The Day Love Betrayed Me and Never the Plan 15

Chapter 15 

Chapter 15 

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The fat guy’s words cut off abruptly, his eyes wide in shock. His hand froze in mid–air as the cold edge of a blade pressed against his neck. 

Before he could utter a sound, Chloe’s axe hacked through his carotid artery in a flash. 

“Oh my god, you killed him! I’m calling the police,” the woman behind screamed, ghostly pale. She’d never seen someone kill so casually. 

The ones who’d been quietly hauling supplies had their hands shaking. It wasn’t the murder that scared them, but the ominous thud outside. 

The noise had drawn the zombies, and now they were pounding the door like maniacs. Their twisted faces pressed against the glass, chilling everyone. 

A burly, bearded guy, a kitchen knife in hand, stormed over. He backhanded the woman hard and snarled, “Trying to get us killed? That noise will bring zombies down on us.” 

The woman was clearly terrified. She hunched her shoulders, voice cracking as she stammered, “I–I didn’t 

mean to.” 

Right then, the glass started to splinter under the zombies‘ brutal assault. 

Everyone panicked, rushing upstairs. 

Chloe’s eyes darkened. ‘People crack so fast. If they’d fight back, they might survive. But they’d rather run than stand and fight.‘ 

She hid behind a shelf, watching the glass shatter. When everyone was distracted, she slipped out. 

Agonized screams echoed from the second floor. She couldn’t help; even if she wanted to, she was powerless. 

She claimed the white four–seater pickup truck and tore down the deserted, zombie–infested streets at full speed. 

Finally out of the small town, she sped toward her destination. 

Her route had been carefully planned, taking a longer path with fewer zombies. If she did encounter any, she’d simply run them over. 

What used to be a one–hour drive before the apocalypse now stretched to a full day and night before she finally reached Hevenseale. 

Hevenseale was once a major city, packed with people before the apocalypse. But by the time Chloe arrived, it was practically a ghost town. 

Zombies wandered everywhere, with wrecked vehicles scattered about, even luxury cars like Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Rolls–Royces. 

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Chapter 15 

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As Chloe got to the entrance of a huge supermarket, her eyes widened in shock. 

The apocalypse had only been going on for two days, and there was already a first–level zombie. 

This thing ignored the zombie blood covering Chloe. It locked onto her as a human with freakish precision, cackling creepily as it did. 

Chloe took a deep breath. An ice sword materialized in her hand. She activated her wind power, slipped behind the zombie, slashed its throat in one clean motion, and extracted a white zombie core from its skull. 

A genuine smile crossed her face. ‘Finally, I can level up my power!‘ 

The supermarket doors were wide open, suggesting survivors had been here. Since they hadn’t bothered to close up, either they’d left or met a bad end. 

Chloe stepped inside, on high alert. The first floor was eerily silent, with zombie and human body parts scattered everywhere. 

Corpses lay in blood pools, ripped apart, with blackened blood and yellowed brain matter splattered across 

the floor. 

The scene was too gruesome; one more look might make Chloe puke. The stench pierced through her activated carbon mask, overwhelming her senses. 

She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, everything came into focus. 

She scanned the area, pulling out a large pot lid from her spiritual space to use as a makeshift shield. 

As she moved, she kept alert to any slight movement, her hands busy collecting antiques and emerald trinkets from the first floor. 

Suddenly, she froze. An icy feeling crawled down her spine, like prey being sized up. 

She frowned, ‘Something’s off. 

‘The doors are open, blood everywhere, yet no zombies in sight. That could only mean one thing: a big one is hiding nearby. 

‘There was a first–level zombie at the entrance. Could this mean a second–level zombie waiting inside?‘ 

Just then, a Red–Eye Zombie lunged at her, snarling and slashing wildly. 

“A first–level mutant zombie?” Chloe gasped, her expression shifting. 

She blasted backward with her wind power, narrowly dodging its sickly gray claws. The glass where she’d stood shattered instantly. 

Red–Eye Zombies were mutant monsters. Unlike regular zombies with just brute strength, these had actual powers, like powered humans. 

The one facing Chloe was a fire–powered zombie. Even at the first–level, these mutants were far more 

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Chapter 15 

dangerous than standard zombies. 

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Chloe took a shaky breath, every nerve on high alert. She looked up at the Red–Eye Zombie, a cold, ruthless urge to kill surging through her. 

The zombie came at her again, hurling a blast of fire in her face. 

Chloe felt the heat slam into her. She dodged, whipping up a wind burst that deflected the flames. 

Luckily, the zombie’s slow reaction gave her an opening. She zipped behind it with her wind power and brought her axe down brutally, hacking into its neck. 

Its head hit the ground and rolled across the floor, coming to a stop only when it bumped into a corpse. 

Its blood–red eyes, empty of pupils, stared right at Chloe. Its fangs jutted out, mouth still open to bite. 

Black, sticky blood oozed from its severed neck as the headless body collapsed with a heavy thud. 

Chloe’s hand trembled as she gripped her axe tightly, her heart still racing from the close call. 

Panting hard, she pried the red core out of the Red–Eye Zombie’s skull with shaky hands. 

She glanced outside. The front doors were wide open, but every zombie shuffling by gave the entrance a wide berth, staying several feet away. It was like they were oblivious to the chaos inside. 

Mutant zombies totally freaked out the regular ones. The latter wouldn’t even come close. 

With the Red–Eye Zombie’s lingering aura still keeping the regular zombies at bay, Chloe pulled herself together, yanked down the rolling gate, and locked the glass doors tight. 

Only then did she finally let out a heavy sigh of relief, sliding down against the glass. 

Fighting the Red–Eye Zombie had drained all her powers. She felt completely exhausted, her limbs weak and useless. If she wanted to survive, she needed to boost her powers as soon as possible. 

She didn’t have fire power, so she couldn’t absorb the Red–Eye Zombie’s core directly. Instead, she pulled out the white zombie core from the first–level zombie she’d killed at the entrance and began absorbing it. 

For powered humans to level up, there were two ways. 

First, they could absorb regular zombie cores. These started half–translucent, and the higher the zombie’s level, the more transparent they became. 

The second way was to absorb cores from mutant zombies with matching powers, Chloe, for instance, had ice power, so she needed to absorb blue cores from ice–type mutant zombies. Fire–powered people could only absorb the red cores from fire–type Red–Eye Zombies. 

Mutant zombie cores came in different colors, each representing a specific type of power. 

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