On the roof of the tallest building in Y City, Province L. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

It was late autumn. A man stood clad in a black combat vest and pants, a long combat blade strapped to his back. He stared out at the widespread devastation in the city, his face an unreadable mask. His eyes were as sharp as a falcon’s; his gaze seemed to pierce through flesh and stare directly into the soul.

It felt as if being targeted by him would plunge his prey into an endless abyss of his own making, a bone-chilling aura from which there was no escape.

Lex Cross was currently speaking into a satellite radio, flanked by twelve fully armed special forces soldiers.

Including Lex, there were thirteen men in total. Each wore professional combat gear, but they were filthy from head to toe, their bodies and faces splattered with the gore and fluids of exploded zombie brains.

They had received a secret mission from their superiors: kill all the patients in the Y City Municipal Hospital.

The mission was a failure, and it had cost the lives of two of his brothers-in-arms.

An entire hospital full of people had swarmed them, their faces a deathly, sickly pale, their mouths gaping and reeking of a foul stench.

Their bodies were bruised purple or ashen gray, and their fingernails had turned black-gray and incredibly sharp. One of his brothers had been careless and gotten scratched by a patient, turning him into one of those same man-eating monsters.

In the end, two brothers from the team had performed a suicide attack, using grenades to hold back the monsters’ advance, allowing the thirteen of them to barely escape.

The man’s voice from the radio was loud and booming.

"Lex, you must accept this mission! Your failure in Y City has made the higher-ups very unhappy. Your father is already extremely disappointed in you."

The man called Lex was dressed in a black, form-fitting combat suit. Though his face was etched with fatigue and his body was covered in bruises and grime, a murderous glint now flashed in his eyes.

"Unhappy? That’s your problem. My men are dead. Who’s going to answer for that?"

The voice on the other end of the radio went silent for a long moment. He never expected that this man, who had dedicated his life to his country and family and so desperately sought his father’s approval, would actually say such a thing. It was completely beyond his expectations.

"Lex, I know you’re upset about your fallen brothers. But a mission is a mission! You failed, and that’s that!"

"Fuck your bullshit mission! The whole of Y City is crawling with zombies! You get that? Zombies! They’re all over the city now, maybe even the whole damn province."

Listening to the irritating voice on the radio, one of the thirteen soldiers—Five—yelled at the device. They’d been tricked and stranded on this place called Earth for several years. Their luck was already bad enough.

Suppressed by the laws of this planet, their combat strength was somehow only half of what it used to be. This feeling of having their power stifled left all thirteen of them incredibly frustrated.

"What? Y City has really fallen?"

The man’s voice on the other end dropped, as if he had just heard earth-shattering news. Fallen. In his mind, it was a word that only belonged to wartime, but nothing could be more appropriate now.

’There have been rumors circulating internally for a while now about rioting mobs all over the country. It seems an unknown virus has turned people into zombies. If my own city and even province have fallen, then what about the rest of the country?’

’Has the zombie virus spread all over the world?’

’Has the apocalypse truly arrived?’

"Lex, listen to me! This time is different. Professor Lawson is our country’s leading expert in nuclear weapons and quantum analysis, and he’s currently trapped in Sinia City. Although we’ve already notified the military in Phoenix City, which is closest to Sinia City, to go and rescue him, I’ll only be at ease if you’re the one to go."

The men listened to the words from the radio, their expressions blank. ’Such a primitive place, still putting their faith in such backward weapons. Nuclear weapons... That kind of thing only accelerates a planet’s decay and consumes the energy of the planet’s core. Once the core’s energy is depleted, the planet’s life will be extinguished.’

Five’s portable, satellite-linked radio crackled with intermittent reports about riots in various locations. Lex Cross ended the call and fell silent, staring at the profile information on Professor Lawson that the man had just sent.

"Boss, are we going?"

The twelve men dressed as special forces soldiers looked at him in unison, awaiting his command.

"Let’s get out of here first."

When the thirteen of them reached the outskirts of Y City and prepared to drive away via the back roads, they discovered that the edge of the already-small city had been surrounded by an electric fence at some unknown point in time.