1. The Beginning of the Invasion

The Beginning of the Invasion

A week ago, in the small hours before dawn, disaster arrived while everyone was still asleep.

At first, there was only fog. A thick, unnatural fog swallowed the entire city. Communications died. San Guang City became the first beachhead of an invasion from another world.

Then the portals opened.

They appeared everywhere, great and small, and from them came every nightmare that had ever found a shape: zombies, man-eating plants, winged little devils, iron birds, ghosts, and worse things besides.

Most people died in the first wave, dragged down and devoured before they even understood what had happened. Those who remained had only two choices: fight back, or surrender.

A handful of lucky survivors soon discovered something impossible. If you personally killed one of the invaders pouring through the portals, you could obtain a miraculous power.

Unfortunately, the monsters were growing stronger too.

San Guang City, San Guang University survivor base.

The monsters on campus had just been cleared out. For the moment, the place was safe.

With my powers helping, it took less than three minutes for the monster slime and the ruined scraps of my battle suit to melt away beneath scalding water and vanish down the drain.

A hot shower in the apocalypse was obscene luxury. Still, those willing to hunt monsters had all gained powers of one kind or another.

Fire mages. Duplicators. Metal manipulators. A boy in a makeshift mech suit.

Making hot water was hardly the most miraculous thing any of us could do.

As for me, I had something that looked very much like a game interface.

Name: Ye Rin
Profile: Female human, 17 years, 3 months, and 8 days old

Abilities [7 points available, 27 total]
Strength Modulation lv2
Forced Acceleration lv2
Constant Strength lv2
Progressive Regeneration lv3
Near-Object Manipulation lv2
Super Suit lv1

Attributes [5 points available, 27 total]
Strength 13, Agility 10, Intelligence 2, Perception 5, Spirit 8, Luck 1

For the next half hour, I let Near-Object Manipulation cradle my body and hold me floating in the air while Progressive Regeneration went to work. The pain faded bit by bit, until at last all of it was gone.

For the first time in nearly a week, I felt completely relaxed.

How many people had that swollen, tumor-like thing in the dormitory eaten? Calling it a plant was already an insult to plants. How strong had it really been?

Killing it had given me five ability points at once. Five.

And we had only managed it by gathering every superpowered survivor in the school, taking advantage of the fact that the “plant” could not move, and setting fire traps around it in advance. Even then, it had almost taken us with it. I had come very close to bursting apart from the inside.

Unused energy still surged in my body. Since there was no immediate danger pressing down on me, now was the time to spend it deliberately.

Like skills, each attribute had its own function. Different combinations could create different effects. To understand the system properly, I needed a baseline, something to compare future choices against. So I decided to try the attributes I had never raised before.

I added one point to Intelligence, and one to Luck.

Maybe it was not the perfect decision. Maybe it violated whatever ideal build existed out there in the mathematical heavens. But if I did not know what the attributes actually did, how could I possibly know what an optimal distribution was?

So I waited to see what would happen.

I waited.

Then I waited some more.

Then a little longer after that.

Ten minutes passed. There was only a faint itching sensation, and that came from pinprick wounds slowly closing under the effect of Progressive Regeneration.

Unlike the times I had raised other attributes, there was no physical change at all.

“Wow. Classic superwoman image, isn’t it?”

The sudden voice shattered my train of thought. My Near-Object Manipulation cut out too, and I dropped flat out of the air.

I glared with every scrap of menace I could muster at the two Xia Xinglans standing there. They were both wrapped in loose pink towels and had barged in with shameless confidence, staring at me without even pretending otherwise.

Fortunately for them, recent events had made me less sensitive about my figure. Otherwise I might have kicked them through the wall.

“What do you two nuisances want?” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest.

I had been having a perfectly good shower.

“Can’t we take a shower too after a big battle?” they said together, each turning on a shower head. “Hope you didn’t use up all the hot water.”

“If you were worried about that, why not wait another hour?”

I would have left immediately, but my battle suit still needed another ten minutes to reform. I had no other clothes to wear, and I had grown used to the suit my power created. It was comfortable, good-looking, and safe.

I had seven ability points now. A new power started at one point, and the cost doubled with each upgrade. Spending two points on Super Suit just so I could escape Xia Xinglan’s nonsense was becoming more and more tempting.

“Mmm…” one of her bodies drawled, while the other squeezed out a giant glob of pine-scented shampoo.

In the blink of an eye, both of them were covered in shampoo. I supposed they did not need to worry about running out. Xia Xinglan could duplicate objects directly. Since the monster invasion began, the survivor base’s food supply had depended on her power.

“I did want to talk to you about your leaving,” she said.

“I’m not changing my mind.” I told them flatly. “Your ridiculous behavior only makes me more determined to go. You’re even more shamelessly perverted than before.”

“I’ll have you know our shamelessness has doubled because there are two of us now.” Both Xia Xinglans laughed. “And this is just normal desire. You’ll understand when you grow up.”

“Shut up, Xia Xinglan. Not having to put up with your childish crap anymore is reason enough to leave this hellhole.”

“Hellhole? Are you sure the place you’re going will have hot showers? Let alone food, lights, clothes… phones?”

I did not answer. Not the implied question, and not any of the other bait she dangled.

So for the next few minutes, we showered in silence and ignored one another.

Of course, Xia Xinglan had never been capable of silence for long.

“It’s dangerous out there,” she said. “You know that, right? Really dangerous.”

“It’s a zombie-portal invasion. Of course I know it’s dangerous outside, you useless idiot!” I snapped.

If her problem was that she could not keep her mouth shut, mine was that I had no patience. Attribute upgrades had not fixed that.

“You get to rely on the power to duplicate supplies. You get other people to beat monsters half to death and then let you finish them off. Fine. Just make sure you can hide forever.”

“You know I’m right,” they said, moving in that perfect, uncanny synchronization as they helped each other fetch towels and clothes. “I’m only saying you should make sure you’re ready to fight. You never know where a powerful monster might be lurking.”

“Thank you for the reminder. I’ll keep it in mind. But I still have to find Chi Li and Cheng Rui. I’m worried they’re in danger.”

After that I turned away and refused to speak to them until they left.

A few seconds after they slammed the door behind them, the suit generated by Super Suit lv1 finally formed, covering every inch of skin below my neck.

It couldn’t have done that ten minutes earlier?

To give myself a better chance against whatever waited beyond the campus, I chose to raise Strength Modulation to level three.

Feeling at least a little more prepared for whatever threats came next, I walked out of the shower room. At last, I was ready to leave.

Outside, I found the Xia Xinglan sisters waiting by the door. Several other classmates were there too. More surprising than any of them was the backpack filled with supplies for the road.

It seemed they were not entirely heartless. They simply wanted to stay at the school and wait for rescue from the outside.

Now that the monsters had been cleared out, the campus had no immediate safety problem. With the metal fortress made by superpowers and Xia Xinglan’s duplication ability, it was entirely possible they could hold out until rescue arrived.

I had come here from another city for university. My family was not in San Guang. Chi Li was local, and both her parents were somewhere in this city, so she was desperately worried about them. Cheng Rui was worried about his aunt.

The two of them had left the school on the third day after the monsters appeared and gone into the city.

Now I had to find them.

I slung the backpack over my shoulders and activated Strength Modulation, Forced Acceleration, and Near-Object Manipulation together. Under the combined pull of several powers, I rose into the air, picked a direction, and accelerated.