I Got Reincarnated as a Zombie Girl - Chapter 272

Chapter 272: Chapter 268 – Crystal Rain and the Chains of Death
The first explosion shattered the air like breaking glass.

Bodies of crystal hurtled toward them, reflecting the crimson light of the underworld’s eternal dusk. Each step the creatures took rippled the air as if reality itself screamed under the strain.

Sylvia raised her right hand, and from the black earth beneath her, something answered her call.

“Come.”

The word was soft, almost a whisper yet the ground trembled violently.

From her shadow, black chains slithered upward, coiling like serpents awakening from ancient slumber. Their links shimmered faintly, engraved with glowing runes that pulsed like living veins.

Just as the first Erebion Shard dove toward them, the chains shot outward with lightning speed.

CLANG!

Metal met crystal followed by bursts of blue light and showers of glass-like fragments dancing in the air.

One, two, three crystal beings shattered instantly, their bodies crumbling into glittering dust that dispersed into the mist.

But more were coming. Ten… twenty… thirty…

Wave after wave surged forth from the distant haze, an endless tide rising from the depths of the underworld.

“Their numbers… are increasing,” warned Stacia, her eyes glowing blue as she opened her Grimoire of Eternal Night. Runes spun through the air around her.

“No they’re replicating,” Alicia replied quickly, gripping her staff with both hands. “They’re absorbing the energy of the ones that die!”

Sylvia looked at the horde advancing toward them and smiled faintly.

“Good,” she murmured. “More enemies means more experience.”

The black chains behind her moved like a swarm of living serpents, each one breathing and writhing with its own will. Some coiled through the air, others burrowed into the ground before emerging again beneath the enemy, impaling them from below.

CLANG! CRACK!

The sounds came in a relentless rhythm. Shards of crystal scattered through the air like black-blue snow.

But the assault didn’t stop. From each destroyed fragment, new light gathered reforming bodies once again.

Within minutes, their numbers grew from fifty to a hundred… then two hundred.

Stacia slammed her staff to the ground. “Dimensional Pulse!”

A wave of violet energy tore through the battlefield, obliterating dozens at once but even before the smoke cleared, new ones appeared to take their place.

Alicia lifted her staff, its lantern blazing with radiant blue light.

“Soul Burst – Lamenta Choir!”

A sound like distant bells echoed through the air.

Thousands of ethereal flares descended from above, piercing the crystal bodies and detonating them into silver-blue bursts of energy.

But their numbers only grew faster. From the mist emerged larger forms of Erebion Shards of higher rank, their bodies glowing more brilliantly, like living crystals channeling pure mana.

Sylvia raised her hand again.

“Enough,” she whispered.

The chains surrounding her froze for an instant, vibrating softly then erupted outward all at once.

Hundreds of chains sliced through the air like a storm of black iron.

They impaled dozens of crystal beings simultaneously, tearing through, ensnaring, and yanking them violently toward Sylvia.

The crystal bodies collided midair, forming a vortex of shattered fragments and from its center:

BOOM!

A deafening explosion tore across the plain.

The ground quaked, the air burned with friction and heat.

Alicia shielded her face. “Sylvia! You’re destabilizing the field!”

Sylvia didn’t answer. Her eyes glowed crimson, reflecting the chaos and ruin she had unleashed.

The chains danced around her in widening circles, and from each link, small black flowers bloomed Phantom Blooms unfurling one by one.

Stacia’s eyes widened. “You’re using that?”

“No other choice.” Sylvia lifted her hand high.

“Phantom Bloom – Spiral of Decay.”

The moment the words left her lips, hundreds of black flowers detonated at once forming a spiral of consuming energy that swept through the battlefield in a hundred-meter radius.

The air turned into a storm of pure death.

The ground split open, the mist scattered, and hundreds of crystal beings were obliterated instantly, their bodies dissolving into clouds of energy that were sucked into the vortex.

But even as hundreds fell, new waves came from the red haze beyond.

Two hundred… three hundred… five hundred…

Sylvia frowned. “Damn it. They just won’t stop.”

Stacia quickly flipped open her grimoire, runes spinning around her in hundreds.

“They’re linked! You have to break the energy network between their cores or they’ll keep regenerating!”

“In other words,” Alicia added sharply, “we need to destroy the main core!”

Sylvia twirled her wrist, her chains whistling through the air. “And I’m sure that core won’t politely wait for us to find it.”

Another wave of attacks surged forward.

The larger Erebion Shards unleashed beams of red energy from their bodies, streaking toward them like spears of light.

Stacia conjured a Hexagonal Barrier, but one side shattered instantly under the impact.

“The left flank’s down!” shouted Alicia.

“I know!” Stacia grit her teeth, channeling more mana, sweat dripping down her temple.

Sylvia moved swiftly. She thrust the tip of her Rapier of Night into the ground and invoked a combat form.

“Chain Technique – Form Two: Shield!”

The black chains burst from the ground, weaving together into a dome of metal thorns around them.

The red beams slammed against it, exploding in showers of sparks and booming echoes like a storm battering steel.

When the light finally faded, Sylvia lowered the barrier.

“Time to change tactics,” she said calmly but firmly. “Alicia locates the main core using soul resonance. Stacia stabilizes the terrain before it collapses every time I attack.”

Both nodded instantly.

Alicia closed her eyes, raising the Staff of Soul high. A blue aura radiated outward, sinking deep into the ground.

“There’s a strong resonance… about one kilometer north.”

“Good.” Sylvia’s red eyes gleamed. “Then let’s clear a path.”

Her chains shuddered again wilder than before, as if breathing with her heartbeat.

“Chain Technique – Form Three: Death Spiral.”

The ground before them rose violently as the black chains tore out and spun together, forming a massive vortex.

Every Erebion Shard caught in its path was dragged in and shredded, the sound of their breaking echoing like the ringing of cracked bells.

The air filled with swirling fragments of crystal and dark dust.

The red light of the sky reflected off the shards, turning the scene into a dazzling, blood-hued storm.

But still they came.

A hundred from the left. Two hundred from the right. Four hundred from the front.

Alicia cried out, unleashing another massive spell.

“Soul Nova – Ethereal Choir!”

Hundreds of azure lights burst from her staff, cutting through the crystal ranks but before one wave ended, another began.

Stacia spread her hands, summoning five rotating layers of defense only for several to crack under the relentless onslaught.

Sylvia didn’t back down.

Her chains whirled violently around her, crushing every enemy that came near.

One pierced a chest, another split a head, a third coiled around a torso and crushed it to dust.

The air was filled with flashes of black and red like thousands of stars igniting and dying all at once.

Heaps of shattered crystal piled around them, forming small glittering hills.

Alicia, breathing heavily, muttered, “How many more of them…?”

Sylvia stared ahead, her crimson eyes reflecting the storm of crystal light. “I stopped counting after five hundred.”

Her chains still danced, and with every motion, the underworld itself seemed to tremble as if kneeling before its Queen of Death, who now moved like a storm of iron and shadow.

Her gaze flicked across the battlefield.

The air around her no longer felt like air, more like pure, crushing energy pressing against them from all sides.

Her chains moved as though alive guarding, striking, tearing, and defending in perfect rhythm.

But Sylvia knew… this couldn’t last forever.

The enemy multiplied endlessly. For every creature destroyed, two more emerged. Something was controlling them.

“They can’t be moving on their own,” she muttered, scanning the blood-red fog.

Her eyes narrowed.

Amid the sea of glowing shards, she caught sight of one shape larger, different from the rest.

While thousands of others glowed black-blue, this one shone with dark violet light, a pulsing core in its chest beating like a living heart.

“Found you…” Sylvia whispered.

Her chains continued to clash violently around her, leaving no opening for a direct attack. But that wasn’t a reason to stop.

Sylvia stretched out her hand, conjuring a dark magic circle in midair.

A surge of violet-black flame ignited in her palm, its heat so intense that the air distorted.

“Nether Flame – Converge.”

The fire shot forward, leaving a thin black line in the air before striking the massive crystal creature square in the chest.

BOOOOOM!

A thunderous explosion tore through the battlefield.

The heatwave swept across the plain, melting airborne crystal shards like molten metal. Energy shockwaves blasted outward, annihilating dozens of creatures that had been too close.

Alicia and Stacia shielded themselves from the fiery blast.

When the smoke cleared, Sylvia’s eyes narrowed. The massive crystal creature was gone completely obliterated.

But then… something strange happened.

The nearby Erebion Shards stopped regenerating. Those destroyed stayed shattered but others, farther away, still continued to rise.

“I see…” Sylvia murmured, her voice almost drowned by the clamor of her own chains.

“That large one… was one of their generals. As long as it existed, every shard in its sector kept replicating.”

The chains around her lashed out, cutting down four more creatures, scattering shards like glimmering blood rain.

But the enemy still numbered in the hundreds, and the pressure kept mounting.

Sylvia clenched her teeth. “I can’t hunt them all myself.”

She turned sharply to her sisters.

“Alicia! Stacia!”

They looked back from behind a half-broken magical shield.

“Find others like it, the ones with violet cores, not blue!” Sylvia commanded, her voice cutting through the chaos.

“They’re the generals! Kill them, and their sector’s army will stop spawning!”

Alicia nodded, her blue eyes flaring with Soul Vision. “Understood. I’ll take the west flank.”

Stacia closed her book and lifted her hand. “I’ll handle the east. Try not to die before we’re done, Sylvia.”

Sylvia smiled faintly, sweat and crystal dust streaking her face.

“Not a chance. The underworld will have to try harder than that.”

And as her sisters shot off in opposite directions,

Sylvia spun her chains once more unleashing a storm of black metal and death that devoured everything foolish enough to come near.