Elsewhere on campus, on the opposite side of the sprawling university grounds, where the women's dormitories stood clustered closer together among narrow walkways and low trees, another group of survivors was on the move.
This one was larger, roughly thirty people in total. The overwhelming majority were women, with only five men running near the center of the formation, less as protectors, more as those who needed protecting.
They ran fast, but not chaotically. Their pace was set by the woman at the very front, and their eyes were drawn to her almost against their will, to her back, to the way she moved, and to how effortlessly she carved a path through what had been an ordinary campus just a day ago, and now looked more like a hunting ground for everything that was no longer human.
She had long, intensely blue hair that flowed all the way down to her lower back, heavy and smooth with each step, as if it were too thick, too vivid, to belong to an ordinary person. Her eyes, the same cold shade of blue, stared straight ahead without hesitation or fear, carrying that unmistakable indifference of someone absolutely certain of her place in the hierarchy.
Her figure was unmistakably feminine, almost aggressively eye-catching: wide hips, a full bust that moved with her stride. Yet there wasn't a trace of insecurity or embarrassment in the way she carried herself. She wore her body like someone who knew perfectly well she was being watched, and not only didn't mind, but considered it natural. Her face held a cold, arrogant expression, subtly emphasized by her lifted chin and the slight downward angle of her gaze, as if the world around her was something that needed to adapt to her, not the other way around.
When the first zombies emerged in their path, she didn't slow by even a single step.
Her wrist lifted, nothing more, and the air around them thickened. Cold swept across the ground like a wave. In the next instant, ice blades began to form before her: long, thin, semi-transparent, with razor-sharp edges that caught the light in hard, frozen reflections. She didn't chant. She didn't make any dramatic gestures. She simply pointed toward the threat.
The blades moved.
Mutated dogs burst out from behind one of the buildings, their movement unnaturally fast, muzzles twisted, eyes bulging, but it didn't matter. The icy projectiles sliced through the air with surgical precision and struck exactly where they needed to, straight through the beasts' skulls. There was no spray of blood. Only a dry crack, as the animals' heads were instantly encased in a thin layer of ice, everything inside frozen solid in a heartbeat.
The bodies collapsed lifelessly to the ground.
Behind her, the group slowed for just a moment, not because they had to, but because the tension dropped for a fraction of a second.
"Thank god she's here…" one of the girls whispered, clutching her friend's hand.
"If it weren't for her, we'd already be dead…" someone else murmured, relief and genuine admiration mixing in her voice.
A few of the women exchanged looks, some filled with open awe, others with quiet jealousy. It was impossible not to notice her looks, her confidence, the almost effortless dominance with which she led them all, as if she'd been doing this her entire life.
She didn't even glance back.
She kept moving toward the gymnasium at the same steady pace, wearing that same cold, arrogant expression, as if killing monsters were nothing more than a minor inconvenience on the way to her destination. Only the faint frost that occasionally crept across the asphalt betrayed how much power her magic carried just beneath the surface of her calm movements.
***
In yet another part of the campus, farther from the main paths and closer to the less popular departments, a third group of survivors was moving, this one even larger, around forty people. They stayed together not because anyone ordered them to, but because instinctively they knew that splitting up in a place like this would be the same as signing their own death warrants.
At the front walked two men who had taken on the role of leaders from the very first minutes of the chaos, not through formal decisions or loud declarations, but because they were the only ones who could respond to violence with violence in this new world.
The first moved several meters ahead, slightly to the side, maintaining the widest possible field of view. He was young, no more than twenty, by the look of him, with a handsome face, sharp features, and dark hair falling messily over his forehead, like someone who had been worrying about exams rather than the end of the world just yesterday. His build was slim and athletic rather than bulky, more that of a sportsman than a brawler. His clothes were dirty and torn in places, yet still somehow looked neat.
In his hands, he held a bow.
Not a crude piece of wood, but a solid, modern design that moved with surprising fluidity in his grip. Every motion was economical, practiced, almost elegant. He reached to the quiver on his back, drew an arrow, pulled the string, and released, all in one smooth motion, without wasted movement or hesitation.
Strangely shaped bees, mutated to the size of small dogs, dropped from the air one after another as arrows pierced their heads or torsos. Zombies that tried to approach from the front collapsed onto the asphalt with arrowheads buried in eye sockets or throats. The young man showed no emotion as he worked, his face remained calm and focused, as if he were on a training range rather than in the middle of an apocalypse.
A few girls running just behind him stole glances his way now and then, admiration mixed with barely hidden attraction. Even now, amid blood, monsters, and terror, it was hard not to notice how well he moved, how naturally he fit the role of someone in control.
The second man was his complete opposite.
They moved in parallel, but this one usually stayed closer to the center of the formation, like a battering ram ready to smash through any obstacle. He was enormous. Bald. Massively built, with a neck so wide it seemed to blend straight into his shoulders. Every step he took looked like the asphalt beneath his boots was struggling to endure his weight. He couldn't have been much older than thirty, but he looked like someone who'd spent his entire life in the gym or doing heavy labor, his muscles dense and compact, not sculpted for show, just brutally solid.
He wielded a gigantic hammer in both hands.
There was nothing subtle about him. When mutated dogs lunged his way, he simply swung with all his strength. Every blow ended with a dull, thunderous impact, a spray of blood, and a dent in the asphalt that lingered like a scar left by something that shouldn't exist. Bodies flew aside or collapsed inward under the force, and he laughed, loud, genuine, with that slightly unhinged laughter of someone who had found savage joy in the face of annihilation.
"Come on!" he bellowed at the zombies at one point, charging forward without slowing. "More! Who's next?!"
The students behind them watched the pair with a mix of fear and fascination. For many, what they were seeing felt unreal. Just yesterday, these men could've been ordinary students or strangers passed in a hallway. Now one was killing monsters from a distance with sniper-like precision, while the other shattered them with sheer physical force.
Some whispered among themselves. Others simply ran, doing everything they could to keep up and not lose sight of them. Everyone felt it instinctively, so long as those two stayed at the front, there was still a chance they'd reach the gym alive.
And so they pressed on: one with a bow, the other with a hammer, cutting a path toward the gymnasium through a campus that looked less and less like a university and more and more like a battlefield where only the strongest dictated the rules.
***
Leon had no idea that at the same time he was leading his own group across the campus, several other columns of people, broken, improvised, led by completely different individuals, were also making their way toward the gymnasium.
Even if someone had told him, he wouldn't have been surprised.
In the current reality, it was the only place in this part of the campus that offered even the illusion of safety: a windowless concrete block with massive doors and enough interior space to barricade, rest, and try to understand what had happened to the world.
Leon was becoming increasingly aware that he himself wasn't some exception or chosen one. He was just one of many people who, when faced with sudden change, hadn't fled in panic or frozen in place, but had chosen to fight. Sometimes out of desperation. Sometimes out of fear. Sometimes because something inside them broke and flipped into a survival mode that left no room for old rules.
Somewhere out there, there had to be others, people unlocking their own abilities, opening their first boxes, killing monsters stronger than themselves and surviving, growing through experience and power.
For the next several minutes, Leon guided his group along winding routes, avoiding main paths, pulling back when he sensed too many monsters ahead, sometimes changing direction at the last second when he heard the telltale buzz of insect wings or too many guttural growls at once. It wasn't a march or even a straight run, more a constant weaving between threats, making split-second decisions, balancing speed against caution.
Finally, after nearly twenty minutes of this, the gymnasium came into view.
The massive concrete structure loomed among the other campus buildings like a bomb shelter, broad, heavy doors, a flat, windowless exterior that looked exactly like what a last line of defense for powerless, exhausted people should look like. A few in the group instinctively sped up at the sight of it, as if just seeing their destination gave them strength.
Leon raised a hand, stopping them.
Something about the scene immediately set off his instincts.
They all halted, breathing hard, drenched in sweat, shoulders trembling with tension. The silence that followed was thick and uneasy, because the area in front of the gym wasn't empty.
That was when the lecturer, the same older man who had stayed close to Leon from the start, stepped up beside him. He adjusted his glasses with a trembling hand and wiped sweat from his brow with his sleeve. His face was drawn with exhaustion and stress, and there was one clear question in his eyes that didn't need to be spoken.
"Leon…" he said quietly at last, glancing toward the gym. "What do we do now?"