The morning air carried a bite cold enough to turn every exhaled breath into a faint, lingering trail of white mist.
Adrian stood motionless at the back door of the bakery, his fingers going numb against the splintered wooden frame. For ten minutes, he had done nothing but stare down the narrow alleyway. The pale, sickly gray light of dawn barely managed to reach the far brick wall, illuminating little more than overturned trash bins, waterlogged cardboard, and broken wooden pallets.
Nothing moved. No shadows shifted. No shambling figures emerged from the gloom.
Yet the prickle at the base of his neck refused to fade. The memory of the silent, shadowed figure standing under the streetlamp—and the pitch-black katana he'd seen stuck in a corpse back in the convenience store—hung over him like a razor-thin wire pulled taut.
"Notice anything out there?" Adrian asked without turning around.
Behind him, Kiana peeked through a crack in the front window's barricade, her aluminum baseball bat resting lightly against her shoulder. "Just empty pavement," she called back, her voice bright despite the bleakness of the morning. "It's quiet out front."
"Too quiet," Ken muttered from the counter. He tightened the straps on his scuffed satchel, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. He looked thoroughly exhausted, his knuckles pale where he gripped a rusted length of metal pipe. "Maybe the dead took the day off."
"Or they're waiting," Adrian said, stepping away from the door and letting it click shut.
He walked back into the main room, stopping at the table where their water-stained district map lay unfolded. He tapped the thick paper, his finger tracing a winding line from their current neighborhood all the way to the far Western horizon.
"We need to set our expectations right now," Adrian said, gathering their attention. "ME Corp isn't a quick morning stroll. It's on the opposite side of Nagazora. On foot, through choked streets, abandoned gridlocks, and zombie-filled intersections, it's probably going to take us at least two or three days."
Ken interjected. "I don't think its gonna take that long, I've walked to the other end of the city in just an afternoon before."
"One, why in the world would you walk the through whole of Nagazora just for an afternoon walk do you have that much free time." Adrian pointing to the window where the first rays of sunlight were filtering through. "Second, this is more of a conservative estimate since there are a lot of obstacles on the way, and we cant exactly take the main roads can we."
Kiana walked over, leaning her elbows on the counter to study the map. "So we're in for a long hike."
"A dangerous one," Adrian corrected gently. "We move through side streets, stick to cover, and never stay out in the open longer than necessary. If we hit a dead end or run into a swarm, we fall back to intermediate shelters. Understood?"
Ken nodded slowly, his expression sobering as the reality of the journey set in. "Understood."
"Alright," Adrian said, hefting his backpack and checking his metal bat. "Let's move."
They slipped out through the rear entrance, letting the lock latch behind them. Adrian took the lead with his bat held low and ready. Ken took the middle, holding his pipe and watching their flanks, while Kiana covered the rear, her head constantly turning to scan fire escapes, rooftops, and dark alleyways.
The first two hours of their trek were defined by a slow, agonizing crawl through Nagazora's commercial outskirts.
Progress was brutal. The chalk arrows Adrian had marked the previous day only took them so far before they hit an impassable obstacle: a four-way highway interchange completely choked by a hundred-car pileup. Delivery trucks, municipal buses, and civilian sedans were smashed together in an accordion of rusted metal and shattered glass.
"We can't walk around this," Ken panted, wiping sweat from his forehead as the sun began to climb higher behind the bruised, purple clouds. "The main avenue below is crawling with those things."
"Then we go over," Adrian said, pointing to the bed of a jackknife tractor-trailer spanning the bottleneck.
For the next forty-five minutes, their journey devolved into an exhausting obstacle course. They hauled their heavy packs over crumpled hoods, squeezed through narrow gaps between rusted doors, and clambered over truck beds. Every slip of a boot or metallic scrape made their hearts jump, forcing them to freeze and listen for groans in the gridlock below.
By mid-morning, Adrian's shoulders were aching from his pack, and Ken was already visibly limping, his stamina drained from days of panic and malnutrition.
They finally dropped down onto the elevated pedestrian bypass—a glass-covered skybridge connecting two massive shopping complexes—which Adrian had selected to avoid the swarming avenues below.
As they stepped onto the covered walkway, Adrian suddenly stopped, raising a hand. Ken and Kiana froze instantly.
Lying near the center of the tiled walkway were the bodies of three people; two men and one woman. But unlike the bodies they were used to, these weren't simple zombie corpses. One man's head lay two feet away from his shoulders, severed by a single, impossibly clean strike. The other two still had their heads attached, but they were missing an arm or leg, and their necks had a deep line traced across them—a precise slice that had bled them dry before they could even scream, just short of decapitating them.
Adrian crouched beside the bodies, his brows drawing together in a tight scowl.
Zombies don't fight like this, he thought, his pulse quickening as he examined the wounds. They claw, bite, or tear flesh apart. Survivors? Even someone trained with a blade wouldn't have this kind of surgical precision, let alone the sheer force needed to cleave clean through bone.
Kiana stepped up beside him, her sky-blue eyes narrowing as she surveyed the concrete support pillars lining the covered walkway. "Adrian... look at the walls."
He looked up. Deep, impossibly smooth gashes were carved into the solid concrete pillars, as if a razor-thin blade had sliced through solid stone like warm butter.
Adrian's mind raced, tracing the evidence back to his very first day in this world—the dark back room of the convenience store. He remembered the dead body missing an arm, and the pitch-black katana with pulsing orange highlights buried deep in its spine.
Clean, surgical cuts on flesh and concrete... Adrian realized, a cold wave of dread washing over him. Could whatever was wielding that black katana back in the store be roaming around out here?
"Let's move back," Adrian hissed, standing up quickly and raising his metal bat. "Whatever did this uses blades—and it can cut straight through concrete."
Ken swallowed hard, raising his metal pipe with trembling hands. "Is it... a person?"
Before Adrian could answer, the shadow directly above them detached itself from the skybridge ceiling.
It dropped without a single sound.
A figure landed in a low crouch right between Ken and Kiana. It wasn't a rotting corpse. It was a humanoid entity with pale, sickly skin traced with glowing orange lines. Spiky, ash-gray hair spilled out from behind a dark face mask, and a single, narrow visor glowed with an eerie light. It wore a sleek, athletic black bodysuit reinforced with sharp orange armor plates strapped to its forearms and shins.
In its hands, it held two pitch-black katanas—their edges humming with a faint, deadly orange aura.
"Ken! Look out!" Adrian screamed.
The creature moved with blinding, fluid speed. It spun instantly toward Ken, its right blade whistling through the air in an upward slash aimed at his chest.
Ken froze, paralyzed by the sheer speed of the strike.
CLANG!
A flash of silver and black blurred into motion. Kiana leaped forward, driving the barrel of her metal baseball bat against the side of the dark katana just in time to deflect the blow. The sheer force of the impact vibrated through her arms, sending bright sparks flying into the dim air and forcing her back a step.
"Back off!" Kiana barked, her Kaslana combat instincts flaring instantly. She pivoted on her heel, executing a sharp roundhouse kick aimed straight at the creature's glowing visor.
The entity leaned back effortlessly, the kick grazing the air inches from its face. With inhuman agility, it flipped backward, its dual blades sweeping in a wide, defensive cross pattern that sliced cleanly through a heavy steel handrail.
"What IS that thing?!" Ken yelled, scrambling backward on the pavement, his knuckles white around his pipe. "That's not a zombie!"
"Watch the blades!" Adrian shouted, rushing up beside Kiana. Seeing the construct move in real life sent a jolt of pure adrenaline through his veins. "Don't try to block the sharp edges directly—they'll cut right through our weapons!"
The entity stayed in a low crouch, its glowing visor locked onto Kiana. It didn't groan, didn't breathe, didn't make a sound. It simply shifted its weight, its gray hair swaying as it prepared for another lightning-fast dash.
"It's fast," Kiana gritted out, her eyes fixed on the dual swords. A competitive spark flared in her eyes despite the danger. "But it's light!"
The creature lunged again, becoming a streak of black and orange. It unleashed a flurry of dual-blade slashes—left, right, low, high—a storm of lethal steel. Kiana parried and dodged with instinctive grace, her metal bat clashing against the dark blades in a rapid succession of ringing impacts. But she was strictly on the defensive, forced backward by the construct's relentless momentum.
"Adrian, cover!" Kiana shouted, ducking beneath a horizontal swipe that sheared off a lock of her white hair.
Adrian grabbed a heavy metal trash bin propped against the walkway wall and shoved it with all his strength directly into the creature's path. The lower blade caught the bin, slicing it clean in half, but the momentum briefly threw off its balance.
"Now! Run!" Adrian barked, grabbing Ken by the collar of his jacket and hauling him toward the far exit of the skybridge.
Kiana used the split-second opening to bring her bat down in a heavy, overhead strike. The bat connected with the creature's armored shoulder with a solid CRACK, driving it to one knee. Without waiting to see if it stayed down, Kiana turned and sprinted after them.
"Into the transit building! Move!" Adrian screamed, pointing toward a heavy set of metal security doors at the end of the walkway.
They burst through the doors, tumbling into a darkened, multi-level transit lobby. Adrian immediately grabbed a steel security bar leaning against the wall and jammed it through the handles of the heavy double doors.
A fraction of a second later, something slammed against the outside of the doors with incredible force. The steel handles bent, but the bar held. Through the small reinforced glass window, the single glowing visor of the creature stared in at them for a long, silent moment. Then, with unnerving fluidness, it turned and leaped up into the rafters, vanishing into the shadows of the skybridge.
Silence returned to the lobby, broken only by the ragged, desperate sound of their breathing.
Ken collapsed against the tiled wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor. His face was pale as chalk, his hands shaking violently. "What... what was that? It had swords... it moved like a ninja..."
"I don't know what it was," Adrian panted, resting his hands on his knees as sweat dripped from his chin. His chest burned, adrenaline still surging through his veins.
Kiana was leaning against a pillar, checking her baseball bat. Deep, glowing orange scorch marks were etched into the metal where she had parried the blades, and the alloy was noticeably warped near the grip from the sheer impact force.
She wiped sweat from her forehead and looked over at Adrian, her sky-blue eyes filled with sharp curiosity. "You called out blade marks before it even dropped down on us. How did you guess it was using swords?"
Adrian caught his breath, keeping his voice steady and grounded. "On my first day, right after I woke up, I went into a convenience store looking for food. I found a dead body in the back—chopped up, arm missing. Sticking out of his back was a pitch-black katana with glowing orange lines on the blade."
He pointed toward the doors they had just barricaded. "When I saw those clean cuts on those three back there and the concrete pillar on the bridge, I remembered that sword. I figured whatever was wielding that black katana back in the store was loose out here in the city. I didn't know what it looked like—I just knew it wasn't a normal zombie, and that its blades could slice through solid stone."
Kiana listened closely, her expression softening as the explanation made sense. She nodded slowly. "Good eyes, Chef. If you hadn't spotted those marks on the wall, that thing would've taken Ken's head off from the ceiling."
Ken shuddered, pulling his knees to his chest. "If those things are roaming around... how are we supposed to make it all the way across Nagazora? We barely survived one!"
Adrian walked over to check Kiana's bat. "Those blades were humming with energy. Another direct parry like that might snap the alloy clean in half."
"It's a bit off-balance now, but it'll hold," Kiana said, testing her grip. "Just means I have to hit harder."
They took a mandatory fifteen-minute breather in the transit lobby, sitting in near-darkness while sipping lukewarm water from their canteens to calm their racing pulses. Every distant groan or creak of bending metal outside made them flinch, a constant reminder that resting in one place too long was a death sentence.
Once their legs stopped trembling, Adrian walked over to a wall-mounted transit directory map encased in shattered glass. He wiped away a layer of grime, revealing a diagram of Nagazora's underground subway system.
"The streets and skybridges are compromised," Adrian said, pointing to a thick blue line running beneath the central commercial district. "Between swarms and whatever that dual-blade hunter was, staying out in the open is suicide. This subway line runs straight through the middle of the city toward the industrial district."
"Underground?" Ken whispered nervously, staring into the pitch-black abyss of the motionless escalators.
"Dark and narrow means we can't be spotted from the rooftops or swarmed from all sides," Kiana chimed in. "Plus, if zombies are down there, they can only come at us from the front or back."
They descended into the subterranean darkness, the air growing instantly colder, damp, and heavy with the smell of wet rust, mold, and rot.
What followed was two agonizing hours of slow, blind navigation.
Without natural light, they relied entirely on their single flickering flashlight. Their world shrank to a narrow beam of white light cutting through the gloom. They walked along the gravel beds between the rails, the sound of crunching stone rhythmic and unnerving beneath their boots. Every hundred yards brought a new hazard—a section of collapsed ceiling they had to climb over on hands and knees, pools of stagnant, ankle-deep water that soaked through their boots, and abandoned subway cars sitting silent like buried tombs.
By mid-afternoon, their physical fatigue was compounded by pure claustrophobia and mental strain.
Then came the bottleneck.
As the tunnel curved gently to the left, their flashlight beam hit a derailed subway train resting at a harsh tilt against the curved concrete wall. Scattered across the tracks ahead were dozens of motionless shapes.
"Dormant," Kiana whispered, her voice dropping into razor-sharp focus as she held out a hand to halt them. "Sleeping."
"Or reacting to energy in the air," Adrian whispered back, his voice barely audible over the slow drip of water from the ceiling. "If we disturb them, we'll wake up the whole car. We go single file through that narrow gap beside the train. Watch your step. Do not touch the metal."
Adrian cleared the gap first, stepping onto the smooth concrete ledge beside the rails to avoid noisy gravel. He gestured for Ken.
Ken took a deep breath, stepping into the narrow space. Sweat glistened on his pale forehead despite the subterranean chill. He made it halfway through—
CLANG.
The end of Ken's metal pipe scraped against a loose, rusted panel on the train's hull. The metallic ringing noise echoed sharply through the quiet tunnel.
Instantly, faint purple veins on the dormant bodies flared bright purple. A low, collective raspy gasp echoed through the dark as eyes snapped open.
"Move!" Adrian hissed, reaching out to yank Ken through the gap.
Kiana didn't wait to squeeze through. Seeing two of the nearest corpses snap upright and lunge toward the opening, she vaulted over the roof of the derailed train car and landed lightly beside them. "Run!"
Behind them, shambling feet and guttural groans erupted as the dormant cluster flooded the tracks.
The trio sprinted down the dark tunnel toward a faint, glowing green exit sign indicating a commercial concourse access staircase. Adrian reached the heavy access door first, slamming his bat into the panic bar. "Up! Move!"
Ken scrambled up the concrete stairs frantically, his lungs burning. Two zombies lunged from the gloom of the upper landing, but Kiana swung her bat in a powerful horizontal arc, the metallic CRACK knocking both backward down the stairwell. She backed up through the doorway, her boots quick on the steps.
Adrian slammed the heavy fire door shut and jammed a solid steel security bar across the frame, sealing the dark, groaning tunnel below.
They stumbled through the upper exit doors and tumbled out into the flooded twilight of Nagazora's Central Financial Concourse.
There was no damp grass or rustic trees here—only soaring glass sky-bridges, polished marble walkways, and looming skyscrapers tracing the horizon under the bruised violet sky. Below them, multi-lane highways sat frozen in gridlock, filled with abandoned sports cars and corporate transports.
The sun was already dipping low behind the skyline, casting long, bruised shadows across the elevated plazas.
Ken collapsed onto a sleek metal bench near a dead digital directory, gasping for air, his legs shaking violently. "I... I officially hate subway trains."
Kiana let out a bright, genuine laugh, leaning back against a glass balustrade and wiping grime from her collar. "Come on, that was almost fun!"
Adrian caught his breath, resting his hands on his knees as sweat dripped onto the polished floor tiles. His feet felt like lead, blisters forming in his boots, and his shoulders burned beneath the weight of his pack. Fun? Right. Terrifying, lung-burning, and almost getting eaten in pitch darkness is pure amusement.
He stood up and checked their position relative to the skyline. "Good news," Adrian said, wiping his brow. "That transit tunnel cut right beneath the commercial bottleneck. We're officially in the central tech district, right halfway across Nagazora."
Ken looked up, a genuine flicker of hope in his eyes despite his sheer exhaustion. "Halfway?"
"Halfway," Adrian confirmed. "And if we find a secure spot on this upper concourse to hole up for the night, we can make our final push to ME Corp by tomorrow afternoon."
They scouted the elevated plaza as dusk settled hard over the city. The concourse connected several high-rise corporate branches, offering high ground and clear sightlines of the dark streets far below. After ten minutes of searching, Kiana pointed toward a sleek, two-story glass pavilion nestled between two corporate towers.
Beside the heavy smart-glass doors, a silver plaque gleamed in the twilight: Atlas Enterprise - Regional Executive Lounge & Tech Hub.
Adrian stared at the plaque, his eyebrows drawing together. "Wait... Atlas Enterprise?" he asked, looking over at Ken. "What's an Atlas Enterprise?"
Ken blinked, looking at him like he'd just asked what water was. "You don't know Atlas? They're huge. Along with ME Corp, they basically built modern Nagazora. Atlas handles city-wide automated infrastructure, energy grids, and high-tech transit, while ME Corp focuses on consumer electronics and robotics. The two corporate giants practically run the whole Far East financial hub."
Adrian stared at the logo, his mind briefly trying to rifle through game lore before he gave up with a dry mental scoff.
Atlas Enterprise? Never heard of them.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, rubbing his aching temples. Oh, who am I kidding? This stopped being what I was familiar with the moment I saw a poster of Robin back in that bakery. Expecting this world to follow my game knowledge step-by-step is just asking for a migraine.
"Right. Corporate giants. Got it," Adrian said aloud, shaking off the thought. "Well, whatever they are, their pavilion looks built like a vault."
"It is," Kiana agreed, examining the reinforced titanium frames surrounding the tinted smart-glass.
The electronic keycard scanner was dead, but the heavy glass doors had slid partially open when the city lost primary power, leaving a narrow foot-wide gap. Adrian and Kiana wedged their metal weapons into the frame, using leverage to force the heavy doors open just wide enough for the three of them to slip inside. Once through, they pushed the heavy glass panels shut and jammed a steel lounge chair between the handles.
The lounge interior was immaculate and quiet. Dust motes floated in the dim light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city skyline. Sleek leather sofas, polished composite counters, and dark screens filled the space.
Ken dropped his heavy satchel onto the floor and collapsed onto a plush leather sofa with a long, dramatic groan. "I am never moving again. My legs are officially made of lead."
Kiana dropped her pack onto a counter, pulling out her warped metal bat. She set the bent barrel against the edge of a heavy titanium desk, grabbed the handle with both hands, and pulled with sheer, absurd physical strength. With a sharp groan of protesting alloy, the metal bat actually straightened back out.
Ken's jaw dropped. "Did you... just bend solid aluminum back into place with your bare hands?"
Kiana grinned proudly, dusting off her hands. "Kaslana strength, baby! Can't have my weapon staying crooked."
She turned toward Adrian, but before she could say another word, her stomach let out a loud, rumbling growl that completely shattered her cool posture. She flushed crimson, rubbing the back of her neck with a sheepish grin.
"So... Chef. I don't suppose our halfway milestone comes with dinner?"
Adrian snorted, unable to hide a faint smile despite how thoroughly exhausted he felt. "Hold your horses, Kaslana. Let me see what we've got."
Adrian walked over to check the lounge's executive kitchenette. To his surprise, an auxiliary battery block on the counter was still holding a faint charge, powering a small electric hotplate and a water dispenser along with a fridge with some vegetables and beef at the freezer.
Within twenty minutes, a pot of vegetable and beef soup was simmering on the electric burner, filling the sleek lounge with a rich, comforting aroma. The dark, ruined city stretched out beyond the massive glass windows, but inside, warm ambient lighting from their flashlights made the space feel strangely luxurious.
They sat on the leather sofas around a low glass coffee table, savoring the hot meal. After surviving on dry energy bars, climbing through gridlocks, and frantically sprinting through dark subway tunnels all day, the warm food felt almost surreal.
Ken took a sip of broth, leaning back into the plush leather cushions as he looked around at the pristine glass and high-end tech terminals. "You don't suppose the Atlas Institute is gonna charge us for using their stuff, right? Like... send us an astronomical bill once this whole apocalypse wraps up?"
Kiana laughed, nearly choking on her cracker. "If they do, I'm putting it entirely on my dad's tab!"
"Good luck with that," Adrian said, taking a bite. "Though considering this place is tagged as an 'Institute' lounge, the bill would probably have six zeroes."
"At least," Ken agreed with a weak smirk. "The Atlas Institute handles all the high-level R&D for the city—energy grids, automation, even advanced bio-tech."
Adrian raised an eyebrow, muttering under his breath. "Bio-tech? Great. Sounds like every evil megacorporation from a survival horror game that loves making 'Bio-Organic Weapons.' Next you're gonna tell me they have an Umbrella logo hidden in the basement."
Ken blinked, tilting his head in confusion. "Like... Evil Residents the games? What's an Umbrella logo?"
"Never mind," Adrian said, waving it off with a dry smirk. "Just gamer paranoia. Point is, high-tech bio-research and energy grids usually mean bad news when a facility collapses."
Ken set his bowl down on the table, his playful tone gradually fading. "Though... joking aside, seeing a place like this completely empty is creepy. That thing back on the skybridge... it wasn't like the normal zombies. It dodged, it used weapons, it actually hunted us."
"It had instinct," Adrian agreed, his demeanor shifting back to business. "The zombies move on basic impulses—sound, sight, hunger. But that creature was testing our reactions. It knew how to use high ground and blind spots."
Kiana nodded, her expression serious. "And those blades were clearly infused with high-tech energy. Do you think security personnel with advanced equipment got turned into those things, or maybe those energies got corrupted when this collapse hit?"
"It's possible," Adrian said, leaning back against the sofa. "Which means tomorrow, we can't just rely on bashing our way through."
Kiana smirked slightly, looking over at him. "Look at you, Master Strategist. Got a brilliant tactical plan for tomorrow, Chef?"
Adrian snorted, letting out a dry, self-deprecating laugh. Right, Master Strategist. My grand tactical repertoire currently consists of "don't get stabbed by glowing swords" and "run away real fast."
"My plan," Adrian said aloud, keeping his tone flat and sarcastic, "is that we don't do anything stupid, we keep our heads down, and if something with dual katanas drops from the ceiling again, we don't try to be heroes. We run."
Ken chuckled, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. "Honestly? Best plan I've heard all week."
Kiana rolled her eyes playfully, but she nodded in agreement. "Fine. Watch each other's backs, stay alert, and don't get cornered."
Adrian looked at both of them, feeling a grounded sense of quiet relief. He was far from an all-knowing expert, and he was basically making up half of these routes as he went along—but sitting here in this high-tech refuge, they were actually making it work.
"Get some rest," Adrian said, standing up and sluggishly waking over to the sofa as exhaustion finally caught up with him. "Tomorrow, we reach ME Corp."