The Jinghai University Library should've been silent—historically, spiritually, architecturally silent.
Instead, it breathed.
Not metaphorically.
Whispers leaked from the shelves like steam from cracked pipes—thousands of tiny voices whispering in a dozen languages. They crawled across the air, brushed the skin, seeped into the ears. Every book murmured. Every page rustled. The place felt alive—and wrong.
Su Chen kicked the glass doors open anyway.
The shattering echo cut through the whispers for a moment, like a rude announcement that reality had arrived uninvited.
Ye Qingyu flinched behind him, frost curling around her fingertips. "I told you it's dangerous… The Librarian never leaves the atrium. It stays up there and… and reads."
Saeko raised an eyebrow. "A zombie that reads? Do we count that as progress or regression?"
"It's not a normal zombie," Su Chen replied, stepping inside. The cold bit deeper with every step. "Something's fused with it. The metaphysics in this place feel like a Cultivation World that got bootlegged into our apocalypse."
His Spirit Sight pulsed. Above them, a pillar of black energy spiraled like a storm funnel, anchored on the third floor.
Yep. Definitely a boss.
They climbed the stairs slowly, their footsteps swallowed by whispering that grew clearer, sharper, almost expectant.
When they reached the atrium, Su Chen's eyes immediately locked on the thing floating in the center.
The Corpse King didn't look wild or monstrous. It looked… academic.
A professor's ruined tweed jacket clung to its frame. Its skin was thin and bluish, like old parchment stretched over bone. The face—sunken but oddly calm—tilted slightly as if studying them.
But the eyes…
Twin flames of sickly green intelligence flickered in the sockets. Not hunger. Not rage.
Awareness.
And hovering behind it was a massive, chained Grimoire—spectral, iron-bound, radiating cold malice like a frozen heartbeat.
[Target: The Librarian (Corpse King)]
[Race: Undead Arch-Mage • Martial Spirit User]
[Bloodline: Lesser Lich]
Su Chen smiled. "A Martial Spirit in an apocalypse world. That's new."
The Librarian adjusted its cracked glasses.
"Guests…" it rasped, voice dry like pages rubbed together. "…Silence. In the library."
It raised one long, skeletal finger.
The Book of the Undead flipped open.
Air pressure plummeted.
With a sound like ripping shadows, three enormous spear-shaped distortions formed behind it.
"Die."
The spears fired.
"Move!" Ye Qingyu cried, layers of ice forming instinctively.
The shadow spears shattered her ice wall like candy. The shockwave slammed her back into a bookshelf, knocking blood from her lips.
"Weak," the Librarian hissed.
Su Chen didn't move.
He didn't need to.
His eyes were on the book.
"System," he whispered under his breath. "I want that Martial Spirit."
[Visual Copy: Out of Range.]
Right. He had to touch it.
Fine.
He vanished.
Agility surged through his limbs—Mantis Reflexes sharpening everything, Flowing Dance smoothing his motion until he moved like a slip of paper caught in a breeze.
The Librarian reacted instantly.
"Insect."
Books ripped off shelves, pages folding into razor-sharp blades that swirled into a murderous storm.
"Saeko!" Su Chen barked. "Clear a lane!"
Her irises bled scarlet as her Blood Asura talent flared—energy burning off her like fumes from a fresh kill.
"With pleasure!" she shouted.
Her Bone Blade carved a crescent arc. The pressure alone scattered the incoming storm—just for a heartbeat.
But one heartbeat was enough.
Su Chen launched himself from the railing, slamming into the Librarian mid-air. Dark energy scorched his coat and began burning patches of flesh off his arm, but he didn't flinch.
He grabbed the Librarian's face with one hand, fingers digging into cold bone.
And with the other—
He reached behind it.
His hand passed through the undead body and touched the Grimoire's spectral cover.
"Caught you."
[Absolute Copy Activated.]
Something snapped—like wires being ripped out of a soul.
The Librarian convulsed, mouth stretched in a silent scream. Its spiritual pressure shook the entire floor as three different pieces of its essence were torn loose:
[Bloodline: Lesser Lich (Acquired)]
[Martial Spirit: Book of the Undead (Acquired)]
[Talent: High-Speed Incantation (Acquired)]
The copy shockwave pulsed outward, rattling shelves and breaking several whispering voices into screams.
Su Chen pushed off the dying boss and flipped mid-air, landing lightly on a table.
The System's cold chime echoed in his mind.
[Spirit: 18 → 35]
He exhaled. The new bloodline settled in like cold fire in his veins. His aura shifted—from cutting blade to bottomless abyss.
Behind him, reality rippled.
A grimoire materialized.
Large. Heavy. Chained. Identical to the Librarian's.
The undead professor froze.
"…Impossible."
Its voice trembled.
"My spirit… How do you possess the Grimoire of N'Ghal…?"
"I liked it," Su Chen replied. "So I took it."
He snapped his fingers.
The copied book opened smoothly.
"Shadow Spear."
Dozens of dark runes flared behind him.
"Multi-cast."
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh—
Not three spears.
Thirty.
The Librarian's face twisted into pure horror. "No… no… That violates the natural laws! You cannot—"
"I am the natural laws."
The spears fired.
They hammered the Librarian into the wall—bones splintering, spectral chains snapping, its body riddled with holes that leaked shadow instead of blood.
Green flames dimmed.
"You… cheater…" it whispered.
Su Chen walked over, brushing dust off his coat. He didn't kill it yet. Something glowed in its pocket.
A page.
Golden. Holy. Radiating an aura entirely different from the undead magic.
[Treasure: Golden Page of the Heavenly Tyrant]
[Contains Technique: Indestructible Diamond Body (Stage 1)]
Su Chen picked it up.
[Copying…]
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.
Copies filled his hand.
Ye Qingyu stared like he had reinvented thermodynamics. "You're copying unique treasures? Why even—"
"Team synergy," Su Chen said simply. "And maybe a little long-term market manipulation."
He pocketed the originals and the duplicates.
Then he turned back to the zombie, whose consciousness fluttered like a dying candle.
"Last words?"
The Librarian looked at Su Chen's spectral grimoire one final time.
"The library… is closed…"
Su Chen ended it with a clean stomp.
The head burst like a rotten melon.
[Target Eliminated]
[Experience: +800]
[Level Up: 5]
A soft glow settled on the ground — a white Spirit Ring.
He picked it up and twirled it in his fingers.
"A White Ring… good for low-tier enhancement."
He tossed it casually into storage. "Useless now, but maybe fun later if I mass-produce it."
He scanned the atrium. Thousands of books waited on shelves, whispering faintly.
Knowledge.
Skills.
Upgrades.
"Alright!" Su Chen called out, raising his voice. "Saya! Bring the truck around!"
Ye Qingyu blinked. "The truck…? Why—"
Su Chen placed his palm on a shelf.
[Infinite Storage: Area Loot Mode]
Zip.
The entire bookshelf vanished.
He smirked.
"I'm taking the whole library."