KRAAAKKK... THOOM! The sound didn't come from the sky. It was the sound of the Grand Menteng Hotel's backbone snapping. Elian had heard the sound of human bones breaking—a crisp crack that made one wince. But the sound of a meter-thick reinforced concrete beam snapping? It sounded like the scream of a dying whale: deep, heavy, and gut-wrenching. "HOLD ON!" Elian shouted, his voice nearly drowned out by the roar of the debris. Floor 8 was no longer level. Within seconds, the floor tilted sharply toward the west. Gravity, which had always been a constant, suddenly became a deadly enemy. The luxury corridor carpet turned into a slide of death. "WAAAAAA!" A mass scream erupted. Survivors who didn't have time to grab onto anything slid down, hitting walls, then rolling toward the shattered windows. "Rico! Catch Budi!

Fifty meters.In elementary school gym class, a healthy child could cover fifty meters in less than ten seconds. But on Menteng Main Road, now transformed into an alien war zone, fifty meters was the distance between life and death, stretching on forever."FORWARD! DON'T STOP!" Elian yelled, his voice hoarse over the roar of the wind and the screams of monsters.The asphalt beneath their feet trembled. Not from an earthquake, but from the thousands of footsteps of the Hollows chasing from behind. The dust from the Grand Menteng Hotel ruins still billowed thickly, creating a suffocating gray fog. And from within that fog, terrifying shadows emerged.SCREEEECH!A Night Shrieker—a mutant bat the size of a scooter—swooped down from the purple sky. Its sharp claws targeted the head of a small child carried by his mother in the middle of the line."LINA!" Elian yelled."GOT IT!"Lina stopped running for a second, turned around, and aimed her crossbow at the sky without hesitation.THWACK!T

The afternoon sun, obscured by a purple haze, shone down on the Jagorawi Toll Road, which had transformed into a gladiatorial arena. In the middle of a sea of car wrecks and thousands of hungry, howling zombies, one figure stood tall, challenging the impossible. Agus. Former security guard, former monster, and now the Main Guardian of Elian's group. He stood on the hot asphalt, his bare feet (since there were no size XXXXXL shoes) gripping the road. He took a deep breath, filling his massive lungs with air smelling of gasoline and death. Behind him, the Cosmo Express school bus roared nervously. In front of him, a five-meter-high wall of containers blocked the path. And all around him, hundreds of Runners and Crawlers began to realize that a jumbo-sized piece of fresh meat had just stepped off the bus. "Meat..." hissed a Runner, its eyes glowing red, saliva dripping. Agus turned