harleyscars Page 5
Page 5
In the center of the image is the girl with the nickname "Swordsman Shura"—Saeko Busujima.
Her pristine white sailor uniform was now stained with dark red and black grime, and her once meticulously combed purple hair was now disheveled and plastered to her cheeks, a mixture of sweat and blood.
She held only a wooden practice knife in her hand, but every swing was precise and deadly, knocking down one "dead body" after another that pounced on her.
Her eyes remained calm, like a quenched blade, but anyone could see that beneath that calmness lay exhaustion on the verge of collapse.
"Saeko-senpai! Behind you!" a boy exclaimed. He had just pushed one zombie aside when another pounced on him from behind, its sharp teeth biting into his neck.
Blood splattered.
Saeko turned and struck the corpse with her sword, but her classmate had already fallen into a pool of blood, making meaningless hoarse sounds from her throat, and her body began to twitch unnaturally.
[Butterfly Dance: ...!]
Shinobu instinctively covered her mouth. She had seen too much death, but the despair of watching her companion turn into a monster still made her heart clench.
[Ice Queen: These things... are too weak. But there are too many of them, and they are fearless in the face of death.]
Esdeath's voice was icy; from a commander's perspective, she instantly judged the situation to be unsolvable.
This is not a battle of equal strength, but a war of attrition, a war of attrition that is destined to fail.
The door to the rooftop had been blocked, but corpses were pouring up the stairs on the other side.
The number of surviving students has dwindled from a dozen or so initially to just three or four now.
Their weapons were a mop, a fire axe, a baseball bat... but they all seemed so fragile in the face of the endless corpses.
"Crack——!"
With a crisp sound, Saeko's wooden sword finally gave way after another heavy blow and broke in two.
She gripped the broken blade, her breathing becoming increasingly rapid, sweat blurring her vision.
She could feel her strength draining away at an unprecedented rate. Each swing felt like dragging a thousand-pound weight.
[Gem Magician: My weapon broke... I'm done for.]
Rin Tohsaka muttered to herself. In her magical system, a magician who loses his medium is like a magician who has lost his claws. Saeko may not be a magician, but the principle is the same.
In the scene, the last surviving boy was also tackled by the corpse, and his screams were quickly drowned out by the sound of chewing.
Saeko Busujima was the only one left on the rooftop.
She was leaning against the rooftop railing, with nowhere left to retreat.
Before him lay a dense mass of dead bodies, pressing in relentlessly.
They come in all shapes and sizes, some are students in school uniforms, some are teachers in suits, but without exception, they have all lost all their charm, leaving only the most primal desire for flesh and blood.
The atmosphere of despair permeated the screen, so intense that it suffocated all viewers.
Saeko slowly raised the broken half of her blade and aimed it at the corpse at the front.
Her arms were trembling slightly, not from fear, but from exhaustion.
She knew this was her last battle.
She glanced at the gray sky, a complex emotion flashing in her eyes—a mixture of resentment and regret—but ultimately, it all subsided into calm.
[Sword Dao Shura: Everyone, it seems my story is coming to an end here. It was a pleasure meeting you all...]
After leaving a final message in the chat group, Saeko took a deep breath, assumed a thrusting stance, and prepared to face her fate.
The live stream footage seemed to slow down at that moment.
The undead roared, extended their claws, and opened their bloody mouths, surging towards the lone purple figure from all directions.
And she, like a candle flickering in the wind, was about to be swallowed up by this dark tide.
The [Cross-Dimensional Film Screening] was deathly silent.
Esdeath frowned, Shinobu's eyes welled up with tears, and Rin Tohsaka turned her head away in unbearable pain.
They were all powerful figures or geniuses in their respective worlds, but at this moment, they could only watch helplessly as a companion walked towards death. This intense sense of powerlessness was more painful than any defeat in battle.
Just as despair reached its peak, a calm voice suddenly rang out in everyone's minds, and at the same time resounded in Saeko Busujima's heart, which was about to be swallowed by darkness.
[Group/Flirting with Erling 2 Emu Hundred Million Deleted Ling Ba Observer: That's all.]
9 The Observer's Whisper
The rooftop of Fujimi Academy has become an altar of blood and despair.
Saeko Busujima leaned against the cold railing, her chest heaving violently, each breath feeling like swallowing air tinged with the smell of rust. The broken half of her blade in her hand was her last vestige of dignity as a swordsman, but she could feel the strength she had been holding onto it slowly slipping away.
Her vision began to blur, and the soreness in her muscles and the stinging pain from the multiple wounds on her body reminded her that she had reached her limit.
She looked at the dark mass of corpses that were slowly and unsteadily surrounding her. Those faces, once familiar or unfamiliar, were now twisted into the most primal greed for flesh and blood.
“Is that the end…?”
A bittersweet calm flashed through Saeko's heart. She was not afraid of death, but being devoured by a monster in this way left her with a lingering sense of resentment.
She took one last look at the gray sky, preparing to dedicate her life to fulfilling her final swordsmanship.
[Sword Dao Shura: Everyone, it seems my story is coming to an end here. It was a pleasure meeting you all...]
After leaving a farewell message in the group chat, Saeko lowered her body, held her broken blade horizontally in front of her, and assumed a resolute thrusting stance. She had abandoned defense, hoping only to take one more enemy with her before being devoured.
Just as she was about to rush out, just as that rotting face of her former classmate was about to touch her cheek—
A calm, cool voice, yet carrying an undeniable power, suddenly and directly resounded in the deepest part of her mind.
"Hide in the broadcasting room, lock yourself in, and wait for me."
The voice seemed to transcend dimensions, ignoring the barriers of space, and resonated directly in her soul.
Saeko shuddered, and the action that was about to erupt came to an abrupt halt.
She suddenly raised her head and looked around. Apart from herself and the corpse, there was no one else on the rooftop.
Was it a hallucination? Before I died...
No.
The voice was too clear, too calm—a calmness unlike anything a human should possess in the apocalypse. Its composure was like that of a chess player surveying the board, everything under control.
In this abyss of despair, this seemingly random statement was like a divine ray of light tearing through the darkness, instantly dispelling all the desolation in her heart and rekindling the flame of "survival."
She didn't know who it was, nor why she should believe it.
But her intuition, her keen sense of "strong" honed as a top swordsman, was frantically telling her—trust him!
"Aaaaaah!" 1O焐久氿（ 八 囷
Saeko let out a roar, squeezing out the last bit of strength from her body.
Instead of trying to fight the undead, she ducked down and, like a purple lightning bolt, suddenly passed through the gap between the two undead.
The broken blade transformed into the most precise weapon in her hands, not for killing enemies, but for clearing a path. Every parry, every instance of using leverage, was the result of meticulously calculated, honed techniques.
She smashed through one rotting body after another, letting blood and bits of flesh splatter all over her body, with only one goal—the iron door leading down from the rooftop.
"boom!"
She used all her strength to smash open the iron gate, turned around and used her last bit of strength to slam the gate shut, then used a fallen steel pipe to firmly wed the doorknob.
Outside the door, the corpses roared and pounded wildly. The iron door thudded violently under the impact, as if it would be smashed open at any moment.
But Saeko didn't care anymore. She tumbled and crawled down the stairs to the next floor, found the room with the "Broadcasting Room" sign, rushed in, locked the door from the inside, and used the heavy sound equipment inside to prop it shut.
After doing all this, she was completely exhausted and slid down the door to the ground, panting heavily.
It's safe now... for the time being.
She didn't know who the voice belonged to, nor how long she had to wait, but she chose to believe.
Meanwhile, at the [Cross-Dimensional Film Screening Event], the girls watching the live stream had their hearts in their throats.
[The Jewel Magician: You...you hid inside? But...why?]
Rin Tohsaka couldn't understand it. In her eyes, it was just moving from a large cage to a smaller one, a mere eke out of a living.
[Butterfly Dance: Yes, the broadcasting room is enclosed; she'll be trapped inside sooner or later, and she's already injured...]
Shinobu's tone was full of worry.
[Ice Queen: A pointless struggle. Surrounded, hiding will only erode your last fighting spirit, ultimately leading to certain death.]
Esdeath, with her extensive combat experience, made a cold-blooded judgment.
Just as the group members were puzzled and thought that Saeko was just futilely delaying her death, D, who had been silent all along, finally sent a message.
It's not a private chat, it's on the main screen.
[Observer: I am observing.]
Just four words brought the discussion in the group to a standstill.
Everyone looked at this seemingly random statement with confusion.
Gu Chuan ignored their questions and continued typing calmly.
[Observer: Every phenomenon has its underlying logic, and this catastrophe is no exception. The emergence of the dead and the spread of the virus may seem chaotic, but there must be an initial, unique 'source' behind it all.]
[Observer: I need a relatively stable, undisturbed 'observation point' to trace this logical chain and find the source.]
[Observer: Saeko, that's my 'observation point'.]
Gu Chuan's words were like those of someone giving a profound physics lesson. He showed no signs of tension from being in a doomsday crisis; instead, he resembled a calm scholar explaining his research methods to an interesting topic.
His perspective is different from everyone else's.
While the girls in the group were worrying about the survival of a life, he was pondering the underlying patterns in the phenomenon.
While they were anxiously awaiting the outcome of the battle, he was dissecting the "underlying code" of a disaster.
This extraordinary, detached calmness, this attitude of treating the cataclysmic disaster as a "topic" for research, is itself an indescribable and chillingly powerful force.
The "Cross-Dimensional Film Screening" fell into a long silence once again.
Rin, Shinobu, Esdeath... Looking at the few lines of plain text on the screen, and then at the lonely figure trapped in a small room by monsters in the live stream, they suddenly felt a strong, cross-dimensional sense of cognitive disconnect.
They then realized that this mysterious "observer" had never been thinking about "how to survive" from the beginning, but rather "how to solve the problem".
Moreover, it was in a way that they could not understand at all.
10 edits! The source of the catastrophe!
Fujimi Academy, Broadcasting Room.
The heavy equipment holding the door shut creaked and groaned under the frenzied impacts of the corpses outside, and cracks spread across the door panel like a spiderweb. Saeko Busujima leaned against the corner of the wall, supporting herself with a broken blade. Each breath aggravated her wounds, bringing waves of excruciating pain.
But inside, she was surprisingly calm.
Although the voice called "Observer" never rang out again, the transcendence and confidence contained in its words acted like a shot of adrenaline, allowing her to see a glimmer of light in the darkness of despair.
Observation...Underlying logic...Source...
She couldn't fully understand these words, but she realized one thing—the mysterious observer was dissecting this disaster in a way she couldn't even imagine.
She is no longer fighting alone. She is an "observation point," a coordinate, a beacon providing a view of higher-dimensional interference.
All she had to do was wait.
Meanwhile, in the student council room of Shuchiin Academy, Gu Chuan's eyes were already closed.
His body remained leaning against the window, relaxed, as if he were merely taking an afternoon nap. But his consciousness, his spirit, had transformed into an invisible net covering the heavens and the earth, transcending dimensional barriers and precisely descending upon that world that was being destroyed.
【Concept Deployment】—This is the core and most resource-intensive function of 【Wanxiang Editor】.
The cost of activating it was that all of Gu Chuan's accumulated inspiration points, as well as the start-up capital he had just "earned" from Rin Tohsaka, were almost completely depleted in an instant.
But the rewards are also enormous.
At this moment, the entire city of Tokoname was under his "observation".
He saw crowds fleeing in the streets, saw desperate cries in the corners, and saw the endless, overwhelming mass of dead bodies.
But in his view, these were not independent life forms or monsters.