The loud bang, bang, bang echoed through the stadium as dozens of monsters relentlessly slammed into the massive iron doors of the gym. With each violent impact, the doors became more and more deformed, clearly on the verge of giving way.
“Save them first,” Luca said urgently, with no time to waste. He took out his Starseeker and addressed Quagmire and the others. Without waiting for a response, he pushed off the ground and shot upward like a bolt of lightning.
…
Meanwhile, inside the gym, the thud, thud, thud of the monsters’ attacks sounded like the grim chimes of a death bell, echoing endlessly through the vast, empty space.
Dozens of men and women, armed with baseball bats and other makeshift weapons, stared fearfully at the iron door, now piled with debris.
With each blow, the door creaked open slightly, threatening to break at any moment, causing their hearts to race in sync with the pounding of the metal.
The group couldn’t fathom it—two basketball teams had just been meeting for a friendly game, so how did a horde of spider-like creatures suddenly come charging out of the cafeteria? Was this some kind of horror film?
“Luler, think of something!” a girl in a skirt, her round face still babyish, said with a pale expression, her voice quivering with panic. She was on the verge of tears. “If this keeps up, those monsters will break through the door!”
The boy beside her, Luler, glanced at the blood-soaked remnants of his torn jersey lying on the floor. His face turned pale with fear, his legs trembling. He stammered, “Even Lustie was killed by those monsters… what can I do?!”
Lustie had been the strongest forward on their team—physically the largest, with the most strength. When the creatures first appeared, he and a few others rushed to block the door, hoping to buy some time for the others.
But… there was no happy ending.
The group had watched helplessly as the grotesque creatures ripped through Lustie, devouring him in mere moments. His blood and intestines had been ripped out, and the bloodied jersey Luler was now holding had been torn from Lustie’s body in his final moments.
It was now all that remained of Lustie.
Yuel, a girl in the group, was near hysterical. “How did I end up with such a useless boyfriend…” She was nearly crying as she sobbed, “I’m still so young! I just got into South City University… I don’t want to die yet…”
Emotions were contagious, and Yuel’s panicked wailing only heightened the already tense atmosphere. The other girls, unable to handle the mounting pressure and the deafening crashes against the door, began to break down as well, covering their faces and sobbing uncontrollably.
The pressure on the door weakened significantly, and the monsters outside immediately grew more excited upon hearing the movement. The sound of bang, bang, bang against the door became much more frequent and forceful.
Someone had already glimpsed the dark, hollow facial features of the creatures through a crack in the door. The sight was so terrifying that they screamed and collapsed to the ground, unable to get up for a long time.
“Do you all really want to die? Stop crying and come help hold the door!” A boy cursed under his breath, grabbed a baseball bat, and started toward the door.
But just as he reached the door, a grayish-white arm suddenly shot through the gap.
“Shit!” The boy was startled, and without thinking, swung the baseball bat at the arm. But in a split second, the gray arm twisted unnaturally, bending at an eerie angle. It dodged the bat and stretched out, the joints twisting as it grabbed the boy by the neck and yanked violently!
Bang!! In the horrified gaze of everyone, the boy’s head collided with the iron door. His skull shattered, sending a mix of red and white liquid splattering across the people nearby—on their clothes, their faces. As they watched the body collapse lifelessly to the ground, every breath was stifled, and their eyes widened in shock.
The next moment, a piercing scream shattered the silence, echoing through the gym.
Along with the scream came the deafening sound of the iron door being smashed open.
Boom!! The gym’s door flew backward, and dozens of spider-like monsters with multiple arms surged into the gym like sharks sensing blood.
The students, seeing this, had no time to think of anything else. Screaming, they bolted for the exits. Yuel, in her panic, didn’t notice the tennis ball on the floor beneath her feet. She stepped on it and immediately fell face-first onto the ground.
“Lu… Luler!” Yuel’s face turned pale from the pain as she instinctively called out to the boy ahead of her. She had believed, after he had sworn only days earlier that he would never leave her, that he would surely pull her up.
Instead, what followed left her both shocked and furious.
Luler glanced back at her for a moment, then quickly turned away, running faster in fear.
“You bastard!!” Yuel gritted her teeth in rage.
The forum posts her friends had shared about unreliable men had been right all along. Men were absolutely useless!
What was worse, Yuel soon realized, was that it wasn’t just the men who were unreliable. The friends and classmates she had been so close to, even when she begged them for help, didn’t even spare her a second glance.
Seeing this, Yuel’s heart sank. Was this how it was going to end for her? Was she really going to die here?
She had never even slept with a man. She couldn’t accept this!
Just then, Yuel felt as though something was getting closer to her.
It was right behind her, not far at all.
“Ugh…” Yuel bit her lip tightly, her body trembling uncontrollably as she lay on the ground. She didn’t dare to turn around, praying silently that the monsters would lose interest in anything that stayed still.
Seconds passed like hours, and it seemed as though her prayer had worked—or perhaps it was just her distorted perception of time—but the expected pain never came. Miraculously, the creatures didn’t make a move toward her.
Pretending to be dead actually worked. Yuel was overjoyed in her heart and immediately made a decision.
She was going to crawl until the monsters had eaten their fill and left!
Even though the ground was cold and her feet still hurt, she was willing to crawl for days if she had to. She was determined to survive because there was so much she still wanted to do in life!
As Yuel marveled at her own determination, a slightly hesitant voice suddenly came from behind her.
“Do… do you want to move to another place?” Looking at the girl in the skirt lying on the ground with her hips raised, trembling uncontrollably, even someone like Luca, with his experience and knowledge, didn’t know what to say for a moment.
Could she possibly have mistaken the monsters for brown bears, thinking playing dead would save her?
If that’s the case, this girl’s thought process might rival that of Fuzzsir in its absurdity…
Hearing a man’s voice behind her, Yuel thought she had misheard at first. It wasn’t until Luca asked patiently again, whether she wanted to move to another spot to lie down, that Yuel suddenly jerked upright, her body snapping into a sitting position.
“You… you…!!” She stared wide-eyed at the handsome young man squatting beside her, his gentle smile tinged with concern. For a moment, she thought she was dreaming, completely baffled by how someone had appeared behind her.
But then, Yuel realized something was off.
“What… what’s going on?” Her gaze shifted behind the young man, her face filled with confusion.
The gym doors that had been knocked open were now wide, and scattered around the room were barbells, basketballs, wooden benches, and all sorts of other miscellaneous items. They were all covered in a layer of silver-white frost, and she had no idea when it had happened.
Bright sunlight streamed through, casting beams across the frozen bodies of the monsters, which now resembled ice sculptures. The cold air hung around them, and they gleamed with a crystalline, translucent beauty, almost like art pieces. And just half a meter away from Yuel, there stood another such ice sculpture.
It had bent down, its dry, withered arm reaching out, its jet-black nails glinting coldly, aiming directly at her heart.
“It seems like you’re not in too much trouble,” the handsome young man said as he stood up, smiling. “You’re lucky. Congratulations on surviving, junior.”
Junior? Yuel froze for a moment, before realizing that the boy’s face seemed somewhat familiar. She must have seen him somewhere before, but before she could think more about it, a group of people walked in.
They were carrying briefcases, dressed in black uniforms just like the young man, with a golden starry emblem on their chests. There were both men and women among them; some were strikingly beautiful, while others looked somewhat unusual.
At the head of the group was a scruffy, somewhat shabby-looking man.
He had a cigarette hanging from his mouth and slapped the frozen monster’s ice sculpture with a click of his tongue, saying, “You finished it that quickly? If I had known, I would’ve just sent you alone and saved us the trouble of coming here.”
Luca shook his head and said, “Drumph told us in the briefing that there are unusual spatial fluctuations near Celephais High School. Now, with the appearance of a large number of puppet spiders, I suspect there’s likely a Spatial Node nearby.”
“Let’s have someone evacuate everyone within a five-kilometer radius.”
“Spatial Node?” The others froze for a moment, and then their expressions changed immediately.
They had seen the dangers of such nodes in the Morning Star database. They knew all too well what it meant for a city to have a node appear. If it exploded, who knew how many casualties there would be.
Coarmy also understood the gravity of the situation. His face grew serious as he said, “I’ll make a call to evacuate the area right away. You all be careful.”
After all, he wasn’t a combat specialist, and in this situation, he wouldn’t be much help—he could even be a liability.
The group nodded in response.
At that moment, the students who had run to the tennis courts were found by Yelling. After seeing the horrific and brutal puppet spiders, they were more emotional at the sight of official personnel than they would have been seeing family. Tears welled up in their eyes as they expressed their relief.
Now that the people had been rescued, Luca, Quagmire, and the others didn’t linger. They were preparing to search for the Spatial Node, but as Luca started to leave, Sona suddenly became anxious. She realized where she had seen him before.
But just as she was processing this, Luler jogged over.
With a joyful expression, he said, “Sona, I’m so glad you’re alright! I thought you…”
“Thought I was dead?” Sona sneered and said, “When you ran away earlier, you didn’t seem too concerned about whether I lived or died. Now, you come over here pretending to care?”
“Luler, your fake concern really disgusts me. I misjudged you before.”
“From today on, we have nothing to do with each other!”
“We end here.”
With that, Sona snorted, not even sparing Luler a glance as his face stiffened. She turned and walked out of the gym.