"Let's go," Wyn said, offering his hand. Primo gripped it, pulling himself up from the mangled body of the black pack leader.
"I already grabbed the cores from the two upstairs," Wyn added, showing his other hand. Two small, crimson stones caught the light.
Primo took a deep breath, his lungs burning. In this new world, every minute felt like an adrenaline-fueled marathon. He closed his eyes for a second, letting his Vibration Sense ripple outward. The building was quiet for now—no more heavy thuds or frantic scratching. Still, the stairwell was a bottleneck, not a home. They needed to move.
Primo knelt to harvest the leader's core—noticeably larger and more vibrant than the others—before they began the final climb to the rooftop access. Instead of stepping out immediately, they slumped against the heavy metal door, finally allowing their muscles to relax.
"Let's rest and eat here before we deal with these," Primo panted, pulling biscuits and a bottle of water from his bag. He sat with his back to the door, his Great Ear tilted toward the stairs.
They ate with the ravenous hunger that only follows a life-or-death struggle. After a few minutes of silent chewing, Wyn let out a short, dry laugh.
"That sticky web coming out of your mouth... it was cool, but man, it was gross at the same time."
Primo smirked, taking a swig of water. "Hey, it would be a lot more gross if it came out of my butt."
The two burst into a fit of hushed laughter, the absurdity of their lives finally catching up to them.
"But seriously," Wyn said, wiping his eyes, "that came from the spider core, right?"
"Yeah," Primo explained. "I got three skills from it. Two active and one passive: Web lets me spit those threads, Quick Jumps lets me jump repeatedly for a few seconds, and the passive one is like a 'spider-sense'—I can feel vibrations in the air and floor."
"Woah," Wyn teased. "You're basically a superhero, just with a much weirder delivery system for the webbing."
"Alright, let's look at the haul," Primo said, shifting the conversation back to business. "Two mutated rat cores and three mutated dog cores."
He looked at the five glowing stones in Wyn's hand. "How should we divide them?" Wyn asked.
"You take all of them," Primo said firmly. "We need you at Level 2. It's better if we're balanced so we can actually support each other. Besides, I won't gain any new skills from these low-grade cores anyway. It's hard work carrying the team all the time, you know?"
Wyn smirked, pocketing the cores. "You better not regret that when I'm stronger than you."
"Just get on with it, bro. I'll watch the stairs."
For the next half hour, the landing was filled with the sound of Wyn's muffled groans. Consuming three cores in a row was bad enough, but the final push toward evolution was a different beast entirely. He writhed on the concrete, his skin flushing a deep red as his body forced itself to adapt to the influx of energy.
When the glow finally faded, Wyn sat up, drenched in sweat but wearing a look of newfound vigor.
"Congratulations on reaching the big leagues," Primo remarked.
"Shut up," Wyn wheezed, though he was smiling. "You never mentioned it felt like being put through a meat grinder."
"You're just weak," Primo teased, reaching out to help him up.
Primo saw Wyn putting aside the two remaining cores but didn't say anything as he thought that the evolution process might really gave him much pain earlier.
They stood before the rooftop door. It was locked from the outside, likely a safety measure for the students. Earlier, they would have needed the axe to splinter the frame. Now, Wyn simply placed his hands on the metal handle and the frame.
With a low grunt, he pulled. The metal groaned and shrieked as the bolt was sheared straight through the housing. It was a clean, quiet display of raw power—much more efficient than the clumsy destruction of the classroom door earlier.
They stepped out onto the roof, the wind whipping at their clothes. Primo immediately went into a crouch, scanning the sky with Infrared Vision and Vibration Sense, checking for the silhouettes of the giant crows.
The coast was clear.
The view from the rooftop was both breathtaking and haunting. From this height, the entire sprawling campus lay before them—a graveyard of academic life now reclaimed by the "fever."
"I think we should check that guard house at the main gate first," Primo suggested, squinting against the morning sun. "There should be master keys, maybe some flashlights or even radios. If things go south, we can always fall back here to hide, but we'll need those keys to move freely."
"Yeah..." Wyn agreed, his eyes wandering over the sports field in the center of the campus. "...but what the hell is that?"
Primo looked where Wyn was pointing. In the middle of the lush green field meant for soccer and track, a massive, jagged lump of soil had been pushed up from the earth. At first, it looked like a simple construction pile, but as Primo focused his Infrared Vision, he saw rhythmic, mechanical movement.
Dozens of shapes were crawling in and out of a dark hole at the peak of the mound. They weren't rats or dogs. They were ants—glossy, crimson, and the size of house cats.
"I think we really need to leave. Now," Primo claimed, his voice tight.
A single mutated animal was a challenge; a swarm of giant red ants was a death sentence. They moved with a collective intelligence that made his skin crawl. If that colony continued to grow, it wouldn't just take over the campus—it would consume everything in its path.
Looking past the sports field toward the edge of the city, they could see the silhouette of the Hospital. It stood like a beacon, clearly guarded. Even from this distance, they could see the faint glint of sunlight off police cruisers and military trucks stationed at the perimeter.
The path to it, however, was a maze. From their height, the streets were mostly obscured by trees and smaller buildings, making it impossible to see if the roads were blocked by stalled cars or prowling beasts.
"Let's head to the guard house first, then proceed to the shelter," Primo decided.
He looked back at the ant mound one last time. "One or three mutated animals... we can handle that. But a swarm like that? There's nothing we can do against those numbers. We need to reach the military. If that hill is left unchecked, it's going to endanger the entire shelter."