Her instincts screamed that this was wrong, that something had shifted—something they had yet to understand. The others had not seen their own broken bodies, but she had.
She had seen them sprawled in pools of blood, their bodies riddled with countless holes and their eyes lifeless. She had heard their dying screams. There was no mistaking it. They had died. Every single one of them. She had watched it happen.
So how could they be sitting here now, breathing and whole, as if none of it had ever happened?
The question gnawed at her with quiet fury. How could someone who had clearly died come back to life without explanation? How could a terrifying zombie—something they had all known was impossible to defeat—suddenly be gone?
Liora remembered those last moments far too clearly. When she thought everything was lost and she would die, then those strange shadows had appeared and she was the one who had called them. They had answered her commands.
They had answered her call without hesitation, emerging from the depths around her like they had always belonged to her. She had felt them ripple with silent hunger as they tore through the zombie.
She remembered their cold presence, their weightless movements, the way they slithered forward and tore apart the zombies with no mercy. The final scream of the undead had been deafening, almost beautiful in its agony. It wasn’t the team that killed the terrifying zombie. It was the ghost-like appearance.
To confirm her theory that the shadows were really those souls, Liora closed her eyes and focused inward, allowing her mind to slip into her soul realm. It was quiet, untouched, the same as it had always been.
At first glance, nothing seemed different. The ground was still there and the usual endless darkness and the souls calmly floating inside, far calmer than those terrifying shadows that made even Liora hard to mark them as the same ghost creatures that had listened to her.
It was as if the battle hadn’t affected them at all. She studied them carefully, trying to grasp the impossible. If they had gone out to fight, had shredded their way through the undead, how were they all still here—intact? But the truth was right in front of her. They had fought. She had called them and they had obeyed. She remembered it all.
But still, it was all her theory and she had to confirm whether those souls and shadowy ghost-like creatures were really the same or not. Suddenly, a thought struck her.
If they were really the same and had carried out the kill, then her system would have recorded it. The system always did. It never missed anything that counted.
With a pounding heart, Liora opened her system interface and flipped through the list of notifications. They poured in endlessly—zombie kills, minor rewards, material gains. Then, as her eyes reached the bottom, they froze.
[Successfully killed Level 9 zombie]
[Reward Gained: +550 Strength, +600 Intelligence, +499 Endurance, +480 Health +Rice Producing Machine, +100 kg rice bag]
She stared at the words, not blinking. The numbers didn’t matter, not really. Not the strength, the intelligence, or the endurance points—though they were shockingly high. Not even the strange rice-producing machine.
No, what shook her to her core was the confirmation. The system had recognized her as the one who had killed the Level 9 zombie. That meant it wasn’t just the shadows. It wasn’t something separate from her. It was really her souls now which were part of her.
She was the one who had ended that monster’s life. The shadows were her soul—those she had unknowingly harvested and stored within her for so long. Now, finally, it all made sense.
The strange presence of the soul realm, the countless souls wandering within it, the eerie way they responded only to her—it had all been leading to this moment.
Liora laughed, a breathless sound that spilled from her lips before she could stop it. The pieces fit perfectly now. The soul realm wasn’t just a feature of her new power—it was her weapon.
She had gained an inhuman power, something beyond explanation, something terrifying and brilliant at once. This was no ordinary evolution. This was a real jackpot.
Her sudden laughter echoed through the room like a crack in calm glass. Everyone froze at once, their heads turning in her direction. A second ago, Liora had looked grim and distant, completely swallowed in her thought, but now she was laughing to herself like she had gone insane.
All of them exchanged stunned glances, their expressions caught between confusion and concern. A few of them raised their eyebrows, wondering if the pressure had finally snapped something loose inside her.
"Hey... are you alright?" Liang Zihan asked slowly, his voice cautious. "Please stop laughing like that. It’s creepy as hell. You’re starting to sound like a mad zombie or something..." He half-joked, half-whispered, inching his chair a little farther away from her.
Only then did Liora realize how strange she must have looked. She exhaled and quickly straightened her posture, letting the laughter die, but the smile never left her face.
When her eyes flicked over to Liang Zihan and caught his slow, almost cartoonish effort to distance himself, her smirk deepened.
"Do you really think I’d need to become a zombie to kill you?" she said with a light tone, but the threat was clear as day.
Before he could respond, she picked up a pair of chopsticks and flicked them at him with uncanny precision. They flew straight past his ear and struck the wooden wall behind him with a sharp, solid thunk, embedding themselves with surprising force. The room went silent.
"Hey! I was just joking! No need to turn violent!" he cried, voice rising an octave as he whined like a startled child. His hands flailed in defense, eyes wide with alarm. But deep down, they were all thinking the same thing—even if they didn’t dare say it out loud.
There was something different about Liora. Now she had become more silent and somewhat terrifying... there was an obvious change in her aura...
After the noise settled, they all sat down again and shared another meal together. The food wasn’t anything special, but it felt like the best thing in the world.
As night fell, someone finally stood up and went to check the windows.
"There are no zombies," Mei said, looking out into the dark street. "Still nothing."
It was strange. But no one said it out loud.
Because deep down, they all knew no one had an answer. And honestly, no one wanted to ruin this rare moment of peace with pointless questions.
So, they all agreed to get some rest.
Chen Wei and Shen Haoran volunteered to stay up and guard the house. They promised that if anything happened—if any zombie even showed its face—they’d wake everyone up.
"Go sleep," Shen Haoran said with a small wave of his hand. "We’ll keep watch."