CHAPTER 287: CHAPTER 287: CHAOS IN ZONE 3

No one spoke right away. The weight of Qingran’s words seemed to hang in the narrow space, mixing with the low hum of the ventilation.

Lingquan finally broke the silence, pulling up a map projection between them. "We could put motion sensors on the main routes—"

Qingran shook her head. "The main routes aren’t the problem. It’s the hidden connectors, the ones that don’t even look like access points unless you know where to check. That’s how it got into that storage room without setting off alarms."

Yu Song frowned. "You’re saying it already knows the layout?"

"I’m saying it’s been here long enough to figure it out.." she replied. "And some of those passages aren’t in the standard maps. I’ve seen them, narrow maintenance runs, old service shafts. That’s where we focus."

Fang Yuxi’s voice was quieter. "If they’re that small, can we even block them off?"

"We can.." Qingran said. "But we’d need to pick a few choke points and seal them hard. Otherwise we’re just chasing shadows and it’s not small, flexible is the word I’d use.."

Lingquan’s tone was more cautious. "And if we cut off the wrong ones, we might trap it deeper inside."

"That’s why we bait it first.." Qingran said. "We pull it toward the areas we can control, then block every way out but one."

Ruihuang glanced at her. "Bait with what? Food?"

"Food, strong-smelling waste, anything it’s shown interest in..." she answered. "We put it where I know it has to pass through to reach other sectors. The paths I can guarantee."

Xu Tianming frowned. "And if it doesn’t take the bait?"

Qingran looked at him steadily. "Then it’s not after food. And we adapt fast, because that means it’s here for something else."

The group exchanged uneasy glances.

"Two hours.." she said, cutting the moment short. "Get your weapons and mygear. We sweep before it’s noon. That’s when the suns shines the most, so we’re back and ready before it returns. It’s sensitive to light, we can use it to our advantage. I’ll mark the priority routes myself, don’t try to guess them."

Yu Song gave a single nod. "Understood."

They started to leave, footsteps fading down the hallway, but Qingran stayed where she was. Lingquan stayed too, hands in his pockets.

"You didn’t mention the other part.." he said.

"They don’t need it yet."

"That it’s not just moving around us."

Her eyes stayed on the dim corridor ahead. "It’s testing us. Seeing how far it can go before we notice. And when we slip..."

"It’ll hit hard.." he finished.

She nodded once. "Hard and fast."

************

The ruins of Zone Three were never silent.

Even at night, when the thin moon spilled its pale light across cracked concrete and half-collapsed towers, there were always sounds—screams in the distance, gunfire echoing across the broken streets, the low growl of scavenging beasts.

Here, survival was not just about rationing food and securing shelter. It was about carving territory out of the chaos before someone stronger, hungrier, or crueler came to take it.

And lately, the strong were winning.

Anya crouched on the jagged edge of a collapsed balcony, her sharp eyes tracking movement below.

A group of ten men were dragging two women toward a bonfire. Their laughter was too loud, too wild, and the smell of roasting meat drifted up with the smoke.

Anya’s jaw clenched.

Jack, her system’s voice, echoed flatly in her head:

[Warning. Threat level: High. Estimated casualties if engaged: 80%. Recommend avoidance.]

She ignored it. Jack always recommended avoidance.

Behind her, Yichen stood with his usual calm, hands folded behind his back. His eyes swept the streets not as a brother grieving the group they had lost, but as a commander cataloging enemy positions.

The loss of more than half their people still weighed on Anya, but her best friend’s older brother moved as though he had already absorbed it, processed it, and filed it away as another fact of survival.

"You’re watching for too long.." Yichen murmured.

"I’m remembering.." she said. Her voice was quiet but steady. "The last time I saw that look on someone’s face, they were eating one of ours."

He didn’t deny it. Zone Three was where humanity’s thin masks broke. The gangs here didn’t just kill. They consumed.

Anya finally turned from the sight, though the image burned in her mind. She tugged her jacket tighter, hiding the faint glow of the marks on her skin, veins of light that pulsed when her ability stirred. Self-detonation.

It was a gift wrapped in blood and fire, one that made her dangerous but also made people hesitate to stay close.

The few who had survived the Earthquake still followed her anyway.

"Base first.." Yichen said, drawing her focus back. His tone was decisive, commanding. "Without shelter, food will rot before we can use it. Without walls, our numbers mean nothing. I found a structure."

Anya tilted her head. "Where?"

"Sector 9. Old military outpost. Two layers of reinforced gates, underground levels still intact."

Jack flickered inside her mind.

[Confirmation: Structure stability 62%. Risk of collapse: low. Current occupation: moderate.]

"Moderate?" she asked aloud.

Yichen gave a small smile, humorless one at that "A gang already claimed it."

Of course. Nothing in Zone Three was unclaimed.

"How many?"

"Twenty, maybe twenty-five or thirty. They’ve fortified one gate but neglected the side access. I can work with that."

Anya’s lips curved faintly, a sharp smile that didn’t reach her eyes. "You always can."

She stood, brushing dust off her palms, and looked back at the survivors who still trailed them—eight in total, faces pale with hunger, eyes dulled from loss. They weren’t fighters. They weren’t soldiers. But they were all they had left.

"Then we take it.." she said simply.

The streets around Sector 9 reeked of smoke and blood. Patrols from the gang Yichen had marked passed in careless rhythm, loud and boastful, too confident in their claim.

Anya and Yichen led the group through shadow and ruin, slipping from one collapsed building to the next.

"Two scouts by the wall.." Yichen murmured, his eyes narrowing. The faint shimmer of energy danced at his fingertips, invisible threads he could weave into his Puppetry.

"Alive?" Anya asked.

"Better..... not." His voice was cool and detached as he moved his hands.

The threads lashed out, invisible strings latching onto the scouts. For a moment, they froze, eyes going blank, bodies stiff.

Then Yichen pulled, and their own knives turned inward, burying into their throats.

They crumpled silently, their blood dark against cracked pavement.

No one in the group flinched. Zone Three had stripped them of the luxury of horror.

Anya stepped past the bodies, her boots crunching on broken glass. She could feel her system humming, eager, as if Jack wanted her to use her ability again. But she resisted.

They reached the side entrance Yichen had mentioned, a rusted service hatch barely visible beneath twisted metal beams.

"Go on" he told her.

She kicked once, hard, and the hatch groaned before snapping off its hinges. The survivors filed in quickly, every breath ragged, every glance darting as though expecting ambush.

The underground smelled of mold and old fuel. But the space was intact, storage rooms, reinforced halls, even bunk beds stacked in shadow.

Anya’s chest tightened. This could work.

But first, blood had to be spilled.

The gang occupying the base didn’t notice them right away. Too busy with their spoils, too drunk on stolen liquor, too loud in their triumph.

Anya crouched in the dark corner of the storage room, watching. She could feel her veins glowing faintly, the heat of her ability stirring.

Yichen’s voice was a whisper beside her. "On my mark."

She nodded, flexing her hands.

The moment came like lightning. Yichen’s threads lashed across the room, jerking weapons from hands, twisting limbs unnaturally.

Panic erupted. Shouts rang out, blades clattered to the floor.

And Anya stepped forward, fire blooming across her skin.

"Move..m" she hissed at the survivors.

They surged behind her, half-mad with desperation. Her flames roared as she hurled them outward, not at full detonation, just enough to set the crates alight, to blind their enemies, to scatter them in chaos.

Screams filled the chamber.

The gang fought back savagely, but they weren’t ready for Yichen’s puppetry, for the way he turned their own men into weapons against them.

Bodies crashed into walls, knives stabbed throats not their own, and the chaos only deepened.

Anya’s fire carved paths through the smoke, consuming those who lunged closest. The heat singed her skin, but she didn’t falter.

"Drive them to the gate!" Yichen barked.