Vol sprinted along the corridor, his heart thundering painfully from the small effort and his endurance stat of one. More and more, he could hear some cries and screams coming from outside windows. But it was still faint.
He was still alone for how, but it wouldn't last long as he heard an announcement being made at the intercom.
"Attention everyone, there seems to be some sort of attack happening on the school ground. Please stay-"
The rest blurred into the background as he saw a terrified looking girl turning the corner, sobbing, she kept sending fearful and confused look behind her.
'It's all happening so fast...' Vol frowned as he blocked the path of the girl.
"Were you bitten?"
"W-what?" She seemed shocked to be stopped by someone and asked a question.
"Did they bite you!?" Vol repeated himself, snapping at her.
"N-no, but I saw them. They... Yugao." She began to shake uncontrolably, tears running down her face.
"Good, you should-" Vol stopped as the broadcast message stopped abruptly with scream of fear and pain. Then, true chaos unfolded.
Classroom' doors bursted open one by one as raving students came out of the room, shoving each others out of the way and screaming in panic and fear.
Vol found himself and the girl lost in the stampede of people, being pushed forward as someone shoved him from the back in their hurries. He gazed dazzedly at it all, taken by the sheer aroma of despair and panic radiating from the scene.
Then, he felt angry. What were they hoping to achieve exactly, running around in whatever directions like this? He knew they were afraid. But it didn't change the fact panic was almost never the answer to survival.
So, his sharpening with focus, he straightened up and lifted his hand toward the windows at his side and unceremoniously flooded it with mana. Then, in a single push, he released it.
*CRACK*
For a single instant, the thunderclap overwhelemed every other sounds in the corridor by an entire magnitude, and the sudden intense flash of light made most students in direct sight of it recoil and cry out in surprise. Casting a sudden silence over the scene making everything comes to a standstill as the students who witnessed what Vol did directly looked at him blankly in pure incomprehension.
Taking a deep breath, Vol took quick notice of how he apparently wasn't affected by his magic whatsoever and that he could probably only cast few more of those with his current reserve. Using the few seconds of temporary silence his stunt granted him. He began to speak, his voice reaching over the sea of students in his immediate surrounding and beyond.
"Listen, and listen well. If you don't calm down, more than 99% of you are going to die. I can change that, follow behind me, and maybe you'll live." Vol stated firmly, grim yet hard resolution edging his voice.
"W-What was that sound just now? Was it you?"
"Who the hell even are you!?"
"Do you know what's happening?"
"99% of us will die? B-Bullshit, the police is going to come save us."
"Y-yeah, why would we-" Everyone that had direct sight of him shut up as lightning crackled around his hand, and the ones who didn't because of the loud sound of static.
"I have no time to waste. I rest my case, I can't save people who don't want to be saved. Also, to make it clear. Yes, that was me. And I can do it again, as you can all see. Now let me pass." Vol decided to go forward as he pushed the crowd apart, or more like, the crowd parted from him like he was Moise and them the sea. The fact he still had some spark coming from his hand might have helped.
He barely had the time to go through the group of people who had been stopped in their track by his lightning bolt one way or another before he heard screams yet again coming from not only just ahead of him but also at the other far end of the group of people.
"Fuck! Make way!" He barely had to say anything as the remaining students packing the all too narrow hallway ran as a single entity past him in the other direction from the closest 'contact' point. He was afraid it wouldn't do them any good, since they were pretty much surrounded.
As the last few people blocking his sight shoved themselves into the struggling mass of students at his back. He laid sight upon them for the first time, and even when he had mentally prepared himself. He still felt a pang of primal fear, as well as a good dose of disgust.
Zombies, here they were, lumbering toward him yet having no sign they were even aware of his presence on their face. In fact, they had no expression at all, their face frozen in an eternally slack grimace like they existed solely to remember the living that death did not care about their pleas, or their fear. It was simply coming for them. No matter what, and it was coming fast.
Vol raised his hand, intent on testing how well the undead fared against his magic. But froze mid gesture as someone gripped his shoulder from behind, painfully tightly.
He turned his head, almost painfully slowly, toward the culprit. As he came face to face with a gaping maw full of saliva and a pair of recently dead eyes. Vol reacted instinctively, blasting the zombie's head to pieces with an arc of lightning coming from his eyes.
Turning back forward, he barely ducked under a grabbing arm, his heart leaping to his throat and his pupils dilated as the reality of the situation sinked in, truly sinked in. Prompted by survival instinct and an adrenaline fuelled body, he lifted his hand and cried out in a mix of dread and hate. Resulting in the strongest bolt he created to date darting toward his assaillants, while the only thought running through his mind doing so was a strong wish to exterminate them all.
The arc of light, like it was answering his call, splits into more than a dozen smaller ones after going through and melting the upper half of the zombie who almost cut his journey short. The smaller bolts twisted and honed in on the other targets he had in mind, making them fall as they sizzled and their eyes melted in their socket.
Breathing roughly for a bit and noticing he had cleaned the entire troupe of undead before, he turned back into downright pandemonium as students immediatly rushed past him now that he had seemingly made one side safe. Paying no heed to him in the process as they fleed the deads present on the other side.
"no..." He mumbled absent-mindedly, a bit out of it.
However, soon, clarity returned his eyes as his gaze swept past and searched for something hastily over the tide of people. Finding what he searched for, he perked up.
"No! Not that way either! Nowhere safe! Into the classroom! Now!" He screamed himself hoarse as he made his way to the door and checked quickly inside to make sure it was safe. After that, he made sign for those coming in his direction to enter.
Luckily, most students seemed to simply listen obediently to whatever they were told to him under the current pressure and almost everyone who saw the ones before them heading inside the classroom followed them by principle. Additionally, some people who had the luck to hear him but had already passed him turned back to comes to.
Unfortunately, not all of them did. He simply hoped they would decide to go back this way after coming into contacts with more undeads.
"Don't push! And don't clutter the entrance!"
"I don't think there's any places left anymore, the class' full to the brim!" Not even twenty seconds later, a boy protested fearfully at his words.
"Already, damn. The other one then!" After checking quickly, Vol cursed made sign for the stream of students to follow him to the next classroom over. He didn't get the time to do anything though, as another student that just arrived behind the now bunched up group of high-schooler before the room looked at the gathering and cried out with both fear and confusion.
"W-what are you guys doing!? T-they're coming! Run!"
"Shut up and all of you get behind me! I'll get rid of them."
"W-what?" Vol ignored the clueless newcomer and stepped ahead of the door of the classroom and the group of unfortunate souls who couldn't fit into the safety of a room with four closed walls. Making them safelyish by standing between them and the immediate hungry zombies.
It was fortunate that they weren't very fast in their pursuit. It was less so that their numbers was even more signifiant than what he eliminated barely a minute ago. And that his reserve of mana was close to only a third after the careless and rather impulsive attack he used to do it.
"Welp, time to see to test the fine mana manipulation of those spirit points, I guess." Smilling grimly, he idly remembered the smaller parts his big bolt had split into earlier. And went on to try to reproduce them, only individually and with just enough power to barely be lethal to an undead.
Needless to say, he almost died three more times trying.
Luckily, it did seems that those spirit points did, in fact, pay off.