‘Now all I need to do is to fool her into bringing me to safety, where I’ll hide until I get another recruit, with my luck, as long as the place is safe, loyalty would be high, I’m sure of it.’

  I shift my body, turn my head, and look into the distance, trying to gaze as deeply as possible; the only issue was that nothing greeted my gaze but the cold wind and the sight of faraway buildings, however i was unperturbed.

  Without skipping a beat, I asked Lilith as if trying to test her, “What do you think of our current situation?”

  While thinking inwardly, ‘I have complete trust in my luck, Lilith was sent here so there must be danger, the problem is that I don’t know what that danger is, however, she is a strong mage, she must have methods to check for danger.'

  'This will definitely increase my mystery and decrease the chances of her slapping me to death.’

  While I was having my own fantasy, Lilith was thinking coldly, ‘You are the one who brought me here, and now you want me to find a solution? What solution could there be but to fight to the death? They haven’t discovered us yet; it has something to do with him, but I have a feeling this trick won’t last long. ‘

  'There will be a commotion once we are discovered, and they will come at us in droves. They have lost their minds, and the only thing left is instincts, the instinct to evolve and regain control.'

  Lilith said calmly, “There is an endless horde of life-forms who have failed the mana convergence event below us; they haven’t discovered us for now, but once they do, we can only fight for a chance to survive.”

  Vorn was about to break out in cold sweat. Life-forms that have failed the mana convergence event? Aren’t they just zombies created by the endgame? It’s said that the creators of the endgame created these massive worlds and nurtured them for years just to start the mana convergence event and begin a new round of the endgames, which I find ludicrous.

  I narrowed my eyes as looked into the distance, ‘I expected to be danger and I was right, however fighting head-on is just stupid, once we start fighting every zombie in this goddamn building will come at me and tear me apart, although I’m lucky, I’m not an idiot, I need a plan and fast before the zombies notice us’

  Vorn took a few steps, slow and measured, lowering his head and looking at the floor in thought. His right hand moved subconsciously to his chin, while his left hand balled into a fist behind his back.

  ‘Emergency staircase is my best bet, I know that they are mad in a way that allows entry from every floor but only allows exit on the ground floor, I'm sure that there will be danger on the ground level, I just need to find a way to convince Lilith to help without blowing my cover.’

  ‘As for what if they enter the staircase? It’s unlikely; after all, I’ve read that they only have the instinct to head toward mana-rich areas, so we will only meet some stragglers who entered the staircase by accident.’

  ‘There is a door a few steps away; it’s most likely for the emergency staircase from its look, there are also some more doors and hatches, however, they will most likely lead to the floor beneath us, so we will have to go floor by floor, which, according to Lilith, is suicide.’

  What he didn’t know is that beneath him is the emergency staircase, right at where he is looking in deep thought, there is a mutated zombie 7 floors beneath him who is on the verge of advancing and gaining some intelligence, however, now destined to fail.

  After a moment of thought, I turned to Lilith, keeping my cool while saying, “Emergency staircase.”

  My sentence was short to avoid making mistakes, but also confident and deliberate. Use the staircase to escape; there's no need to fight. Although Lilith is very powerful and cold, she is still someone who has just been born. Even though she might be smarter than I, she doesn’t know how to use most of the information in her mind.

  The only down side in her is the desire to kill me.

  Lilith was looking at him as if she was looking at an idiot ‘Is he insane? The second we enter the staircase, we will be swarmed from below. Although the three floors right beneath us are empty, the ones after that will enter the staircase and swarm us to death.’

  ‘Not to mention on the staircase of the 7th floor below the roof, there is a zombie on the verge of reaching the (E) grade in both DEF and STR, with the suicidal way zombies fight, I will need a while to kill him, and I’ll probably be greatly injured, and when the weaker ones arrive, everything will be over.’

  ‘After all, my mana is only F grade, and my only advantage is my knowledge of spell casting and mana control, which is also limited to peak E grade.’

  As for the reason zombies would swarm in, it’s in Lilith’s hand- the nexus, it’s practically a mana beacon offering a chance for zombies to evolve, the zombies in the staircase would attract those who aren’t, and there would be no end to them.

  Just as she was about to ask Vorn about his plan, a roar was heard. Lilith used her mana sense to sense the building and was surprised; it’s the zombie she was wary of, it’s about to advance, and when it does, surviving would be difficult.

  While Lilith was thinking Vorn panicked; he thought that some stragglers on the staircase found them; his only thought was that they must die, if they attract more zombies, only death awaits.

  Suddenly, the air around him changed; it became eerie and dark. He said in a commanding tone that allowed no room for refusal or question, “Emergency staircase now, kill them all using all of your strength.”

  ‘This isn’t the time to think about her opinion. If these zombies yell a few more times, then it’s over for me. My only hope is to kill them quietly and fast. If she refuses, then I’ll have to kill them myself somehow.’

  My eyes were firmly staring at Lilith, who was a bit flabbergasted, ‘Why is he so fixated on the emergency stairs? Does he think it’s our only way out?’

  She felt uncomfortable with Vorn's gaze; she felt as if he could stare at her soul. She remained expressionless but thought inwardly, ‘If we don’t escape now and antagonize this E-grade zombie and his huge horde, we would definitely die, unless Vorn is an E-grade as well.’

  ‘However, that would be impossible; this round of the endgames has been on for a few minutes, and most importantly, this world's mana and stability are still too weak; it is impossible to even reach the peak of the second grade even with the system.’

  So what is his plan? Looking at the nexus in my hands, I had a sudden thought, ‘I already died once, this is my comeback. If I managed with his help to kill this E-grade zombie this early, the rewards would definitely be special.’

  ‘he must have a plan, and from the look in his eyes, this must be my test.’

  ‘Follow and prosper, reject and wither.’

  Lilith stayed silent and looked at the door closest to both of them, her eyes sharpened as she made her choice.

  Suddenly, the air grew heavier and heavier, threads of mana started to appear, closing in on Lilith at an astonishing speed, her nexus grew brighter and brighter, almost blinding Vorn, who would have reacted if he weren’t sweating cold bullets, unsure of whether she was planning on killing him or the zombie.

  As she started to walk toward the door, Vorn breathed a sigh of relief.

  The zombies on every floor below Lilith started to go mad as they sensed this ambient amount of mana; even the zombie who was about to reach 2nd grade was tempted, however, he gained some intelligence as he was advancing, so he stayed put and waited for his advancement.

  However, the other zombies continued to look for any possible way of getting closer to the source of mana; most managed to reach the emergency staircase, as everyone inside was growling their lungs out and attracted the others as they walked up.

  Lilith opened the door saw the first few zombies from the upper floors, coming one after another, closing in on her, she looked at them calmly and lifted her right casting a blue transparent wall preventing anyone from exiting toward the roof, zombies kept on stacking up and slamming on the blue wall causing it to shake but she didn’t even frown as mana kept on gathering around her.

  After a few minutes, there were hundreds of them stacked up in rows, but they couldn’t even touch Lilith. Lilith was far from being as calm as she appears; she was using all of her internal mana on the magical wall to stop them and gathering the unstable mana into her nexus for the strongest possible attack at her level.

  ‘he wanted my strongest attack, then I’ll show him why I was called Lilith. The second my mana dries up, I’ll unleash all of the unstable mana at them; it should be enough to kill two to three hundred.’

  The seconds slowly passed by as Lilith prepared to launch her attack; however, just then, a voice sounded behind her with a few measured steps, “Need help?”

  Vorn was on the verge of tears, ‘Am I really going to die in the first 15 minutes of jumping to a new world? Lilith is doing everything possible to hold them off, but it looks like this is where we both die. Before we die, I’ll sound cool and show off a bit.’

  Lilith looked calmly at the horde and asked, “Can we win?”

  Vorn said sarcastically, “If we can make them kill each other… we might."

  She asked with a frown, “Then why did you ask me to clear the emergency stairs?”

  He was speechless. It was to clear them fast and stop them from gathering like a fucking horde, but you were too slow, although I can’t blame you, after all, if it wasn’t for you, I would try to kill them myself and die in a couple of minutes.’

  However, it wasn’t the time to throw blame around. I simply replied, “It was our best option.”

  Lilith's eyes flickered, and she said as she deactivated her wall, “I hope you won’t disappoint me, Vorn.”

  Bodies pressed to bodies, scrawling and growling. Just as Lilith’s wall was deactivated, the closest ones to her wanted to run toward Lilith, but as the wall was deactivated, a horrifying amount of mana rushed toward everyone on the staircase.

  Wave after wave of destructive mana rushed into the staircase, even reaching the 7th floor from the roof. Everyone in its path stood still, silent, their eyes dimming, as their bodies fell slowly one by one.

  Vorn “…”

  A zombie with half of its face chewed off, missing an arm and a leg, lying on the ground, looking at Lilith and me with its one intact bloodshot eye, when Lilith said, “Aren’t you going to finish him?”

  I didn’t answer; I just kept looking at the mutilated zombie, wondering how it all ended up like this, ‘all I did was ask Lilith to kill a couple of zombies to prevent our location from being expose and what was the result?’

  ‘She ended up Lauren and slaughtering two to three hundred in one go, on top of that she was so powerful that she managed to bring this slaughtering machine under control and make it kill its own kind.

  ‘The stairs are covered in blood, gore, limbs of over a thousand zombies, I'm walking on body parts and blood instead of stairs.’

  ‘And somehow didn’t puke, the reason behind my courageous face? I'm terrified of this psychotic woman who might kill me if i stop being mysterious.'

  'The real issue is, she is not powerful and mentally stable as for the proof beside this madness'

  NAME: Lilith

  RACE: Devil

  CLASS: Mage

  STATS: DEF: F (10%)/ MP: F (26%)/ FOCUS: E (99%) LIMIT/ STR: F (1%)/AGI: F (10%)/ LUCK: F (3%)

  LOYALTY: Neutral

  NOTICE: Due to your brilliant strategy, she believes staying with you might bring greater rewards.

  'Increasing her loyalty is good for me, but the reason is a little unexpected, and now she wants me to kill this monster, although it looks crippled; if I get close to it, I might just get a chunk bitten off my neck.'

  Honestly, if not for the system, I might think she was being sarcastic. I really want to kill this thing for the rewards, but if I do, I might anger Lilith; after all, her loyalty isn’t much, plus it might kill me instead, so better not risk it.

  This guy killed thousands of zombies; he must be powerful. I’ll tell Lilith to kill him so she doesn’t get angry.

  So I said calmly, “You are the one who worked, you should get the rewards.” hopefully this will get me a few extra points, and she’ll be nicer to me.

  Lilith looked at me with the corner of her eye, then retracted it quickly. She was surprised; after all, she had no idea how he managed to drive this E-grade zombie to madness.

  Moreover, zombies like this one, who can reach the E-grade this early on, are definitely receiving help from the system; the system probably wants to make a boss out of him for entertainment.

  The rewards for killing an E-grade and a special one at that, this early on, should be quite good, plus he had killed around a thousand life-forms; his grade should be around the peak of E-grade.

  'I thought that’s why he was here, but giving it to me, why? Is he trying to buy my loyalty? Well, anyway, I will not be polite.'

  With a swift motion, a blade of flame struck the neck of the E-grade zombie lying on the pool of blood.

  Suddenly, I heard a notification, so I checked it numbly

  [[System notice achievement]]

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Your subordinate Lilith killed a level 2 life form. You are the 4th participant to kill a level 2 life form; you have been rewarded with 2 allocation Charges and 200 shop points.