The cafeteria doors were still open.
That was the first thing Lin Hao noticed.
The second was the smell.
Blood.
Spilled soup.
Sweat.
Fear.
The four of them stopped at the end of the final stairway and looked into the wide dining hall below. Tables had been overturned into rough barricades. Trays, chairs, and kitchen carts were scattered across the floor. Someone had already dragged sacks of rice and bottled water into the center, forming a crude supply pile.
There were survivors.
More than thirty.
Some were crying.
Some were injured.
Some held knives, broken poles, or shattered chair legs.
And some—
some stood too still.
Too confident.
Lin Hao noticed them immediately.
A broad-shouldered man near the kitchen entrance held a steel tray in one hand. The moment Lin Hao looked at him, the tray's edges shimmered faintly with a pale metallic glow.
A skill.
Near the supply pile, a thin girl in a torn school jacket pressed both hands against a boy's bleeding thigh. A soft green light flickered under her palms.
Another skill.
So it wasn't just him.
The system had already begun choosing others.
The entire cafeteria turned toward the stairwell when they appeared.
No one smiled.
No one relaxed.
In a world that had collapsed overnight, strangers were not comfort.
They were threat.
Then someone saw Wang Li's arm.
The scratch.
The blood.
The darkening flesh around it.
Everything changed.
"He's infected!" a voice shouted.
The room exploded into panic.
Several survivors backed away at once. Others raised weapons. A woman near the far table began crying louder. Two boys near the barricade actually pushed a table forward as if they could block death itself with cafeteria furniture.
Wang Li clenched his jaw. "I'm still fine."
"No, you're not," Chen Yu said quietly.
She had already checked the wound three times on the way down.
Each time, the skin around it had looked worse.
Darker.
Veins more visible.
The broad-shouldered man by the kitchen stepped forward. He looked around twenty-five, older than most of the students, with a butcher's apron tied around his waist and a cleaver hanging from one hand.
"Drop your weapons," he said. "And leave the infected one outside."
Wang Li barked out a laugh. "Try it."
The man's eyes hardened.
The tray in his left hand flashed again—its metal surface rippling unnaturally before reshaping into a short, jagged blade.
A collective breath passed through the cafeteria.
One of the survivors whispered, "He used it again…"
Chen Yu's expression tightened.
Lin Hao understood immediately.
An active skill.
Weapon transformation, maybe.
Not powerful enough to dominate everything.
Powerful enough to make him king in a room full of frightened people.
Liu Ming spoke for the first time since they entered.
"If you try to force us now, at least seven people die before it's over."
The man looked at him.
Then at Lin Hao.
Then at Wang Li's arm.
"We don't need seven," he said flatly. "We just need him dead."
The room fell silent.
Even Wang Li stopped smiling.
Lin Hao looked at him.
The big man's face was paler than before. Sweat clung to his forehead. His breathing had changed—not heavier, but rougher, less human. The veins near the scratch had darkened further, spreading under the skin like ink through wet paper.
Wang Li noticed the look and gave a crooked grin.
"Don't stare like that," he said. "I'm not dead yet."
Chen Yu stood up slowly.
"He will be," she said.
No one answered.
She swallowed, then forced herself to continue.
"The transformation is spreading too fast. Maybe bites take longer. Maybe scratches depend on depth. I don't know. But his pulse is wrong. His skin temperature is rising. If he changes in here…" She looked around the room. "People will die."
The broad-shouldered man gave one cold nod. "Then do it outside."
Wang Li's grin disappeared.
For the first time since Lin Hao had met him, the man looked his age.
Young.
Angry.
Afraid.
"Don't talk like I'm already gone," he said.
Then his knees buckled.
Chen Yu caught him before he hit the floor.
He shoved her away almost immediately, breathing hard now.
"Damn it…"
Black veins had reached his neck.
The survivors recoiled.
A little boy near the supply pile started sobbing. His sister dragged him behind an overturned table.
The thin girl with green healing light lowered her hands from the wounded student she had been treating. Her face was pale and helpless.
Her skill could stop bleeding.
It could not stop this.
Wang Li looked down at his own hand.
It was trembling.
Not from pain.
From loss of control.
His eyes rose to Lin Hao.
For a brief second, all arrogance left them.
"You know what's funny?" Wang Li said, voice hoarse. "I finally get a world where punching things actually matters…"
He laughed once.
It sounded broken.
"…and I don't even make it through the first day."
No one moved.
No one spoke.
The emergency lights buzzed overhead.
Then Wang Li's body jerked.
Once.
Twice.
His fingers curled into claws.
Chen Yu stepped back instantly, face white.
"It's starting."
The butcher-apron man raised his transformed blade.
Several others did the same.
But Lin Hao was already moving.
He walked toward Wang Li before anyone else could.
Wang Li's breathing came in short, ragged bursts. His pupils had begun to cloud over.
For one second, his gaze cleared again.
He looked straight at Lin Hao.
"Don't let me bite someone."
There was no plea in his voice.
Only fury.
And shame.
Lin Hao stopped in front of him.
Cold Heart pressed the noise of the room away.
Strong Spirit was still on cooldown.
It didn't matter.
He didn't need sharper senses for this.
Only resolve.
Wang Li's mouth twitched.
Something between a grin and a snarl.
"Next life," he muttered, "I'm starting with a better weapon."
Then the cloud in his eyes swallowed the last of him.
He lunged.
Lin Hao stepped in and drove the fire extinguisher into his throat.
Hard.
Wang Li stumbled.
A second strike crushed the side of his jaw.
A third sent him crashing to the cafeteria floor.
His body convulsed violently, halfway between man and monster.
Then it stopped.
Silver text appeared before Lin Hao's eyes.
Target Eliminated
Type: Zombie
Rank: Primitive
Level: 3
Primitive Power Absorbed
Source: Primitive Zombie Lv.3
Experience Gained
Nothing else.
No level up.
No miracle.
Just silence.
The cafeteria remained frozen.
Lin Hao stood over Wang Li's corpse, breathing steady, blood still drying on his clothes.
No one challenged him now.
No one shouted.
Because everyone in that room had just seen the same thing:
When it mattered, he did what had to be done.
Chen Yu looked away first.
Her hands were shaking.
Not because she disagreed.
Because she knew it had been necessary.
The butcher-apron man let his transformed blade revert into a tray.
So the skill had a time limit.
Good to know.
"What's your name?" he asked at last.
"Lin Hao."
The man nodded slowly. "Zhao Quan."
Of course, names mattered now.
Names were how territories began.
From the far side of the room, the thin girl with the healing skill spoke softly.
"I'm Sun Mei."
She looked at Wang Li's body only once before lowering her eyes.
Others began speaking too.
Reluctantly.
Not out of trust.
Out of recognition.
The world had changed.
And in this new world, strength had already become a language.
Lin Hao looked over the cafeteria again.
Food.
Water.
Barricades.
People with skills.
People without them.
Fear.
Resources.
Division.
This wasn't safety.
This was territory.
A place worth taking.
A place worth defending.
And for the first time, he could feel it clearly—
the Primitive Record was not just measuring levels.
It was measuring who could stand above the rest.