"Roar—UGHH!"
Abandoned cars crunched under undead feet, Blacklight-infected zombies sprinting faster than human legs could flee. Even exorcists staggered, the gap between hunter and hunted narrowing to a heartbeat.
Lu Qiu smelled death, but it wasn't enough. These low-level Infected were too weak to seize their prey—until she arrived.
"Ladder!" Danna screamed.
A rusted fire escape clung to a slum building, a fragile lifeline to the roof. Hope flared: Maybe zombies can't climb?
Stein scrambled up first, holy sword gleaming; the captain leaped effortlessly, ice crackling in her wake. Lu Qiu followed, then the USA siblings, leaving Yuri trembling at the base as zombies flooded the alley.
"No—!" Yuri scrambled, fingertips scraping the roof's edge as dead hands clawed his boots. He hauled himself up… and froze.
Across the street, a nest pulsed: a four-story building smothered in crimson tendrils, muscle tissue oozing like living armor, breathing. A Hive—the virus's heart, birthing Infected by the dozen.
Before anyone could react, a Hunter crashed onto the roof: a Level 2 Infected, all muscle and talons, gore dripping from its maw. The captain's ice froze it mid-lunge, but more landed with earth-shaking roars—dozens of Hunters, each more grotesque than the last.
"Run," the captain repeated, frost spreading from her palms, "now."
Stein hesitated, then fled, holy power flickering like a dying candle. Yuri followed, but not before glancing back—the captain stood alone, ice shattering under the horde's weight.
They climbed higher, but zombies learned, claws gripping the ladder, mouths frothing. Human stamina frayed; even Stein panted, sword slipping in his grip.
"Danna, hold on!" Mark dragged his sister, but her legs buckled. Yuri clung to the metal rungs, vision blurring—until Stein's boot crushed his fingers.
"Stein… please!" Yuri begged, blood dripping onto the zombies below.
The exorcist's smile turned feral. "You think I cared about you? A charity case, a failure—" His sword flashed, severing Yuri's hand, "—time to repay your debt, maggot!"
Yuri fell, screaming, into the horde. Teeth tore his flesh, claws ripped his abdomen, but beneath the pain, something stirred—the virus, feasting on despair, rewriting his cells.
Lu Qiu watched, smirk beneath his glasses. There it is—the final catalyst.
Below, the Hive pulsed faster. The zombies tearing Yuri apart froze, consumed by scarlet tendrils erupting from his corpse. Muscle tissue swelled, bones cracked, a new roar shaking the sky—Level 4 Infected, born from agony, from betrayal.
Stein staggered back, holy sword clattering. "What… what have you done?"
Lu Qiu clapped, eyes blazing. "A bloom, Stein. Beautiful, isn't it? Despair makes such wonderful fertilizer."
The new monster rose, three stories tall, its body a patchwork of stolen flesh and virus-grown armor. Hunters bowed to it, Hive tendrils feeding it power.
"Run," Lu Qiu mocked, "but you can't outpace what you created."
The captain's ice shattered as the monster swatted her aside, unfeeling. Stein fled, but the creature's roar chased him, a death knell for faith.
Yuri was gone, replaced by the Bloom—a walking abomination, proof that even the weakest, when broken, became weapons of the virus.
And Lu Qiu? He smiled, tasting the surge of Despair Points—10,000 more, the System hummed.
The seed had flowered. Now, let the harvest begin.
Somewhere, a helicopter roared overhead, Su Le's flame visible in the distance. But down here, in the slum's shadow, the true end had come—not with a whimper, but a scream of evolution.
And in the Hive's pulsing heart, the virus whispered: More. More despair. More bloom.