The safehouse was barely large enough for three people—or, to be precise, two people and one fox.

  Metal walls pressed inward like a ribcage around them, the ceiling low enough that even Z-69 felt the claustrophobia of Crimeria’s underground layers squeezing from all sides.

  The only light came from a broken neon tube taped to the wall, flickering like a dying heartbeat.

  Every time it buzzed, the shadows in the room shifted—stretching, shrinking, contorting like restless ghosts.

  And in the middle of that cramped metallic box, sitting cross-legged on the cold steel floor, was Z-69.

  Surrounded by a mountain of packaged junk food.

  He had swept the night market clean with the SCRAP he’d collected— and the result looked like the sacrificial offering of a cult devoted to artificial flavors.

  Synthetic wafer rolls made from protein flakes.

  Glowing energy candies processed from metal dust.

  Vegan jerky fermented from mushroom residue.

  Nutrient bars shaped like miniature bricks.

  Colored snacks that looked like industrial waste but promised “EXTRA VITAMINS” on the packaging.

  Z-69 ate them with the calm of a man who’d tasted the void and decided this was better.

  Lumina lay beside him on her belly, nibbling on a star-shaped candy.

  Her eyes narrowed with visible suspicion.

  “I’m not sure these qualify as food…” she muttered.

  Z-69 popped a cube of neon-green jelly into his mouth.

  “It is edible. That suffices.”

  John stood opposite him, half in shadow.

  Smoke drifted from the cheap e-cig he held between his metal fingers, veiling his face in swirling grey.

  He wasn’t looking at Z-69.

  He wasn’t looking at the junk food.

  He was staring at the short blade lying on the table.

  And he was frozen.

  Completely still.

  As if someone had unplugged him.

  Z-69 continued chewing loudly.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  John didn’t respond.

  He didn’t blink.

  He didn’t breathe.

  Finally, like a rusted machine jamming back to life, John whispered:

  “You’re joking… right?”

  Z-69 lifted a brow.

  “No.”

  John slowly rotated the short blade in his hand.

  The violet glow traced across the inscribed patterns, painting lines across his wrinkled face—and for a moment, the light flickered like it remembered him.

  John’s expression twisted.

  And then—

  “THAT DAMN MASKED SWINDLER!!!”

  His roar hit the walls so hard that dust shook loose from the ceiling.

  Even the neon tube buzzed nervously.

  Z-69 blinked calmly.

  “What did the faceless merchant do this time that warranted that reaction?”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  John slammed the blade onto the table and pointed at it with trembling rage.

  “This—THIS—is the Heaven-Sundering Short Blade! HEAVEN. SUNDERING. SHORT. BLADE! The legendary weapon you used three hundred years ago!”

  Z-69 paused, then nodded.

  “Ah. So that’s why it felt familiar.”

  John stared at him as if contemplating homicide.

  “You died, and I spent YEARS—literal YEARS—digging through Valdora’s ruins looking for it! I tore apart collapsed buildings, scanned every corpse, dug through mountains of rubble until my body was more scrap metal than flesh—AND YET IT ENDED UP IN THE HANDS OF THAT MASK-WEARING, ANTIQUE-HOARDING, MEMORY-STEALING LUNATIC?!?!”

  Z-69 unwrapped another snack.

  “So you only now realize he sold my own item back to me.”

  “YES!!!”

  Z-69 shrugged.

  “That counts as a fair transaction. I gave a memory. He returned my old weapon. That’s balanced.”

  John inhaled so sharply his chest plates rattled.

  He sat down heavily in a metal chair that groaned like it was protesting the weight of his despair.

  His right robotic hand detached to perform a diagnostic scan on the short blade, while his left hand visibly sparked from overwhelming frustration.

  “I swear you and that faceless scam artist exist solely to torture what’s left of my sanity.” Z-69 put aside his snack bag.

  And for the first time since returning from the merchant’s shop, his expression grew serious.

  “What exactly happened three hundred years ago?” he asked.

  John froze.

  The short blade lay across his knees, glimmering faintly.

  Its violet glow painted a long crack across the table, twisting the light like a scar.

  John stared at it—not as a weapon—but as a grave marker.

  A remnant of a world buried under rust and dust.

  And finally, he spoke.

  “Z-69… before the world became this trash-heap hellhole we live in now… Earth was a very different place.”

  Z-69 waited without interrupting.

  John’s voice was slow, like a memory scraped out from deep inside a damaged hard drive.

  “In ancient times, the air was filled with energy particles. Humans called them spiritual qi, mana, ether… different names for the same thing. Magic existed. Cultivation existed. Mystical arts existed.”

  He took a long drag from his e-cig, exhaled smoke that curled like ghosts.

  “But by the 21st century, those particles vanished almost completely. The world entered the Era of Declining Magic.”

  “Magic disappeared?”

  “Shriveled,” John corrected. “Like a dying flame. And humanity—brilliant but arrogant—decided to replace what it couldn’t understand with technology.”

  Z-69 nodded slowly.

  “Makes sense.”

  John continued.

  “And then a meteorite crashed into the Pacific Ocean.”

  Lumina’s ears perked.

  “A meteorite?”

  “Not an ordinary one,” John said. “It brought with it an alien energy—dense, powerful, overwhelming. When it fused with Earth’s atmosphere, magic didn’t just return. It exploded back into existence.”

  He tapped the table.

  “Supernatural abilities awakened everywhere.”

  Z-69 lifted his hand.

  Beneath his skin, faint purple lightning flickered like a sleeping serpent.

  “But not everyone awakened.”

  “Exactly.” John nodded. “And humanity, in its eternal obsession with equality, refused to accept that some people were born ordinary. ‘If magic can return, then everyone must have it,’ they said.”

  Lumina curled her tail protectively around herself.

  “That sounds like the beginning of a disaster…”

  “It was.” John laughed without humor. “A group of scientists created the Evolve-Z Virus. EZV. A virus meant to force evolution. To force people to awaken powers.”

  “And instead?”

  John looked Z-69 in the eyes.

  “It turned ninety-nine percent of the population into zombies.”

  Lumina flinched.

  Z-69’s expression didn’t change.

  John continued.

  “They didn’t rot. They didn’t weaken. They evolved. Constantly. Endlessly.”

  He pointed upward—toward the endless layers of metal that separated Level Ten from the dead surface above.

  “And now, they rule the surface.”

  Z-69 asked:

  “So… they still exist?”

  “Exist?” John scoffed. “They dominate.”

  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, short blade across his lap.

  “EZ zombies have lived for three centuries. Some sleep underground. Some mutate into nightmarish abominations. Some evolve intelligence.”

  Lumina whispered:

  “Evolving intelligence… you mean…”

  John turned toward Z-69.

  “…like you.”

  The air in the safehouse thickened like a solid substance.

  But Z-69 didn’t flinch.

  “So,” he asked quietly, “what exactly am I?”

  John exhaled.

  “You were once one of humanity’s three strongest superhumans. The Immortal Thunderlight. The only being capable of wielding purple lightning—the one energy EZV couldn’t corrupt.That’s why even after death, even after infection, your body couldn’t decay or fully turn into a zombie for 300 years. Until I revived you, and complications happened.”

  He tapped the short blade.

  “You wielded this short blade in the Battle of Valdora. You fought for seven days and seven nights. And then… you died. I told you that before.”

  Z-69 touched the blade.

  The violet glow surged as if greeting him.

  John continued:

  “Valdora’s evacuation succeeded, but once you died, everything collapsed. There was no one strong enough left to stop the endless army of immortal zombies. The surface became the Wasteland. Humanity either locked itself inside isolated fortresses or escaped underground. That’s how Crimeria was formed.”

  Z-69 asked:

  “What year is it now?”

  “The 350th year since the apocalypse began.”

  Z-69 leaned back against the cold metal wall.

  “So… I awoke three hundred years after my death.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now I am a zombie.”

  John didn’t sugarcoat his answer.

  “Correct. A High-Grade one. The kind that keeps its mind.”

  Lumina climbed onto Z-69’s shoulder and rubbed her head against him.

  Z-69 touched her briefly.

  “And you, Lumina?”

  The silver fox went silent.

  Her voice was smaller than usual.

  “…I only remember I was waiting for someone. And when I saw you… I knew you were that person.”

  John let out a tired sigh, rubbing his face.

  “An immortal zombie. A fox with no known origin. And a mythical short blade bought back with missing memories. I sometimes think I’m the only normal one left here.”

  Z-69 asked calmly:

  “What is my next step?”

  John dragged a hand down his face.

  “You have to survive Round Two of the Battle for Ascension. The Gauntlet. Trust me—what’s waiting there makes everything I’ve just told you feel like a bedtime story.”

  Z-69 picked up another neon-bright snack and bit into it.

  “Sounds exciting.”

  John slammed his forehead onto the table with a metallic CLANG.

  “What do I have to say to get you to STOP finding suicidal situations exciting?!”

  Z-69 shrugged.

  “You resurrected me.”

  John stiffened.

  Because that was true.

  And both of them knew it.