Gravity Anomaly

The Radiation Zone — a beautiful place.

Sometimes Eileen would think, how wonderful it would be if there were no people in the world.

Of course, the modern cities should remain, so she could eat, use, and play however she liked… maybe keep just one person around to accompany her.

That would be the most romantic thing.

The Radiation Zone could fulfill this wish.

Living on its edge, sometimes the Zone would expand. When the UN Anomalous Management Division detected abnormalities, they would issue evacuation orders. Great powers would send personnel to help evacuate… each expansion and contraction affected different areas, sometimes even swallowing part of a city.

That meant there were always supplies and homes left behind.

If she couldn’t find corpses, Eileen would try her luck in those houses.

But such places usually belonged to bandits.

She had to be careful… bandits were everywhere here.

After all, robbing others was easier than fighting over corpses or digging artifacts from singularities.

According to the intel from the shopkeeper, the Radiation Zone had just expanded into a small town.

The residents had fled ten days earlier.

Eileen skillfully slipped past the army’s half-hearted blockade… since every checkpoint cost money, and soldiers were lucky to pocket 5% of it, they could only fulfill their duty by giving warnings.

That was why industries tied to the Zone thrived so much.

The town wasn’t prosperous — rows of three- or four-story concrete buildings, all already looted inside and out. Luckily, one shop still looked somewhat intact.

Stepping inside, she saw the power was out, most of the furnishings including the counter gone, but shelves were still cluttered with abandoned goods… Bandits who came first wouldn’t bother with places like this.

They would rush straight to areas with high-value items.

So Eileen could calmly pick out what she wanted, without wasting much time.

She grabbed one or two bottles of beer. The vodka was, of course, all gone.

Three or four smoked sausages at the bottom of a crate, two or three unopened chocolate bars, a few women’s panties and bras, some cheap shampoo and body wash…

If it were the Huntress, what would she like? Eileen didn’t really care about her, but since they lived together, it was like sharing a dorm. Bringing something back was only natural…

Aha! This!

Eileen joyfully hugged a projector. An electronic device like this, left behind? Then it was hers now.

The Radiation Zone still had network systems — after all, it was a modern world, with hardly any signal dead zones.

But watching movies on a pad or phone always felt uncomfortable.

Giving the Huntress, who fought mutant creatures every day, a way to watch movies would be nice…

Eileen stuffed the projector into her already bulging backpack, daydreaming about the ridiculous sight of movies playing on the drafty wooden walls of Utoya’s shack. A grin tugged at her lips — though she wondered if the Huntress was afraid of horror films…

Boom!

An earth-splitting explosion tore through the silence without warning!

Shelves rattled violently, dust showered down, the floor trembled, and Eileen stumbled, nearly dropping the projector.

Next came the hideous sound of concrete and brick collapsing, grinding close by, lasting a full ten seconds.

The source was near — just at the end of the street!

Eileen’s heart leapt into her throat, her cat ears shooting upright under the hood.

She dove to the shop’s dusty, cracked window, tugged aside a ragged ad cloth, and peered out…

At the street’s end stood what had been an old spired church. Now, billowing smoke and dust engulfed it.

Through the haze, the church’s iconic rusty cross-topped spire was gone, replaced by chaotic rubble.

But what made Eileen’s pupils shrink wasn’t the collapse.

At the center of the dust, space itself warped grotesquely.

Light twisted and refracted, as if seen through heat waves or fractured frosted glass…

A freshly formed, unstable gravitational anomaly. Triggered, it had obliterated half the church.

“It’s a singularity collapse!”

Eileen gasped, instantly understanding. Some poor fool must have disturbed the dormant singularity inside.

These things could crush tanks like dough — humans stood no chance.

As she prepared to duck back and flee the deadly zone—

Thud!

Several black figures were violently “spat out” from the writhing rift, crashing onto the church ruins.

Her heartbeat spiked. Scavenger instinct overwhelmed fear.

Corpses! They really were dead!

As the dust thinned, she saw two bodies.

The first wore a heavy radiation suit marked with yellow hazard triangles.

But it was shredded by warped space, revealing a mangled form beneath.

A cracked oxygen tank and twisted drilling tool clung to his back.

The second was better equipped, encased in a complex metallic exoskeleton… and beside him lay a mostly intact rifle.

Eileen’s eyes locked onto it. Elite artifact hunters’ gear.

Old military exoskeletons like these let one carry heavy loads for long periods, endure heat, cold, poison, and radiation — all priceless.

But his luck had run dry. An anomaly collapse spared nothing, and he was crushed all the same.

Eileen’s pulse raced.

Equipment from the dead — especially professional diggers — was solid gold on the black market.

Armor, weapons, radiation counters, supernatural detectors, and maybe even freshly unearthed artifacts…

Of course, the risks were massive.

The unstable rift could flare again.

Worse, the blast would soon draw hyenas, scavengers, or even bandits.

“Fortune favors the bold, cowards starve…”

She muttered the curse and instantly decided.

Dragging out a supermarket trolley from the shop’s corner, she crouched low, pushing it close to the wall shadows, moving swiftly but silently toward the dust-choked ruins.

The radiation counter shrieked madly in her pocket. Levels far beyond safe.

Without hesitation, she pulled the 500-yuan syringe from her pouch — her half-day lifeline.

Biting off the cap, she jabbed the cold purple fluid into her vein.

A strange warmth spread, prickling under her skin.

“Haa…”

Exhaling, Eileen shoved the cart and plunged into the haze of death, opportunity, and tearing space.

But before she got close, a figure appeared ahead.

Who?

Eileen froze, hand snapping to her PTM pistol.

Bandits already? Or other scavengers? She wouldn’t abandon those two corpses.

But focusing — she saw it was a girl, about her height, stumbling out of the ruined church in a nun’s habit.

Her movements were agonizingly slow, but as Eileen approached, they gradually regained normal speed.

What trailed behind her, however, made Eileen’s tail bristle straight.

It was… a vampire monster!