Novel23 Chapter 79 79: Why isn’t it reacting?
Chapter 79 79: Why isn’t it reacting?
In the women's dorm, on the fourth floor, in a room whose door had been barricaded with a wardrobe, an overturned desk, and two beds shoved together, four girls sat in the kind of silence that had become their daily life. It wasn't discipline. It was fear - fear that any unnecessary sound might pull something in from the corridor.
Julia was the first to move to the window. She slid the curtain aside by only two fingers' width, because she'd learned that even a shadow could betray you.
"They're there…" she whispered, her voice choked and tight at the same time. "Someone's actually fighting downstairs."
Karolina shot up from the bed more suddenly than she should have - and then froze instantly as the springs creaked dangerously loud.
"Seriously?" she whispered, edging closer.
Julia nodded.
"Seriously…"
Marta, who'd been sitting with her knees drawn up under her chin, staring at the door like she could reinforce it with sheer will, lifted her head.
"Maybe… maybe it's really help," she said weakly.
Her voice was dry. Hunger wasn't just a hollow feeling in the stomach anymore. It was dizziness, heavy eyelids, sluggish thoughts, and irritation that came out of nowhere.
Alicja approached the window last. She was the calmest of them by nature - at least on the outside - but her hands were trembling too when she leaned against the sill.
In the courtyard, the zombies started shifting as if someone were provoking them - as if someone were deliberately drawing their attention.
And then they saw him.
A silhouette flashing between buildings at a speed that didn't belong to an ordinary person.
"There!" Karolina hissed, but before she could point precisely, the figure vanished as if it had dissolved into shadow.
"I saw it," Alicja whispered. "That wasn't some normal student."
The stronger the people downstairs were, the better their chances.
A few days ago they'd watched Ragnar fight beneath the building, smashing zombie skulls with brutal, effortless confidence. He'd looked untouchable.
And yet even he had never dared go higher than the fourth floor. He'd come back furious and pale, muttering that there were "too many weird things" up there.
Since then, they'd known something worse than ordinary corpses was waiting above them.
Suddenly, dragging came from behind the door.
Close.
Too close.
The first impact was dull, like something had simply leaned into the barricade by accident.
The second was harder.
The wardrobe shuddered.
Marta clapped a hand over her mouth instantly so she wouldn't make a sound. Karolina backed up a step and hit the wall with her spine, eyes wide.
For them, the door was everything.
A prison.
And the only line between them and whatever walked the corridor.
If it fell, they had no weapons. No mana. No strength.
BOOM.
Somewhere lower in the building, a massive crash thundered through the concrete like a hammer striking stone.
The zombie at their door went still.
A moment later, it started to drift away, dragging toward the stairs, drawn by the new stimulus.
Julia released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
"They're pulling them away…" she whispered.
Alicja sat down slowly on the bed, still staring at the door.
"If someone really goes higher…" she began quietly. "If someone gets us out…"
She didn't finish.
Because none of them wanted to say it out loud - as if hope made too specific could break.
They sat facing the door, listening.
Now they could only wait to find out whether the footsteps that eventually came down the corridor would belong to monsters…
Or to people.
BOOM!
Leon didn't pause in front of the women's dorm entrance for even a second. He strode up and drove a full-power kick into the lock area. The metal door buckled under the reinforced strike and slammed inward with a violent crack, the echo rolling through the empty lobby.
The sound spread through the building like a signal.
If something was here, it had just been invited.
Because Roland and the others had already dragged most of the nearby zombies away, no one came rushing at Leon immediately. The silence that greeted him was heavy, sticky, unnatural - like the building itself was holding its breath.
Leon's brow tightened.
Why isn't it reacting?
Normal zombies chased noise like moths to flame. Even stronger ones reacted on instinct.
But whatever he'd glimpsed earlier, just at the edge of his vision, didn't show itself despite the commotion.
This wasn't a lack of power.
It was control.
Leon's caution spiked instantly. He didn't sprint. He didn't make any sudden movements. He stepped inside slowly, muscles tight, senses sharpened - like his whole body had become a single detector.
The smell hit him almost immediately.
Rancid blood.
Rot.
Dampness.
Bodies lay across the lobby floor - zombies and humans - in different stages of decay. Some looked like they'd fallen days ago. Others were fresher. The walls were scarred with struggle: claw marks, impact dents, smeared streaks.
It wasn't shocking anymore.
After what he'd seen in the last few days - after watching death without blinking - scenes like this had stopped triggering a physical response.
He paused only long enough to judge the space.
The ground floor was dead.
No movement.
Only silence and corpses.
But he didn't trust reports, even if the girls claimed Ragnar had cleared the lower levels. In this world, the only thing worth trusting was what you saw with your own eyes.
He headed for the stairs.
Every step controlled. No rush. No unnecessary noise.
The first floor looked almost identical to the lobby. A corridor carpeted with bodies. Doors ripped off hinges. Signs of fighting. If not for differences in clothing and the way the corpses lay, you could've mistaken it for the same scene copied and pasted.
Second floor.
The same.
Too clean.
Too predictable.
It wasn't until he reached the third floor that the air changed.
He heard it before he saw it.
Dragging.
Slow, collective, uneven.
More than fifty zombies stood in the corridor, turned toward him as if they'd been waiting for him to cross an invisible line.
Most of them were young women - students who'd been infected by bites, or who'd transformed the moment the System descended and mana began reshaping weaker bodies into mindless predators.
Fifty zombies in open space wouldn't have been a problem for Leon.
Fifty zombies in a narrow corridor with no room to maneuver was a completely different story. In conditions like that, even speed could be neutralized by sheer mass.
Leon didn't look worried.
His gaze went colder.
The shadow under his feet twitched, almost imperceptibly.
Unlike zombies, humans could think. Analyze. Build solutions tailored to the situation instead of reacting on pure instinct.
And Leon had no intention of stepping into the middle of that corridor like an idiot.
He stood for several seconds at the threshold of the third floor, watching the corridor packed with over fifty zombies. They were starting to respond to his presence now, stiff bodies shifting toward him in the cramped space where one wrong step could block his retreat.
He wasn't stupid.
He knew something up above had frightened even Ragnar.
And a fight in the center of this corridor, surrounded on all sides, was exactly what such a creature would want - a tired opponent pinned down and distracted.
After a brief calculation, Leon backed away without hurry toward the stairs below, stopping at the landing between the second and third floors. The space narrowed there, naturally limiting how many bodies could reach him at once.
He positioned himself with his back nearly touching the side wall. His left side hugged a sharp corner where the stairwell wall met a concrete support column - making an attack from behind practically impossible and funneling the only approach into the steps coming down from above.
He didn't need to say out loud that it was smarter.
The first zombies reached the top of the stairs almost immediately.
They couldn't control their weight or adjust their steps to the height of the stairs. As they lurched downward, feet caught on edges, and bodies started tumbling - falling and rolling down like sacks of meat.
Leon didn't wait.
His shadow moved.
Thin black blades shot up from the darkness by the steps, punching through necks and skulls before the first one even managed to lift its head after the fall.
Blood began to run down the stairs, forming a slick, dark film that only made it worse for the ones coming behind.
He didn't even need to close into direct contact.
But when a few managed to get close enough, his daggers flashed - up and down, mechanical precision - heads popping free and bouncing down the steps, knocking against concrete edges.
Behind them, the press of bodies trampled the fallen. Necks snapped on impact. Corpses were crushed under the weight of their own kind.
The corridor became a chute.
Two minutes was enough.
Fifty bodies lay still, piled on top of each other in an unstable heap you'd have to cross carefully to avoid slipping.
Leon didn't look tired.
His breathing stayed even.
Only after ten minutes - once he was sure none of the bodies were trying to rise - did he move again, climbing back up step by step until he reached the stairs to the fourth floor.
According to the girls, Ragnar had been pushed back right here.
And on the third floor there were no traces of his wind blasts - none of the distinctive destruction his ability left behind.
So the story checked out.
Which also meant one thing.
Whatever was up there had never come down.
The moment Leon placed his foot on the highest step leading to the fourth floor, he felt it.
Not a sound.
Not movement.
Pressure.
Like the air thickened and, in a single instant, wanted to crush him from the inside.
Instinct twitched.
The shadow beneath him reacted faster than thought.
He knew this feeling.
He'd felt it only once before…
Standing across from the giant boar, its presence weighing down everything for dozens of meters.
But this was different.
Not heavy.
Not massive.
Focused.
Like the gaze of a predator that had known for a long time that its prey would eventually wander into range.