Hiss... Gurgle...
The streets of Tokonosu City, once bustling with the vibrant hum of modern life, had now become an eerily desolate slaughterhouse. After just forty-eight hours of the virus's rampage, over ninety percent of the urban population had already been transformed into the *Shitai*—the walking corpses. The few remaining survivors were all holed up inside their barricaded homes, trembling in the dark, too terrified to even dare take a deep breath.
After all, anyone still alive at this point wasn't a fool; they naturally understood that these rotting monsters relied entirely on sound to locate their prey.
However, the true crisis had only just begun. While the scattered survivors could likely last a few more days relying on whatever meager supplies they had stockpiled in their pantries, once their food ran out and their bottled water was exhausted, the ensuing desperation would surely mark the end of their humanity.
Of course, Adrian couldn't care less whether those nameless sheep lived or died. As the absolute law of the apocalypse dictated: *The strong devour the weak.* He certainly didn't have the spare time or the misplaced morality to concern himself with the fates of the incompetent.
"Hachiro, quiet your mind! Look at you—shaking like a wet leaf. Is that any way for a retainer of my house to conduct himself?"
Noticing his subordinate's legs trembling uncontrollably, Adrian immediately barked out a harsh reprimand without even breaking his stride.
"Y-yes, Master! This subordinate begs your pardon!" Hachiro Takahashi forced down the bile and terror rising in his throat, rigidly straightening his posture as he replied.
The two men were currently traversing the top of a roadside perimeter wall. The concrete structure stood over three meters high but was barely ten centimeters wide; they were making their way along this razor-thin ledge toward the coordinates of the Takagi estate.
Under normal training circumstances, given Hachiro's elite physical prowess, traversing such a wall would have been as effortless as walking on a flat paved road. However, when a massive horde of grotesque, blood-soaked corpses was milling about directly beneath his boots—reaching up with torn fingernails, thrashing, and waiting eagerly for him to lose his balance and fall into their gnashing teeth—there were very few men who could maintain the necessary psychological composure to keep their footing.
"These things are nothing but mere rabble—worthless, mindless meat," Adrian said, looking back at his sweating retainer with a hint of cold, martial instruction in his tone. "Your own physical strength is not insignificant. The reason you and your brother have not been able to advance to the realm of a Master these past few years is primarily due to your weak psychological state. The apocalypse outside is actually an excellent crucible for you to forge a true killer's mindset."
As his hand-picked retainers, the Takahashi brothers actually possessed formidable swordsmanship. If judged solely on textbook technique and forms, even Saeko might not necessarily be able to defeat them in a sparring match. After all, the two brothers had practiced the blade for twenty years longer than the young girl, and their raw muscular power was far superior.
However, if it were a true fight to the death, Adrian knew with absolute certainty that even if the brothers joined forces, Saeko would cut them both down within three moves.
There was simply no substitute for lethal intent. The performance of a man who practices forms versus a predator who has embraced the act of slaughter is like night and day in actual combat. Not to mention that, thanks to Adrian's brutal psychological grooming, the purple-haired swordswoman's mindset had undergone a terrifying, revolutionary transformation. Free from the chains of morality, her lethality had increased twofold.
"Yes! This subordinate understands!" Hachiro nodded hurriedly, gripping the hilt of his katana. Though, judging by his pale, sweating face, it seemed he was still a long way off from achieving any true martial epiphany.
"Keep moving," Adrian ordered.
He led Hachiro forward, moving fluidly along the jagged perimeter walls and rooftops. Whenever they encountered a gap with no viable aerial foothold, Adrian would simply drop down into the alleyway, draw his blade in a blinding flash of steel, carve through a dozen corpses in seconds, and effortlessly vault back up onto the next wall.
After traveling for over an hour, the pair finally arrived at the outer boundaries of the Takagi syndicate's territory.
Truth be told, along the short journey, Adrian had personally decapitated and dismembered at least forty of the dead without breaking a sweat. For a superhuman Sword Saint of his caliber, there was absolutely no danger involved in fighting the undead—unless he were to foolishly allow himself to suffer from total physical exhaustion.
'How exactly did the modern military manage to lose the city to these slow, rotting targets?' Adrian wondered in mild bafflement, flicking the black blood from his blade. The sheer incompetence of the old world's defense forces was staggering.
"Halt! Who goes there?"
A panicked, startled cry rising from the courtyard below snapped Adrian out of his cynical thoughts. He looked down to see two exhausted men, armed with crude, makeshift sickles, standing behind a reinforced iron gate. Gazing up at the towering man standing effortlessly upon the rooftop, they raised their weapons in a panic.
"Where is Soichiro Takagi?" Adrian asked in a cool, detached tone, casting a sweeping, analytical glance over the sprawling compound.
Although he held absolutely no respect for Soichiro Takagi—viewing the hyper-nationalist politician as nothing more than a delusional, nouveau riche upstart—he had to admit that the man truly reigned as a local tyrant.
The Takagi family estate spanned over a thousand square meters—nearly one-fifth the size of his own mountaintop fortress. Aside from the lavish main residence situated in the center, the fortified grounds were dotted with numerous outbuildings, garages, and servants' quarters.
However, Adrian immediately spotted the fatal tactical flaw: the compound was packed to the brim with refugees. A quick visual scan suggested a bloated headcount of nearly two hundred individuals huddled in the courtyards. Yet, among those two hundred souls, fewer than fifty were able-bodied men capable of fighting. The vast majority consisted of the elderly, the infirm, terrified women, and crying children.
Adrian shook his head with a sigh of profound, cynical resignation. Leaving aside the fact that rescuing such a massive multitude far exceeded the Takagi estate's logistical capacity to feed them, the sheer liability of housing and protecting so much dead weight was a ticking time bomb.
'Soichiro has evidently yet to grasp the brutal, unforgiving reality of the apocalypse,' Adrian sneered inwardly. 'In an environment like this, indiscriminate acts of benevolence are a guaranteed path to a violent, starving end.'
"Who the hell are you? And what business do you have with Boss Takagi?" a man sporting a thin mustache demanded aggressively, brandishing his sickle at the rooftop.
Smack!
The second guard standing beside him immediately delivered a vicious, terrified slap across the mustachioed fellow's face.
"You blind idiot, lower your weapon! This is Master Busujima!" the second guard hissed, bowing deeply. "Please forgive us, Master! I will go fetch Boss Takagi at once!"
Masao Busujima was an absolute legend in Tokonosu City. Even though many of the refugees had never actually seen the Sword Saint in person, they had certainly heard of his terrifying reputation and unparalleled martial prowess. Consequently, upon realizing who was standing above them, the terrified crowd of survivors looked up with eyes shining with pathetic, desperate hope.
"Master Busujima! It is truly wonderful to see you!"
Soichiro Takagi rushed out of the main residence's double doors. Spotting the imposing figure of the Sword Saint looking down from the perimeter wall, the syndicate leader immediately shouted out in overwhelming excitement.
The Japanese government had maintained strict control over civilian firearms in the old world. Even a man of Soichiro's vast wealth and political influence only possessed a heavily restricted arsenal of handguns and hunting rifles. He had been in a dire tactical bind recently; the massive influx of useless refugees over the past two days had severely depleted his household's stored provisions. If he couldn't find a way to venture out and procure more food, his entire democratic sanctuary would be starving within a matter of days.
However, relying solely on his current, exhausted subordinates and their meager weaponry, merely holding the perimeter walls against the rising tide of the dead was a tall enough order. Expecting them to fight their way through the city to scavenge for heavy supplies was simply out of the question.
But now... everything had changed!
Seeing the legendary Masao Busujima descend from the sky like a martial god, Soichiro felt an immediate surge of profound relief. It was as if Heaven itself had answered his prayers. With a superhuman vanguard of Busujima's caliber clearing the path ahead, Soichiro was confident he could lead his men to storm and secure the large commercial supermarket nearby.
"Indeed. I am quite pleased to see you as well, Soichiro," Adrian replied smoothly.
As he stood, Adrian's dark eyes bypassed the excited politician entirely, locking instead onto the stunning woman standing just a half-step behind her husband.
"Yuriko," Adrian nodded, a faint, predatory chuckle escaping his lips.
Yuriko Takagi was a completely different breed of prey from Manami Katsura. Manami merely played the part of a strong, independent corporate executive; in reality, beneath her expensive suits, she had proven to be nothing more than a fragile, easily broken sow.
But Yuriko—with her elegant, aristocratic features and long, striking violet-pink hair—was the quintessential "power woman." She exuded an aura of genuine, uncompromising confidence from her very core. Compared to her, a broken toy like Manami seemed no different than a clumsy maid standing beside a true Queen.
'Taking this proud, aristocratic woman back to my fortress to kneel beside her ruined daughter...' Adrian mused, a dark thrill coursing through his veins. 'Gathering the Katsura and Takagi bloodlines into a complete, degraded collection... now that will be an absolute masterpiece.'
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