The power inside Fang Qiong did not roar.
It hummed.
A steady, resonant vibration lived beneath her skin, threading through muscle and bone like a second pulse. It wasn't overwhelming—yet—but it was undeniable. Three newly formed anchors of ability had settled into place, no longer flickering sparks but something real, something rooted.
What had once been a pitiful F-Tier had evolved. Not into dominance. Not into safety. But into possibility.
Her mind—reflexively, instinctively—organized what she felt into structure. Concepts crystallized into form, etched into her awareness with clarity sharper than memory alone.
E-Tier Trait: Triple Heart - Grants two additional slots for Skills, Talents, or Traits.
S-Tier Talent: Core Heart - The ability to upgrade anything up to S-Tier.
B-Tier Skill: Protective Light - Shields up to twenty-five beings from enemy detection.
Each thought settled with weight.
The implications spiraled outward, branching endlessly. Her fingers twitched against the worn fabric of her sleeves, restless with the energy coiled inside her. She could feel it now—growth was not abstract. It was tangible. Achievable.
Upgradeable.
A quiet steel entered her gaze.
She inhaled slowly and closed her eyes, turning inward. The instinct was natural, almost reflexive. She reached for Core Heart again, guiding it toward Triple Heart, willing it higher, sharper, more.
The backlash was immediate.
Fatigue crashed over her like a physical blow. Her vision blurred. Her limbs trembled, strength bleeding out of them all at once. A cold sheen of sweat broke across her skin as her body protested violently against the strain.
Her knees nearly buckled.
The message didn't appear as words in the air. It formed—a stark, undeniable conclusion in her mind.
Insufficient stamina. Upgrade failed.
Reality slammed into her.
Limits.
Core Heart was vast, but she wasn't. Not yet. Her body—starved, exhausted, barely holding together—was a bottleneck she could not ignore. One meaningful upgrade a day. That was the boundary. The invisible leash holding back everything she could become.
Unless…
The thought surfaced unbidden, dangerous and seductive.
Unless she fixed that first.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, she would find a way to strengthen her stamina. Tomorrow, she would push again.
But not tonight.
Weariness gnawed deep into her bones, heavy and unavoidable. Qiong tightened her grip on the familiar weight resting against her chest—the black hooded trench coat folded over her lap.
Her brother's coat.
Once pristine. Now tattered, patched, threadbare in places. It had weathered years of scavenging, blood, rain, and ash. It smelled faintly of metal and old smoke. A relic of a life that no longer existed—and the last thing he had given her before he never came back.
She lay down on the thin mattress of her assigned sleeping space, little more than a repurposed closet. The door had been scavenged long ago, either burned for heat or hammered into barricades. The cramped enclosure offered no real comfort—but exhaustion didn't care.
Sleep took her instantly.
She woke to violence.
The tremor tore her from unconsciousness, a brutal wrench that snapped the fragile thread of rest. The building shuddered. Screams ripped through the shelter—raw, panicked, breaking mid-breath.
The sound of tearing flesh followed.
Her eyes flew open.
The dim emergency lighting barely cut through the dust already choking the air. Shapes moved beyond the makeshift walls. The undead had breached the shelter.
No warning. No time.
The building groaned under the sudden assault, structural supports screaming in protest. A deafening crack split the air—wood splintering, concrete shearing apart.
Instinct seized her.
Qiong curled inward, dragging the trench coat around herself like a shroud, fingers clutching the fabric with desperate force. Fear clawed at her throat, but beneath it burned something sharper.
Need.
Be stronger.
Her focus narrowed, collapsing into a single point as she poured everything she had left into the coat.
Upgrade.
The world detonated.
Wood collapsed. Stone shattered. The screams cut off one by one, swallowed by chaos as the shelter imploded inward, burying everyone beneath a storm of debris.
Darkness.
Then—
Air.
Qiong gasped, lungs burning as dust filled her throat. She coughed violently, vision swimming as consciousness clawed its way back. Above her, a sliver of grey sky peeked through tangled wreckage.
She was alive.
Around her lay devastation.
Crushed bodies—orphans, survivors, people she had eaten beside only hours ago—were scattered like broken dolls. Blood soaked into rubble. Limbs lay twisted at impossible angles. Even the undead hadn't been spared, their mangled forms pinned beneath stone and steel.
But not all of them.
Some still moved.
Vacant eyes turned. Fingers twitched.
Panic surged.
No.
She forced it down, breathing through the rising terror. Thinking—now—was the difference between survival and joining the dead.
She activated Protective Light.
The effect was subtle. A faint distortion rippled around her, as if the air itself bent to refuse her existence. The remaining undead shuffled past, attention drawn to easier prey—the unmoving corpses, the blood, the noise elsewhere.
They didn't see her.
Didn't sense her.
Qiong waited until they passed, heart hammering silently. Then she moved.
She gathered what little she could—rations, a half-filled water bottle, a compact tool kit—sliding everything into the reinforced pockets of her coat. Her stamina was draining steadily under Protective Light's cost. She couldn't afford to run.
She walked.
Each step was measured. Controlled. Fifteen minutes stretched into eternity before the shape of a ruined train station emerged from the haze.
And there—
A miracle.
A China Railway CR450AF high-speed train, intact, pristine, resting in a maintenance lane just inside the station entrance.
Her breath caught.
She reached it, slid the unlocked door open, and stepped inside.
The interior was untouched. Clean. Order preserved where none should exist.
Relief lasted exactly three seconds.
Undead pressed against the glass of the second car, hands smearing grime across the windows. There were fewer in the front—but enough.
She sealed the doors. Locked them. Moved forward.
The conductor's area was empty.
She locked herself inside, checked every adjoining compartment, then collapsed onto the small bunk bed. Exhaustion claimed her instantly.
Nine hours later, she woke.
Still night. Still dark.
After eating and drinking sparingly, she sat in the conductor's seat, staring out at the ruined world.
Her old life was gone.
Her plan—their plan—was buried beneath rubble and bone.
She looked back at the train.
And smiled faintly.
"Why not make this the convoy?" she murmured.
She focused.
Upgrade initiated.
F-Tier CR450AF High-Speed Train -+5% traction, control, resistance, and speed.
The train shuddered softly.
It was small.
But it was the beginning.