Chapter 68 First Blood

Chapter 68 First Blood
His first kill was messy. His second was better. By the fifth he had found something like rhythm. Nathan took longer. He was precise by nature, which worked against him at first — he kept second-guessing the strike before it landed, pulling back at the last moment. I put my hand on his shoulder before his third attempt. "Stop thinking," I said. "Your body knows what to do. You've watched it enough times. Stop thinking and let it move." He looked at me. "Trust the repetition," I said. "It's in there." He turned back to the zombie and killed it in one strike. He stood there for a moment, very still. Then he nodded to himself and moved to the next one. Jade was the one I watched most carefully. She was the one I was least sure about — not because she was weak, but because she cared deeply and that caring had a way of becoming hesitation at the wrong moment. She stood in front of her first zombie for almost a full minute before she moved. I didn't rush her. When she moved, it was decisive. One strike, skull, clean kill. The light rose and entered her. She stood there with the blade in her hand and looked at her hands. Then she looked at me. "I didn't feel — I thought it would feel worse," she said. "It does feel worse," I said. "Later. When the adrenaline is gone and you have time to sit with it. That's why we're doing this now while there's work to do." She processed that. Then she moved to the next one. --- Yuan Ying surprised me. I had expected hesitation. The profile fit — she had grown up being pursued rather than challenged, admired rather than tested. People like that sometimes found the first real difficulty paralyzing. She stepped up to her zombie without being told. She hit it wrong the first time. Hit it wrong the second time. On the third attempt her strike was pure frustration rather than technique and it worked — more force, less overthinking, the blade going where it needed to go. The light entered her and she staggered slightly. Not from weakness. From the system. The first level-up had a physical component that nobody quite anticipated until it happened. She put her hand on the nearest car's hood to steady herself. "What was that?" she said. "Your first level," I said. "The system registering the kill and updating your baseline. It'll feel like that every time you advance for the first few levels. Gets easier." She straightened up. Looked at her hand. "I feel different," she said. "You are different," I said. "A little. It compounds." She looked at the remaining zombies on the ground. Then she picked up the blade she had dropped and went back to work without being asked. --- I saved Mia for last. She had been watching everything with the same focused attention she had used when she challenged me on the van. Taking it in. Building understanding before acting. She stood in front of her zombie and killed it in one strike on the first attempt. She looked at me. "How many does it take to level up?" "Without help, less. With a group, you need more kills per person because the experience distributes. Keep fighting. The rate increases as you get stronger." "How do you know all this?" I had told parts of this to different people in different ways. I gave her the version I gave everyone when they asked directly. "Experience," I said. She looked at me the way she had in the van. The same direct, assessing look. "That's still not a real answer," she said. "No," I said. "But it's still the true one." She accepted that with a small exhale and moved to the next zombie. --- By the time we had cleared the block, three people had registered their first level. Ryan was one of them. He stood very still when it happened — that characteristic moment of the system updating, the body adjusting to a slightly changed baseline — and then he rolled his neck once and looked at his hands and said nothing for about thirty seconds. Then he said, quietly: "Okay. I understand now." "Yeah," I said. "How high can we get?" "There's no ceiling I've found yet," I said. "But the early levels are the fastest. The gap between where you are and where you need to be to handle real threats — that gap closes faster than you'd think if you stay consistent." He nodded. Still looking at his hands. Nathan had leveled too. He was sitting on the hood of the truck with his eyes closed, not meditating — just processing. The system's update had hit him harder than Ryan, maybe because he was more physically still as a baseline and the change registered more sharply against that baseline. Zhang Li came to stand beside me. "Jade didn't level yet," she said quietly. "She will. She's close. The kills counted." Zhang Li looked at Jade, who was standing a little apart from the group, looking at the cleared street. "She's holding something together in there." "I know," I said. "She's doing it well." Zhang Li was quiet for a moment. "Leo. You knew this would work. Not hoped — knew." I didn't answer that directly. "We need to do this every day," I said. "Consistent runs. Controlled environments, limited enemy count, no surprises. The group builds faster that way." Zhang Li looked at me sideways. "You're not going to answer me, are you." "Not today," I said. She accepted that with the same quiet steadiness she accepted most things. "Okay," she said. "Then tell me what tomorrow looks like." I looked north up the empty commercial street. The highway was four blocks that way. Sacramento was six hours beyond that. "Tomorrow we drive," I said. "Tonight we run this block again." She nodded. I turned back to the group. "Second pass," I said. "We're not done yet."