The wight raked its claws down Alex’s chest, leaving vicious tears across his flesh and pain radiating throughout his body.
Damage taken:
50 Slashing damage to your torso
HP: 310/360
Wounds:
Deep, ragged gash x 4
[100HP x 4 required to heal]
Condition Resisted:
Plague - Wight’s Zombification x 4
Wound Festering x 4
Alex’s now failed plan meant that his sword came up fast enough that he was able to slap away the slashing hand before it opened his guts, but it didn’t succeed in dis-arming the wight.
Still, a minor win is a win. After all, being gutted would likely have meant his end, no matter what else happened.
True, he would slowly heal from the wound—at least in theory—but that would only be one HP every two seconds or so.
He wouldn’t get nearly twenty minutes to heal the wounds and come back to full health.
He needed this over, now.
If only he actually had a way to do that.
The Supervisor stood over the Watcher’s shoulder, observing Alex’s predicament.
The powerful man chuckled. “Well, that’s it, then. He’s infected by the more virulent wight’s plague…”
He glanced toward the Watcher as she subtly shook her head.
“What?”
“That’s not going to get him.”
The man’s eye twitched. “But that’s a wight. It’s an Uncommon ranked race, and it’s twice his level…” The man grimaced. “I can’t believe this… we can’t up the difficulty any further?”
The Watcher shrugged. “The System has hard capped the difficulty for this stage. I can see what’s possible with the next, but that will only matter if they survive until then.”
The Supervisor gave her a narrow eyed look. “Look into it. Lord Ares does not like to pay more than he has to during integrations, and he is going to take it out of our hides.”
Out of your hide, you mean. But the Watcher kept any emotion off of her face. “Certainly. I will do as you ask.”
As the Supervisor stormed out, the Watcher let a smile creep over her face.
So far so good, Alex. I’m rooting for you.
Alex was bleeding from four deep cuts running down his still somewhat gaunt chest.
The wight before him was too close, its arms spread wide from Alex’s deflections of each of its hands.
In the slowed moment—allowed by his high Mental Agility—he saw that the creature’s left hand was sizzling, Alex’s blood seeming to be burning the wight’s fingers.
That was a plus.
He had an insane idea that he immediately dismissed. I am not letting that thing bite me, even if it does kill it in the end. Nope!
Around them, pedestrians were fleeing, already on edge from the recently issued lock-down order, now thrown into a true panic by the obvious attack so close at hand.
Four people weren’t running, though.
Those four were falling toward the ground, wight blood having penetrated their skin to unknown—but likely predictable—results. Magic still seemed to be pumping into them from the undead creature, at least according to Alex’s Basic Mana Sense.
Hopefully it’s just a paralytic, not a full turning… He could hope, but he wasn’t naive enough to believe it.
It didn’t try to infect me until its claws cut me, so it needs a physical medium to impart the plague.
Natasha was in the bodega beside him, buying all the food she could. She should be safe, but that hardly mattered at that moment. The fight would probably be over before she could come out to help or be harmed.
He was feeling rather panicked, which prevented him from thinking clearly even though he was thinking fast. Why would the wight be closing in? Mouth opening? Saliva stretching between too-sharp teeth?
Oh… it’s going to bite me. Alex had already decided that that was a no-go.
He’d never used magic before, but having been granted the Spells by the System, he knew how to use them instinctively. Therefore, when he triggered Force Burst, it took only a thought.
Even so, his heightened Mental Agility and new Basic Mana Sense let him feel the change in the movement of energy within his body, if only vaguely.
It built up across the outside of his clothes—and even within the outer layer of his sword—before, well, bursting outward in a wave of Force.
It triggered in a precisely timed sequence so that the effect radiated away from him as a near-perfect sphere.
His MP dropped to 40/50.
The sidewalk beneath him resonated with the impact, dust and debris jumping up.
The four collapsing pedestrians were flung against the bars on the bodega’s front windows, their bodies distorting unnaturally with sickening cracks. The wight was flung backward to slam into the pole of a streetlight.
Thankfully, no other pedestrians were either too close to Alex or in the way of the flying bodies.
The metal dented significantly even as it rang from the impact, the pure resonance of the tone winning out over the screams of the onlookers and the rattling clang of the bars that had been struck on the bodega’s front.
Kill Notice:
You killed Half-Turned Commoner, level 1
x4
Reward:
Experience to be granted when in a safe location.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Some can be saved, others must be killed.
Some who might have been saved are killed.
Only time will sort out which was which.
The truth of what he’d just done smacked Alex upside the metaphorical head.
He’d just killed four people.
He turned and threw up despite himself.
They weren’t really real… but they were real enough.
True, they were actively turning, but he hadn’t known that, and he might have been able to save them…
Save them from the wight.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The wight that was still alive.
He looked toward the undead just as it lunged at him, having pulled free from the pole and charged him in utter silence once again.
I wonder if it has an ability like the Aura of Self Silence?
That idle thought flickered through his mind even as his Advanced Kinesthetics showed him exactly how to roll his body to move with the hit. It was a shame that his body couldn’t move exactly as it needed to.
Thus, the impact knocked him down into the ground… into his own vomit.
Still, the move had decidedly reduced the damage he took, and he even managed to fire off another Analyze at the creature.
The two system messages washed through his mind at the same time.
Wight
HP: 80%
MP: 60%
Conditions:
Right hand weakened
Left hand weakened
Fractured vertebrae
Damage taken:
7 Bludgeoning damage to your torso
HP: 303/360
Wounds:
Deep, ragged gash x 4
[99HP x 1 required to heal]
[100HP x 3 required to heal]
Oh, hey! I healed a little bit.
His thoughts were all over the place, and he groaned from the ground, even as he turned his head to see the wight landing and spinning to pounce on his supine form.
He also heard running footsteps, but that didn’t make any sense. All the pedestrians were too far, and they would be running away, not toward him.
The wight lunged, eyes locked on Alex, and Alex swung his dadao around to try to block, knowing it wouldn’t be enough.
Then, Natasha was there, somehow driving her spear downward, piercing and pinning the wight to the ground.
“Blood poison!” was all Alex managed to get out past the pain in his chest.
Natasha sucked in a breath, took a step back, ripped the spear free, and in the instant that the blade was fully out, she made a gesture with her hand.
Alex tried Analyze again.
Wight
HP: 74%
MP: 60%
Conditions:
Stunned (1s)
Right hand weakend
Left hand weakened
Fractured vertebrae
A shield of force appeared, hugging close to the ground, entirely pinning the wight in place as it arched over him, like a too tight turtle shell. The undead beast was splayed out and held flat.
Alex stared, mouth agape, then he started laughing, clutching at his chest because of the pain. “That’ll do it.”
He continued to laugh a bit hysterically as tears made tracks down his face.
“Thank you for the save.”
Natasha grunted. “Save the thanks for later.”
Alex considered what the Analyze had said. So, it's just codifying what I'm sensing and what I saw?
He supposed that made sense, but he'd have to come back to it later... if he remembered.
Natasha held the spear out to the side, then dismissed it into her Inventory for a moment. The blood stayed behind, falling to the ground in a splatter.
Natasha grinned, pulling the spear back out and holding it ready. She seemingly had to stay close to keep the shield active that was holding the wight in place, because she didn’t move far away even as she side-stepped over to be beside Alex.
She kept her spear-tip pointed at the trapped creature.
Behind her, the roll-up cage slid down, sealing off the bodega.
Natasha glanced back, “Hey! I haven’t gotten all my food, and I already paid you, you cheat of questionable parentage!”
Alex blinked in confusion for a moment, then shook his head. Oh… right, the System censor.
That made him giggle again.
Natasha hissed at him. “Get it together, Alex. If I go more than a few feet from here, it’ll be free to get up. It could probably break through with ease, but he doesn’t have the leverage. Still, I can’t hold it for long.”
Alex scrambled back to his feet, looking at the wight that was so clearly held down, face to the ground, by an invisible force.
“Force.”
Natasha looked at him. “Are you good? You aren’t turning, are you?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m basically immune, remember? But Force… synergies…”
The woman narrowed her eyes at him. “You have an odd look about you, Alex. What’s going on? We need to leave, and we have to deal with that first.”
Alex nodded. “Will your Force Shield hold if I stand on it?”
She frowned, then gave a slow nod. “So long as you aren’t planning on jumping up and down, it should be fine. At least that’s the sense I get. It’s already straining quite a lot to hold that wight down.”
He slowly stepped onto the force shield, marveling at how sure his footing was. The thing seemed to direct his downward force perfectly back up into him. It was perfect traction. Funny, that’s the exact opposite of how her Mine-Not-Yours works…
But that was hardly important at the moment. “If this doesn’t work, be ready to stab him again.”
Natasha bent into a ready stance, spear-point held toward the beast. The street had basically been entirely cleared by that point. “Should I drop it?”
“No!” He snapped. “No, sorry. I’m hoping to cause a synergistic effect between our skills.” He took a deep breath. “It will happen on three.”
She nodded.
“One, two, three!” He cast Force Burst once again.
Once again, he felt the energy moving within him with his Basic Mana Sense. It was obvious that the sense wasn’t required to cast spells, but it gave him fascinating insights… which he couldn’t focus on now.
On a whim, he engaged his Basic Mana Manipulation and tried to shift the gathering power to orient more downward even as the spell triggered.
He wasn’t able to change it much, but he thought he was able to direct more of the Force magic toward the creature below him.
His MP dropped to 30/50.
Natasha was outside the radius of the effect, so she was unaffected.
The car beside him rocked, a dent appearing in the shape of a portion of a perfect sphere, centered on Alex.
Beneath him, the Force Shield flattened.
The wight was pulverized instantly.
Both he and Natasha seemed to immediately get the kill notice. Though, Alex got two.
Kill Notice:
You have killed Wight (Uncommon), Level 4
Reward:
Experience to be granted when in a safe location.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Forcefully done… and messily too.
Tutorial Notice!
You have new senses, and you actually listened to them? Who are you? What madness has wrought you into such a being?
Nice!
Reward:
Experience to be granted when in a safe location.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Don’t lose your senses, now.
All the Force magic fully dissipated, and Alex fell down onto the ick, his shoes sinking in. “Oh, that’s gross.”
He immediately got out, but some of the blood and ick came with his shoes.
“That’s going to be a pain to get off…” He grimaced down at his shoes, then glanced toward Natasha.
She was staring at him, mouth agape. “That was insane.”
He shrugged. “It worked though.”
“So it seems. We need to go.”
“Right!” Almost in tandem with his response, Alex’s danger sense began to niggle at him once more. “Yeah, we need to move, now! Either this guy had a buddy or something else is coming.”
They turned and ran for all they were worth.
Alex spared a brief glance for the four mangled pedestrians. Their deaths had come only because they’d been too near him when he was attacked.
Still, he couldn’t really have done anything differently.
He grimaced as he ran.
He would do better.
He swore he would improve.
Everyone else was dead, and Matt was terrified.
He clutched his gladius in trembling fingers even as he huddled in the back of the closet, trying to stop his own whimpering, while sending thoughts of pleading up the System or whatever being ruled this horror show.
His whole group had teamed up. Twenty people, one massive group, was supposed to be a sure path to victory. A reward factor of ten, and so many people to lean on.
The System had apparently decided that they were too well situated.
It had started them just outside the facility in which the outbreak began.
They were given a choice for their Group Quest: Fight or Run.
Everyone had agreed, they were in a prime position to fight and end the threat before it could snowball into an avalanche of the dead rising.
The facility had been more heavily manned than they’d realized.
Still, the twenty Initiates had killed nearly two hundred undead before the variants began to show up.
Then, the ‘Fight’ quest had auto-failed, and they’d been virtually commanded to run.
Apparently, to succeed, they’d been supposed to charge in…
Turtling just outside the spawn point usually works so well.
Even so, they hadn’t run. No, they were in the security bunker which was the only way in or out for the growing undead threat.
They were connected with local law enforcement, with the promise of help on the way…
That help was still ‘less than five minutes out’ when something that was clearly a sort of flesh golem had casually punched through the concrete wall and crushed the nearest Initiate.
The fighting had been fierce after that, but the creature had brought with it a strange… madness.
Matt was sure he had been able to see shade-creatures clawing their way up through the floor, but the others had seemed to see other things.
That distraction had added to the slaughter.
They hadn’t lasted five minutes.
Matt had fled into a side room, doing his best to ignore the shades that he was—by then—sure weren’t actually there… stroking his hair, letting him know that it would all be over soon.
No!
The ground shook with slow, heavy steps that Matt felt despite his trembling.
No, no, no, no.
A thump impacted the closet door, following a squealing. A moment later, the door was torn out of the wall—along with a good chunk of wall itself—leaving Matt to look up through the hanging coats at the flesh golem.
The shade that had been trying to comfort him reached up and covered his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch the end.
Oh… that’s kind of—
J.L.Mullins
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