3 System

I must have blacked out in the fall, for the next thing I knew, I was coming to atop a pile of debris. My body ached all over, my bruises stinging and blood flowing profusely from multiple cuts. I tried to move, only for a sharp pain to stab through my limbs. Groaning, I swung my legs over and dropped off the heap of rubble.

Good. Nothing was broken. I was actually surprised that I didn't suffer from any fractures. Glancing up and seeing little to no light, I figured that I must have fallen pretty far. Actually, I didn't expect to survive the fall. Then again, evolvers were made of sterner stuff. I had to stop thinking that my body was the same as a regular human being.

Even though it was dark, my glasses allowed me to see. Night vision flickered on, bathing my lenses in an artificial green glow and allowing me to study my surroundings. It appeared that I had dropped into some hi-tech basement of some sort, the surface littered with broken machinery and severed cabling.

The machines looked ancient, probably over a century old. That was when the apocalypse happened – about a hundred years ago, where something descended upon Earth and turned ninety percent of the world's population into zombies. Animals and vegetation underwent mutations, along with many zombies as the pandemic progressed, turning the planet into a death trap.

If it weren't for the survivors pulling back and constructing fortress cities, each divided into districts, mankind might have really gone extinct. Furthermore, the evolvers were what kept us alive, developing superhuman abilities to fight against the zombies and mutants.

To think that I would be betrayed by my fellow evolvers, though…despite our duty being to protect normal people without abilities and the vulnerable, that idiot Qi Ren was shouting about strong eat the weak and trash should die nonsense. That totally went against the code of us evolvers. If the world was really about strength alone, then why would we bother establishing cities and maintaining civilization and societies? Might as well throw everyone into the wild and allow "Nature" to run its course. Seriously, these murderous bullies simply used "law of the jungle" and "strong eat the weak" to justify their abusive behaviors, resorting to double standards whenever it benefited them. If it didn't turn to their advantage, then they would drop all pretense of strength and beg other people to save them from danger, or appeal to their sense of morality to spare their lives instead of accepting their fate and being "eaten" (or killed). Not only that, there were laws put in place, and he just committed a crime.

If the city council and relevant authorities found out about this, he would be punished. Maybe even executed for murder.

Of course, I would have to survive, return to District 4, and expose his crime for that to happen. As well as those bastards who simply watched him murder me in cold blood. Pang Fei, Nian Qing, Xin Xia, Lei Shu and Instructor Jiao were one thing – they were either incapacitated or fought hard for me – but the rest of the classmates laughing and jeering at me…they were all accomplices in murder.

"I'm gonna put some dirt in your eye," I said, seething like bully Maguire. I couldn't allow them to get away with this. But first I had to survive. I still didn't understand that trash nonsense. That came out of no fucking where. I guess it was Chinese web novel syndrome – the antagonist had to be the foulest, most evil caricature to ever exist so that the readers would enjoy seeing him get killed later.

But it made no sense. This was reality, not fiction. Why the hell would a classmate suddenly devolve into a fictional villainous caricature? And why would all the other classmates go along with his schemes instead of being horrified? Were they mind controlled by a mutant? Or was the event a hallucination, confounding my senses so much that I inadvertently walked into the chasm myself? It made less and less sense. Why the hell would my class be waiting for me there anyway? they should have seized the opportunity that I bought them to pull away to a safe distance and escape ahead of time.

Thinking about it wouldn't bring me any answers. I should return to District 4 and ask Pang Fei for the truth. They should know what really happened.

Stepping through the shadows, I inspected my guns. They were mostly intact. That was good. I recalled the zombies plummeting into the abyss, along with the grotesque. If I could survive the fall, then they definitely could too. Being undead, blunt trauma and what would normally be fatal injuries had little effect on them. The only way to kill them was to deliver enough damage to their heads.

Most likely they survived the plunge and might even now be dragging their way toward me. In this area of complete darkness, they held the total advantage. Fortunately, my targeting reticules still worked, white under the green glow that suffused on my lenses.

Treading cautiously, I stepped over abandoned cabling and weaved through blocks of rusting machinery. Mold had grown over their surface, feeding on the moisture that dripped down onto the domed hulls from above. The mess that had spread across the ground made the terrain treacherous and more than once I had to carefully watch my step so as not to lose my balance.

"Whoa!"

I threw out a hand and caught hold of a protruding block of machine when my foot caught on a coiled wire. I felt something sizzle and my fingers went numb. I jerked backward from the shock, only to have my feet get tangled up in the cables, causing me to topple over.

"Ugh!"

I waved my hand, still feeling the numbness spread through it. Shaking my head, I cursed and picked myself off my feet. Glaring at the offending machine, I noted that it resembled a computer. The glass screen had been shattered, revealing all sorts of exotic devices within. I didn't recognize any of the components, but even when not familiar with the workings of a computer, I couldn't help but feel as if it was different.

Strange. Why did I get such a weird feeling when staring at this particular computer? It certainly looked different from all the other machinery around it, but even so, there wasn't any reason for it to capture my attention. Yet there was something about it that nagged at the edge of my mind, a gnawing feeling that I couldn't fully suppress.

"I'm wasting my time here," I grumbled. Taking a deep breath, I turned around and headed for one of the many exits that stretched out from this chamber. Pulling my feet free from the tangle of wires, I stepped onto a less messy area.

Then I froze.

Somewhere deep inside the abyss, I could hear a familiar bellow. The grotesque. Of course it had survived the fall. It was infinitely more durable than me, even if my evolver physique was enhanced. Even now I could hear its footfalls pounding toward my location. My blood chilled and I suppressed a shudder, gritting my teeth and clenching my fists in frustration. I had to move. Right now I had no way of fighting it. My guns didn't have the firepower to destroy it, and I was still hurt from the previous battle as well as the fall to this place.

Turning around, I headed in the opposite direction of where I heard the grotesque lumbering about and jogged toward one of the many tunnels or corridors that snaked away from this chamber of broken machinery. While I did so, a rotting hand shot out to grasp my ankle.

"Whoa!"

Just my luck. I had walked straight into a pit of zombies. I must have been panicking because of the grotesque, for I didn't notice the zombies lying on the ground in front of me, even with night vision activated on my glasses. My attention was far too focused on the potential exits to pay much attention to the ground.

Even though I was so careful before…

Cursing under my breath, I drew my guns. The targeting reticules turned red when they hovered over the heads of the moaning zombies and I opened fire. White flashes blinded me momentarily, turning my night vision against me, but when I blinked and cleared my vision, I could see that the zombie holding onto my leg was dead, its head blown clear. I pulled my leg clear and quickly backpedaled, even as more zombies began to haul themselves up and toward me. Their rictus hardened claws slashed at me, but I continued to fire, the volley of azure bolts smashing their heads into smithereens.

There were far too many of them and they were too close. I could feel hands gripping my arms and pulling, fingers clamping on my legs and yanking me off balance. I yelled and kicked out, thrashing wildly with my elbows and knees. The blows connected, but the zombies didn't feel pain. I felt my skin tearing under their rotting nails and insane grip as I forcibly broke free, only to find myself disorientated and off balance.

While spinning around and falling backward, I opened fire once more, riddling the closest zombie with holes and punching it off its feet. Scrambling away and realizing that my exhaustion of evolution energy meant that the power of my guns were dropping steadily, I retreated.

While evolver guns didn't need ammunition, they were reliant on the shooter's evolution energy. If I exhausted myself, then they would naturally run out of power. This wasn't good. But if I didn't continue shooting and expending my evolution energy, the zombies would overwhelm me.

That was when I noticed something that was not part of the reticules, data and values scrolling across my glasses. A weird projection that was not green but glowing azure was floating in front of me, and for a moment I didn't understand what it was. Then I saw the words and numbers on it, and my mind went blank.

"Huh? Kill count?"

Yeah, the words were simply. They were Kill Count: 14.

I didn't have much time to consider the weird projection. A zombie was lunging at me and I put a hole through its brain, felling it. As it flopped over, I noticed that the Kill Count went up to 15. Another shot and another zombie raised it to 16.

Then I understood. This projection, or whatever it was, it was tracking the number of zombies I was killing. For what purpose? I didn't understand. Not only that, I wasn't sure where it came from. Why did it suddenly show up? Where was it being projected from?

"I'll worry about that after I get out of here," I muttered and clambered atop a piece of machinery. Firing another two shots and taking down a couple of zombies that had drawn too close for my comfort, I hopped to a narrow precipice and steadied myself. Using my evolver's reflexes, I jumped off the ground and surged to a great height. Holstering one of my guns, I grabbed a tube and hauled myself upward, landing precariously on the top of the metallic block. Below, the zombies shuffled and clawed at the bottom of the machine, but its side were too smooth and steep for them to climb.

Clearly I had managed to buy myself some time. But I couldn't stay here forever. Already I could hear the grotesque's footsteps growing louder and louder as it approached. Even if it couldn't scale this tall piece of machinery, it could certainly knock it over and throw me off.

What should I do now? Heaving, I pointed my guns downward, but I felt faint and lightheaded. That was a symptom of evolution energy exhaustion. I might lose consciousness if I continued to shoot. And there were far too many zombies for me to clear out with my current reserves of EE.

The azure screen continued to hover next to me. The Kill Count currently stood at 18, as if it was recording my high score or whatever. I waved at it irritably, and it shimmered and changed. My jaw dropped when I saw it expand further into a pentagon. Each corner was labeled with different attributes but they were all at identical values.

Strength, Endurance, Agility, Willpower, and Spirit. There was a sixth, separate column titled Ability, but it was a blank scroll that floated next to the pentagon.

Right now, each attribute had a value of 1. The ability started at 0, however, which kind of explained its emptiness.

"What the hell is this supposed to be?" I muttered, scratching my head. "A system?"