Chapter 264: Back To School
[University.]
WHOOSH!!
A beam of spatial displacement light pierced the dusty ceiling of the abandoned lecture hall. Carl materialized directly under a heavy wooden desk. He blinked, disoriented by the sudden shift in atmospheric pressure, and stood up abruptly, his head loudly hitting the underside of the table:
"Ouch!"
He rubbed his head, sliding out from beneath the furniture and getting to his feet: "Huh?"
He stared at the ten humanoid zombies standing rigidly in the ruined classroom. Their rotting bodies were covered in dried blood and the tattered remains of university uniforms. Alerted by the noise, they all snapped their decaying heads toward the human who had just appeared out of thin air, their milky eyes devoid of any humanity.
"Um... Hello?" Carl asked, casually waving his hand at them, testing their aggro range.
GRAAAAA!!
Triggered by the movement, the ten undead instantly lunged forward at him, their jaws snapping wildly.
"I even greeted you!" Carl sighed. He dropped his casual demeanor and lowered his hand. With a subtle pulse of his inventory, his epic class assassin’s dagger appeared instantly in his grasp. Without hesitation, he moved, his Agility stat far exceeding the visual tracking capabilities of low-level undead.
WHOOSH!!
The ten zombies froze mid-lunge, a dark blur slicing through their ranks. Carl appeared completely unharmed behind them, his blade dripping with black fluid. He released a calm breath from his mouth and walked casually out of the classroom.
"I am not the same Carl who hid in the classroom when you fools attacked... Now, if I remember correctly, Big sister excused herself to use the bathroom, I should check it out first." He said, walking away into the gloomy corridor.
Behind him in the classroom. The zombies’ bodies instantly shattered into countless parts and fell to the ground as worthless parts.
"Who would have thought these things were only Lv10 to Lv20 monsters." Carl muttered, walking down the dark, bloody hallway. The silence was deafening. There wasn’t a single complete dead body on the way—only vast pools of dried blood, torn clothes, and abandoned shoes, painting a grim picture of the initial outbreak.
GRAAAAAAAAA!!
He looked ahead, his combat senses flaring. He saw more zombies pouring out from the end of the hallway, their guttural roars echoing off the lockers as they ran toward him, completely filled with mindless bloodlust.
"Shadow strangle!!"
A cold, feminine voice echoed from a side corridor. Instantly, the ambient shadows in the hallway contorted and rose into the air like physical tentacles. The dark tendrils violently grabbed the zombies’ necks, and with a sickening, unified clench, the undead dropped dead, their spinal columns crushed by the spell’s Area of Effect damage.
"Are you ok, Senior?"
Carl looked over his shoulder, seeing Grace and Philip running toward him through the dim light.
"When did you learn that skill?" He asked in surprise, recognizing the high-tier energy signature of the attack.
"I got it from an Epic skill scroll, my team entered a dungeon in the past and got it by chance... They all gave it to me." Grace answered in a low voice, her grip tightening on the glowing, high-class magical staff in her hands. The deep lore of Galaxy Fall’s dungeons had rewarded her party handsomely.
"You’re lucky... I am just looking for my own team, Daniel, Mitsuki, Gabby and Connor." He said, nodding his head at Phillip in greeting.
"We were once students of this university, so we all appeared here..." Grace said, her voice tinged with a heavy nostalgia as she turned her gaze to the cracked window overlooking the campus.
BOOM!!
CLANK!!
GRAAAA!!
BOOOM!!
The rhythmic sounds of slaughter drew their attention. The three frowned and turned to the hallway window, staring down at the sprawling school field.
"Is that Young master Hitachi?!" Phillip exclaimed in shock.
Down on the blood-soaked grass, Hitachi was standing dead in the center of hundreds of mutated zombies, all rushing toward him from different locations in a massive horde. He wasn’t relying on blind instinct; his normal, striking red eyes darted across the battlefield, tracking the flow of the enemies. Then, as the horde closed in, his pupils dilated and flared with blinding, kaleidoscopic light. His Celestial Eyes activated, mapping the structural weaknesses of every monster in real-time. What stunned the three observing students was the absolutely calm, almost bored expression on his face as his blade danced, cutting the horde down like overgrown weeds.
"He doesn’t need our help. Besides, we shouldn’t take his kills... I say we locate Big Sister, then we will know the plan." Carl said, analyzing the point distribution system. He casually placed his hands in his black overcoat’s pockets and started walking away from the window.
"You are right, with the map, she is just right ahead of us, we just need to take a right turn to the women toilet." Grace said, checking her glowing Galaxy bracelet and quickly following behind Carl.
Phillip stared down at Hitachi’s mesmerizing, colorful Celestial Eyes for a few more seconds, feeling a twinge of awe, before he finally pulled himself away and followed them, not bothered about the young master of the Azul clan’s safety.
The three reached the turn at the end of the corridor. But the very moment they turned into the new hallway, an invisible, crushing force struck them directly in the chest. It wasn’t an attack; it was a violent shift in the world’s atmospheric laws.
"This?! What’s this?" Phillip was stunned, his face turning incredibly pale as he gasped for breath.
"My level, I lost one level." Carl muttered in utter disbelief, watching his interface flash a critical, red downgrade warning. His hard-earned stats had just been forcibly rolled back.
"What do you expect?"
The three whipped their heads up. The bathroom door at the side of the hall creaked open, and Mirabella walked out. Her striking, piercing blue eyes swept over them with a cool, detached calmness as her hands casually moved, styling her blue hair into a practical ponytail.
"Big Sister!"
"Senior Sister!"
"Captain!"
Carl, Grace, and Philip exclaimed in simultaneous relief. Seeing Mirabella standing there, projecting an aura of absolute invincibility, the sudden one-level loss instantly felt meaningless.
"What happened to us, Big Sister?" Carl asked in genuine confusion.
"You three are from Earth, are you so dumb that you don’t know the reason?" She asked with a raised eyebrow, her blue eyes reflecting a hint of disappointment. But seeing the three genuinely confused expressions, she sighed, lowering her hands from her hair.
"Earth doesn’t have Spirit energy like Galaxy Fall... We all need Spirit energy to stabilize our strength, and grow stronger... Without spirit energy, your powers will all decline. The longer you stay on Earth, the weaker you become." Mirabella revealed, effectively explaining the brutal environmental debuff of their homeworld. Earth was a complete dead zone.
"Of course, you can gain back your spirit energy by absorbing monster cards." She added.
"This? You said we... What about you, Senior sister?" Grace asked, her black eyes filled with deep confusion as she noticed Mirabella’s level hadn’t flinched at all.
"I am late God level player, (Lv300 - 399) of course, it won’t affect me." She stated, her tone flat and unwavering. Her internal energy core was so dense it created its own self-sustaining gravitational pull, entirely ignoring Earth’s vacuum.
’I am now a Lv400, if I tell them that now... I trust Carl and Grace, but I don’t trust Philip, yet... I will just use this match to cover it up.’ Mirabella thought, her mind working miles ahead of her peers. She started walking toward them, her heavy black overcoat swishing around her legs.
"Come on, let’s go downstairs, and wait for the rest." She said, walking confidently past the three.
GRAAAAAA!!!
The three students froze. They stared at the fresh wave of high level zombies rushing madly toward them from the far end of the hallway, and then stared at Mirabella, who was walking straight toward the horde, not even slowing her pace.
They looked at one another, completely suppressing their battle auras, and silently fell in line behind Mirabella. The Dragon Academy’s team had one absolute, unspoken rule: As long as their Captain was present, they wouldn’t move a single hand. They would make sure she harvested all the kills required to guarantee her advancement to the next round.
GRAAAAAAA!!!
The horde lunged, their rotten claws outstretched. But the moment the zombies breached a twenty-meter radius from Mirabella, a terrifying, invisible domain pulsed from her body. They all instantly dropped dead mid-stride, hitting the linoleum floor with dull thuds, exactly 100% of their health effortlessly siphoned away into Mirabella.