Chapter 68 – Speedrun to Hell

Prince of Hell.

The running never stopped.

Zoya, Grim, and Stellan tore through the alleyways like the world’s worst parkour team—sweaty, panicked, barely functional. They weren’t chasing clout. They were being hunted by sixty-plus brain-dead cannibals with commitment issues.

First one horde. Then two. Then three.

Some came from behind. Others from the side. A few spawned just to spite them. This city was less map, more hell-level from a game that hated you.

They didn’t fight to win. Just to keep moving. Hurl a can. Slash a face. Dive through an opening and run.

Zoya shouted something, but Grim didn’t hear it over his own heartbeat. Stellan had given up speaking—his lungs were too busy issuing restraining orders against the air.

Fifteen minutes in, they were panting like dogs in summer.

Thirty minutes in, they were cornered.

One-floor building. Rusted pipes. Terrible plan. But up was better than eaten, so up they went.

“Climb! Don’t look down!” Zoya yelled.

Grim looked down.

Rookie move.

Zombies. Climbing. Not stumbling. Not groaning. Climbing. Like ants. Like nightmares. Like gravity had filed for unemployment.

“Uh. Guys?”

“NO SHIT,” Stellan snapped, sawing at a pipe with his teeth clenched around an old hacksaw. “MOVE.”

Grim kicked a face. Zoya stomped a skull. Stellan reached the pipe and started cutting like a man possessed.

“This is your plan?!” Zoya yelled. “Death by plumbing?!”

“YOU GOT BETTER?!”

The pipe gave.

Zombies fell. Screaming. Flailing.

And then—twitched.

Then twitched again.

Then climbed.

One atop the other. A seething wall of bodies clawing over each other. A flesh ladder. Groaning. Reaching.

“They’re adapting,” Zoya breathed.

Grim didn’t speak. He couldn’t.

He was watching something else.

Far off, deep in the alley maze—something moved.

No. Tore.

Zombies started dropping like dominos. Crushed. Split. Torn in half. Like something invisible was slicing through them at speed.

No growling. No warning. Just bodies collapsing in a perfect line.

“What the hell is that?” Stellan whispered.

Grim saw it. Or maybe just felt it.

The streak. The blur. The silence behind the carnage.

His stomach dropped.

It wasn’t just fast—it was wrong.

Something primal inside him tried to crawl backwards through his own spine. Like his blood knew what it was before his brain caught up.

It was getting closer.

Faster.

Faster.

Faster—

BOOM.

Something hit the building.

The wall cracked.

A blur launched upward and landed in front of them with a snarl.

No eyes. No name. Just hunger and motion.

Grim didn’t blink.

It lunged.

End of Chapter.