Kael raised his sword before speeding forward.
His weapon dug into the head of the first massive undead, though he clicked his tongue as he had been aiming for its eyes. After all, only the heads of the undead weren't covered in those bone plates, and the eyes would always remain a weakness of most creatures.
The undead roared, its black claws streaking towards Kael's side.
'Shit!'
Despite sensing the attack before it came, Kael realized he wouldn't be able to move away in time before it arrived. Just when he was thinking of boosting his agility stats too, his eye suddenly caught a blur from the side of periphery.
Alice poured more than 50 percent of her mana into the bulwark, causing it to expand greatly before covering both of their bodies, yet the black claws tore the massive shield easily like a knife cutting into tofu, the force from the impact flinging her away far into the corridor like a ragdoll.
Nathan also appeared the same moment Kael drew back, attracting the attention of the monster for a moment.
His eyes couldn't even follow the zombie's movement and it was only because of his instinct that he was able to escape death.
He had barely raised his sword to attack, when he switched position with his shadow.
The zombie's claws slashed through the shadow, but because the latter had promptly returned to its immaterial form, the attack merely tore through it without causing any harm.
With all its strength passing through nothing, the undead stumbled forward, during which Kael suddenly shouted.
"Nathan!"
Kael closed the distance to the still stumbling undead, boosted his strength with two units of ENERGI, and rammed it into the wall, trying to pin it with all his might.
Nathan quickly switched places with his shadow once more, but before he could move closer to the two—one a hulking mass of decayed flesh, the other, a one-armed boy barely reaching the base of the undead's neck—the zombie growled before erupting into violent movement, trying to shove Kael aside.
Kael's legs left the comfort of the floor as he was raised into the air, but he released a battle cry, boosted his strength once more, and forced his weight back to the ground.
The zombie's claws drew into the sides of his body, easily parting flesh and drawing blood, yet he held through the pain and screamed once more:
"Now!"
Nathan jumped with all his strength, and plunged his sword into the undead's eye sockets, following in Kael's footsteps.
The monster roared and went into a spasmodic death throe, sending Kael flailing around. Kael's vision spun and he didn't even realize when he collided with Nathan sending the latter sprawling to the ground.
Luckily Nathan swapped places with his shadow once more, the helper now in its materialized form flying into the air, and punching the sword deeper into the undead's brain.
- SQUELCH !
Nathan panted heavily, his chest rising and falling like a broken bellows, when a system message telling him he leveled up to level 2 and he received an item flashed before his vision.
Kael on the other hand, quickly rose back to his feet as he knew one more undead was still on its way.
From the moment the first zombie arrived to Nathan killing the second one, not even half a minute had passed.
He sent another unit of ENERGI each into his mind, agility and strength when an undead suddenly flew out of the stairwell at great speed, colliding with the wall and sending stone and dust flying around.
'Shit!'
Kael's eyes turned into pinpoints. His boosted perception allowed him to follow the new zombie's movement while his Combat Trance was already working in the background, ready to turn his thoughts into action without any lag, yet before he could even orient himself to act, the undead had already lunged after him from the clearing dust.
'Roll!'
Despite his sabotaged position, Kael's body still shifted into a roll. Unfortunately before his body could complete its movement, he was rammed into like a speeding train, and before he knew it, the world spun. Kael lost count of the number of times he collided with the ground, his body tangling with the monster's.
They reached the other end of the corridor in a split second and smashed into Claire's barrier, the shield not even halting their movements for a moment, as they flew past screaming and quickly scrambling bodies, before colliding heavily against the metallic railing on the other side.
- ZING!!!!!
Kael's vision blurred as a ringing sound overwhelmed his senses.
'I need to move.' he repeated in his mind like a mantra even as darkness slowly threatened to swallow his vision.
'Huh?' he felt like someone was calling out to him but he couldn't hear the voice clearly.
He tried to make sense of the sounds, which thankfully tethered him from fading away.
And that was when he heard them!
"BIG BROTHER!"
"KAEL!"
"KAEL!"
Several shouts suddenly rushed into his senses, his sister's own voice, a blown out cry!
At the same time he registered them, pain suddenly exploded through his nerves. Deep, suffocating, overwhelming pain.
"AAAAAH!"
Kael's voice rushed out of his throat by itself, as he felt the hulking undead digging into his neck, tearing his flesh and feasting on his blood.
Alice and Nathan attacked the creature from behind, yet no matter what they tried, the undead refused to grant them its focus even as the swords plunged into its back and flank, trying to dig into its bone plates armor.
It pinned Kael with all its weight and focused on its prey.
Kael's eyes slowly dimmed as he felt the world around him fade away gradually.
One day!
Barely a day had passed since the apocalypse.
Two lines of tears slid down his eyes as the squelching sound of his flesh being ripped into drifted into his ears.
He had lost an arm!
He had a climbed a pillar hundreds of meters away from the ground to survive.
He had jumped across buildings escaping deadly crows.
He had hid behind a door, his breath held for several minutes, praying and hoping not to be caught like a cornered dog.
He had his body turned into a pincushion, his soul just a few inches away from death.
And here he was again!
About to die!
And this time without any primordial instinct to save him.
People say when you are about to die, your life flashes before your eyes.
Yet what happened to Kael was different.
He didn't think of his past experience.
He didn't feel regret for any of his actions.
He didn't even think of his little sister or his dad and mum.
What Kael felt was...
Anger!
Pure, raw, unfiltered rage!
This apocalypse was really starting to piss him off! It was almost as if it was clawing away at his sanity, trying to turn him into something primal.
As his thought arrived here, Kael's mind suddenly regained a bit of clarity. His pride wouldn't allow this apocalypse to conquer him in such a way. Even if he was to die, he would do so on his own terms. His pride might accept death but not defeat
The fading light in his eyes suddenly stopped before increasing in intensity and soon giving way to madness.
Madness wrapped in anger.
Not caring for much anymore, Kael opened his mouth, and even as his felt an artery burst due to his movement, Kael plunged his teeth into the neck of the undead, causing it to stiffen slightly.
Then his eyes shifted to lock with the zombie's, as Kael flashed a wild grin.
He clenched his teeth with all his might, digging into the flesh just above the monster's armor and biting into black corrupted blood.
The zombie released its grip on him and roared, whether in pain or anger, Kael didn't care, but he used that opportunity and without a care for his ENERGI reserve, he used his class skill.
"IGNITION FIST!"
Golden flames erupted around his left arm, searing the monster's flesh, yet the undead refused to let go, its armor offering it a measure of protection from the intense heat. Kael knew it would take some time before the plates bone armor were heated enough to grievously affect the flesh behind it, but as he watched the crimson light in the undead's eyes flash brighter, the look of madness within the depth of his own also deepened.
The monster was about to move once again, its eyes moving back to Kael's quickly healing flesh when he suddenly roared again.
"IGNITION FIST!"
There was a moment of silence before:
- BOOOOM!
- RUMBLE!
An explosion of bright golden flames erupted from Kael's body, flinging the undead's body backward like a scorched husk. The hallway was transformed into a furnace instantly. The wall decors ignited and curled into black ash as the shockwave of golden fire roared through the corridor. The air itself seemed to combust, licking the ceiling and turning floor tiles into scorched slag, while wooden doors shattered and disintegrated into glowing embers. The miasmatic rot was vaporized, replaced by the sharp scent of ozone and incinerated flesh.
Thankfully, the hallway was empty by then, courtesy of the silent warrior. At the moment before the explosion, Alice who had reacted due to her instincts screaming at her, pulled Nathan back before reaching Claire who had been banging on the door of the room they had left from, to try and bring the two crying girls away from the chaos, after all their position had been compromised, only to realize the door was locked from the inside.
If it wasn't for the undead they had kept behind them who had timely shoved them aside when Kael and the monster smashed into her barrier, they might have been injured if not outright dead, with their weak bodies. Alas, the two undead were lost from the collision.
Hearing Kael's second roar, Alice's face turned pale, as she left Nathan behind and pulled Claire and her sister into the adjacent room. Thankfully, Nathan had followed her, as he felt the urgency in her movements.
Alice was only able to close the door with broken hinges, pressing her weight against it, while simultaneously creating another shield with the rest of her mana, and placed it against the door for good measure just in time for the explosion of golden flames to arrive.
The whole hallway was flooded with golden flames, the temperature of the entire floor spiking sharply. Flames clung onto the wooden doors, causing them to combust, while the walls and floors were scorched.
The sound of coughs resounded in the now quiet corridor, as Kael slowly stood to his feet, Ember Regeneration working on overdrive to heal his neck. In the moment, his appearance looked majestic, but before he could even dwell on it, a system message that Kael for some reason felt the system was reluctant to display suddenly flashed in his vision.
[YOU CONSUMED THE BLOOD OF A SENTIENT BEING!]
[A PART OF THE REQUIREMENTS TO AWAKEN YOUR TALENT HAS BEEN FULFILLED (1/3)]
*****
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