I tapped [YES] without hesitation. Because when you're knee-deep in undead, hesitation is just a fancy way of asking to become zombie chow.
The moment I confirmed, something ice-cold zipped straight into my skull like brain freeze from a cursed slushie. My vision blurred—then snapped into terrifying HD.
[Skill Evolution Complete]
New Skill Unlocked:
[Combat Instinct – Lv 1] (Passive)
Effect: Intuitive response to danger. Dodge, counter, and target weak points without overthinking. Faster reaction time. Wider awareness radius.
System Remark: "Congratulations! Your brain just unlocked the fight-or-flight Wi-Fi. Please enjoy your upgraded survival instincts."
Suddenly, the world looked different.
The fog didn't just swirl anymore, I could feel it shift when something moved through it. Sounds separated like different tracks in a video game. My heartbeat slowed, but everything else sped up.
It was like my instincts had been given a cheat code.
I wasn't just reacting.
I was predicting.
Two shapes blurred through the fog like nightmares on springs.
Jumpers.
They launched through the shattered windows of the ruined Petro station like cannonballs wearing zombie skin. I didn't see them coming, I felt them.
The hairs on my neck stood up a full second before they pounced.
"Left!" my brain screamed, and I was already rolling.
The first one smashed into a rusted soda machine where I'd just been. Metal crunched. The thing snarled, then launched again.
I didn't think. Combat Instinct had taken the wheel.
I pivoted on one heel, dodged mid-swing, and drove my Necrofang Saber into its ribcage midair. The impact knocked me back but the zombie stayed down, twitching like a broken puppet.
The second jumper landed behind me.
Wrong move.
I spun, mana arrow already charged, and shot it point-blank in the chest. It reeled—but didn't drop. So I followed up with a fireball straight to the face.
BOOM.
The blast lit up the station like a haunted gaslight festival. Broken shelves flew. Flaming snack wrappers rained from the ceiling.
When the smoke cleared, I stood alone, panting, clothes singed, shoulder bleeding but very, very alive.
"Okay," I muttered. "Liking this new upgrade. Ten outta ten, would recommend."
DING!
The system notification popped up in front of me like it was waiting for a dramatic moment.
LEVEL UP!
You have reached Level 30.
Congratulations! You are now officially recognized as: The Order and Chaos Gamer.
All HP, MP, and SP fully restored.
(Because dying right after a level-up would be super lame.)
I blinked. Then blinked again.
"Oh. Oh, this is gonna be fun."
My bruises vanished. Mana returned in a rush like a double shot of espresso to the soul. Even my burned sleeve stitched itself back together like the system just hit undo.
A glowing icon hovered at the corner of my vision:
> [SYSTEM MENU UNLOCKED]
– Potion Lab: NEW!
– System Shop: NEW!
– Crafting Workshop: NEW!
It felt like my HUD had just evolved into a fantasy-themed Amazon Prime—with extra chaos and fewer delivery delays.
Potion Lab? I could already imagine myself blowing up a dungeon with something labeled "Zombie Repellent – Now with Extra Boom!"
System Shop? Fingers crossed it wasn't run by the same people who made mobile games. I wasn't paying 99 soul shards for a health potion and a cosmetic hat.
Crafting Workshop? Yes, please. Time to glue monster bits together like some unholy IKEA project. Instructions not included. Sanity optional.
"Well, great," I said. "I'm either about to become the hero... or the weird kid who brews exploding Gatorade in his backpack."
Either way, the game just changed.
And I was all in.
Time to press all the buttons and hope nothing explodes unless I want it to.
Step one: Check System Shop.
Because nothing says "surviving the apocalypse" like retail therapy.
It popped up in my HUD like a mobile game store, complete with too-bright icons and way too much sparkle. I braced for the worst—like "One Fire Potion: 99 Soul Shards + Your Left Kidney" kind of bad.
But surprise! Everything ran on ancient coins, not real-world cash or mystery gacha tokens. And the prices? Honestly fair. Like, shockingly fair. Somewhere out there, a divine game dev just earned a gold star.
Most of the potions maxed out at Grade D, probably because the System didn't trust me with anything stronger than magically-infused Gatorade. And fair enough—I'd only just hit Level 30.
Still, that wasn't the issue.
The jumpers were the issue.
Those overcaffeinated undead kangaroos moved like they were auditioning for a horror-themed parkour competition. My new Combat Instinct skill helped me predict them, sure but actually dodging? Felt like trying to dodge lightning in a soggy hoodie.
I needed something to boost my agility. Something fast.
And then, like destiny or online shopping fate I found it:
[Cloak of Swiftness – Rare]
Required Level: 25
+20 Dexterity
+20 Evasion
Cost: 1000 Ancient Coins
Expensive? Yeah. Worth it? Absolutely.
Look, I'd been hoarding stat points for my dream build something between Gandalf and an anime protagonist but desperate times call for fashion-forward decisions.
I wasn't dumb. If I needed to, I'd spend those points. But if I could solve my speed problem with a cool cloak and some extra swish? That's just efficient dungeon-crawling.
I slipped the cloak on. It fluttered dramatically, like it knew it was rare gear. And suddenly, the world felt lighter like I'd just turned off lag in real life.
"Okay," I muttered, rolling my shoulders.
"Come at me, zombie Spider-Men. Let's see who's got the hops now."
Spoiler alert: I still couldn't hop like the undead acrobats. Which, yeah—hurt my ego a little. Apparently, even with a +20 Dexterity boost, I'm not winning gold in the Zombie Olympics anytime soon.
But hey, I could dodge now. And in this city-sized haunted house, that was kind of important.
As I pushed deeper into the city center, the fog thickened, the buildings leaned like they'd given up on life, and the zombie count? Skyrocketed.
Most of them were Level 25 to 30, and a decent chunk were mutated freaks—Brutes that looked like gym bros gone nuclear, and Jumpers that still hadn't accepted gravity as a lifestyle.
But I wasn't the same rookie who couldn't handle the skeleton with spoon anymore.
With Combat Instinct now at Level 2, and my cloak practically whistling with extra Dexterity, I moved cleaner, reacted faster, and actually started predicting their movements.
I wasn't just surviving.
I was terminating them.
One fireball here, one Necrofang slice there. The dance was ugly, but the results were beautiful—like a monster-slaying ballet choreographed by someone with rage issues and a gamer headset.
And I was just getting warmed up when my map lit up with a red dot. Translation: "Hey dummy, important stuff this way."
So I followed it, zigzagging through wreckage and zombie confetti until I reached... the building.
It stood in the middle of the ruined city like someone forgot to apocalypse it. Everything else was busted, burned, or halfway to becoming a zombie Airbnb—but not this place. It looked ancient, faded like an old photograph, drained of color and time, but somehow still whole.
Creepy.
I didn't even need the system to tell me this was a boss arena. My Combat Instinct was already screaming in my brain like an airhorn.
Something's inside.
Something dangerous.
I took a deep breath and gripped my weapons tighter. "Well," I muttered, "that's not ominous at all."
Time to find out what's waiting for me. Hopefully it's not a zombie dragon. Or worse—zombie bureaucracy.
The front doors loomed like they were daring me to knock. Naturally, I didn't. I just stood there, staring, while my danger senses did cartwheels in my brain.
Every instinct said: Don't go in there.
Every plot-relevant reason said: Too bad, you're going in anyway.
I nudged the doors open with the tip of my sword, expecting the usual horror house decor—bones, blood, maybe a motivational poster that says "Hang in There" above a pit of despair.
Instead, the lobby was... clean. Dusty, yeah. But not wrecked. No bodies. No claw marks. Just a long hallway lit by flickering, somehow-still-working lights.
Creepy factor: solid 9 out of 10.
I stepped inside. The doors slammed shut behind me like they'd just collected their prize.
Cool. Definitely not a trap.
My HUD glitched for a second. Then flashed a new alert:
[DUNGEON CORE ZONE DETECTED]
Threat Level: Unknown (Highly Unstable)
Warning: Boss Entity Nearby. Proceed with extreme caution. Or run?
My mouth went dry. My grip on the Necrofang Saber tightened.
From deeper inside, something let out a low, rattling growl.
I couldn't see it, it couldn't see me, but we could still feel each other—like long-distance exes who forgot to block each other.
And it was hungry.
I crept down the hallway like a ninja in squeaky boots, every footstep echoing way louder than I liked. The walls were covered in peeling wallpaper—once white, now the exact color of "dead hospital green." Faded portraits lined the hall, their subjects staring like they knew what was coming and weren't thrilled about it.
Combat Instinct kept pinging faint alerts. Not full-on "RUN!" alarms, just quiet whispers in the back of my mind. The kind of whispers that say, "You ever consider turning around and not dying today?"
At the end of the hall, I found a grand staircase. Think: spooky mansion meets forgotten opera house. The steps were intact, but coated in a thin layer of ash—like someone tried to clean with a vacuum powered by eldritch horror.
The weirdest part? No zombies. No blood. No clawed-up furniture. Just silence. Heavy, waiting silence.
The deeper I went, the more I noticed strange... details.
A room full of ancient books, untouched but open to the exact same page some old language I couldn't read, unless System wanted to throw me a Rosetta Stone skill next.
A fountain in the middle of a ballroom, yes, a ballroom that somehow still trickled water. Except the water was... black. Like ink. And I swear it was watching me.
Oh, and the chandelier above? It swayed. No wind.
Just casual haunted house things.
Then I saw it, another glowing mark on my map. Down a hallway that didn't exist a minute ago. I blinked, and there it was. Like the building was shifting when I wasn't looking.
Because that's not horrifying at all.
"Okay," I muttered, clutching my saber. "So we're doing the cursed architecture thing now. Great. Let's walk into the definitely-not-a-portal corridor and see what nightmare lives there."
My footsteps echoed louder. The walls pulsed faintly, like the building was breathing. And up ahead… something big moved in the shadows.
Something that knew I was here.
Kyle Walker (Lv. 30 )
HP: 1030/1030
MP: 1330/1330
SP: 1030/1030
Stats:
STR: 96 (+3 from Arm Guard) ( +5 leather armor ) ( Orc Chainmail +10) ( Achievement +1 ) ( 114 )
VIT: 75 (+3 from Arm Guard ) ( +5 leather armor ) ( Orc Chainmail +10) ( 93 )
DEX: 47 (+1 from Title )( Cloak of Swiftness +20 )( 68 )
INT: 123
WIS: 48
LUK: 30
Unassigned Stat Points: 64
Unassigned Skill Points: 93
Att: 114 ( weapon+20 ) ( 134 )
Def: 93 ( Leather Armor +20 ) ( Orc Chainmail +30) ( 143 )
Eva: 68 ( Cloak of Swiftness +20 ) ( 88 )