken effect. You have gained: Veil Walker}
Grey’s face lit up, the earlier gravity of the interrogation forgotten in an instant. He’d just stolen another person’s talent outright and, apparently, multiplied its efficiency tenfold in the process.
That was, without exaggeration, completely insane.
Buzzing with pure, unfiltered excitement, he turned to Silver again. "How does your ability actually work?"
This time, there was a pause before she answered.
She opened her mouth. Closed it again. Opened it once more, hesitating like the words physically didn’t want to come out. Even Bolt tilted its head, sensing the vibe shift.
Grey’s excitement stalled mid-flight, reality creeping back in at the edges.
Finally, she opened her mouth and spoke.
"I turn invisible. I can hide from the sight of any monster..." She rubbed the underside of her chin, laughing under her breath, nervous and a little strangled. "And I also lose all my clothes when I do it."
Grey nearly facepalmed on the spot.
’Of course. That’s exactly why she was naked when we first met.’
’10x invisibility. 10x nudity. Broken skill, truly.’