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See. I told you apologies aren’t needed.

— Mo Ke.

In face of the great unknown that was death, humans were insignificant. From the moment the first seeds of fear were sown from that zombie, it only took a mere minute for its flowers to bloom across the entire hall.

I had no way of knowing how many people had been bitten now, but I was dead sure that dozens had died from the stampede already!

Without a question, this was a massacre, and not by the zombies…

“Ding! Mission received: Calm Amidst the Storm”

Amidst the deafening screams, the system suddenly dinged, though I had no time to check due to the chaos.

Like a pack of lemmings, the crowd rushed ever forward into a narrow passageway, pushing anyone who stood in their way down onto the floor. Those who were unable to resist the force of the crowd were forever relieved of the need to stand up…

The elevators and stairways of the shelter were built to be wide, but even they could not accommodate so many evacuees at once. The stairways were one thing -at least you could constantly fit more people in as more ascended – but the elevators were an utter nightmare. Each could fit a hundred at most, and that led to fights breaking out over who would board them first…

Ironically, there wasn’t a need to rush at all. A thousand people might have seemed like a lot, but given the capacity of the escape routes, almost everyone could have gotten out in no time at all. The amount of zombies weren’t that many to begin with so the actual casualties because of them weren’t high at all…

If only everyone could have acted rationally, this tragedy could have been avoided entirely. Unfortunately, there were no ifs in this world.

By now, the first wave of elevators were about to take off. Yet just when it looked like safety was finally in sight for them, a horrific wail echoed from behind the closing doors of one of the elevators – another person had zombified…

The doors of that elevator were practically torn open as people gushed out head first to escape from that metal cage of death… resulting in another wave of deaths from stampedes…

It didn’t take long before the same situation happened in the rest of the elevators. Given how popular the serum was before this virus was discovered, there was no telling how many had actually taken it, or when even. The consensus was that there were a lot, and it was only a matter of time before more appeared.

This staggered zombification was what made this virus outbreak especially sinister.

Even with her eyes closed, Jiaojiao had a basic inkling as to what was going on outside. She dared not open them and leaned in closer. “Big brother… what should we do…”

“Your Highness, at this rate, there’s no end to the foolishness of these humans. This one plans on activating her World-ender powers to clear a path forward!”

World-ender power? More like potato power… ahem… She probably means spiritual energy… that’s the basis for her dad’s Martial Sage Arts of the Primordial Energies, after all. I doubt she wouldn’t have learnt it.

Unexpectedly, Bitong did not tease her for that. Instead, she leaned in with a worried look on her face. “Ke, leaving now is going to be difficult, should we…”

“It’s alright, I have a plan, don’t worry.” I answered with firm resolve, though my heart was pounding right now. But I wasn’t going to show that to the girls.

Still… I wonder how many people will be alive at the end of this chaos… Either way, I’m protecting the girls with my life!

Because the area we were in wasn’t in the path of the exits – I even went so far as to put distance between us and them- barely anyone bumped into us during this mad rush. And even if they did, I was more than ready to use force to chase them away.

Just like that, we safely made it through the initial carnage of the rush. Roughly ten minutes had passed, and over half the people had evacuated.

Even so, the shelter was still a chaotic mess despite its huge size. Those who did not escape yet were running around like headless chickens, definitely deprived of any rationality.

The shelter that was supposed to protect them ended up becoming a slaughterhouse. Blood and gore painted the floors, made only worse by the pungent smell of blood and bile lingering in the air. It was the smell of death that filled our noses.

The zombies, for the most part, did not bother the living, not when there was so much food to be had. Because of that, the survivors were safe for the time being.

In every corner of the shelter, there were pockets of zombies feasting about. Each elevator at least had a couple of zombies within them. Naturally, the stairways were no exception either.

At this point, fighting our way out was the only way, and we had to do it fast before the dead became zombies as well.

“Ding! Calm Amidst the Storm has been completed. Dispatching a reward right now… complete. Please verify receipt.”

Mission? I paused in surprise. Thinking back, I did have some impression of the system mentioning something.

Mission: Calm Amidst the Storm.

Requirements: Our valued host has to protect himself and his harem members for ten minutes.

Reward: Fire Wall (Skill). Requires spiritual energy to be used, minimum of five units. Magnitude and duration are decided by the amount of spiritual energy used.

Comments: This is basically a giveaway mission. If our valued host cannot even protect his own harem, then this system has no need for such a useless host.

Status: Complete.

Hmmm… complete. The system even accepted the mission on my behalf. No penalty was stated as well. Very convenient… all that nonsense about changing hosts can be ignored.

The moment I accepted the reward, my brain was hit with a foreign set of knowledge that somehow seemed familiar at the same time. In barely a second, I had learnt the Fire Wall skill. With just a wave of my hands, I could now create a wall of fire. However, now wasn’t the time for experimentation. We still had to get out of here!

“Let’s move!” I passed Jiaojiao to Bitong then said, “I’ll take point. Bitong, I need you to look after Jiaojiao. Lixiang, you can handle yourself. Let’s go!”