Michael Stonereiz was just a hair away from freaking completely out. Not only had black ink marred his skin, formed ugly pictures across his forearm, but he and the other members of the cast were stuck in some Divines forsaken reflection of the venue. Those sick bastards might have known about this, and from the way the cameras were still rolling, they were banking on getting evidence. Oh, not the cameras the staff held, but the ones they were wearing: body cams and mics. 

Or perhaps that was just standard procedure?

He wasn’t sure, but part of the contract he’d signed to join the reality show included a release on all footage created during the scheduled time. It never indicated how much footage or from where it was taken, beyond the exceptions normally included for common decency. 

And his mind was rambling. 

It didn’t help that the source of his infatuation—no, obsession—was somehow coping better than he was. Lilibeth was a student in Journalism, and now probably a full-time actress and model, but she looked like she’d been fighting her entire life. She wasn’t coping: she was thriving. 

He’d obsessed over her images and shows enough to notice when she was faking an expression. It was actually painfully obvious when she did, and if she weren’t so incredibly beautiful, she’d never succeed in having a career as an actress. That being said, the slight smile while she fought and destroyed the zombies was the most genuine he’d ever seen her make. It was almost enough to overcome his panic. Almost, but not quite. Probably if she directed it at him, all of his fears would be drowned in happiness…

Ah, wow, now he felt better. 

Still, watching Lilibeth snapping her fingers while the zombies littering the hallways lost the top half of their heads was both frightening and oddly alluring. It wasn’t the danger—and the thought of getting cut by something he couldn’t even see or have the slightest hint of nearly made him piss his pants—it was how she moved while she did it. She was graceful and probably demure, but her current clothing, which exposed a lot of skin, and the way her skin seemed to shine gold, caught his, and he suspected everyone else’s, eye.

He wrenched his eyes away from the slaughter and found himself staring at the grotesque black ink etched on his forearms, specifically, the one that looked like a stabbing dagger. It was long and narrow, and utterly useless to him considering he didn’t know how one could be used. A punching dagger would be better, considering his Battle Ball training. The modern sport had players wear a combat suit that tightened to restrict players when one got hit—by the ball or an opponent’s fist—and Michael had considerable training on how to punch effectively. The suit had been annoying to wear when he first started out, but it was better than what Battle Ball was like decades ago, where no such protective suits or restrictive rules were in place, and where blood was regularly shed and bones broken.

He blinked at the tattoo. It had changed from a stiletto to exactly what he had thought of, a punching dagger.

But what would be the use of that? A mere image on his forearm, why if it would appear on his…

Oh.

The black ink crawled from his arm towards his fist and shaped into its exact image, the handle already in his hand, with support braces and the blade, which extended six inches from his knuckles. It was all black, made exactly of the ink it came from, and he absently noted that not just the image of the punching dagger was gone from his arm, but every other image on it. 

“Where’d you get that?” Haley asked. Her voice sent odd ripples of pressure, and maybe pleasure, down Michael’s spine. Ah, her Alteration? “Your Alteration?” she echoed his thoughts. 

“Seems like it,” Michael muttered, now wanting to test the blade’s edge.

Not against the zombies as there weren’t any nearby. Lilibeth, and to a lesser extent, Alexis and Christine, the latter had shown herself far stronger than any woman her size, had culled and pushed back the walking dead. They were currently headed towards the stairs at the end of the hallway and the centre of the building. 

He poked at the wall next to him and the punching dagger acted as if it were solid steel. When he pulled back, there was a tiny depression where the point had been. With a thought, or rather, more a relaxation of focus, the punching dagger liquified and crawled back down his arm. The other tattoos along the inside of his forearm returned, but somehow, they were blurred. The ink, fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, only appeared on his right forearm, his dominant arm. Earlier, when he woke up, he thought he saw a similar set on his left, but a few minutes afterwards, without his notice, the semi-formed tattoos there disappeared. 

The only clear image was the punching dagger and the half-blurred image of a hunting hound next to it. He poked that image, but nothing happened. 

Haley was staring curiously at his forearm and was also closer than Michael expected. Her voice was low and sultry, though he thought there was an edge hidden in its depths. Understandable, considering where they were. 

“Ah!” Christine’s yell drew their attention, and Michael almost screamed in surprise. One of the zombies managed to grab the girl’s arm and yanked her off balance. She’d pulled back by reflex, and her newfound power had jerked the zombie off its feet. It had slammed into her and their legs tangled up. They wound up on the ground where the other zombies closed in. 

Swish, chunk. Thunk. 

Lilibeth’s deadly invisible blades ashed the nearby zombies, including the one on top of Christine. Then, the beautiful woman casually pulled the slightly smaller woman back on her feet, rubbed her back, patted her shoulder, and generally calmed Christine down. All while her other hand snapped fingers and cleared zombies. 

Frightening, and yet…enticing. Alluring, and when he looked at Haley beside him, who had also stared at the younger woman, he wasn’t the only one. A brief bout of jealousy ran through his veins at the thought of even more rivals, but he steadfastly told himself that he had no right to feel that way, for all that he couldn’t help it. Any delusions of connections aside from casual acquaintance with Lilibeth was just that. Maybe it was worth even less since he and his family still orbited around the ambit of the Daublin-Lawsons while she had clearly left it. 

Or appeared to have, anyway. 

His gaze shifted to Alexis Dunn, who he was sure was one of the Lawsons’ proteges. That he was here now and that he, according to Lilibeth, was able to fight off the initial shock of being transported here, probably meant that he was already Altered. So, other than keeping an eye on Lilibeth, what could he be up to? Unless…

He glanced at Alexis, who was blasting the zombies coming from the other side of the hallway. The older man kept glancing back at Lilibeth, and unless Michael was mistaken, there was hidden lust behind his gaze. 

He looked at the others—even the girls—who did the same. It was hard to blame them considering how beautiful and eye-catching she was. While Lilibeth’s reputation back in school wasn’t stainless, he hadn’t heard anything about a new beau so far. 

The punching dagger reappeared in his right hand and he rammed it into a zombie that slipped past Lilibeth and Christine. The force he managed to impart sank the blade into the thing’s face, and it shuddered and fell. He couldn’t pull it back out easily so he had to dissolve it into ink form before summoning it back. As he stepped away from the corpse, it continued twitching. 

“Stab the brain.”

Lilibeth’s voice lingered in his ear, and he reflexively moved to follow. The punching dagger sunk entirely into the skull before he could blink, though he didn’t need to do the same unsummon and resummon to get it out since the corpse disintegrated. He looked towards the front and found her facing the zombies and not at all looking back.

So how did she know? 

He couldn’t help but think of her Alteration. The obvious was the killing snaps she did, but it wasn’t the only thing she could do. She had a broad power, and he thought he saw her practising some form of telekinesis, though it had a tell, some kind of glowing golden light that manifested around her target. He also saw her subtly tripping the zombies up before they could deliver a lethal blow to the others. He wasn’t sure who else saw… 

Ah, it looks like Victor did. The cameraman didn’t appear to have any kind of offence oriented Alteration, and from the markings around his eyes, Michael suspected it enhanced his senses. At the moment, he was wide-eyed and fidgeting, but Michael thought he saw the other staring at Lilibeth’s bottom and legs. Huh, maybe he didn’t notice the subtle use of telekinesis after all. 

Michael lost himself, his fear and worries, into the fight. It was the same trance he fell into when he trained for Battle Ball with the marked difference that he aimed to hit the head and not avoid it. In the sport, hitting the helmet did nothing as the padding underneath protected the wearer from any kind of damage. Covering the face and eyes was a more viable tactic but actually aiming to hit was a foul. Now, he found he had to strike a second time to dismantle the zombies, and he was reluctant to force himself to change his habits. He was still varsity after all and getting the wrong reflex could jeopardise his standing. 

It must have been half an hour before they made it out of the main building. Thankfully, they were already close to the main road. Lilibeth led them there, helping to fight the walking dead. It was curious that they all sported muskets and pistols but never tried to use it, but he was thankful for it. Whether it was restraint or stupidity, he wasn’t sure, and he didn’t want to question it lest it lead to Fate changing her mind. 

When they fought their way out of the reception lobby and onto the ramp, Michael couldn’t help but whistle when he saw what was ahead. Instead of the road, there was a curtain of mists that were interspersed with twinkling stars. Everyone, including Lilibeth, paused at the sight, but their fierce protector barely hesitated. She destroyed the zombies attacking up the ramp and cleared away towards the mists, or rather, towards the road that led deep into the starry mists. Soon enough, they were just a couple of paces from it, and the zombies had stopped. 

It was eerie to see them turn and walk away when they had been just a couple of inches from grabbing an arm or a leg. Michael drew heavy breaths, winded from the long battle with barely any rest. Lilibeth had pushed, wordlessly to be sure, but he saw and felt her telekinesis prod them towards continuing. He could see some impatience in her countenance, even if most of her expression now was icy cold. 

“I expected as much,” Lilibeth remarked. “I think we can find the exit through here.” 

“How can you be sure? It looks like if we go in there, we’d be trapped forever,” Christine protested. 

Lilibeth chuckled, the tones of her laughter sent pleasant tingles down Michael’s spine, and all the others felt it, too. Except for Alexis, who bit his lip and grimaced. Michael saw Lilibeth glance at Alexis and smiled mysteriously.

“Would you rather remain here forever instead?” she asked mildly. 

When no answer came, she shrugged and said, “I will go through here. If you wish to stay, it is your choice.” With that, she stepped through the starry mists.

He didn’t hesitate and followed behind her. The world turned to a white blankness that had starbursts of light flashing wherever he looked, but a moment later, he was standing on a bridge. Not in the middle, but next to one of the supports. It was a suspension bridge, he thought, but he couldn’t see past the railings. He got pushed forward when somebody collided with his back, and Lilibeth caught him before he could fall. He looked back and saw the others following sheepishly. 

“Now what?” Michael asked. He looked to either side of the bridge, but couldn’t see where it ended, and for all intents and purposes, either way was identical. But one probably led back home. Where the other led to, he didn’t know, nor did he even want to. 

“No idea,” Lilibeth said brightly, “but I think we should go that way.” 

“You think that will lead us home, right?” Michael asked. He wasn’t reassured at all that the only reply Lilibeth gave was a smirk.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep