Irvin was pressed flat against the shopfront to the right, hidden behind a concrete pillar with his machete up and a clear line straight back down the rain-soaked street they had just sprinted through.
Dion drew the longsword from his palm, the red mist bleeding out from beneath his skin as the bone took shape, the rough hide grip biting straight into the cuts that had barely had time to close since the parking level.
A sharp, stinging heat shot up his arm, making his jaw tighten before the weapon was even fully formed.
Then the thing came at them out of the gloom.
Madeline raised her hands, the vivid blue flare of her Mana Burst crackling across her knuckles, but her fingers trembled as she froze for a fraction of a second, her eyes widening as she tried to line up a clean, guaranteed strike.
Her hesitation cost them. The blue shape of mana finally launched from her palms with a heavy hum, but the burst arrived a few moments too late, tearing through the air only after the creature had already cleared the gap between the parked cars.
The blue energy clipped its shoulder, the impact lurching the creature sideways, but it failed to stop its charge before it was among them, one of its flattened blade arms swinging out in a heavy, brutal arc that Dion caught right on the edge of his longsword.
The sheer force of the impact drove him back two full steps, the sound of bone striking bone ringing out through the rain, with the pressure from it straining his ribs as he pushed, burning through his side like a hot iron.
’Fuck! This thing is strong as hell!’
When the creature brought its other arm around, Dion dropped himself beneath the swing rather than trying to catch the weight a second time, having already learned from that first jarring exchange what that kind of force did to his arms.
The flattened bone blade passed over his head close enough that the spray of rainwater it carried spattered right across his scalp.
From that low crouch, he drove his longsword upward into its knee.
The bone edge bit deep into the joint, grinding against the cartilage.
Dion had to violently wrench the blade free, and in doing so, the rough hide of the grip tore straight through the fresh cuts across his palm, letting his blood run hot down the pale bone and into the pommel.
The sword drank whatever satisfaction it took from his suffering greedily, with the edge of it darkening at the same time from Thirst.
He felt that eager, sickening shift in the weapon once more, its weight feeling gradually more natural in his hands and making it lighter.
The creature’s leg folded beneath it, but even down on one knee, the bastard refused to stop.
Its torso wrenched around to bring its remaining arm at him from the asphalt, and this time, Dion caught it on the flat of the sword and let the momentum turn his body with it.
He used that space to retreat briefly. There was no need to rush killing something that was stronger than him when there were so many others around him.
And finally, the sound he had heard in his fighting arrived as his much anticipated back-up.
"Go for the head with the next one, Dion!"
Anton’s voice boomed through the downpour, and the sharp impact of Berserk Impact struck against its shoulder, knocking the creature’s swing wide into the mud.
Dion had already been stepping into the gap.
He drove a heavy cut into its neck, only for the edge to lodge hard against the spine.
The thing was still thrashing wild with the sword buried deep in its throat, its ruined arm flailing and battering the flat of its bone elbow straight into Dion’s bruised ribs, making his teeth click together as he clenched his jaw through the agony, planted his boot square against its chest, and hauled the blade free to chop into the exact same wound a second time.
The head finally tore away, blood spraying as it rolled beneath a parked car, and the headless corpse dropped forward into the pooling water.
{ You have felled a Level 24 Destitute Zombie, harvesting its essences. Your Strength, Endurance, and Agility have been nourished significantly. }
{ You have earned a freely distributable Essence Saturation + }
{Your Strength has been nourished with an Essence Saturation + }
Dion stood over the carcass with his chest grabbing for air and aching at the impact, and the rain washing dark blood down his forehead, reading the first line of the message twice just to be certain his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.
’With this one being level 24... soon enough we’ll be seeing those in the thirties and higher.’
That was the part that sat in his gut like a lump of cold, heavy lead.
He had half expected the text to call it something new considering its mutations, the way it had distinguished the gnolls from the zombies and the starlings.
’So... is it safe to assume that level 10 is their first big change, then level 20 is their second?’
None of that was anywhere near pleasant to think about, especially without any explanation for it.
’Whatever... the only thing I need to do is get stronger faster myself.’
The longsword dissolved from his hand in flakes of red mist that swam back beneath his skin, and he pressed his bleeding palm against his side, feeling along the rib with a sharp wince.
It was not broken, thankfully.
The rest of the group gathered back in from where the fight had scattered them.
Paris was still standing over the second runner he had put down, both hands white-knuckled around his iron pipe, his shoulders heaving with ragged breaths that hadn’t slowed down since the alleyway.
Dion looked at him for a quiet moment, remembering what those first few kills of his own had felt like but he didn’t say anything to the guy despite his difficult expression.
There was nothing he could say to make it any better, when he hardly felt anything about it himself because of what he had become.
Florence rose from behind a car with Julian pressed tight beneath her arm, and Basil stood ahead of them both, the CZ held low along his thigh, his eyes fixed on the far end of the street where nothing had come from yet.
Madeline came up last. Her hands were still trembling, the faint residual blue light of her Mana Burst dying out across her fingers, and Dion remembered the way she had froze before releasing it, a hesitation that had almost let the thing take his head off. She had been slow in the exact same manner back in the parking level, a habit Dion had marked both times.
’She waits until she’s sure she’ll get it right and won’t hurt anyone,’ he thought, wiping rain out of his eyes. ’But out here, nothing is ever going to let her be sure.’
He left it alone. Anton had seen it too, and Anton was the one they actually listened to; besides, calling her out in front of six others would only bury the trigger deeper into her hesitation.
"Anything close?" Anton asked, stepping up beside him. "I heard you’ve got a high perception, so your hearing might be able to help."
Dion lingered his attention on him briefly, then he closed his eyes briefly, letting the noise of the storm sort itself out in his ears.
"Groaning, two streets over. None of them are runners. Beyond that, I can’t hear anything."
"Then we keep moving."
The rest of the way was a miserable slog, and yet it never once became as frantic as that open crossing.
Twice, Dion turned the group down a longer street because of the wet, squelching noises his ears picked up down the shortcuts, and neither time did anyone question the added distance; it seemed his hearing had bought itself that much credit by now.
Once, four of the damn things spilled out from a stairwell doorway, but Anton and Irvin ended them at its mouth before they could spread into the road, so Dion didn’t even need to bleed for his weapon.
And once, from some blocks east, something screamed.
It was high, shrill scream that went on far past the breath of anything with human lungs, forcing the whole group to freeze in the middle of the road and stand in the pouring rain, waiting to see if it was coming closer.
Thankfully, it didn’t. Thus, they walked on, and nobody said a single word about it, not even to ask what it was.
The pharmacy stood on the corner where two main avenues crossed, its front glass gone entirely and the empty frame dripping with rainwater that blew straight over aisles strewn with plastic, crushed boxes, and torn wrappers.
Dion went in first, listening carefully until he was satisfied the building held nothing living but themselves.
Florence came through behind him with Julian’s hand in hers, stopping for only a moment at the swept ruin of the front shelving before stepping past it, heading straight down the third aisle as the nurse in her surfaced.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter