The D-rank took another step forward, and a chunk of concrete cracked beneath its heel.

My plan had three parts, and all three parts were stupid. So stupid that they only sounded good in my head because my head was running on adrenaline, fear, and the desperate need to impress a woman who could bench-press a city bus probably.

’Step one: don’t die. Step two: don’t die. Step three: actually win somehow.’

Solid plan. Airtight.

I pulled the gun from my hip, thumbed the safety off, and raised it with both hands the way Zero had drilled into me.

The D-rank’s red eyes tracked the motion, patient and curious, as if it had seen guns before. As if it knew what they did and wasn’t particularly impressed.

’Great. A zombie with a freaking resume.’

I fired without any hesitation.

The Core Stone round cracked through the corridor with a sound like a miniature thunderclap, a streak of blue light splitting the dark. It hit the D-rank square in the shoulder and actually punched through, spraying black ichor across the wall behind it.

The thing barely flinched, though.

It just looked at the hole in its shoulder, then back at me, and I swear to god its lips peeled back in something that looked way too much like a smile. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

"Oh, you are not smiling at me," I muttered. "Fucker!"

It charged.

I’ve seen things move fast before. Zero moved fast. The E-ranks moved fast. But this was a different category entirely.

Seven feet of chitin and muscle covered half the corridor in a single bound, and I was firing on instinct, two more rounds, three, four, each one punching divots into that dark armored skin and doing absolutely nothing to slow it down.

I dove sideways a half-second before it reached me.

The D-rank’s fist came down where my head had been and turned a safety deposit box into what those richbois call modern art. Metal shrieked and dust exploded outward.

I hit the ground rolling, came up on one knee, and fired twice more into its side as it turned.

’Seven rounds. Five left. Nothing’s working.’

The chitin was too thick. The rounds were cracking it but not punching deep enough to reach anything vital. And every second I wasted shooting, it was getting closer to figuring out how to kill me properly.

"Switch it up, sugar boy," Zero called from behind me, her voice calm as ever. "You know better than this."

’Yeah, yeah, I know.’ I could feel her watching me. Crossed arms under her big boobs, probably. Patient. Waiting to see if her investment paid off or got smeared across a wall.

’Brute force isn’t working so stop trying to brute force, bumass.’

The D-rank came at me again, and this time I didn’t dodge. I couldn’t. The corridor was too narrow, and it had adjusted, its arms spread wide to block my escape routes. So I did the only thing left.

I ran at it.

"Lukas—" Zero’s voice cut off, sharp.

I slid so gracefully that would put shame on Micheal Jackson.

A low, baseball-style, right between its legs, the concrete scraping the skin off my shoulder through my jacket. The D-rank’s hand swept down a heartbeat too late, claws raking empty air where my chest had been. I came up behind it, spun, and emptied three more rounds into the back of its knee.

That got a reaction.

The chitin there was thinner, the joint more exposed. The leg buckled, just for a second, and the D-rank staggered. Black fluid sprayed across the corridor wall.

"Clever," Zero breathed.

’Thanks, noted, please hold applause.’

I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. The second I stopped, I was dead. I scrambled backward down the corridor, drawing it deeper in, toward the narrowest stretch where the safety deposit boxes closed in on both sides.

The ceiling was lower here too. Old fluorescent tubes hung loose from exposed wiring, long dead, swinging on their cables.

The D-rank limped after me, furious now. Its patience had finally cracked. It roared, and the sound was so loud in the enclosed space that my ears rang and dust rained down from the ceiling.

Two rounds left.

’Okay. Part three. The really stupid part.’

I backed up until my shoulders hit something solid. A steel door. It was another vault, smaller, a secondary deposit room. Sealed tight perfectly.

The D-rank filled the corridor in front of me, shoulders scraping both walls. It couldn’t charge here, it advanced forward one heavy step at a time. Slowly, as if savoring it.

I raised the gun.

Not at the zombie.

At the ceiling.

’If the Core Stone rounds can punch through chitin, they can surely punch through concrete too. Probably. I hope. Oh god, I really hope.’

I fired both remaining rounds straight up into the ceiling directly above the D-rank’s head where it was weakened.

The whole corridor shook.

For one terrible second I thought nothing was going to happen, that I’d just wasted my last two bullets on a ceiling, and the D-rank was going to tear my head off while I stood there like an idiot with an empty gun. It looked up. Its red eyes narrowed.

Then the ceiling came down.

Not all of it. Just the section I’d shot. A slab of reinforced concrete the size of a car dropped straight down on its head with a sound like the world ending.

The D-rank’s roar cut off into a wet gurgle as it was driven to its knees, one arm pinned, chitin cracking audibly under the weight.

’Holy shit. Holy shit, it actually worked.’

It wasn’t dead. Of course the damned thing wasn’t dead. Its free arm was already pushing against the slab, and I could see the concrete starting to shift, starting to lift, because of course this thing could bench-press a ceiling, why wouldn’t it—

I stopped thinking and moved.

I was already running, vaulting onto the slab, scrambling up its surface to where the D-rank’s head was pinned against the floor.

Its red eyes tracked me instantly, furious and helpless for the first time, its free arm slamming uselessly against the concrete because it couldn’t angle to reach me.

I dropped the empty gun and pulled the pipe from my belt.

Its chest was exposed as the faint blue pulse of the Core Stone glowed through cracked chitin like a heartbeat.

’Quality over Quantity. It’s his peakest point. It will work. It better work otherwise I’m damned.’

I drove the pipe down with both hands, all my weight behind it, right into the crack in its sternum.

The chitin split easily.

I pulled the pipe out and drove it down again. And again. And again. Black ichor sprayed on my face, my chest, my arms. The D-rank thrashed beneath me, the slab grinding against the floor, my balance almost gone, and I just kept hammering that one spot, that one crack, because if I stopped I was going to fall and if I fell I was going to die.

’Like hell I’m dying after finally changing my life.’

On the fifth strike, the pipe punched through.

The blue light flared as the D-rank’s whole body spasmed, a sound coming out of it that wasn’t a roar anymore. Its red eyes flickered, dimmed and finally went dark.