Chapter 11

Hebei Province, Shenzhou High School – March 20, 2030, 7:35 AM

To everyone's shock, the plan had failed. Worse, it had sealed their downfall.

Now, tens of thousands of ravenous corpses were converging on the gates of Shenzhou High School. Pressed together, they piled up in a writhing monstrosity, forming a grotesque human ladder.

The iron gate trembled under unbearable pressure. Then, with a scream of twisting metal, it collapsed backward.

The courtyard was overrun in an instant. Students and survivors were swallowed by the grotesque tide, torn apart, devoured, crushed under the hungry fangs of the ghouls.

The gymnasium, too, was soon besieged. The bloodcurdling screams of the doomed echoed through the air, traveling down the hallways to the back building, where the senior students had barricaded themselves.

Panicked, some had dropped to their knees, praying to an absent god. One of them, trembling, scrawled a final message on the blackboard with an unsteady hand:

"I'm sorry, God. Forgive us."

Then, a furious cry shattered the silence.

— "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, TAO YU XIN!"

Grand Bei, his face twisted with hatred, grabbed Tao by the collar and hoisted him off the ground before hurling him against a display case.

— "AAAAAAAARGH!"

Tao crashed into it with a deafening shatter of glass. Pain exploded in his ribs, knocking the air from his lungs. Blood dribbled from his lips as he struggled to rise. His blurred vision settled on his former classmates.

Him? How dare they?

They glared at him with contempt. They judged him.

After everything I did to survive…

He spat blood and started laughing—a deranged cackle that only fueled the survivors' rage.

— "HAHAHA… You're all going to die here!"

A chilling silence fell over the room.

— "Because of some idiot who lured those zombies, you all turned against me!"

His laughter grew louder, hysterical, broken.

— "Now that I think about it… this is what you deserve. A violent death!"

A student seized him and, without hesitation, hurled him out of the room—beyond the barricades.

— "Argh!"

Tao hit the ground with a dull thud. Shards of glass buried themselves in his arms and legs. He gasped, vision swimming with pain. In the distance, he heard a deep, growing rumble. The dead were coming.

The first one burst through the hallway, its disjointed movements eerily contrasted by the terrifying speed of its charge. Behind it, dozens more followed.

They slammed against the glass, clawing, biting, shrieking.

Trembling, Tao grabbed a shard of glass and shut his eyes.

It was over.

Then…

A voice.

— "Tell me, child…"

A deep, resonant voice, dripping with an eerie calm.

— "Do you seek power? Do you seek vengeance?"

Time froze.

Slowly, Tao opened his eyes… and saw him.

A man, draped in flowing white robes, stood before him. His face was eerily beautiful, but his abyssal black eyes pierced straight through the soul.

Tao felt his blood turn to ice. This was no man.

Behind him, three figures emerged from the shadows:

A woman with long, flowing kitsune tails.

A specter shrouded in dark mist.

A towering four-armed giant clad in draconic armor, his colossal spear piercing through the ceiling.

The man in white swept his gaze across the room.

— "I did not think humans could be so… fragile."

His tone was frigid, devoid of the slightest emotion.

He turned his gaze toward the devastated room.

— "Am I an immortal… or are they simply insignificant?"

Tao followed his gaze—and a shudder of horror crawled down his spine.

They were all dead.

No scream.

No sound.

Just… gone.

— "You are far from the title of immortal, Master. But these humans cannot withstand the energy of the Dao. They know nothing of cultivation, of alchemy, of meridians. How could they ever resist you?"

Even the ravenous horde had been instantly annihilated by the aura of this dark deity.

The man in white smirked slightly.

— "My name is Zhao Xunji."

The syllables resonated like an ancient curse.

— "Qi cultivator. Chosen of a cosmic horror. And master of your fate."

Tao screamed in terror. He stumbled over the corpse of an infected, his heart hammering against his ribs.

— "STAY AWAY FROM ME!"

Zhao Xunji smiled, amused.

— "It is already too late."

Before Tao could react, searing pain exploded in his chest—

The kitsune cultivator had ripped his heart out.

He shrieked in terror… but his cry died in his throat as the woman placed a blood-red talisman on the still-beating organ. Then, with delicate precision, she returned it to his chest, sealing an eternal curse.

Thousands of unfamiliar memories flooded Tao's mind. His body convulsed, his skin turned waxy, his pupils turned milky white. A sinister energy slithered through his veins.

He was being reborn.

Zhao Xunji watched with satisfaction.

— "Do not disappoint me, miserable Jiangshi."

He raised a hand, tracing an arc in the air.

A dimensional rift opened behind him, swallowing the three cultivators in a whirl of dark mist.

Time resumed.

Tao fell to his knees. His newfound strength pulsed through his corrupted body. He clenched his fists, a feral grin stretching across his lips.

His revenge on Meilin and Tiang began now.