Free Web NovelChapter 5: Chapter 5: A New Dawn
Theresa stopped walking.
"No," she whispered.
Lucian said nothing. His eyes tracked from the outer wall — the massive fortifications he’d been admiring moments ago — to the gates below. The main gate, a towering arch of reinforced steel, was open. Not just unlocked — open, wide enough for vehicles, and the guard posts on either side were...
Empty.
No. Not empty.
Destroyed.
The left guard post was a smoking ruin, its mana-powered searchlight shattered on the ground in a spray of glass. The right post had a body slumped over the railing — a man in Task Force uniform, his throat torn out, dark blood pooling beneath him in a widening circle.
Beyond the gate, Lyon burned.
"NO!" Theresa screamed, and then she was sprinted toward the open gate.
"My baby — MIYA—!"
She disappeared through the gate without looking back.
Lucian watched her go.
Then he turned his gaze back to the city.
Buildings on fire — not just one or two, but dozens, their windows vomiting orange flame into the night sky, their structures groaning and crackling as the heat weakened steel and concrete. Cars overturned on the streets, doors hanging open, some still running, headlights cutting weak beams through the smoke. Bodies.
Lots of bodies.
Some were whole — crumpled on the pavement, limbs, faces frozen in expressions of terror as they died. Others were... not. Torn apart. Partially eaten. Dragged into alleyways and left in piles of offal and bone.
And the people who were still alive were running away from the city. Screaming and carrying children or dragging injured loved ones, stumbling over debris and corpses with the blind panic of prey animals in a burning forest.
Lucian walked through the gate.
A woman collided with him clutching a toddler to her chest. She didn’t even seem to register that she’d bumped into someone. She just kept running, sobbing, the toddler wailing in her arms.
Lucian’s expression didn’t change.
He grabbed the next person who tried to pass him — a man in a stained shirt, mid-forties, face slick with terror. The man yelped as Lucian’s hand closed around his arm like a vice.
"What’s going on?" Lucian asked. His voice was calm.
The man’s eyes darted to Lucian’s face as his terror intensified.
"L-let go—"
"I asked a question." Lucian’s grip tightened. He heard the man’s radius creak under the pressure. "What. Is. Going. On."
The man’s other arm shot out, pointing frantically toward a large commercial building three blocks down the main street. A massive digital screen covered its entire façade, and on that screen —
"Th-the screen!" the man gasped. "Some psycho is trying to commit genocide!"
Lucian released him. The man stumbled backward, clutching his arm, and then ran — vanishing into the chaos without another word.
Lucian looked at the screen.
A young man stood behind a podium with glasses and a red hair wearing a white lab coat that looked almost absurdly clean given the carnage playing out on the streets below. He was speaking calmly, almost conversationally, as if he were giving a university lecture rather than addressing a city — a world — in the middle of collapse.
"—by now, the virus must have spread to various countries, starting from China."
The man adjusted his glasses. His expression was serene.
"Now, some of you might see this as genocide."
A pause as an evil smile plastered across his face.
"But I’m doing this for the good of humanity." freeweɓnøvel.com
The fuck?
"The population has grown too much again," the red-haired man continued, his tone shifting to something almost conspiratorial, like he was sharing a secret with a friend. "After the initial purge three hundred years ago. Mana has been a blessing for us all, but resources are finite. You understand."
He leaned forward slightly, and the camera zoomed in on his face.
"Some scientists must have studied this virus in the few days it’s been released. This virus is one sly bastard, isn’t it?"
His face shifted. The serene smile stretched wider, the corners of his mouth pulling up past the point of sanity, until his expression was something that belonged on a horror vid poster.
Evil. Pure, undiluted, giddy evil.
"As some of you have already noticed — and the question flying around — how did this virus spread so fast?" He held up a finger, like a teacher about to deliver a favorite lesson. "This virus has been in circulation for a week now. The virus is dormant for just forty-five hours. After which..." He made a small explosion gesture with his hands. "Boom."
He straightened, tugging his lab coat.
"Some of you must have noticed, after investigating the virus — there is no cure."
The smile widened further.
"The only cure is extinction."
He spread his arms wide like a showman presenting his greatest act.
"Now, I bring to you — a new dawn. A new age. A monstrous combination of mana and science." His voice dropped to a reverent whisper. "Please. I present to you..."
The screen behind him flashed red.
THE ZOMBIE VIRUS.
"Ensure not to get bitten," he added, almost as an afterthought, that hideous grin never leaving his face. "Even cultivators aren’t safe."
The screen looped back to the beginning.
Lucian stood in the middle of the street, surrounded by fire and the screams and the stench of death, and felt...
Nothing.
The scientist, the virus, the apocalypse — it was all background noise to him.
There was only one thing that mattered.
Lena, his sister.
Thwack.
Something hit him from behind. Lucian turned.
The thing that had hit him was humanoid. Had been human, once. Now it was a shambling wreck — grey skin stretched over visible bone, eyes milky and unfocused, jaw hanging open to reveal teeth that had been ground down to nubs from biting. Its clothes — a waiter’s uniform, name tag reading "MARC" — were stained dark with dried blood and... other fluids.
It lunged at him again, arms outstretched, a guttural moan spilling from its ruined throat.
Ggggghhhhnnn—
Lucian backhanded it across the face.
PAM!
The zombie’s head snapped sideways, and its body went flying from the shockwave of vampiric strength transmitted through the contact. It crashed into a parked car, denting the door, and slumped to the ground.
Then it got up.
Its head lolled at an angle that should have been impossible — neck broken, vertebrae visibly misaligned — but it kept coming. Kept reaching.
"Ggggghhhhnnn—"
"Hm."
Lucian formed a Light Blade. The white dagger materialized in his grip, casting sharp shadows across the zombie’s grey face as it stumbled toward him.
It reached for him.
He stepped inside its guard and swung.
Schlick.
The head came off cleanly, spinning through the air trailing a thin arc of black blood. The body stood for a moment and then collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
╔═════════════════════════════════╗
║ ⚔ COMBAT NOTIFICATION ⚔ ║
║ You have successfully slain: ║
║ ◀ NORMAL ZOMBIE ▶ ║
║ Reward: +10 EXP ║
╚═════════════════════════════════╝
Lucian stared at the notification, then at the headless corpse on the ground.
"Ten experience," he said flatly. "For that."
He dismissed the notification and looked around. The street was a warzone, but the immediate area was clear — the other survivors had fled, and the zombies were drawn to noise and movement, neither of which Lucian was currently providing.
His stomach growled.
Not the blood-hunger — that was sated, his BE sitting comfortably at 100/100. This was different. Human hunger. Two weeks of nothing but blood and raw beast meat, and his body was demanding something else.
Food.
He stepped over the corpse and started walking.
The streets were eerily empty in the sections where the fires hadn’t reached. Abandoned cars sat with doors open. Storefronts were shattered, their contents looted or scattered. Houses stood dark and silent, some with doors hanging open, others barricaded from the inside.
Another zombie lurched out of an alleyway to his left.
Schlick.
Head off. Body down.
╔═════════════════════════════════╗
║ Normal Zombie slain: +10 EXP ║
╚═════════════════════════════════╝
Two more emerged from a broken storefront, drawn by the sound of the first one falling.
Schlick. Schlick.
╔═════════════════════════════════╗
║ Normal Zombie slain: +10 EXP ║
║ Normal Zombie slain: +10 EXP ║
╚═════════════════════════════════╝
They kept coming.
A group of five — shuffling, moaning, arms outstretched — poured out of a side street like a burst pipe of grey flesh. Lucian didn’t slow down. He walked through them like they were tall grass, Light Blade flashing left and right.
Schlick. Schlick. Schlick. Schlick. Schlick.
Five bodies hit the ground in as many seconds.
╔═════════════════════════════════╗
║ Normal Zombie slain: +10 EXP ║
║ Normal Zombie slain: +10 EXP ║
║ Normal Zombie slain: +10 EXP ║
║ Normal Zombie slain: +10 EXP ║
║ Normal Zombie slain: +10 EXP ║
╚═════════════════════════════════╝
Then something different.
It came from the same side street as the group of five — faster, more coordinated running towards him.
Lucian’s eyes narrowed.
This one still wore Hunter Guild gear. The vest was torn, the bracers cracked, but the insignia was visible — F-rank hunter. And unlike the grey, mindless things he’d been cutting down, this zombie had a faint glow around its body.
Mana. It still had mana circulation.
Early Neophyte Realm zombie.
It lunged, and Lucian sidestepped — but not as easily as the normal ones. This zombie was fast. Faster than a normal human, faster than the mindless shamblers. Its fingers raked across his sleeve, tearing fabric.
Lucian’s Light Blade still took its head off.
Schlick.
╔═════════════════════════════════╗
║ ⚠ VARIATION DETECTED ⚠ ║
║ ◀ EARLY NEOPHYTE ZOMBIE ▶ ║
║ Reward: +50 EXP ║
╚═════════════════════════════════╝
"50," Lucian murmured, wiping black blood from his blade. "Five times the normal ones."
A second one appeared — another hunter, this one in civilian clothes but with the same faint mana glow. Early Neophyte, same as the last.
Schlick.
╔═════════════════════════════════╗
║ Early Neophyte Zombie slain: +50 EXP ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════╝
More normal ones trickled in as he walked. He killed them without breaking stride, his movements mechanical, efficient. By the time he’d cleared the next three blocks, the notifications had stacked into a familiar pattern.
╔═════════════════════════════════╗
║ COMBAT SUMMARY ║
║ Normal Zombies slain: 14 ║
║ Reward: +140 EXP ║
║ Early Neophyte Zombies slain: 2 ║
║ Reward: +100 EXP ║
║ TOTAL EXP GAINED: 240 ║
╚═════════════════════════════════╝
╔═══════════════════════╗
║ SYSTEM LEVEL: 4 ║
║ EXP: 420 / 500 ║
╚═══════════════════════╝
Forty more to level five.
Lucian dismissed the windows and filed the information away. Normal zombies gave ten. Early Neophyte zombies gave fifty.
Which meant either zombie cultivation didn’t matter, or...
Do they retain their cultivation base when they turn?
It was a question for later. Right now, there was a more pressing concern.
His stomach growled again — louder this time, almost painfully insistent.
And there, at the end of the block, its windows intact and its sign still flickering with weak mana-powered light —
A restaurant.
"MARCO’S ITALIAN KITCHEN — FINE DINING SINCE 287 P.C."
The door was locked. Lucian broke it with one punch, the glass shattering inward with a satisfying crash, and stepped inside.
The smell hit him like a wall.
Garlic. Tomato sauce. Fresh bread. Cheese.
Gods.
His mouth watered with saliva.
The dining room was empty — tables set with pristine white cloths, candles still burning in their holders, as if the patrons had simply vanished mid-meal. The kitchen beyond was dark, but the industrial refrigerators hummed with power.
Lucian walked into the kitchen, opened the nearest fridge, and stared at the contents like a man dying of thirst staring at an oasis.
Pasta. Sauce. Cheese. Vegetables. Meat — actual cooked meat, seasoned and stored in containers.
He didn’t bother with plates.
He sat on the cold tile floor, back against the stainless steel counter, and began eating.
