Bang!
The rooftop barricade blew inward.
Boards, desks, and bent pipe scattered as the stairwell vomited bodies—a tidal wedge of zombies forced upward by the crush below. Those jammed behind kept surging; some undead were squeezed until limbs snapped and torsos burst, flesh mashed to pulp against the doorframe.
Scalp‑numbing horror.
"Ahhh!!" Several of the female Samsara players screamed.
Without a word, the young leader—Solis—turned and ran.
He’d picked this roof because he’d scouted a fallback: a residential block across a two‑to‑three‑meter alley. With his D‑class stats, the jump was trivial.
He sprinted, launched—light as a swallow—and crashed through a window in the opposing building in a spray of glass.
Behind him:
"Save me!"
"Brother Solis!"
"Bring the ladder!"
"Don’t let them eat me—help!!"
There was a long ladder near the stair bulkhead. If Solis dragged it across, he could save at least a few.
But he didn’t move.
He stood inside the apartment, Black Sword Shusui in hand, and watched them—expression flat—as the zombie wave rolled over the rooftop.
Because in his real plan? The "alliance" was cannon fodder from the start.
Even if they’d survived this rush, he’d intended to draw a horde on them near mission end. Alliances blocked direct killing of teammates—but they didn’t protect you from "environmental accidents."
A D‑rank didn’t grind that far in the Safe Zone by sharing system rewards.
The rooftop survivors realized the truth too late.
—--
Boston Police HQ — Kill Zone Setup
It had taken Fenric nearly an hour to finish wiring his trap.
C4 packs seeded at choke points across surrounding streets. Twin Vulcan rotary cannons emplaced at the front approach. High‑explosive grenades staged on the roof. All set.
Final step: aggro.
He yanked a police broadcast unit, cranked the volume, rigged it to an external battery, mounted it on a wrecked bus—then looped the loudest garbage techno he could find.
"BOOM‑CH! BOOM‑BOOM‑CH! Ladies and gentlemen, move with me—"
The speaker stack lit the district.
Half the city heard it.
Every zombie did.
They snapped toward the sound and charged.
From all avenues, alleys, parking decks—an ocean of infected poured toward Boston PD, layering over wrecks, climbing cars, tripping, crushing, stacking.
Most people would have collapsed from terror.
Fenric laughed.
They couldn’t bite him anyway.
When the streets were packed so tight he couldn’t see pavement, he pulled the C4 detonator and triggered every channel.
BOOM—!!
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!!!
A rolling concussion hammered the district like artillery. Building fronts blew outward. Cars flipped. Fire halos lifted bodies into the air. Shockwaves peeled undead off the ground in bloody arcs. Asphalt geysered.
Limbs. Ash. Bone rain.
System prompts flooded Fenric’s interface so fast they lagged:
You killed a zombie. Progress: 117 / 10.
118 / 10.
119 / 10.
...
1,283 / 10.
...
7,982 / 10.
Then the messages simply buffered—unable to scroll fast enough.
The system couldn’t keep up.
In a handful of seconds, Fenric had vaporized nearly ten thousand zombies.
And more kept coming—drawn by the blasts from miles away. Survivors across Boston stared toward the column of fire where the police HQ used to be and wondered what kind of lunatic was fighting a war alone.
Fenric checked the timer. Plenty left.
Phase Three? Maybe spin up the Vulcans for cleanup.
He grinned.