The Zombie System.

"Not today."

The void blade arced toward Leon—death certain—until Ethella blurred in, a living gale that defied cosmic power one last time. The Chairman moved like lightning, his remaining arm outstretched as wind compressed into a makeshift shield.

"Ethella, no!" Leon shouted, his voice cracking as he watched the Chairman throw himself between blade and death.

But the Storm Caller was already there. His weathered face showed grim determination as he channeled everything he had left into one final defensive barrier. "Can't let it end here," he said through gritted teeth.

The void blade struck compressed atmosphere with a thunderclap that shattered windows three districts away. The impact sent shockwaves through dimensional barriers while the sky rippled.

Ethella's body took the full force of attack.

"Chairman!" Leon screamed as he watched void energy tear through his mentor's defenses.

"Don't... waste this chance," Ethella gasped. Blood poured from his mouth as internal injuries ravaged his body. "The city... needs someone to remember."

The impact hurled Leon away, spinning through air. He tumbled end over end while watching Ethella's broken form plummet toward the burning city below.

Ethella's sacrifice had bought him precious seconds of life, but the cost was everything Leon had never wanted to lose.

Ethella crashed through a distant tower with the sound of thunder. Steel beams bent around his falling body while concrete crumbled like sand. The building's upper floors collapsed in sequence, each level pancaking onto the next with mechanical precision.

Tons of rubble buried the Chairman of the Hunter Association. No movement followed. No lightning flickered from the debris. The man who'd shaped continental politics for decades was gone.

"No, no, no," Leon whispered while tumbling through space. Tears mixed with blood on his face as grief threatened to overwhelm tactical thinking.

The commander hovered above it all, unreadable. Its void blade dripped with dimensional remnants where it had tasted storm magic and mortal determination. The entity's cosmic presence pressed against reality like weight that threatened to crack existence itself.

"One obstacle removed," the commander observed with clinical detachment. "Mortal attachment breeds predictable sacrifice. Your mentor died for nothing."

"Shut up," Leon snarled through his fall. "Don't you dare talk about him."

"Truth remains unchanged by emotional denial. His power was finite. My victory was inevitable."

Leon spiraled toward the ground, blood trailing behind him like red rain. His body refused to obey simple commands while shock from watching Ethella's sacrifice disrupted his concentration completely.

The street rushed up to meet him with promises of bone-crushing impact. Leon tried to channel necromantic energy for emergency landing, but his mana reserves had dropped too low for complex magic.

System warnings flooded his vision in cascading text:

[HEALTH: CRITICAL]

[MANA: 8/930]

[UNDEAD MANIFESTATION: FAILING]

[WARNING: CONSCIOUSNESS DEGRADATION DETECTED]

[ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 3 SECONDS]

Just before he hit pavement, his Elite Mage surged upward with desperate energy. Its spectral form caught Leon mid-fall using arcane levitation magic that drew from the zombie's own diminishing essence.

"Master, stay with me," it urged while its form flickered dangerously. Static crackled around his edges as dimensional pressure destabilized his manifestation. "We're not finished yet."

Leon coughed blood onto his torn shirt. Vision blurred as concussion symptoms battled with dimensional exposure for control of his nervous system. "Ethella's gone. Damian's down somewhere in the rubble. It's over."

They floated above a city that barely resembled the Arcadia Leon had grown up in. Buildings burned while dimensional tears spread across the sky like infection.

The commander's presence had destabilized Arcadia to the point where natural laws operated more as suggestions than requirements. Gravity fluctuated in nauseating waves. Colors bled from objects while sounds arrived before their sources.

Citizens who'd survived the initial assault huddled in whatever shelter they could find. Leon caught glimpses of faces pressed against broken windows, watching their sky tear apart above their heads.

"Status report," Leon wheezed while his elite mage stabilized their altitude with magic that cost precious manifestation energy.

The Assassin was gone lasted enough for an impact but gone, gone, gone. Tobias and Warrior Mage were unavailable for now.

"How long can you maintain form?"

"Minutes under normal conditions."

Leon felt the weight of every loss pressing down on his shoulders. Tommy in the Night Hag dungeon. His undead servants who'd chosen to serve despite their own deaths. Now Ethella, who'd collapsed protecting a hunter who might not be strong enough to honor that sacrifice.

"What if there is no victory?" Leon asked while gripping Shadow-edge with hands that shook from exhaustion and dimensional exposure.

Leon's mana reserves sat below critical thresholds. His connection to necromantic abilities flickered like dying flame in hurricane winds. Everything he'd built, every power he'd gained through months of struggle, was slipping away.

But surrender meant everyone died. His mother, wherever she was hiding. Elise, probably treating casualties in some overwhelmed medical station. Every hunter who'd fought beside him. Every civilian taking shelter in whatever buildings still stood.

"You think anyone's still coordinating rescue efforts?"

Humans adapt quickly to impossible circumstances. Someone always steps up when leadership falls, but how far

Leon thought about Damian, buried somewhere in the district's rubble. His childhood friend had grown from privileged aristocrat into genuine leader through crisis that stripped away everything except character.

If Damian was still alive, he'd be organizing whatever survivors he could find. Getting people to safety while Leon bought time with increasingly futile resistance.

"One more try," Leon said while gripping Shadow-edge with renewed determination.

"Master, the tactical situation suggests minimal success probability…"

"One more try."

"Then we make it count for everyone who can't fight anymore."

With the Elite Mage's help, Leon surged back into the sky. He channeled the last embers of necromantic mana into his body, drawing power from reserves. The effort felt like he was pushing through a tsunami.

His system interface screamed warnings about dangerous overexertion, but Leon ignored every alert. Pain was temporary. Death was permanent. Everyone counting on him deserved better than surrender.

The battlefield was empty now except for two figures floating above a city that might not survive the next few minutes. Buildings burned while reality warped around wounds that bled otherworldly light through dimensional barriers.

Leon's Shadow-edge flickered with unstable power, barely holding shape as death energy fought against dimensional corruption poisoning the air around them. The blade hummed.

"Weapon integrity failing," Leon observed while examining his primary armament. Stress fractures ran along the blade's edge where cosmic forces had tested mortal craftsmanship.

The commander slowly turned, cosmic attention focusing on the last mortal who dared challenge infinite power. Its void blade pulsed with trapped souls while dimensional energy crackled around its form like living lightning.

Thousands of voices screamed from within the weapon. Civilizations that had fallen to cosmic hunger across multiple realities. Each soul added their anguish to blade that grew stronger with every universe consumed.

"One mortal," the entity said with voice low and ancient, carrying harmonics that bypassed hearing and struck directly at consciousness. "One spark flickering against infinite darkness. And you still crawl upward?"

"Someone has to," Leon replied while steadying himself mid-air. His voice carried conviction that surprised him.

"Why? Your dimension is already lost. Your reality bleeds through wounds that cannot heal. Accept inevitable conclusion and spare yourself unnecessary suffering."

"Because that's what humans do. We fight impossible odds."

"Even when fighting is futile?"

"Especially then."

The Elite Mage hovered behind Leon, staff glowing dimly with what little power remained in his deteriorating form. Dr. Reid's manifestation was barely corporeal now, more

"It's not the end," Leon said with conviction he didn't feel. "We're going to win."

"How?"

"Haven't figured that out yet."

"Honesty is refreshing."

Around them, the dimensional tears continued spreading. Reality hemorrhaged through wounds that would take millennia to heal, assuming their universe survived the commander's complete manifestation.

Leon could see other dimensions through the largest cracks. Landscapes of living crystal that sang with harmonics that drove mortals insane. The homes of entities that viewed entire realities as resources to consume.

"Your determination amuses me," the commander said while gathering dimensional force that could unmake matter itself. "But amusement fades quickly when coupled with incompetence."

The entity raised the void blade again, slower now, as if savoring the final strike. Cosmic horror had all the time in multiple realities. No need to rush the conclusion of mortal defiance.

"You could have served willingly," the commander continued while building power that made space-time bend around its form. "Become vessel for expansion across infinite possibilities. Instead you chose futile resistance."

"I chose to stay human," Leon replied while feeling his system interface flickering as the last of his mana drained away.

"Humanity is limitation. I offer transcendence."

"You offer slavery."

His connection to necromantic abilities was severing as dimensional corruption poisoned the magical pathways he'd spent months developing. Soon he'd be just another F-rank hunter with a sword against cosmic horror.

But he'd been an F-rank hunter before. He'd survived impossible odds through stubborn refusal to accept defeat. Sometimes determination mattered more than power.

Leon felt something stirring in his chest. Not magic. Not system enhancement. Just human refusal to quit when everything depended on one more

The commander's void blade reached apex position, ready to fall with force that could crack reality itself. Trapped souls screamed their eternal anguish while dimensional energy built beyond measurement.

Leon roared and charged—alone, broken, and burning with defiance that transcended rational thought.