The third level of the mall was very popular among the students as it had a generous offering of entertainment facilities from karaoke to arcades and even cinemas thus catering to whatever kind of entertainment activities you preferred.
This meant that it usually had a lot of visitors, thus when the apocalypse started this place quickly became one of the first to be overloaded with zombies.
Currently a zombie was walking aimlessly towards an arcade. It's entire body was covered with blood and other indistinguishable bits though it was still easy to make out the fashionable outfit on it's body. Clearly this person was previously a student before they became a zombie.
Suddenly the zombie's nose started to twitch as it started to sniff the air before whipping it's head in a particular direction, growling it staggered over to a Pokemon themed arcade shop only to find nothing there.
With confusion in it's eyes it looked around only to see nothing. Since there was nothing of note there it decided to leave and continue it's aimless wandering.
Before it could do that though a series of whipping sounds filled the air. The next moment the zombie fell down as a huge hole appeared in the middle of it's head revealing a youth with a glowing sword in his hand.
"This zombie seems a bit more aware of it's sorroundings, does that mean it has an Origin crystal?"
Muttering to himself the young man's eyes shone with eagerness as he quickly started searching through the zombies head mindless of the brain matter and the bodily fluids. Eventually he pulled out a small white crystal the size of a bean as a wide grin tugged at his lips.
"Haha! An origin crystal never thought I'll find one so fast…hehe!"
Right then another young man wearing a pair of glasses appeared from a corridor holding a baseball bat while panting hard,there were blood stains on his clothes although they didn't seem to come from him.
Naturally this pair of students were none other than Dante and Jason . After leaving the top floor of the mall they had both walked for a while evading zombies and killing those they couldn't run away from before eventually arriving at the second floor just when the sun was dipping over the horizon.
Looking at the smiling figure before him Jason revealed a wry smile. When he had been forced to leave earlier he had thought they were doomed.
How could they fight against those bloodthirsty monsters from hell. Even if Dante had that armour he claimed was from his uncle they still stood no chance.
He quickly changed that mindset however when he saw how Dante was mowing down those zombies. None of them could even come near him. It seemed they weren't that strong as he thought.
Motivated he had also picked a bat he found somewhere and after making some mistakes he had also killed his first zombie. At first he had felt guilty as the zombie had once been a human but that was quickly washed away by the feeling of excitement after killing it.
Although he was reluctant,he had to admit that he enjoyed killing them.
"You're back great"
Seeing that Jason had arrived, Dante quickly stored the origin crystal away before pulling out the map and checking their location. They still had a long distance to cover since the second floor of the mall was very big. Couple that with the huge amount of zombies lurking around spending four hours to reach the ground floor didn't seem too bad.
After making sure that that had eliminated all the zombies in their way,the two started moving on again. Their goal was to leave the mall before dawn.
Bang!
FUCK!
They had not even left the arcade section when they suddenly heard a loud gunshot startling the two of them. Subconciously Dante cursed as this was the last thing he wanted, there was no need to guess the gunshot had already alerted all the zombies on the mall. Who knows since it was night even those outside the mall might hear it!
"We have to leave this place, now!"
Before they could leave though another gunshot echoed through the mall and this time it was closer to them. Soon a small group of four consisting of three women and a man appeared as they ran towards Dante and Jason. Behind the group a weird zombie with praying mantis like blades instead of hands was closely on their heels.
"RUN!"
When Dante saw the praying mantis zombie he instantly threw all thoughts of checking what was happening to the back of his mind as he broke into a run while yelling at Jason to also run although there was no need for that as he was already making a break for it.
As he was running Dante couldn't help but wonder what sort of cursed luck he had to encounter a Mantis Killmonger of all things and so early too. These were supposed to start showing up weeks into the apocalypse!
Technically these were also zombies but a mutant zombie. They were an advanced type of zombie whose entire body became encased in a bone exoskeleton with exceptionally sharp bone blades for arms thus the mantis in their name.
They were called Killmongers because everything in their eyes were prey,humans,mutated beasts and even other Killmongers.
If that wasn't enough their blades were so sharp they could cut through the reinforced armor plating of military vehicles with unparalleled ease. They were literal overlords of death.
Thankfully it seemed that this one had just started to mutate hence the reason only it's arms were fully covered in the bone exoskeleton. However, it was still exceptionally dangerous.
"Arrgh!!!"
Suddenly a death cry resounded from the back of the group, turning around Dante saw the only man in the group of four suddenly get stabbed in the chest by one of the Killmonger's blades.
"Marcus!"
Seeing her companion hanging helplessly from the blade the girl at the front holding the pistol stopped and aimed at the Killmonger. Before she could get a shot though the zombie raised it's other free hand swinging it downward at a speed faster than the human eye could capture.
Swish!
The next moment,the guy stopped struggling as a thin line of blood extended from his head straight down to his groin. The next moment he fell apart in a two pieces turning the floor into a gory mess.
"Marcus ….THAT THING KILLED MARCUS!!"
Instantly the other two girls in the group started screaming their lungs out while trying to run away only to continue slipping due to the blood on the floor.
The Killmonger enjoying the fear of it's prey started walking towards them.
Bang!
Suddenly there was another gunshot as the girl with the pistol shot at the Killmonger's head. However,it did nothing more than aggravate the monster more as it raised it's claws to end her life.
"Hey…!"
Just when it was about to slash down it suddenly heard a voice that caused it to turn around only to see a an armoured fist rushing towards it.
"....did your mommy tell you how ugly you were cause you're one nasty looking thing!"
The next moment an unbelievable scene occured as the Killmonger that was able to take on bullets without issue was suddenly blasted away before crashing into a wall causing
it to collapse.
For the first time in this Killmonger's very short life it saw stars.