The echo of the final shotgun blast died down, leaving the third-floor auditorium eerily quiet except for the crackle of burning tapestries and the soft, raspy panting of Chris.
"Chris, How many people were working inside this Town Hall today?"
Chris wiped a mixture of sweat and dark fluid from his forehead, clutching his bound, thrashing daughter tighter to his side.
"Including the guards, administrative clerks, trade officials, and morning visitors... easily more than a hundred people."
Which meant we had only put down about thirty. More than seventy infected were still roaming the lower floors, stairwells, and offices below us.
I turned my head toward the large glass windows overlooking the city plaza. My mind immediately began calculating tactical escape routes.
Can I just break the glass and fly us out of here?
With my capabilities, taking to the sky while carrying Chris and Lukreia was entirely feasible. From above, I could search the commercial district, locate the Golden Shrimp Inn, retrieve Patricia and Catherine, and flee Lulu City before the outbreak completely consumed the region.
Then I looked at the harsh, golden sunbeams pouring through the windowpane.
Tch. Impossible.
It was barely mid-morning. If I stepped into the open air right now, the unfiltered sunlight would instantly ignite my vampiric flesh, scorching me alive before we even cleared the courtyard. My heavy canvas cloak offered protection for brief sprints in the shade, but full aerial flight under the midday sun was a death sentence.
What about waiting until sunset?
I considered it for a fraction of a second before discarding the thought as pure foolishness.
If we barricaded ourselves in this auditorium and waited until nightfall, the seventy-plus zombies on the lower floors would eventually breach our position, or worse, starve and go into a hyper-aggressive frenzied state. By then, Chris's mana would be depleted, Lukreia's bindings might weaken, and Patricia and Catherine down at the inn could easily be overrun by the citywide horde.
The infection was spreading exponentially with every passing minute; every second we wasted hiding in this building made our survival odds plunge closer to zero.
Staying put was suicide. We had to move through the shadows of the building and find a ground-level escape route now.
"We can't stay here, and we can't wait for nightfall, We go down through the lower levels right now...and we kill anything that tries to block the exit."
Chris nodded grimly, his knuckles white around the hilt of the blood-forged sword.
"Lead the way, Eirene. I'm right behind you."
We moved toward the grand central stairwell. The silence hanging over the lower floors was suffocating. The chaotic screaming, shouting, and frantic pounding that had echoed through the halls earlier had completely died out.
No more screams, That means everyone left in this building is either infected or dead. There are no civilians left to save.
I took a fast internal inventory of my reserves. My mana bar was already down by a quarter...drained from forging Chris's blood-blade and spiked shield, maintaining Lukreia's crystalline bindings, and firing enchanted rounds with a single arm.
For confirmation, take a look using my inspect.
Mana meter: 8750/12500
If by some absolute miracle there was a surviving mage or support caster hidden in these rooms, they would be an invaluable asset to keep us fueled. But I wasn't holding my breath for miracles.
As we reached the landing overlooking the second-floor loft, a disturbing sight made us freeze in the shadows.
The sprawling mezzanine below was covered in torn paperwork, smashed wooden desks, and dark, pooling blood. Scattered across the area were several heavily mutated zombies, huddled over the mangled remains of guards and clerks, ravenously tearing into flesh.
My hypothesis was proven true right before my eyes:
The more rage a person has, the stronger the mutation has.
Standing near the center of the lobby was a monstrous thrall whose back had violently ruptured outward into a pair of jagged, skeletal bone wings, stretched tight with a thin, translucent membrane of stretched skin and gore.
"That's... the Debtors' Lobby, Where people come to settle high-interest loans, tax disputes, and property repossessions..."
It made terrifying biological sense. The individuals trapped in that lobby when the infection hit were already consumed by overwhelming financial ruin, bitter resentment, and pure, burning hatred toward the city officials. When the virus took over, that profound, toxic rage accelerated their biological mutation into absolute apex horrors.
Before we could back away into the stairwell, the winged skeletal monster raised its grotesque head. Its jaw unhinged with a wet, nauseating click as its dilated, hollow eyes locked onto us.
SCREECH!
It let out a piercing, glass-shattering shriek that echoed off the vaulted ceiling, signaling the rest of the mutated horde below. The feeding frenzy stopped instantly. Half a dozen bone-armored nightmares snapped their heads toward the landing, baring razor-sharp teeth as they lunged up the stairs toward us.
The bone-armored thralls surged up the grand staircase like a wave of dark, twisted iron.
"Chris, hold the narrow steps!" I barked, taking half a step back into the choke point of the landing.
I leveled the Death Chant shotgun with my left hand and pulled the trigger on the leading zombie.
BOOM!
The heavy blast tore straight through its sternum, sending it tumbling backward down the marble steps and knocking two others off their feet.
Before I could rack the next shell, a shadow swept over me. The winged skeletal monstrosity launched itself from the floor of the Debtors' Lobby, its translucent membrane wings snapping against the air with a horrific, leathery CRACK.
It ascended the vertical height of the mezzanine in a heartbeat, its jagged bone blades raised to split my head in two.
I snapped the muzzle of the shotgun upward toward the descending nightmare and pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
Instead of shattering, the monster crossed its massive, elongated bone blades in front of its chest, deflecting the heavy enchanted shot in a shower of sparks and bone dust. The sheer kinetic momentum brought the creature crashing down right on top of me.
Its right blade whistled down in a vicious diagonal arc. I twisted my body hard to the left...
RIIIIP!
The razor-sharp bone edge sheared straight through the thick fabric of my dark dress, tearing a long, ragged slash across my waist. I felt the cold air hit my torso, but the blade missed my skin by a fraction of an inch.
Without giving the creature a second to recover, I reversed my non-dominant left grip on the shotgun and drove the mounted Mist Blade bayonet straight into its exposed shoulder joint...targeting the soft, bleeding flesh right where the mutated bone blade attached to the socket, completely bypassing its skeletal armor.
STAB!
The winged monster let out an ear-splitting shriek of pain as the anti-heal curse seared into its open wound. While the bayonet was still buried deep in its flesh, I tilted the receiver downward, jamming the barrel directly against its shoulder joint, and yanked the trigger point-blank.
BOOM!
The point-blank blast detonated like a grenade inside the monster's socket. Its entire right arm and attached bone blade were blasted clean off its body in a cloud of shredded meat and shattered bone fragments. It stumbled back onto the landing, screeching hysterically as black, corrupted blood gushed from the gaping wound.
Meanwhile, Chris was putting his broad frame and my blood-forged gear to brutal work at the top of the stairwell.
"HYAAAH!" Chris roared, locking his boots against the marble floorboards.
He thrust the spiked blood-shield forward like a fortress wall, catching the full weight of three charging zombies at once. The narrow width of the stairwell played entirely to his advantage...the thralls had no room to flank him, forcing them to pile directly onto the heavy blood-spikes bristling from his shield.
STAB-CRUNCH!
Chris grunted, his muscles straining as he drove his hips forward, using the heavy shield to forcefully ram the entire front line of the horde backward, sending them cascading down the steep marble steps into a tangled, thrashing heap of limbs.
"Push! I'm holding them, Eirene! Finish that flying thing!"
The one-armed winged monster shrieked, its translucent membrane wings beating violently against the air as it surged back to its feet. Ignoring the massive, gushing socket where its right arm used to be, it lunged forward with terrifying, adrenaline-fueled speed, pinning me flat against the stone wall of the landing.
"Get off!"
I jammed the muzzle of the Death Chant Shotgun into its chest and repeatedly racked and yanked the trigger with my left hand.
BOOM! BOOM!
Enchanted lead tore through its sternum, spraying dark, infected blood across my cloak, but the beast felt no pain. Its remaining bone blade swept down, stopping a fraction of an inch from my right eye, the razor edge grazing my skin.
With a surge of desperation, I planted my boot into its mangled chest and kicked with all my strength.
THUD!
The monster stumbled back a pace, creating just enough clearance. I raised the shotgun, aimed directly at its face, and emptied the magazine into its head.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The repeated point-blank blasts blew away its jaw, nose, and facial tissue, exposing the yellowed bone of its skull and the dark, pulsing brain tissue beneath. Before it could collapse, I reversed my grip and rammed the Mist Blade bayonet straight into its exposed brain stem.
STAB!
The creature went completely limp, crashing to the floor like a sack of lead.
I slumped against the wall, gasping for air, my single arm trembling violently from the sheer physical strain. I was exhausted, my mana running perilously low, and my dress shredded. Sitting heavy on the marble, I jammed the shotgun receiver against my knee, using the leverage to manually load fresh shells into the chamber one by one.
CLACK. CLACK. CLACK.
"Eirene! I can't hold them!" Chris shouted from the stairwell.
The weight of the horde was becoming overwhelming. Few mana left to cast, Chris was straining against the sheer physical momentum of a dozen thralls pressing against his spiked shield. The blood-forged weapon was beginning to crack under the relentless assault.
CLICK!
Suddenly, a heavy oak door near the far side of the mezzanine loft swung open. A terrified middle-aged man in a torn clerk's uniform poked his head out, waving frantically.
"Hey! Over here! Hurry!" he yelled.
"Eirene, move!" Chris barked.
Abandoning the battered blood-shield on the landing, Chris scooped up the bound, thrashing Lukreia under his arm and sprinted toward the open doorway for dear life.
I scrambled to my feet, bracing the freshly loaded shotgun under my left arm, and sprinted right behind him. The horde broke over the top of the stairs, a sea of screaming, boney nightmares giving chase just paces behind us.
Chris burst through the threshold first along with Lukreia. I threw myself in right after him as the lead zombie lunged, its skeletal talons snapping at the air where my heels had been a second prior.
The survivor slammed the heavy oak door shut with a thunderous bang, throwing the thick iron deadbolt into place just as the horde crashed against the outside wood like a tidal wave.
THAM-THAM-THAM-THAM!
The heavy door shuddered in its frame, but the iron lock held firm, locking us inside a dim, quiet room as the muted shrieks of the infected echoed from the hall.