Letting a few hundred zombies loose to scare the new kids straight? Textbook. Standard method. Safe. That was Poppy’s way.

  But dropping the train’s final stop inside a derelict building teeming with the things, like Jason had done… that wasn’t in the manual. It was a damned good way to get your whole css killed.

  Of course, Jason had his partners waiting in the wings.

  Unlike her. She was flying solo.

  “Alright, time for me to go.”

  Poppy took one st, deep drag from her hookah, then casually waved a hand.

  “See you around.”

  “You know, my offer still stands,” Jason said, sitting up straight. “There’s always a spot for you on my team. This opportunity only comes once a decade… surely you don’t want to miss it, do you?”

  Poppy said nothing more.

  She just opened her mouth and toward the vast wall of windows, exhaled a cloud of smoke so thick it seemed solid.

  Then, from within that white cloud, a vicious, terrifying creature—as if forged from countless bones and fangs—burst into view!

  CRASH—!!!

  It made no sound, but with unrivaled, brute force, it shattered the supposedly indestructible, thick floor-to-ceiling windows! Countless shards of gss, like a sudden storm, howled out into the open air!

  And from within that cloud of smoke, a thick, flexible “tail,” made of nothing but smoke, shot out. It gently, yet with unyielding strength, coiled around Poppy’s figure.

  Then, carrying her, it shot downward like a diving hawk, toward the desperate youths below.

  Jason, watching her silhouette vanish into the dense fog and dust, murmured, “Worthy of the name ‘Smoke Fox’…”

  Then, it seemed he also received some information through some unknown channel.

  Beneath his trousers, his two perfectly normal-looking thighs… something squirmed gently.

  He stood up. His figure flickered, and vanished from the spot, as if he had never been there.

  ………………

  Downstairs, on the broken street, now ruled by death and decay, the emotion of fear had already spread like a pgue to every single person.

  No one knew who, on the crumbling edge of order, let out a hoarse, desperate cry:

  “Over there! The east side… there are no zombies over there!”

  That sentence was like the st straw a drowning man might clutch at.

  The crowd, spurred by that desperate reminder, spontaneously formed a chaotic torrent, fleeing toward that seemingly safe direction.

  Behind them were growling, twisted zombies, approaching with a speed far exceeding that of a normal person.

  Fear, like a heavy hammer, struck at their nerves again, and again, growing stronger, growing thicker.

  Fleeing. Screaming. Shoving. Tripping.

  Finally, when the group, panting for breath, took refuge on a retively high piece of ground, circled by the remains of a ruined concrete foundation, they suddenly realized… this direction wasn’t free of zombies either. They were just a little further away!

  Now, they had nowhere left to run.

  They were completely surrounded, on all sides, by that desperate tide of rot and hunger.

  And the Warden, Dulles, the one they had pinned all their hopes on, their st line of defense, had done nothing. The entire time. He just followed the group at a leisurely, unhurried pace, saying nothing.

  His silence was more chilling than the zombies’ growls.

  Even the hysterical, tearful curses of some, on the brink of madness, directed at his stiff back, he seemed not to hear.

  Pandora was also deep in thought.

  This sea of zombies, stretching as far as the eye could see—even she wasn't confident she could get her people out of this unscathed.

  And Dulles, an “apprentice” who had only completed the Demon Hunter Academy’s basic education, was even less likely!

  But… this suffocating, desperate scene also made Pandora second-guess her earlier judgment. Could she have been wrong? Was this not a carefully designed “initiation” by the Academy for its new students? But was it truly… some kind of irreversible accident?

  Before Pandora could think further, “AAAAHHH—!!!” a scream, so sharp it seemed to pierce the eardrums, violently interrupted all her thoughts.

  Her pupils contracted violently. She looked toward the edge of the crowd.

  A somewhat scrawny youth, having run too slowly, was viciously tackled to the ground by a zombie lunging from the side!

  The first unavoidable casualty was about to happen…

  But, the zombie, its rotting cws already reaching for the youth’s face, seemed to see something—a terrifying thing, originating from its long-dead essence.

  On its stiff, lifeless face, for the first time, a visible…“fear” appeared?!

  That’s right, it was truly the emotion of fear!

  A zombie could actually have an emotional response!

  Before Pandora could process what this world-shattering sight meant, in the next moment, her head snapped up—

  Whoosh—

  Faint bck mist abruptly descended from above them. No warning. It was just… there.

  In just a few breaths, it completely enveloped this small, desperate high ground.

  Appearing at the same time, was a woman’s slender figure. She hovered in mid-air, her red hair like a waterfall, her teeth white, her lips red.

  Her voice, carried by some mysterious power, was just there in the ears and minds of every young man and woman.

  “Welcome to the Demon Hunter Academy.”

  “I am the Teaching Assistant responsible for you for the next two years of your apprenticeship. You may call me Poppy.”

  “At the same time, I am a third-rank Demon Hunter Apprentice. So, you may also call me… ‘Senior’.”

  As she spoke, from within the bck mist that enveloped them, a ferocious beastly shadow, rger than her own, fshed past. Wherever it passed, the zombies that had been brandishing their cws and snarling moments before vanished instantly, leaving behind only… the crisp, distinct sound of chewing, of bones and flesh being ground into pulp. It was pretty obvious what had happened to them.

  The crowd, in an instant, fell silent. And not just the terrified youths, even the horde of agitated zombies surrounding them, at the very moment she appeared, strangely, grew quiet.

  Within that bck mist, as if hiding some deeper terror that even zombies would tremble before— it was a power that could crush them, an overwhelming of life essence itself, that made them fall silent in an instant.

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