SSS-Rank Extra: I Got a Chaos System-Chapter 25: The Unraveling

The moment they hit the streets, it was a blur of shrieks and the squelching sound of mud sucking at their boots. Zombies surged around them, twisted figures crawling and scrambling, some with limbs broken at impossible angles, others dragging themselves like half-formed husks. The sky was a sickly gray, dark clouds swirling above as if the storm itself were part of the nightmare.

Lillian didn't hesitate. Her feet pounded the mud as she yanked Kazuki along, her ice powers cleaving through zombies in one quick motion—freezing them solid, shattering them into jagged pieces before they even had a chance to reach them.

Kazuki was a blur too, but in a very different way. He was dodging, grinning, and throwing in a few jabs at the zombies for good measure, his dagger slicing through the air. "This is what I signed up for!" he shouted, his voice bubbling with manic glee. A zombie lunged at him, but he effortlessly sidestepped, slicing it cleanly down the middle. "You really need to stop these guys. They're terrible at playing tag!"

Lillian didn't even respond—her eyes locked on the chaos ahead, her breath steady. Her power surged again, an explosion of frost shooting out in every direction, taking down dozens of the creeping undead. But no matter how many they killed, they kept coming. They crawled, they dragged themselves, they grew.

And that's when Kazuki saw it.

One of the zombies wasn't crawling. It was stretching. Its body was elongating, limbs bending, twisting in ways they weren't meant to. The creature's torso bulged, skin ripping like fabric as it sprouted more arms—too many arms—each one reaching out with claws like tree branches.

Kazuki blinked. "Okay. I didn't sign up for this."

The creature shrieked—a horrible, guttural sound—and its arms lashed out in every direction. One of them slammed into a nearby house, pulling it down with a sickening crack. Another swiped at Kazuki, sending him tumbling backward.

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Lillian didn't slow down. She pulled Kazuki up in an instant, her ice coating the ground beneath their feet. "We keep moving!"

But the chaos was just starting.

From the wreckage of the house, another zombie emerged. But it wasn't just a regular zombie. Its head was twisted backward, its neck snapped at an unnatural angle, and from its gaping mouth, a second smaller zombie crawled out—like a disgusting worm emerging from its cocoon. The two merged, its body folding into a grotesque contortion of limbs and flesh.

Kazuki stared. "Okay, seriously, are these zombies evolving? I don't know if I'm impressed or completely disgusted."

Lillian's eyes narrowed. She sent a blast of ice straight into the writhing abomination, freezing it in place, but it wasn't enough to stop the nightmare. The creature's body cracked, shattered, and then reformed, pulling itself back together like a twisted puzzle. More zombies poured out of it, forming a writhing mass of limbs, eyes, and teeth.

Kazuki couldn't help but laugh in that way only a person on the edge of madness could. "Oh man, we've got a zombie factory now. This is something out of my worst fever dream."

Lillian shot him a sharp look as they kept running, but the sound of her ice spells cracking through the horde didn't drown out the rising screams of the zombies behind them.

Then—the ground shook.

Kazuki's eyes shot to the street ahead, where something was moving. At first, it seemed like a massive wall of shifting bodies. But no. This wasn't a pile of zombies.

It was one.

A grotesque, bloated monster, its skin stretched tight over its massive frame, its head misshapen and its eyes glowing an unnatural, jaundiced yellow. Its limbs were thick as tree trunks, and its mouth... its mouth was a gaping hole that stretched from its chest to its stomach, as if its body had never stopped growing.

From the hole.

Something crawled out of it.

A new zombie, but not like any they'd seen before. This one was crawling with more—dozens of other creatures oozed from its mouth like maggots spilling from a rotten carcass, each one worse than the last, each one different.

Kazuki's expression twisted from amusement to horror. "No, no, NO! This is not okay!" He shoved Lillian forward. "We've got to run—now!"

But the monster roared, a sound that felt like the earth itself was screaming. The entire street trembled as it swung its giant, gnarled arms, knocking houses down like they were made of paper. The zombies surrounding them ran toward the creature, moving as one, as if they were all feeding it—growing it.

Kazuki's heart raced. "So, uh... on a scale of one to we're all gonna die... where do you think we are?"

Lillian didn't answer. Instead, she slammed her fist into the ground, sending a wave of ice shooting through the street, splitting the earth beneath them. A giant fissure formed, creating a barrier between them and the horde—just long enough for them to gain some ground.

But as Kazuki turned to look back, something horrible caught his eye. One of the zombies from the factory—the one with too many arms—was scaling a building, its body shifting and snapping as it used its unnatural limbs to climb. It screeched, its arms reaching toward them with impossible speed.

Kazuki smirked at the absurdity. "You know, I've had some bad days, but this one is definitely in the top five."

Lillian's eyes were wide with focus. "We're not making it out of this if you keep joking, Kazuki!"

He didn't seem to care. He spun his dagger in his hand and cracked his neck. "Fine, fine, let's get to the next level of hell. But we're making it out, Lillian. We have to."

And as the first of the abominations launched itself toward them, Kazuki was ready. He couldn't help but shout, "Let's go, crazy world. Bring it!"