Ragnar clawed backward across the ground, leaving a sar of blood behind him, his fingers digging into the asphalt as desperately as if he could sink into it and disappear.
"D-Don't co near , you damned creatures!" he rasped at the zombies.
They kept coming - slow, unhurried - like they knew this ti their prey wasn't getting away.
He tried to rise, but his legs were useless. Bones shattered. Muscles torn. So he dragged himself with his arms, wheezing, every movent accompanied by the sick scrape of bone on pavent and a wet, sticky shudder as his body slid through blood.
If he'd been in anything resembling a normal state, he still could've used his ability. Even after fighting Natalia and Roland, he had mana left - enough to tear apart the approaching corpses with a single violent gust and buy himself a few seconds to run.
But now, with pain burning through his body and pure, animal panic roaring in his skull, he couldn't focus for even a heartbeat. His mana didn't respond to him at all - almost as if it refused to obey a man who'd lost control of his own mind.
Leon stood a dozen ters away and watched without changing expression.
He didn't hurry.
He didn't look away.
He simply observed.
Under Ragnar's terrified stare, one of the zombies reached out and grabbed his leg, fingers digging into ripped muscle. Then it yanked him closer like it was hauling a sack of at.
Teeth sank into Ragnar's thigh.
"AAAAARGH!!! It hurts… fuck, it hurts!!!" Ragnar bellowed, trying to slam his fist into the corpse, but his arms were too weak and his body too spent.
A second zombie dropped to its knees and bit into his shoulder, tearing off a chunk of flesh with a wet crack. A third lunged in from the other side, wrenching at skin and tendons like it was ripping raw at apart.
Ragnar's screams climbed higher, shriller - nothing like the voice of a man who'd called himself "King" minutes ago.
"Help !" he shrieked, twisting his head toward Leon. "Please! I'm sorry for what I did! Please - help ! I don't want to die! I don't want to!"
His voice bounced off the building walls, carried down the street, vibrating like an alarm siren. Each scream ca weaker, more broken -
Until one of the zombies clamped its jaws around his throat.
Words turned into a wet, gurgling rattle.
Under the attention of several corpses, Ragnar stopped being a person and beca a mass of blood and at that twitched for a few seconds before going still.
In the windows of the nearby building, survivors stood frozen.
Trembling.
They stared through filthy glass at sothing they'd only ever seen in movies or read in books - except now there was no censorship. No cutaways. No cara turning aside at the last second. Just the full view of a body being torn apart and blood spilling onto the street.
Almost without thinking, their gazes slid to Leon, standing so twenty ters from the feeding zombies.
So looked at him with outright terror.
Others with disbelief.
No one held his stare for more than a few seconds before looking away, as if afraid that if they stared too long, he might decide they were next.
Even the teachers who'd been living under Ragnar's "protection" watched Leon with a mix of shock and unease.
Who would've thought this young man - who looked like an ordinary student - could be so ruthless?
The most unsettling part was his face.
Too calm.
As if what had just happened had nothing to do with him.
As if he were only a spectator, not the one who'd set the end in motion.
And yet among all those faces, there were so who weren't looking at him with fear.
A few won stood farther back inside the building, arms wrapped around themselves, faces wet with tears. They stared at Ragnar's remains with pure, undisguised hatred - hatred that, second by second, shifted into sothing else.
Relief.
Sothing close to gratitude.
When their eyes moved to Leon's back, there was no terror there.
Just a silent thank you that the nightmare they'd lived through for days had finally ended.
After nearly a week of humiliation, coercion, being treated like objects instead of people, those won would've done anything to take revenge.
The problem was, they had nothing to do it with.
No strength. No stats. No monster-slaying courage. For days, their role had been to survive - smile when necessary, lower their eyes when ordered, and pray today wouldn't be their turn.
To so, Leon looked like a demon made flesh.
Standing among corpses, indifferent, daggers in hand, his face giving away nothing.
But to them…
To them, he looked like sunrise after a night that had gone on far too long.
Not because he was good.
Only because he was stronger.
Valeria watched the zombies finish their al, then spoke in a calm, surprisingly serious tone.
"You know, Leon… so people get excited by scenes like that. They treat it like foreplay. I hope…" Her eyes slid to him. "I hope you aren't one of them."
Leon, who'd just taken a step toward what was left of Ragnar, actually stumbled a little and looked at her like she'd lost her mind.
"I'm not a pervert like you," he muttered dryly. "Don't worry."
Valeria laughed softly.
"Oh, my dear… you can't even imagine how much of a pervert I am."
Her cheeks turned visibly red, her gaze drifting off as if she really was imagining sothing.
For the sake of his own sanity, Leon decided it was better to ignore her.
He turned toward the zombies.
And vanished.
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
Four lightning-fast cuts sliced through the air - so fast that to the onlookers it looked like a single blurred motion.
Four zombie heads launched upward, then dropped onto the asphalt, spinning a few tis before coming to rest.
The bodies collapsed a heartbeat later.
[Essence Record – Kill Confird]
[Target: 3x Zombie (LVL 9)]
Leon didn't even look at the ssage.
He crouched beside what was left of Ragnar and frowned slightly, staring at the wreckage. Most of the flesh had been torn away, bone laid bare, but the System had its rules - so long as the body wasn't completely destroyed, loot still existed.
He plunged his hand into the blood-soaked innards, ignoring the sick consistency, and after a mont he pulled out the first item.
A necklace.
A delicate chain with a pendant shaped like a spiral of wind.
A System window appeared:
[Stormguard Torque (Rare-class artifact)]
[Description: Contains condensed wind-elental energy. Generates an automatic wind barrier around the user's body when facing lethal or high-impact damage. The barrier disperses kinetic force and redirects incoming attacks. Usage Limit: 4 activations per day]
[Effect: 15 Intelligence]
"So that's what you were using to block hits…" Leon murmured.
A mont later, he pulled out the second item.
A ring.
Silver, engraved with the symbol of a swirling vortex.
[Tempestcaller Ring (Rare-class artifact)]
[Description: Contains powerful wind-elental energy. Once per day, allows the user to unleash a linear hurricane blast capable of lifting and pushing multiple targets into the air.]
[Effect: 10 Intelligence]
Leon looked at the mangled corpse and grimaced.
"What the hell… only two treasures? And both Rare-class? Where's the rest?"
He stared at Ragnar like he was trying to decide whether the man had truly been as strong as he seed - or if his power had co mostly from ability and stats, not gear.
In the end, he exhaled.
Two Rare artifacts were still two Rare artifacts.
Without hesitation, he slid the ring onto his finger.
[Equipnt Effect Applied]
[Effect: 10 Intelligence]
He felt his mind sharpen - thoughts lining up faster, cleaner, with less effort.
In this world, defeating a human was more profitable than killing a monster.
You didn't just gain Soul Essence and experience the way you did from beasts - you also took every item your enemy had collected.
A high-level person with a stash of artifacts was a walking mine.
The problem was, that kind of mine usually killed you before you ever got to crack it open.
Leon stood over Ragnar's remains for a mont longer, staring at the two newly acquired treasures without any wild satisfaction or sick thrill. He'd just watched a man get eaten alive, but what filled his head wasn't lust for blood or greed…
Only cool analysis.
And the quiet awareness of what had just happened.
He wasn't a killing machine.
The fact that he could watch soone die without blinking didn't an he wanted to slaughter every human he t just to steal their artifacts, their experience, their Soul Essence. This wasn't about massacre for profit.
For Leon, it was simple: if soone stood in his way, tried to kill him, use him, or threatened the people he considered "his"…
He wouldn't hesitate for a second.
But unless soone crossed that line, he had no intention of treating people like walking loot crates.
"I'm not a hunter of humans," he muttered under his breath, more to himself than anyone else.
Valeria glanced at him from the corner of her eye, but didn't say anything.
Leon knew perfectly well that just because he thought this way didn't an others did. This world was still taking shape, and the System rewarded strength, elimination, and taking what your enemies had.
It was only a matter of ti before groups appeared who hunted people the sa way they hunted zombies - calling it the most efficient thod of growth.
And maybe those groups already existed.
Maybe sowhere on campus - or beyond it - there were people who didn't bother with negotiation or rules. People who cut throats first and looted afterward.
The thought was unpleasant.
But logical.
In this world, morality wasn't a System stat.
Then Leon's expression changed.
His pupils narrowed almost imperceptibly, his body tightening in a fraction of a second…
As his eyes locked onto an ice spike flying straight at him at full speed.
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