Chapter 954: If You Want to Live, Stay With Me

Vivian didn’t care what the others thought. She was already standing in front of Ethan.

"When do we move?" she asked.

Ethan activated

True Sight

, his gaze sweeping in all four directions. The side entrance they’d come through earlier still had the fewest zombies. More importantly, there were no Tier 3s in that direction—unlike the other two exits. That side was their best shot.

"Give them ten minutes to get ready," he said. "We’ll break out through the side door. I’ll take point with my team. Yours will cover the flanks and rear."

Vivian frowned. "The front’s going to be brutal. You sure the three of you can handle it?"

"If you’re doubting us, you’re welcome to take the lead," Ethan said with a shrug. "I’d be happy to hand it off. Not like I’m dying to do it."

"I’m not questioning your strength," she said quickly. "I just think three people might be too few. The front’s going to be hell."

"Then come up front with us," Ethan said. "One more won’t hurt."

Vivian nodded. "Alright."

"Good. Then it’s settled." Ethan’s tone turned cold. "Make sure everyone understands—this is about survival. No one stops to grab a crystal core. If anyone does, kill them on the spot."

Vivian’s eyes narrowed. "Why don’t you tell them that yourself?"

"Because you’ve got more authority," Ethan said with a grin.

"..."

Vivian rolled her eyes. She was starting to feel more like his assistant than his ally.

—Ten minutes later—

"Everyone ready?" Ethan called out, his voice cutting through the tension like a blade.

A sea of grim faces nodded back at him.

He glanced at Vivian. She gave a sharp nod and waved her hand. Her team immediately sprang into action, clearing the tables and chairs blocking the side door.

Chris stepped forward and yanked the door open.

Ethan shot through the gap like a bullet, barbell bar in hand. The zombies clustered near the entrance barely had time to react before he smashed them down in a blur of motion. Bones cracked, skulls split, and he was already charging ahead.

Chris, Henry, and Vivian followed right behind him.

Then the rest poured out.

"Raaaghhh!"

The sudden flood of people sent a ripple of excitement through the undead. Dozens of them turned, howling, and surged toward the group.

The formation snapped into place—triangular, with Ethan at the tip. His barbell bar swung like a wrecking ball, clearing a path through the horde. Zombies dropped left and right, their bodies crumpling under the sheer force of his strikes.

On either side, Chris and Henry handled the flankers with brutal efficiency. Vivian, wielding a fire axe, found herself oddly sidelined. Compared to the three of them, she felt almost... redundant.

She fell back slightly, joining her own team to help hold the rear and sides.

As Ethan pushed deeper, the rest of the group collided with the swarm. The clash was chaotic—metal table legs swung wildly, screams and snarls filled the air—but no one hesitated.

Maybe it was the speech. Maybe it was the hunger. Or maybe they’d finally accepted the truth.

Either way, they fought.

Crude weapons slammed into rotting flesh. The blows were messy, uncoordinated, but they worked. For now, the zombies couldn’t break through.

This was where numbers mattered.

If all four thousand zombies had focused solely on Ethan’s trio, even they would’ve been overwhelmed eventually. But now, with dozens of people sharing the load, they weren’t surrounded. They weren’t alone.

Still, these weren’t the slow, shambling corpses from the early days.

These were Tier 1 zombies—faster, stronger, relentless.

And the people behind Ethan? They were just ordinary survivors with makeshift weapons and no real combat experience.

Against the tide of Tier 1s, how long could they really hold?

It didn’t take long before the first screams rang out.

One by one, people were dragged down by the undead—limbs flailing, blood spraying, their cries cut short by the wet crunch of teeth on flesh. The ones nearby could only watch, eyes wide with horror, rage twisting their faces.

But something shifted.

Maybe it was the shock. Maybe it was the sheer brutality of it. Whatever the reason, the fear that had gripped them at the start began to burn away—replaced by something rawer, wilder.

Desperation.

There was no turning back now. No safe place to retreat to. It was fight or die.

And so they fought.

Fear forgotten, they swung their makeshift weapons with everything they had, smashing into the oncoming horde with a kind of reckless fury. The air filled with the sound of metal on bone, of snarls and screams and the dull thud of bodies hitting the ground.

At the front, Ethan was a force of nature.

He’d long since lost count of how many zombies he’d killed. The path ahead was still choked with them—an endless tide—but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Every time he brought his barbell bar down, another corpse crumpled. But for every one he crushed, two more surged forward.

Progress was slow. Agonizingly slow.

But he didn’t give an inch.

Tier 3 strength surged through his limbs—over 1,600 pounds of raw power. He moved like a war god, unstoppable, unshakable. No matter how many zombies came at him, he held the line, carving a path forward inch by bloody inch.

Behind him, the others followed.

And for the first time, the crowd understood.

They understood why even someone like Vivian deferred to him.

Vivian herself was stunned. She was closest to him, and she could feel it—his presence, his power. She’d guessed he was Tier 3, sure. But she’d thought her own strength-enhancing ability would keep her close.

She’d been wrong.

The gap between them wasn’t small. It was a chasm. If they ever fought, she doubted she could even take a single hit from him.

And it wasn’t just Ethan.

The two men beside him—Chris and Henry—were monsters in their own right. Two Tier 3s and one at the peak of Tier 2. That kind of lineup was absurd.

Her team had gone quiet too.

They remembered scoffing when she said Ethan’s group might be stronger than theirs. Now, they were just grateful she’d stopped them from doing something stupid. If they’d picked a fight back then, they’d be dead or crippled by now.

The battle raged on.

The crowd thinned as more people fell, but the group as a whole kept pushing forward, slowly breaking through the undead wall.

At this rate, they’d make it out. The losses would be heavy, but not as bad as Ethan had feared. He hadn’t expected the survivors to fight like this—to go all in.

But just as things were starting to look up, it happened.

One man, knocked to the ground and moments from death, reached out blindly—and his hand closed around a crystal core.

Survival instinct overrode everything else.

He forgot the rules. Forgot the warning. He shoved the core into his mouth and swallowed.

A second later, his body surged with energy. The zombie on top of him was flung off like a rag doll. He leapt to his feet, grabbed a metal rod, and crushed the creature’s skull in one brutal swing.

People saw.

And their eyes lit up.

Not long after, another man—already bitten, his skin graying—clawed a core from a zombie’s shattered skull and swallowed it in a final act of desperation.

To everyone’s shock, the infection stopped. His color returned. The transformation reversed.

It was true. Just like the rumors online had said: a Tier 1 Awakened could resist the virus from a Tier 1 zombie.

That was all it took.

The crowd snapped.

All around them were corpses. All around them—power. Survival. Hope.

Vivian’s rule? Forgotten.

People began grabbing cores. At first, it was subtle—quick glances, quiet movements. But it didn’t stay that way. Soon, they were fighting over them, shoving each other aside, tearing into corpses like scavengers.

By the time Ethan noticed, it was already too late.

"Fuck!" he snarled, rage flashing in his eyes. This was exactly what he’d feared.

"You were supposed to keep them in line!" he barked at Vivian.

"They’re fighting for their lives! You think we’ve got time to babysit?!" she shot back, just as furious.

But the damage was done.

The formation collapsed. People broke ranks, distracted by the scramble for cores. The zombies surged in, and the group was split into scattered pockets.

Without Ethan leading the charge, the ones cut off were as good as dead.

Ethan didn’t waste another second.

"If you want to live, stay with me! If you want to die, keep digging for crystal cores!" he roared, then turned back to the front, swinging harder, faster, carving a path through the chaos.

"Stay close! Forget the others!" Vivian shouted to her team, then sprinted after him.

A few still had their heads on straight. They followed.

The rest?

By the time they looked up from the corpses they were looting, they were surrounded.

Zombies closed in from every side.

...