“ROOOAAARR—!!”
The sound was no longer just hunger and numbness. It was filled with extreme pain, anger, and… a desire for destruction!
The roars rose and fell, merging into one, making Pandora’s eardrums ache.
“…This is going to be a bit of a pain,” Pandora muttered.
She didn’t charge in blindly. Instead, she targeted the nearest zombie, one that had just finished its transformation, and launched a test slash.
CLANG!
A crisp sound, like metal striking metal, rang out.
The slash, which should have taken its head off, only went halfway into its neck, getting stuck in tough muscle and bone!
The zombie monster, howling in pain, frantically swiped its claws at her.
Pandora flicked her wrist, yanking the sword free. She spun her body, dodging the attack while countering with another slash!
SPLAT!
This time, she finally severed the massive head completely.
Pandora looked down at the corpse on the ground, her brow furrowed.
One slash, one kill. That was how it was supposed to be.
Now it was taking two, maybe three, to deal with just one.
It wasn’t that the zombies had gotten that much stronger on their own. It was the combination of four things: quantity, quality, environment, and a damned negative status effect!
More of them, and they were tougher. They were crammed into this narrow space, a maze of cultivation tanks, so she couldn’t use her swordsmanship to its full potential. Every swing had to account for attacks from all directions.
More crucial was this special red fog. Though non-toxic, it was like an invisible, viscous film coating her body, invading her mouth and nose. Every breath, every swing of the sword felt like wading through knee-deep mud. Her movements, her strength, were suppressed.
This was why her first blow hadn’t been a fatal strike.
“This fog is messing everything up…” Pandora’s brow was deeply furrowed.
She was trapped in a cage of scarlet fog and frenzied monsters. While not in immediate danger of death, this predicament of being continuously drained with no escape was a new kind of trouble.
She could feel her stamina slowly but surely draining away.
Meanwhile, the zombie monsters, spurred on by the fog, grew more and more frenzied, tireless. As the balance of power shifted, the situation was getting worse by the second.
Suddenly, an idea, like lightning tearing through the night, flashed in her mind!
That’s right… the System!
The System that, since her transmigration, she’d treated as her personal cheat code but had never fully understood!
If she could extract Alchemical Elements from items, then… this omnipresent fog, which was clearly also some kind of special substance, could she extract from it, too?
“Extract Alchemical Elements!” Pandora put all her mental energy into the command.
Target: The strange, omnipresent fog!
【Please confirm extraction of Alchemical Elements?】
A cold, emotionless prompt sounded in her mind.
“Confirm!” Pandora replied without hesitation.
【Confirming. Extracting Alchemical Elements… Extraction successful!】
【You have obtained: 3 Flesh + 3 Salt-Gold + 3 Ether】
The instant the prompt sounded, the dense scarlet fog around Pandora suddenly contracted inward!
As if sucked away by an invisible black hole, all the fog within a one-meter radius of her vanished. A perfect, one-meter sphere of clean air had just appeared out of nowhere!
The gains were one thing, but simply clearing away this damned fog was a huge win!
Pandora flexed her limbs. The feeling of sluggishness was gone, her body regaining its unparalleled agility.
A zombie rushed into her “clean” zone. Its body froze for a brief, almost imperceptible moment as it crossed the boundary between fog and air!
And Pandora, having seized that fleeting opportunity, moved.
Her sword flashed. She dodged and struck.
Not only that, she could proactively charge into a small group of zombies!
As she entered the fog, she activated the System’s extraction again!
The fog in that area was instantly drained, and those zombies simultaneously entered a momentary state of “maladaptation”!
Pandora seized the opportunity, her figure a whirlwind of steel, graceful and deadly.
As the sword light flickered, the heads of two or three zombies flew into the air almost simultaneously.
Then, without hesitation, she repositioned, using the same trick again, creating another pocket of “vacuum” in another group, completing another round of harvesting!
This efficiency… it was even greater than when she was in the clock tower, slaughtering those slow-moving ordinary zombies like they were on an assembly line!
“Very good…”
The frustration in her chest vanished, replaced by the cold, sharp certainty of a predator.
This way, the fifty-some zombies, though numerous, posed no real threat. Clearing them out was only a matter of time.
However…
Pandora’s gaze pierced through the zombies she was cutting down, locking onto the bright, mirror-like windows on the second floor.
A killing intent, thick enough to be tangible, condensed in her eyes.
The other party had caused her so much trouble. First the gate, then the zombie tide. Although they hadn’t managed to kill her, that was only because she was strong enough. If she’d been even a little weaker, if she didn’t have the System, she’d be dead by now, torn to shreds with no place to be buried!
They had never even met, yet the other party was so determined to see her dead…
Since you started this, don’t blame me for finishing it.
“Don’t think you can hide behind the window and I won’t have a way to get to you…” Pandora murmured, swinging the sword of Elsa and dispatching another zombie that tried to get close.
She freed her other hand, bent down, and picked up a freshly severed, still-dripping zombie head. She weighed it in her hand, estimating its heft.
Then, she took aim, and threw it with all her might!
CRASH—!!
The hard head, like a cannonball, whistled through the air and smashed violently into one of the second-floor windows!
The glass was tough, but it didn’t seem to have any special anti-shatter treatment. It shattered on impact!
The entire window, along with its frame, came crashing down, revealing the dark room beyond.
And the sound didn’t stop there.
Immediately after,
CRASH!
another window shattered as well…