"Thirty minutes," Aurora said, her voice dropping into a register of cold, tactical focus. "Whatever this surge is, it lasts thirty minutes."
Marcus had gone pale, his hands trembling as he stared at the security feed on his tablet. "They are in the building, Nate. They are moving fast. Too fast."
The creatures were no longer just enhanced, they were coordinated. Through the grainy black-and-white feed, I could see them moving through the corridors with a terrifying sense of purpose. They were not wandering into walls or shambling in circles. They were heading directly for the stairwells. They were heading for us.
"We need to get back to the others," I said, my pulse hammering against my throat. "Now."
But as we reached the maintenance room door, we could hear them already in the corridors. There was a skittering sound, like thousands of dry leaves being blown across pavement, but heavier. It was the sound of something climbing. Something moving in ways that should not have been physically possible for a humanoid frame. The countdown timer hung in the upper right corner of my vision, a digital sword of Damocles that refused to be ignored.
[00:29:15]
[00:29:14]
[00:29:13]
We were trapped, and whatever these things had become, they were no longer just zombies. They were predators.
"We have to move," Aurora said. Her sword materialized with an urgent, blinding brightness that filled the small maintenance room.
I looked through the small, wire-reinforced window of the door. In the courtyard, the transformation was even more visible. What had been basic husks an hour ago were now nightmare caricatures of biology. One moved on six limbs, its human arms having split at the elbows into jagged, additional appendages that ended in razor-sharp talons. Another had developed thick, keratinous plates across its back and shoulders, giving it the appearance of a massive, armored beetle.
I closed my eyes and reached for the Astral Equation. The quill materialized, and reality fractured around me once again. What I saw made my stomach lurch. These creatures were not just physically stronger. Their lunar energy signatures were more complex and organized. Where the basic zombies had shown chaotic, unstable patterns, these things displayed a rigid, geometric structure.
"They are not just stronger," I whispered, the information flooding my mind. "They are smarter. They have a tactical overlay now."
A sound echoed through the building that raised every hair on my body. It was not a howl, and it was not a scream. It was a communication, a series of high-pitched clicks and guttural stops. It was answered from three different directions at once.
"They are coordinating their search," Aurora breathed.
Marcus's tablet chimed with a frantic alert. "Motion sensors just went crazy. They are moving through the building in a pincer formation."
A wet, scraping sound came from the corridor directly outside our door. Something was dragging itself along the walls, testing the air. Aurora moved to the door, her sword ready. I followed her, keeping my quill active and the equations for gravity hovering in the front of my mind. Marcus grabbed a heavy pipe wrench from the tool rack, his knuckles white.
"On three," Aurora whispered. "We go straight for the stairwell. No stopping for anything."
"What about Dr. Mills and Lisa?" Marcus asked.
"We get to them," I said. "Whatever it takes."
Aurora gripped the door handle. "Three. Two. One."
She yanked the door open and immediately dove to the side. A creature flowed through the doorway like a liquid nightmare. It had once been a student, but extra limbs sprouted from its torso in impossible configurations. Six arms moved independently, testing the surfaces as it climbed across the ceiling with spider-like grace.
I did not hesitate. The quill blazed as I focused on the gravitational field around the creature. But instead of the crushing force I had used before, I tried a new variable. I reversed the gravitational vector in a tight, three-foot sphere around its center of mass. The thing shot upward, slamming into the ceiling with a bone-breaking crunch.
Aurora was already moving. Her sword carved through three of its appendages before it could even recover from the impact. Phosphorescent silver blood sprayed across the walls, but the creature did not stop. The severed limbs were already beginning to regenerate, new porcelain-white growth sprouting from the stumps in real-time.
"They heal now," Aurora said grimly, dodging a swipe from the remaining claws.
I adjusted the field, slamming the creature back down to the floor. This time I held it there, increasing the downward force until the concrete cracked beneath its weight. Aurora's sword flashed once more, separating the thing's head from its elongated neck.
[Experience gained: 250]
The notification appeared as the creature dissolved, but it happened much more slowly than before. Its enhanced form seemed reluctant to give up its existence.
"Stairwell," Aurora commanded. "Move!"
We burst into the corridor. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and copper. More sounds echoed from the darkness. There was scraping, chittering, and that horrible, coordinated calling. The stairwell door was twenty feet away, but three more enhanced creatures blocked the path.
One had developed thick armor plating across its entire body, moving with a slow but inexorable purpose. Another was lean and fast, with elongated limbs that let it move in quick, jerky bursts that the eye could barely follow. The third had grown additional sensory organs, clusters of eyes and what looked like echolocation patches along its neck.
"They are specialized types," Marcus observed, his voice shaking.
"I will take the armored one," Aurora said. "Nate, handle the fast one. Marcus, keep the scout off us."
We charged. Aurora's sword struck the armored creature and bounced off with a shower of sparks, leaving only a shallow scratch. The fast one came at me like lightning. I reached for the gravity code, frantically trying to pin it. It was too quick. It bounded off the walls and the ceiling in rapid succession, mocking my attempts to lock onto its mass.
I could not just use a broad field. I needed to narrow the equation. I focused on the floor beneath its next projected landing spot, tripling the gravity in a micro-sector. The creature hit the zone and its front limbs buckled as its own mass suddenly increased by a factor of ten. It tumbled, and Aurora delivered a precise horizontal strike.
[Experience gained: 180]
Aurora turned back to the armored beast. "It is too thick, Nate. I cannot get through."
I looked at the creature's massive plates. I could not rewrite its material density yet, I did not have that skill. But I could use what I had. I targeted the creature's center of mass and pulled sideways, toward the wall. It staggered, its heavy armor working against its balance.
"Now!" I yelled.
Aurora did not use a new power. Instead, she used the raw, unrefined energy of her blade, thrusting with every ounce of her kendo training into the joint beneath its shoulder. The blade did not cut clean, it forced its way in. The silver light glowed violently before the creature went still.
[Experience gained: 200]
We made it to the stairs and began the climb. The enhanced creatures were everywhere. On the second-floor landing, we were ambushed by two more. One had developed predatory stealth, nearly invisible until it struck. The other had grown to nearly twice the size of a human, a mass of swollen muscle and silver-eyed rage.
The fight was brutal. I experimented with rapid gravity reversals to keep the massive creature off-balance, while Aurora fought with a desperate, animalistic grace. By the time we reached the third floor, we encountered four more working in perfect coordination. They had learned to counter our abilities, staying mobile to avoid my gravity locks and attacking from multiple angles.
I struggled. Gravity was a blunt instrument, and I was running low on mana. Every rewrite cost me fifty points. My head throbbed as I tried to keep the equations stable.
"Nate, we are being boxed in!" Aurora shouted.
We pushed onward, driven by the sounds of battle above. The fourth-floor hallway was a scene of absolute chaos. Five enhanced creatures had already broken through the lecture hall's barricades. I could see Dr. Mills through the doorway, bleeding from multiple wounds but still fighting with tactical precision. Lisa was behind her, using her medical kit to try to treat injuries while staying out of the reach of the claws.
The creatures were a nightmare menagerie. One was massive, easily twice the size of a normal human. Another moved with feline grace and elongated claws. A third had six eyes that tracked every movement in the room. The fourth had grown limbs that secreted a corrosive acid, melting the floor. The fifth was the most disturbing, it seemed to flicker in and out of visibility as it moved.
"We cannot hold them all!" Dr. Mills shouted.
The observer creature let out that coordinated call again, and it was answered from the corridor behind us. More reinforcements were coming.
In that moment of total desperation, Aurora's presence changed. Her sword dissolved, but the light did not fade. It seemed to soak into her skin, her eyes igniting with a blinding, metallic fire. The air around her began to hum with a frequency that made my teeth ache.
"Everyone get behind me," she said, her voice resonant and alien.
She moved like liquid lightning. She caught claws that should have torn through steel and struck back with silver crescents of raw force. In forty-five seconds, all five creatures were dissolving into ash.
[Experience gained: 650]
[Level up! You are now level 5. Stat points available: 10]
I fought alongside her, pouring the last of my mana into a series of gravity wells that pinned the reinforcements in the doorway.
[Experience gained: 480]
[Level up! You are now level 5. Stat points available: 10]
Aurora staggered as the glow finally faded. She was smiling grimly, even as she leaned against a desk for support. The countdown timer in our vision reached the final seconds.
[00:00:01]
[00:00:00]
The world seemed to exhale. Through the windows, we saw the enhanced creatures throughout the campus beginning to slow. Their additional limbs withered and fell away, and their armor plates cracked like dry clay. They reverted into the base, aimless husks they had been before the surge began.