It was an utterly ordinary day—people went about their familiar routines: walking the same streets, working the same jobs, immersed in the same daily life. Everything was as it had been the day before.
Until an unexpected scream pushed the entire world into a collapsing apocalypse.
In an instant, before anyone realized, reality twisted into something strange and incomprehensible.
The dead rose again, pale eyes burning with unnatural hunger.
They stretched out twisted hands, biting into the necks of the living, tearing into fresh flesh.
In a heartbeat, the whole world became the most terrifying, brutal hell.
For the survivors of Tokonosu City, the fear didn't end there.
On the streets, snarling zombies prowled, roaring as they hunted every last living person.
But what truly made survivors curl up in lockers, pissing themselves in terror, was something else…
A monster that hunted monsters.
When it appeared, it was always a blur of scarlet too fast for the eye to catch. It swept down the streets in a rush of metallic blood-stink, moving at impossible speed.
Where it passed, countless heads flew in an instant, blood rain falling in sheets.
Only when it stopped would a lucky few glimpse its true form.
A thing born from a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
It wore human skin, but every inch of it, every thread of its clothes, was drenched in thick blood—even its face was blurred by it.
Yet survivors could still see, when it severed a zombie's head, that its face held not a trace of human emotion—like a doll or a corpse, lifeless and terrifying.
Every survivor who looked upon it carried the shadow of that sight for life.
As for whether it might be human—perhaps a superpowered human—well, with a zombie crisis underway, the appearance of such abilities wasn't impossible.
Some had thought so. But...
From their high, supposedly safe hiding spots, survivors dared to peek through curtains—only to see headless corpses piled so high they brushed their windows.
Whole streets filled with severed heads, so dense they seemed an ocean of skulls.
In an instant, all thought that it could be human shattered.
It was a monster. A monster wearing human skin.
It came from hell. It did not belong to this world.
Its existence was solely to dismember every living thing it saw, spreading despair and death across this land already turned into hell.
It might even be the source of the zombies… bringing them from hell into this world.
...
Zeroy had no idea how the survivors saw her.
She kept tirelessly clearing zombies.
Wherever survivors were, she would make a huge noise, draw every zombie nearby, and decapitate them all.
Then she'd move to the next place.
She didn't even speak to the survivors—it took too much time.
Unless a few words could make them trust her and obey, the time would be better spent clearing the next location.
Time was tight, the mission heavy.
She hadn't stopped all day, killing from dawn until night.
Only when the moon rose did she finally sit by the river.
She took out a piece of bread and a bottle of water, eating by moonlight.
Thanks to [lifesteal], she wasn't hungry or tired—just mentally numb from so much beheading. She needed to relax for a moment.
Doing nothing, thinking nothing, she leaned against the corpse mountain behind her and stared at the moon.
When the bread was gone—
"Let's see how many I killed today..."
[Points: 1356]
Which meant 135,600 zombies killed—135,600 heads taken...
"I killed that many?"
Zeroy's eyes widened in surprise, followed by a strong sense of unreality.
After all, a lot had happened today, and she felt no discomfort at all.
She tugged at her cheek.
"A little sore... soft and smooth… doesn't feel like a dream."
As for why she could do this, she decided it came down to her body.
A Sky Striker Ace duplicate body gave her rich combat experience, peerless battle talent, and extraordinary adaptability.
Maybe it also gave her the mindset to accept all this so easily.
As a humanoid weapon made for war, was that natural? Or had the Main God done something?
She didn't dwell on it—thinking too much wouldn't help.
Better to plan ahead.
Killing over 135,000 zombies in one day was surprising, but...
Thinking about it, it wasn't that much.
Her speed was one reason, but there were others.
For one, zombies rushed to any noise, throwing themselves at her to be slaughtered.
Just standing still as a meat grinder, she could kill hundreds a minute, never mind if she actively went on the offensive.
The virus didn't affect her, so she had no fear of blood contact.
Also, Tokonosu City's population was huge—possibly over ten million.
135,000 was just 1.3%.
She was already going as fast as she could.
Zeroy sighed.
She was paying the price for lacking area-effect weapons.
Aside from the Striker Unit and some small gadgets like comm earpieces and grappling hooks, she had no other gear.
No giant mechs, not even a [Hawk Booster] for flight.
"Forget it. Time to handle the base."
She murmured, her voice clear in the blood-reeking silence.
Lifting the crimson Striker Unit, she stretched, her fitted clothes pulling to reveal the smooth line of her flat stomach and slender waist.
That touch of girlish vitality, unintentional yet vivid, was a strange contrast in the apocalypse.
She hefted her blade, circled the corpse mountain, and walked into the city.
All day she'd been hunting zombies, not working on the base—
Because she wanted to preserve as many survivors as possible. A base without people was useless.
...
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