The heavy deadbolt groaned as the survivor leaned his full weight against the oak door, securing us inside the cramped, dimly lit janitor's closet.
The room smelled of stale disinfectant, old mops, and cold copper from our blood-stained clothes. Chris collapsed against a stack of wooden crates, his chest heaving as he tightly cradled the bound, snarling Lukreia. Her solid blood-binds held firm, but her muted thrashing never ceased.
"Oh God... thank the heavens you three made it," the middle-aged clerk who opened the door exhaled, wiping cold sweat from his forehead.
I swept my single crimson eye across the small room, taking stock of our company. Tucked into the shadowy corners of the janitor's closet were three distinct figures.
In the back sat a tall, towering man with a heavily scarred frame… jagged, vicious battle marks crisscrossing his thick neck and arms, giving him a cold, predatory presence. Beside him stood a slim, bald man holding a notched iron arming sword. And tucked away in the furthest, darkest corner was a young girl with brilliant red hair and striking green eyes, curled tightly into the fetal position, her shoulders shaking violently as she wept into her knees.
The moment the bald man saw Lukreia thrashing in Chris's arms, his knuckles turned white around his sword hilt, and he thrust the blade forward.
"Hey! Are you people out of your damn minds?! Why the hell did you bring an Infected in here?!"
"Relax, she's fully immobilized. The binds won't snap."
The bald man stared at the hardened, crimson blood-crystals wrapping Lukreia's wrists and jaw. Seeing that she couldn't bite or slash, he slowly lowered his weapon, letting out a heavy breath.
"Well... that explains it, Greetings. Name's Hugh Davson."
I reached out with my left hand and shook it, my eyes narrowing as the flickering torchlight illuminated his features. Deep, jagged combat scars, a cold, clinical aura, a high-tier killer's stance...
Hugh Davson.
My mind instantly flashed back to the dark, oppressive, anti-mana depths of the Dodorant Citadel prison.
He was Inmate 217… he ruthless, legendary serial killer and undisputed underworld boss who ruled the second level of the Citadel through fear and a network of enforcers. Back when I had surrendered myself to the Citadel under the disguise of "Keane Leon," I had ended up cornered by him and his goons in the steamy communal baths. I remembered wrapping a bar of soap in a towel, beating his entire cleaner crew into a bloody pulp, and finishing Hugh off with a brutal, agonizing groin kick that left him unconscious on the wet tiles, utterly destroying his reputation among the prisoners.
So he either managed to break out during the recent chaos or finished his sentence… Small world.
Before Hugh could look too closely at my shadowed face under my low canvas hood, the slim bald man tapped Hugh firmly on the shoulder, pointing at Chris's torn official coat.
"Hey, Hugh, watch your mouth and don't treat them like ordinary refugees, look at the crest. That's the Governor of Lulu City. And the woman beside him... that's Eirene. The S-rank bounty hunter. Stop acting like a street thug and bow."
Realizing who was standing in front of him, Hugh's cold demeanor cracked slightly, and both men offered a stiff, formal bow.
"Ah... no worries, no worries at all. Please, stand up," Chris said tiredly, waving his hand as he leaned back against the wall.
"I'm James Danielli," the bald man introduced himself, offering a polite nod.
I recognized him instantly as well. Inmate 100.
He was Hugh's primary tactical enforcer and cleaner in the Citadel… the cold, disciplined man who had escorted me through the blind spots of the mineshafts down to the third level to meet Luke. Compared to Hugh's violent history, James was always far more pragmatic and level-headed.
Chris adjusted his grip on Lukreia, his eyes softening as he looked over at the weeping red-haired girl in the corner.
"And who is the young lady?"
James sighed, casting a sympathetic look toward the corner.
"Oh... that's Aisha. We managed to pull her out of the lower commercial district an hour ago after her mother got bit by one of those things. Poor girl hasn't stopped crying since."
My eye widened slightly beneath the shadow of my hood.
Aisha?
I stared at her brilliant red hair and green eyes. Now that I looked closer, the memories came rushing back. Back during my undercover assignment at the Sisiphon Magic Academy… when I had used my shapeshifting to take on the persona of the slum-born male student Zenni Roy… Aisha was one of the three first-year female students who had aggressively formed a clingy, affectionate "harem" around me.
She was the energetic, loud girl who could barely spark a match with her low-grade fire magic, who threw dramatic hugs around my neck, and who violently defended "Zenni" from arrogant upperclassmen.
What in the hell is she doing all the way out here on the coast of Lulu City? She's supposed to be in Sisiphon, sitting in a classroom learning basic flame theory. Did her family live here?
I kept my mouth shut. Revealing that the S-rank bounty hunter standing in front of her was also "Zenni Roy" was a operational mess I had no desire to untangle, especially not in a janitor's closet surrounded by former Citadel inmates.
Hugh crossed his thick, scarred arms, breaking the silence as he leaned against the mop rack.
"Don't mind the young lass for now, Governor, Tell us... what the hell is happening back out there? Is the whole city burning?"
Chris gave a concise, grim summary of the outbreak inside the Town Hall… the speed of infection, the mutated bone-thralls, and the bloody clearing of the third-floor auditorium.
As he spoke, a heavy CRACK echoed through the janitor's closet. The wooden door groaned inward as sharp bone blades scraped frantically against the outer frame.
I immediately stepped forward, slamming my shoulder and chest hard against the wood to reinforce the door.
"They're too mindless to coordinate a breach, they're just blindly throwing their weight against the wood."
"Have you contacted the Luminous Knight Bureau Association? Can they drop reinforcements or send a squad?"
"It's useless, Caria and the main Bureau forces are far too distant. They won't reach this region in time."
Hugh scowled, leaning against a rusted shelf.
"So what's the play? Do we bunker down and hide in here?"
"We can't hide, the Bureau won't be able to mount a full containment effort for at least a week. Staying trapped in this room means starving, getting cornered, or watching the horde mutate further. Our only option is a full breach."
"A plan sounds great, Eirene, Our goal is simple: clear a path out of the Town Hall and escape Lulu City entirely."
"And how are we supposed to fight our way through seventy-plus monsters? We're holding glorified butter knives against bone armor."
I focused my mind and tapped my inventory ring… the spatial storage where I kept my primary arsenal. While my original Death Chant Tommy Gun and explosive spherical bottles were off-limits or depleted, my inventory still held my secondary specialized weapons.
With a flash of dark light, I materialized a wooden-framed, bootleg Death Chant submachine gun equipped with a mounted Mist Blade bayonet… a modified piece I called Last Words.
"Which of you has an elemental magic affinity or skills?" I demanded.
James raised his hand tentatively.
"I have basic Wind affinity... but don't count on it. I never went to an academy, and my control is awful."
Without hesitation, I tossed the heavy wooden submachine gun straight to him.
"Doesn't matter. What matters is keeping your aim steady."
James caught the weapon clumsily, staring down at the arcane receiver in confusion.
"Wait... what is this? I'm no good with complex magic artifacts!"
"Chris, take over the door," I commanded.
"Got it," Chris said, stepping up instantly to plant his broad frame against the wood so I could free my hands.
I turned back to James, my single eye piercing through the dim lighting.
"Listen carefully: place your non-dominant hand under the front barrel frame to stabilize it. Wrap your index finger around the trigger. This weapon feeds directly on your internal mana pool, so don't waste a single shot."
I leaned over and flipped the fire-selector switch on the side of the receiver from fully automatic down to semi-automatic. I had swept James with my Appraisal skill moments ago… his raw mana pool was far too small and unrefined; if he fired on full-auto, the artifact would drain his soul dry in three seconds flat.
"Try a test shot against the top panel," I ordered.
James swallowed hard, braced his boots, stabilized the wooden barrel with his left hand, and squeezed the trigger.
PEW!
Instead of lead, a sharp bolt of hyper-compressed wind tore out of the barrel, punching a clean, golf-ball-sized hole straight through the thick oak door. The sudden kinetic recoil jerked James's shoulders back, making him gasp.
"Whoa… it moves!" James exclaimed, staring at the smoking barrel in disbelief.
I scoffed under my breath.
If he thinks that tiny pulse has recoil, he wouldn't survive firing my primary shotgun with my single non-dominant arm.
My eyes shifted across the dark room toward the far corner, landing on the trembling, red-haired girl.
Aisha.
She possessed a Fire affinity. Even if her previous feats at the academy were limited to tiny sparks, my Death Chant artifacts automatically magnified and condensed elemental mana into lethal projectile force.
In the hands of an elemental affinity user… even an untrained student… these weapons converted raw, instinctual magic into devastating firepower.
Reaching into my inventory ring once more, I materialized my second bootleg Death Chant Tommy Gun.
Holding the dark wooden frame under my left arm, I walked slowly over to where the weeping girl was curled in the corner.
Aisha huddled against the damp brick wall, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Tears had tracked clean paths through the soot and dried blood on her face, and her shoulders trembled with every shudder of the door.
I stopped a step away, the second bootleg Death Chant Tommy Gun resting casually in my grip.
"Get up," I said, my voice cutting through her muted sobbing.
Aisha flinched, looking up through tear-stained lashes. Her eyes darted from my eye patch to the heavy, arcane submachine gun in my hand.
"I-I can't fight... I'm useless. My magic... I can barely ignite a small spark without exhausting myself..."
"I didn't ask about your output, I asked if you have fire skill. My appraisal skill doesn't lie, Aisha. You have the raw flame element inside your mana circuit, even if your academy instructors didn't know how to draw it out."
I held out the wooden stock of the Tommy Gun toward her. The Mist Blade bayonet fixed beneath the barrel glinted faintly in the dim light of the janitor's closet.
"This artifact doesn't care about your casting speed, your incantations, or your formal training, it takes whatever small spark of mana you feed into it and compresses it into kinetic force. You give it a spark; it gives you a furnace. Take it."
She stared at the weapon, her lower lip trembling.
"What if... what if I mess up? What if I drain myself?"
"Then you die in this closet when the door breaks, Or you take the gun, shoot the bone-thralls through the throat, and walk out of this city alive. Choice is yours."
Across the room, James was already adjusting his stance, holding his Wind-attuned Tommy Gun with far more confidence after seeing the hole he'd blasted through the oak frame.
"She's right, Aisha. It... it actually works. You don't even need to form an arcana circle."
Aisha swallowed hard, her breathing shaky. Slowly, hesitatingly, she reached out her small, soot-stained hands and wrapped her fingers around the wooden grip and front handguard.
The moment her skin made contact with the receiver, the dark runes carved along the wooden frame lit up with a faint, embers-orange glow. The artifact instinctively began tapping into her latent mana, syncing with her Fire affinity.
"Good, keep it on single shots. Two hands at all times. Aim for the torso or the skull."
I stood back up, tapping my inventory ring once more. Deep inside the spatial storage, my original, fully customized Death Chant Tommy Gun sat cold alongside my primary heavy shotgun, my tear gas wasn't present because I was busy handling with my little Cliff, when I get home, I will surely make a bundle of tear gases.
I wasn't going to pull out the heavy ordnance just yet… not in an enclosed room where an explosive misfire could cave in the ceiling.
Instead, I drew my sidearm blade with my dominant hand and stepped back toward the barricade.
CRACK… BANG!
The upper hinge of the janitor's closet door sheared off under a sudden, massive impact from outside. A pale, calcified hand with blade-like bone talons thrust through the gap, snapping wildly at the air.
"Chris, step back on my mark! James, Aisha… line up on the doorframe. The second it opens, short, controlled bursts!"