The countdown timer hung in our vision like a digital sword of Damocles.
00:28:43
00:28:42
00:28:41
"We have to move," Aurora said, her sword materializing with urgent brightness. "Now."
Through the maintenance room's small window, I could see more creatures emerging into the courtyard. What had been basic zombies an hour ago were now something else entirely. One moved on six limbs, its arms having split at the elbows into additional appendages that ended in razor-sharp talons. Another had developed thick, keratinous plates across its back and shoulders, making it look like some kind of armored beetle.
"The stairwell," Marcus said, checking his security feed. "They're already there. At least eight of them."
I closed my eyes, reaching for my enhanced perception. The quill materialized, and reality fractured around me.
What I saw made my stomach lurch.
The creatures weren't just physically enhanced. Their lunar energy signatures were more complex, more organized. Where basic zombies had shown chaotic, unstable patterns, these things displayed structure. Intelligence.
"They're not just stronger," I said. "They're smarter."
A sound echoed through the building that raised every hair on my body. Not quite a howl, not quite a scream. Communication.
And it was answered. From multiple directions.
"They're coordinating," Aurora breathed.
Marcus's tablet chimed with an alert. "Motion sensors just went crazy. They're moving through the building in formation."
A wet scraping sound came from the corridor outside. Something dragging itself along the walls.
Aurora moved to the door, sword ready. I followed, keeping my quill active. Marcus grabbed a heavy wrench from the tool rack.
"On three," Aurora whispered. "We go straight for the stairwell. No stopping."
"What about the others?" Marcus asked.
"We get to them," I said. "Whatever it takes."
Aurora gripped the door handle. "Three. Two. One."
She yanked it open and immediately dove to the side.
A creature flowed through the doorway like liquid nightmare. It had once been human, but extra limbs sprouted from its torso in impossible configurations. Six arms moved independently, each testing surfaces as it climbed across the ceiling with spider-like grace.
I didn't hesitate. The quill blazed as I focused on the gravitational field around the creature. But instead of crushing force, I reversed gravity in a tight sphere around its center of mass.
The thing shot upward, slamming into the ceiling with bone-breaking force. Aurora was already moving, her sword carving through three of its appendages before it could recover.
Phosphorescent blood sprayed across the walls, but the creature kept fighting. The severed limbs were already beginning to regenerate, new growth sprouting from the stumps.
"They heal now," Aurora said grimly, dodging a swipe from the remaining claws.
I adjusted my gravity field, slamming the creature back down to the floor. This time I held it there, increasing the force until concrete cracked beneath it.
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 much more slowly than basic zombies. Its enhanced form seemed reluctant to give up existence.
"Stairwell," Aurora said. "Move."
We burst into the corridor. More sounds echoed from various directions—scraping, chittering, that horrible coordinated calling.
The stairwell door was twenty feet away. Between us and it, three more enhanced creatures blocked the path.
One had developed thick armor plating across its entire body, moving with slow but inexorable purpose. Another was lean and fast, with elongated limbs that let it move in quick, jerky bursts. The third had grown additional sensory organs—clusters of eyes and what looked like echolocation patches.
"They're different types," Marcus observed. "Specialized."
"I'll take the armored one," Aurora said. "Nate, can you handle the fast one?"
"What about the sensor one?"
"Leave that to me," Marcus said, hefting his wrench with grim determination.
We charged.
Aurora's sword struck the armored creature and bounced off, leaving only a shallow scratch. She rolled away from its counterattack, already adapting her strategy.
The fast one came at me like lightning. I tried to pin it with gravity, but it was too quick, too unpredictable. It bounded off walls, ceiling, floor in rapid succession.
Marcus surprised me by going after the sensor creature with tactical thinking, using the wrench to destroy its additional eyes one by one. Each impact made the thing shriek and flail blindly.
But we were struggling. The fast creature was too agile for my gravity locks, and Aurora couldn't penetrate the armored one's hide.
Then Aurora did something unexpected. Her sword dissolved, but the lunar energy didn't disappear. Instead, it spread across her hands like gloves of silver light.
When she struck the armored creature barehanded, her energy-enhanced fists punched clean through its protective plates.
Experience gained: 200
Meanwhile, I finally caught the fast creature with a gravity reversal, slamming it into the ceiling repeatedly until its enhanced reflexes couldn't compensate anymore.
Experience gained: 180
Marcus finished off the blinded sensor creature with a series of brutal wrench strikes.
Experience gained: 160
"Nice work," Aurora said, her energy gloves fading. "But we need to keep moving."
We made it to the stairs and began climbing. But the enhanced creatures weren't just in isolated groups—they were everywhere.
On the second floor landing, two more ambushed us. One had developed predatory stealth capabilities, nearly invisible until it struck. The other had grown to nearly twice human size, all muscle and rage.
The fight was brutal. Aurora's new energy manipulation let her create barriers of hardened lunar light, while I experimented with rapid gravity reversals to keep the massive creature off-balance.
Experience gained: 320
By the third floor, we encountered four more enhanced zombies working in perfect coordination. They'd learned to counter our abilities—staying mobile to avoid my gravity locks, attacking from multiple angles to overwhelm Aurora's defenses.
This time, I tried something new. Instead of just manipulating gravity, I focused on the air around the creatures, increasing its density until it became thick as water. They moved like they were swimming through syrup while Aurora carved them apart.
Experience gained: 400
Level up! You are now level 4. Stat points available: 5
We pushed onward. The fourth floor hallway was chaos. Five enhanced creatures had 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 direct combat.
The creatures were a nightmare menagerie. One was massive, easily twice the size of a normal human, its muscles swollen grotesquely. Another had developed predatory features—elongated claws, enhanced senses, moving with feline grace. A third looked almost normal except for its eyes, which had multiplied into a cluster of six orbs. The fourth had grown additional limbs that ended in acidic secretion glands. The fifth was the most disturbing—it seemed to flicker in and out of visibility.
"Coordinated assault," Marcus breathed. "They're working together."
Aurora's sword flared brighter as we charged into the room. I went for the massive one, pouring everything I had into a gravity field that finally brought it to its knees.
Aurora engaged the predatory one, her enhanced speed and reflexes letting her match its feline movements.
Marcus, showing more courage than I'd expected, went after the multi-eyed observer with his wrench.
But the creatures adapted quickly. The massive one began pushing through my gravity field through sheer muscle power. The predatory one started anticipating Aurora's sword strikes. The acidic one was melting through the floor, trying to attack from below. The flickering one kept appearing and disappearing, making it impossible to target.
"We can't hold them all," Dr. Mills called out, pressing a bloodied hand to a gash on her arm.
The observer creature let out that coordinated call again. And it was answered.
From the corridor came more sounds. More enhanced creatures responding to the summons.
That's when Aurora did something incredible.
Her sword dissolved. But instead of disappearing entirely, the lunar energy that had formed it spread outward, surrounding her like a second skin. Her eyes began to glow with the same metallic light.
"Everyone get behind me," she said, and her voice carried harmonics that shouldn't exist.
The enhanced creatures charged as one.
Aurora moved like liquid lightning. Not just fast—transcendent. Her bare hands caught claws that should have torn through flesh. She moved through their attacks like she could see the future.
When she struck back, lunar energy erupted from her fists in silver crescents that carved through enhanced hide and regenerating flesh alike.
But it wasn't just her hands. The energy flowed around her entire body, creating shields, projectiles, enhanced strikes. She was manipulating pure lunar energy like it was an extension of her will.
In forty-five seconds, all five creatures were dissolving.
Experience gained: 650
Level up! You are now level 5. Stat points available: 10
I fought alongside her, using gravity to pin the reinforcements that came through the doorway while experimenting with density manipulation on the air around them. The combination of our abilities was devastating.
Experience gained: 480
Level up! You are now level 5. Stat points available: 10
Aurora staggered as the glow faded, but she was smiling grimly. Whatever she'd just done, it had worked.
The countdown timer in our vision continued relentlessly.
00:01:00
00:00:59
00:00:58
Through the windows, we could see the enhanced creatures throughout the campus beginning to slow, their additional limbs withering, their armor plates cracking and falling away.
"It's over," Lisa said, her hands shaking as she tried to treat Dr. Mills' wounds.
But Dr. Mills was staring at Aurora with professional interest. "What you just did," she said. "That wasn't just your sword ability."
Aurora nodded, studying her own hands as if seeing them for the first time. "Something new. I can feel it."
The countdown reached zero.
00:00:00
Outside, the enhanced creatures collapsed as their temporary evolution reversed. But they didn't die. They reverted to basic zombies, wandering aimlessly once again.
"Thirty minutes," Marcus said quietly. "Thirty minutes of pure hell."
I pulled up my stat screen to allocate my points, but something else caught my attention. A new notification was blinking insistently.
New Skill Unlocked: Astral Rewrite: Density Manipulation Alter the density of matter by rewriting its molecular lunar code.
Aurora was staring at her own screen with wide eyes. "I've got something new too," she said. "Lunar Aura. It says I can manipulate raw lunar energy directly."
We looked at each other, both realizing the implications. We'd just survived thirty minutes of hell, gained multiple levels, and unlocked entirely new capabilities.