I Got Reincarnated as a Zombie Girl - Chapter 276

Chapter 276: Chapter 272 – The Mist That Steals Souls
Their footsteps echoed softly across the silent plain of black stone.The air of the underworld felt heavier here so thick it was as if every breath carried the echo of souls whispering between dimensions.

They had traveled far from the ruins of the Black Mirror Palace, until at last they arrived at a place where the dark ground began to quiver as though something alive moved beneath the surface. Before them stood another gate.

Unlike the first, this one wasn’t made of obsidian or crystal. It was simply a rift, a gash in space itself, surrounded by a slow whirlpool of deep violet mist. No carvings, no runes, no visible energy And yet the air around it rejected their very presence.

Sylvia halted before the rift and gazed at it in silence.

“The seventy-first floor…” she murmured softly.

She raised her hand, and black chains unfurled from her shadow, slithering toward the swirling void.

The moment the chains touched the mist, they shuddered as if recoiling from being touched.

A faint sound whispered through the air, like a voice too soft to exist. Then the rift pulsed faintly, exuding a dim gray light that swallowed the end of the chain completely.

Alicia watched cautiously. “We’re going straight down?”

Sylvia gave a small nod. “Yes. There’s no reason to wait.”

She stepped into the rift first, Alicia and Stacia following close behind without hesitation.

At once, the world turned upside down. There was no sensation of falling, no wind, no movement, only silence, thick and suffocating, as if they’d stepped inside the belly of the world.

Then the light returned.

…..

They landed softly on something they couldn’t see.

“…”

Sylvia looked around. There was nothing. Only fog dense, ashen fog that devoured sight no matter how far she strained her vision.

Alicia took a careful step, her boot pressing against something solid yet invisible.

“Is this… the seventy-first floor?”

Stacia nodded hesitantly. “It should be… but I can’t feel the world’s foundation. No mana structure to map.”

Sylvia glanced downward and focused her aura. Her Death Aura spread outward, but it was instantly absorbed. No walls, no boundaries, no end.

“It’s like we’re walking on air,” she murmured, voice steady but laced with unease.

The fog wasn’t still. It moved, flowing gently like a veil underwater. And every time they moved, it shifted with them as though it was watching.

Alicia glanced around nervously. “I don’t like this. Normally I can feel souls nearby but now…”

“Now what?” Sylvia asked sharply.

Alicia swallowed. “Now… I can’t even feel my own soul.”

Silence fell.

Alicia’s voice faded into the fog and vanished like it had been swallowed.

Sylvia said nothing. For the first time in ages, she felt cold inside Not the familiar chill of death, but something deeper.

Something wrong.

A feeling she shouldn’t be capable of anymore

Fear.

She didn’t even know why. No visible danger. No clear threat.

But whenever her eyes drifted into the mist, something in her chest was something that shouldn’t beat.

thumped once.

A pulse of unease.

“…Strange,” she whispered. “I can’t calm my mind.”

Alicia, normally the voice of calm, stepped closer to her.

“I… don’t like this. Usually I’m the one grounding you, but right now… I just want to stay near you.”

Her tone was small like a lost child whispering in the dark.

Sylvia looked at her.

Alicia’s blue eyes were dim, trembling with something she rarely showed: fear.

On the other side, Stacia looked equally shaken. She clutched her book tight, her voice trembling as she spoke.

“This place… it’s manipulating our thoughts.”

She turned to Sylvia, eyes sharp despite the tremor in her hands.

“Don’t let it take your emotions. This mist isn’t normal. It’s digging into what we hide.”

Sylvia blinked rapidly, then closed her eyes for a moment. She drew in a deep breath, channeling mana through her body but even her death energy felt sluggish, like sinking into mud.

“Stacia,” she said at last. “You’re right. We stop here.”

She stepped forward and lifted her hand. Black chains spiraled upward, forming a circular barrier around the three of them.

“Deadlock — Dominion.”

The air thickened, and the fog nearby began to pull away As if afraid to touch the aura of her authority.

The three sat within the ring of chains, trying to steady themselves. But the tension in the air was a string pulled too tight.

Alicia leaned her head against Sylvia’s shoulder, something she never did.

“I hate this feeling…” she whispered. “Usually you’re the stubborn one and I’m calm, but now I feel like a lost kid caught in the rain.”

Sylvia looked at her for a moment. There was something in Alicia’s voice that made her want to pull the girl into her arms but she restrained herself.

“Stay calm. It’s just emotional manipulation. I’ll neutralize it.”

Stacia, usually distant, sat closer too. Her hands trembled slightly, but her eyes were focused.

“There’s no spell trace. Whatever this is, it’s affecting our consciousness core directly. This isn’t conventional magic.”

Sylvia nodded slowly. “Then… our enemy isn’t the mist. It’s something inside it.”

She had just begun to focus her death aura when the air quivered.

A voice soft yet heavy whispered from everywhere.

…Are you afraid?

It wasn’t a sound.

It was inside them a whisper from within their own hearts.

Alicia gasped and covered her ears. “Stop… don’t talk inside my head!”

Stacia gripped her grimoire tightly, her body stiff. “That’s not telepathy… it’s consciousness theft!”

Sylvia rose swiftly, her chains snapping taut in the air.

“Who are you?”

No answer.

The fog spun faster, and from within it shapes emerged.

Human silhouettes no, things that might once have been human. Their bodies were made of condensed mist, their eyes hollow yet shining with cold silver light.

In seconds, three became five, then ten. Then countless more surrounded them.

And the whisper came again, closer now stronger.

Fear keeps you alive.

But here… fear makes you mine.

Sylvia took a deep breath, crimson light flaring in her eyes.

“Good,” she whispered. “Finally something I can kill.”

Before she could move, three attacks came at once Thick lances of mist hurtling from all sides.

Sylvia raised her hand. Black chains formed a shield.

CLANG! CLANG!! BOOM!!!

The impact rocked their barrier but didn’t break it. Alicia rose beside her, staff glowing bright blue.

“Soul Veil!”

A layer of soft light enveloped them, cushioning the aftershock. Stacia chanted rapidly, her low voice steady despite the pressure.

“Aether Wall — Deploy!”

In an instant, an invisible wall rebounded the next wave of mist, slicing the air apart with eerie silence.

Sylvia’s gaze sharpened.

“Our battle senses are back,” she said flatly. “Good.”

She spun her chains black serpents hissing through the void.

“Now… let’s see what kind of creature dares to play with my fear.”

From within the fog, the silhouettes moved again faster, deadlier, multiplying.

…..

Sylvia’s chains tore through the fog like lightning, cleaving the dense air that refused to part. The metallic cling clang whsshh! echoed endlessly, followed by a faint crack

Crack!

One chain struck something solid.

A rasping shriek followed short, raw, like the sound of a creature stabbed through lungs it no longer possessed.

“…Got you,” Sylvia murmured coldly.

She flicked her wrist, spinning the chain to drag the creature out of the fog.

From within the swirling gray, a figure was yanked forward Half mist, half flesh. Its form quivered like melting wax, yet it was unmistakably corporeal. Black blood dripped from the wound Sylvia’s chain had left.

“So… you can be touched,” she said softly, a thin smile curving her lips.

Her crimson gaze locked with its silver eyes cold, lifeless, but aware. She raised her hand. “Good. That means you can die.”

BOOM!

A burst of black fire exploded from her palm Nether Flame. The fire didn’t burn; it was erased. The creature’s misty body liquefied and evaporated, leaving only ash with the scent of iron.

Alicia, standing to the left, flicked her staff.

“They have physical bodies… we’re not facing pure illusion. These are living fog entities.”

“More precisely,” Stacia replied, flipping through her grimoire and sketching runes at speed,

“The fog is their body. Burn it, and they lose form and die.”

Sylvia nodded sharply, her eyes narrowing as she peered into the mist. Ten more chains uncoiled from her shadow, striking outward in every direction coiling, impaling, crushing, sweeping.

Each impact sparked bursts of black fire and drifting ash. But even with her devastating strikes, the fog didn’t thin. Instead it grew thicker, darker.

As if every creature she killed only made the mist denser.

Alicia looked up at the ashen sky above them, her face tightening.”Sylvia, the mist is reacting to your death energy! The more you use Death Aura or Nether Flame, the faster it thickens!”

Sylvia gave a quiet scoff. “Of course. So, they feed on death, huh?”

She raised her hand high, summoning a dense sphere of black light in her palm.”Alright then… let’s see who’s hungrier.”

The chains around her rattled violently, glowing with bluish-violet fire.The clatter of metal filled the air as they tensed, ready to surge once more into the fog.And amid it all, Sylvia smiled cold, but certain.

“If they feed on death…”Her voice sliced through the stillness, soft yet lethal.”…then let them feast until they’re destroyed.”