Chapter 59: Death of unnamed Zombie: THE END?

The heavy iron boots of the Rogue faction enforcers crunched over shattered concrete and scorched earth as they cleared the perimeter.

Dust and heavy smoke hung thick in the air, smelling strongly of sulfur, charred monster hide, and burned military rations.

Salma Al Mansari stood atop the smoking rubble of a destroyed defensive bunker, flicking dark monster blood off her combat blade with a quick motion of her wrist.

Around her, the makeshift outer settlement was in complete chaos. Medical tents were overcrowded with wounded soldiers, supply trucks were burning, and heavy artillery units were frantically realigning their barrels toward the jagged rift in the earth.

The dungeon break at sector forty-nine had been brutal, but Salma and her elite team of Rogues had managed to force the swarming mutated beasts back into the portal rift, sealing the immediate breach with overwhelming firepower.

Derrick walked up the sloped mound of debris, his heavy body armor covered in deep claw marks and dried green acid. He unclasped his visor, letting out an exhausted breath as he looked out over the smoking battleground.

"Sector forty-nine is completely secured, ma’am," Derrick reported, his low voice raspy from inhaling black smoke. "The secondary breach from the subterranean tunnels has been contained. The military units are establishing a permanent blockade line around the crater."

Salma turned around, her striking green eyes cold and sharp despite the visible fatigue lining her face. The distinct scar running through her left eyebrow stood out starkly against her dust-stained skin.

She sheathed her long combat blade into the specialized harness at her hip, adjusting the leather straps across her shoulders.

"Tell the regional command that sector forty-nine is officially taken care of," Salma instructed flatly, her tone leaving no room for argument. "The military has to take over the guard duty now to watch for any other monsters coming out. My people are done cleaning up their perimeter failures."

"Understood, Boss," Derrick nodded, gesturing to a squad of Rogues to hand over the forward defense line to the incoming army officers. "Are we pulling back to the central base camp to resupply?"

"No," Salma said immediately, her step quickening as she jumped down from the rubble pile onto the cracked tarmac below. "I am going to check Portal One."

Derrick fell into step right beside her, knowing better than to attempt to dissuade her. Ever since the global dungeon event expanded and news broke that individual challenger portals were locking participants into isolated sub-spaces, Salma had barely slept.

Multiple dungeon breaks were erupting across different sectors as challengers inside failed their respective runs and died.

Whenever a challenger perished inside a sub-space, the structural integrity of that specific portal collapsed, causing a sudden dungeon break where hundreds of mutated monsters poured directly into the surface world.

Salma had been fighting continuously for days, hopping from one breach to another, purely driven by a single, terrifying thought: if a portal broke, it meant the challenger inside was dead.

Leaving the perimeter defense line behind, she moved directly past the rear limits of the human settlement, heading straight toward the dried, barren expanse of the dried Seattle River bed positioned right behind the base camp.

Down within the dusty canyon of gray stone and exposed boulders, Portal One stood elevated on a reinforced scaffold, shielded under heavy containment fields.

The massive, blue-glowing portal ring stood firm in the center of the dry riverbed. Its spatial mana fluctuations were stable, humming with a quiet, steady rhythm that echoed off the high banks behind the settlement.

The blue light reflected brightly in Salma’s green eyes.

Seeing the portal intact, a long, shaky breath escaped her lips. The suffocating tightness in her chest eased for the very first time in days.

Summer was still alive. Her daughter was still fighting down in those dark, brutal root tunnels, surviving the nightmare.

"She is fine," Salma whispered softly to herself, her fingers unconsciously tightening around the leather grip of her gloves. "She is still alive there."

Derrick stood a few paces back, watching his leader’s rigid shoulders finally relax. "The girl is tough, young Miss. After all, she’s your blood! She isn’t going to fall easily."

"She isn’t just tough, Derrick," Salma said, a rare, faint trace of warmth softening her harsh expression as she stared at the blue light. "She is stronger than anyone gives her credit for. Once she clears this tier, I will be waiting right here when she steps out. I won’t let anyone touch her, not the military, and not those shadow forces."

"Young miss, you can’t—"

"I don’t fucking care anymore, Derrick. We will face anything together. Whatever it is." Salma decided she would absolutely never avoid her daughter again.

Since her daughter seemed to always be in trouble, there was no point in trying to stop another trouble from coming. She would protect her daughter herself.

Derrick went silent. Once his young miss decided something, there was no changing it. He hoped that the young lass wouldn’t be a pain in the ass.

Salma took a step forward down the bank of the dry river, intending to inspect the monitoring console near the scaffold.

The very next second, red lights began to flash wildly across the console, and a jarring warning siren echoed across the dry riverbed behind the settlement.

The steady blue glow of Portal One flickered violently. The smooth, rhythmic hum of spatial mana turned into a high-pitched, screeching whine that echoed through the surrounding stone walls.

Salma froze instantly, her blood turning to pure ice. "No..."

"Boss!" Derrick yelled, his hands bracing instinctively onto Salma.

Deep within the core of Portal One, the brilliant blue light turned a sickly, dark crimson. Web-like cracks of pitch-black energy rippled across the surface of the gateway ring, spreading at a terrifying speed.

The spatial anchor holding the sub-space together shattered completely.

BOOM!

A colossal shockwave of corrupted mana burst outward from the center of the dried riverbed, completely blowing away the heavy energy shields and vaporizing the surrounding steel-reinforced guard towers along the banks.

Jagged river boulders crumbled into fine dust as a blinding red light engulfed the entire ravine behind the settlement.

Above the roaring chaos, a sharp, cold system notification window, tinted in dark red warning colors, expanded directly in front of Salma’s vision.

[Participant ’Unnamed Zombie’ has been killed!]

[Dungeon has won portal +1/100!]

"No... No..." Salma’s head started spinning. How could that be? Impossible. She would absolutely never believe that.

It must be a mistake. Yes. A mistake!

Salma stared at the floating words, her mind going completely blank. The dark red text burned into her retinas, repeating the single word over and over again in her head.

Dead

"No..." a small, trembling sound escaped her throat. "No, no, no... That’s impossible."

"Boss! We have to move! The monsters are flooding the sector!" Derrick screamed over the deafening roars, grabbing Salma’s arm to pull her back as a massive, four-eyed beast crashed onto the dry stones just ten meters away.

Salma didn’t move. She slapped Derrick’s hand away with terrifying force, her entire body shaking violently as an unbearable wave of grief and rage erupted from deep within her soul.

Her daughter was gone. The only reason she had survived the apocalypse, the only reason she was fighting through this endless hell, had been ripped away from her in a single split second.

"AARRGGHH!"

Salma let out a guttural, earth-shattering scream of pure anguish that drowned out the cries of the incoming monsters.

Her shadow mana exploded outward in a massive, pitch-black storm. The ground beneath her feet cracked open as liquid darkness surged from her body, forming razor-sharp spears of solid shadow that shot out in every direction.

The four-eyed beast that had jumped toward them was instantly impaled by a dozen shadow spikes, its massive body shredded into pieces before its blood could even hit the dry riverbed.

"I will kill them all..." Salma growled, her green eyes turning completely black as her shadow aura expanded, swallowing the entire ruined ravine in darkness. "Every single creature... every single one of them responsible for this... I will tear them apart!"

Derrick backed away in absolute terror, realizing that the cold, calculating Rogue leader was completely gone. In her place stood a heartbroken mother consumed by endless, destruction-driven madness.

As hundreds of dungeon monsters poured out of the destroyed portal in the dried Seattle River bed behind the settlement, Salma charged forward into the sea of beasts alone, her blades flashing with shadow energy, painting the dry canyon in blood.