Chapter 8 Awakening

That night, the city seemed to come alive again with the arrival of that message.

Mo Chu stayed inside the warehouse, occasionally hearing sounds drifting in from outside—survivors moving in groups through the streets. Seven or eight people, sometimes a dozen, formed temporary teams. They walked cautiously along the roads, speaking in low voices, discussing the “rescue” that was supposedly coming tomorrow.

This was the sixth day of the apocalypse. Before this, those with the ability to escape had already driven out of the city. Those still left behind were either too afraid to leave, trapped by circumstances, or still clinging desperately to the hope of rescue.

And now, because of a single message, hope was reignited. The dead city, once silent and hollow, had regained a trace of human life.

Mo Chu did not go out.

She sealed the warehouse doors shut and thought for a long time before deciding to absorb another crystal core.

It had only been a single day since she last absorbed one. Doing it again so soon was, by all logic, unwise—but Mo Chu relied on her experience from her previous life and chose to take the risk.

Worst case scenario, her body would reject the energy. But as a former sixth-tier ability user, she had ways to recover from that.

What happened during the daytime confrontation with those two ability users had shattered the fragile sense of safety she had carried since her rebirth. And when she saw the terrifying surge of power erupt from the unconscious Li Chen, she was forced into a clearer realization—

Abilities were never fair.

If she stayed stuck as a “useless ability” below tier three, then relying on her past-life experience alone would no longer be enough. Once others grew familiar with their powers—and with this world—her advantage would disappear entirely.

She had to stay ahead of the majority.

But that wasn’t the only reason she chose to absorb the crystal core now.

More than anything, it was for tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the first military rescue teams would enter the city. They would evacuate survivors and ability users, and establish the first survival zone outside the city of Lin.

After that, survival bases of all kinds would spring up outside urban areas like bamboo shoots after rain, becoming the foundation upon which humanity rebuilt itself.

Tomorrow, humanity would step into a new era.

And before that era arrived, she had to be ready. She didn’t want to be swept up helplessly by the tide of events like she had been in her previous life.

Mo Chu took a slow breath and tightened her grip on the crystal core.

Then she closed her eyes.

Her consciousness was instantly pulled into a whirlpool of power.

Beside her, red threads of flame coiled around her like a knight standing guard over its master—loyal, unwavering, and untouchable.

The warehouse fell into silence, broken only by distant, intermittent sounds from outside—sometimes human voices, sometimes the guttural movement of zombies.

Li Chen dreamed.

And he knew, very clearly, that he was dreaming.

He could remember everything that had happened before falling into sleep, yet the scene before him felt real enough to suffocate him.

In the dream, he was bound to a cross.

And he was burning.

He could feel it—the flames licking across his skin. Invisible fire seared through him layer by layer, first the skin, then the flesh, then gnawing at bone.

Every sensation was unbearably real.

And when it ended—when he was reduced to ash—everything began again.

He burned once more.

Skin. Flesh. Bone.

Over and over. Endless repetition.

The fire didn’t just burn his body. It devoured his consciousness.

Each time he reached the edge of collapse, when he was about to give in, the pain would suddenly ease. And the more he leaned toward surrender, the weaker the pain became.

As if it were tempting him.

Tempting him to let go.

Again and again, he endured unbearable agony. Again and again, he pulled himself back from the brink. Until even despair began to take shape.

At one point, he couldn’t help but think—

Why was he still enduring this?

What reason did he even have to keep going?

It hurt so much.

He understood what giving up meant. But… did he have any reason to persist? Was there anyone in this world worth enduring this pain for?

And then—

A voice appeared in his mind.

There was.

Who?

The flames in front of him suddenly exploded outward.

And this time, he felt no pain.

He opened his eyes.

In front of him, within the blazing red fire, a silhouette formed.

A thin girl clinging to the roof of a vehicle. A fragile arm gripping a falling man, holding on with everything she had—so tightly that even as she was dragged toward the abyss, she refused to let go.

Monsters roared in front of her.

Cold humans stood behind her.

And then a voice sounded beside his ear.

“Let’s go.”

Someone… was still waiting for him to wake up.

Li Chen’s eyes snapped open.

Distant cheers echoed in his ears.

Above him was the dim, yet unmistakable ceiling of the warehouse.

His senses were sharper than ever—every small sound magnified, every movement painfully clear.

And then—

Flames erupted around his body.

Crimson fire, exactly like in his dream, instantly burned through the ropes binding him, reducing them to ash.

He sat up.

And froze.

Because right beside him—

The girl from his dream was sitting there.

Mo Chu.

Eyes closed, leaning quietly by his bedside, completely unaware of his awakening.

And around her—

Threads of fire circled like loyal guardians.

They were his.

Li Chen hesitated.

For reasons he couldn’t explain, he didn’t pull the flames back.

At that moment, Mo Chu opened her eyes.

They met his gaze.

Li Chen instinctively looked away—but still didn’t avoid her completely.

Instead, he saw her expression shift instantly.

Surprise. Relief. Joy.

Her eyes lit up little by little.

“You’re awake!” she said.

And in that moment, something in Li Chen finally settled.

Good.

She was still here.

He hadn’t been abandoned.

“I’m awake,” he said.

……

Mo Chu hadn’t expected Li Chen to wake up.

Before absorbing the crystal core, she had carefully checked his condition. The results were not good—far from it.

He wasn’t improving.

He was getting worse.

She knew the struggle between zombie virus and human survival instinct was long and painful. She had even prepared herself for him to remain unconscious for another two days.

And yet—

He woke up without warning.

What happened while she was absorbing the crystal core?

Still, regardless, his awakening was a good thing—for both of them.

And it would make her next steps much easier.

Mo Chu was thinking about how to bring up her plan when Li Chen suddenly asked,

“Why did you save me?”

Why she saved him.

Mo Chu looked at him.

The young man’s face was pale, like someone recovering from a severe illness. But his eyes were dark—deep, unreadable, calm yet strangely unsettling.

Compared to the man she had seen on the rooftop before, the one who had silently pulled her to safety…

This Li Chen already carried the same presence he would have in the sixth year of the apocalypse.

She didn’t know whether saving him had been the right choice.

But she didn’t regret it.

She wanted to say, because I wanted to thank you.

But in the end, she only smiled faintly and said,

“Because you saved me.”

“…I see,” Li Chen murmured.

Then he asked again, “Aren’t you going to ask what ability I awakened?”

Mo Chu already knew the answer.

In her previous life, everyone knew.

She smiled and pointed at the flames beside her.

“This one,” she said.

A powerful fire ability—one of the five elemental abilities, known for its devastating area attacks. The moment Li Chen’s true strength became widely known was when he annihilated an entire special task squad of over twenty people in a single move, summoning a storm of fire crows that turned them all to ash.

Before that, people only knew that the closer an ability was to the five elements, the rarer and stronger it became.

But no one truly understood what “strong” meant.

Until they saw Li Chen.

And from that moment on, his name became something people dared not speak aloud.

“You’re a fire-type ability user,” Mo Chu said.

But Li Chen shook his head.

“Fire type… and ability concealment.”

As soon as he finished speaking, his body vanished from the bed.

Then reappeared the next second.

A faint smile lingered in his eyes as he looked at her.

Mo Chu froze.

Double ability?

But in her previous life, he was only ever known as a fire ability user.

Was concealment something he never used before? Or was this a new ability awakened in this life?

Then she suddenly remembered—

Before her death, Li Chen had once admitted that it was always him who had been saving her.

But every time she was rescued, she had never been able to see the rescuer clearly.

If he had a concealment ability…

Mo Chu didn’t dare continue that thought.

She cut it off forcibly and looked at him again.

“You’re very strong,” she said honestly.

Li Chen withdrew his flames, along with the threads around her.

Mo Chu’s gaze lingered on them for a moment, faintly reluctant.

Then Li Chen said,

“Thank you for saving me.”

He had saved her so many times in the past.

And yet now, he was the one saying it.

Mo Chu felt a little awkward and quickly changed the subject, bringing up the message from earlier.

“…Tomorrow the rescue teams will arrive. They’ll probably set up a temporary survival zone outside the city. Are you going with them?”

Li Chen didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he asked,

“What about you?”

Mo Chu hesitated.

“I won’t go with them.”

She said you and I.

Not we.