Chapter 6: Essence?

Chapter 6: Essence?

Meanwhile, in a luxury hotel on the same street as Grey office. A group of men fought with the zombies.

They used weapons like bats, steel pipes, and knives to fight the zombies. Each one of them showed considerable strength. But one of them stood that, he blitzed among the zombies with unnatural speed and then sheathed his katana.

Plop!

Plop!

Plop!

The head of the zombies fell off their bodies, and they dropped succeeding.

This man was the second in command of one of the biggest gangsters in the city.

His name was Draco.

With the zombie dealt with, a charismatic man in a white suit walked toward the hallway.

“Boss”

“Boss”

The men hurriedly made a path and greeted with a bow, even the swift swordsman was no exception.

The man took out a cigarette and lit it up without any external fire.

He has quite bulky, and his face was covered with a beard.

This was Bunta, the boss of the Alleyway Kings. A savvy urban gang, adept at evasion and ruthless in crime.

“So what did you find?” He asked, exhaling out smoke.

“The creatures are mostly zombies. But we did see other mutated animal - like creatures.” Draco reported.

“Good,” Bunta nodded, “Keep an eye out for any other special monsters and search for survivors.”

“Yes sir,”

The men said in unison and proceeded to carry out their duties.

Bunta knew the world was going to be thrust into chaos and the authorities will eventually lose power. So his goal was to grasp it first and reign supreme.

For that, he needed to be strong enough to attract followers, to tame them and that destroy any threat that stands in his way.

And the fastest way to do that, was to hunt down these mutant creatures as to level up.

“Grr!”

A zombie appeared out of nowhere and charged at Bunta.

Draco placed his hand on his sword to make a move but seeing his boss acting he stopped leaving it to him.

Bunta casually flicked his finger and a spark of flame flew off it and hit the zombie.

Boom!

An explosion of fire engulf the zombie. The sound of sizzling flesh echoing down the hallway.

The zombie fell to the ground, lifeless, it's body charred black.

“Let's go.”

Bunta said, walking towards the elevator and Draco.

His goal was to hunt down this mutated beast. After all, killing a mutant beast had given him a powerful flame ability.

*

Grey hadn't noticed it before, but his eyes fell on one of the zombies he had killed earlier. He noticed its body was getting leaner by the second.

In about a minute it's body that disintegrated into ashes.

He looked down the stairs and saw it was the same for others.

The zombies disintegrated upon dying.

He wasn't too savvy with human biology, but he knew a human corpse didn't decay like that. All this seemed to have happened in minutes.

Grey didn't know this, but that was the case for every zombie, that is killed by an awakened. Magic essence leaves their body, which causes them to shrink up and disintegrate. Almost like they were being absorbed.

Grey sighed, the sight further proved to him that there might be no hope of reversing a zombie back to human, once turned, there was no going back.

Grey grit his teeth, whatever was the cause of this had to be something really sinister.

He doubted the virus could be made by humans, as it also seemed to be connected to him awakening the system.

We're humanity truly capable of building a thing such a the system? Grey doubted that. Though humans made Vr games that had to the same mechanics as the system, but to bring it to reality, giving him real abilities and strength that grew every time he killed a zombie?

That seemed way beyond the capabilities of humans.

Maybe it came alien or a god, or even from another realm, he could only make assumptions.

But there was no way he could find out, not at the point he was.

His current goal was to level up to increase his chances of surviving.

He would eventually leave this building to search for food and find a shelter. Though he didn't see himself joining a group, but if it came down to the point where joining one, was the only way to guarantee his survival, he would.

Grey checked the progress of his daily quest.

[Kill 30 Necrotic Creatures: 29/30]

“Just one more to go.”

Grey muttered under his breath.

He was really anticipating the reward that came with completing the quest, especially the third, which had promised him equipment.

He just had to kill one more.

Unfortunately, as Grey went up, he didn't meet any zombies on the way up. He would have loved to get an easy kill, after all, only a few zombies seemed to have good motor censors. The rest just fell like dominoes on top of one another.

Grey stood by the door of the 7th floor and then placed his ears on it, in search for any noise that indicated zombies were right behind it. But he didn't hear anything.

Grey wondered if the doors were soundproof or the zombies were just further away.

Whatever the case, he had only one thing to goal, which was to eliminate them and level up.

He gripped his axe, held the door knob and pushed it open.

Immediately, the stench of rotten corpses and blood hit him in the face, causing him to cover his nose.

A gory mess greeted him.

Bodies of zombies laid on the ground. Their heads ripped out their body along with their spines, limbs torned, skull caved in.

Grey eyebrows furrowed, whatever must have done this, must have been pretty strong.

Grey wondered if it was done by a monster or a human. But he doubted a human would be able to do this. It was just too monstrous.

He moved forward, the glass walls were broken, desk destroyed, bodies pummeled.

What the hell happened here?

He asked, but all of a sudden, he got a notification.

Tti-ring.

[You have levelled up]

“Eh…why?”

Grey was confused, he hadn't killed a zombie or anything, so how was he able to level up.

He checked his panel and blinked rapidly.

It was true, he was level 4 now.

“But how, why? ”

He had figured the system worked like a video game where he gets exp every time he kills a monster, but from this, it seemed it wasn't the case.

Although Grey didn't know this. Magic essence was thick around him, courtesy of the dead zombies, and his body seemed to absorb it like a magnet, which had caused him to level up.

“Grrr!”

A loud growl snapped Grey from his thought. It came from one of the office at the end of the floor

Grey moved closer to it.

He could hear a loud, guttural panting. From the way it sounded, he figured it wasn't coming from a human. A human wasn't capable of making such a loud noise.

He gripped his axe tightly and walked into the office with careful steps.

His face uncontrollably squirmed.

The gore was double that of the ones in the hallway.

He was literally stepping on blood and mashed flesh.

“Shit!”

Grey cursed, feeling uncomfortable by what he felt underneath his shoes. He wondered why hadn't the zombie disintegrated, just like the ones he had killed.

But then, he saw a figure huddled in the corner.

Unsure of what it was, he crouched down, moving closer to it while he kept his body low.

And when he got close enough he saw a full view.

His eyes bulged in shock, and he briefly lost the ability to blink.

It was a hulking, muscular creature curled up into a corner. It had its hand wrapped around its head, and the entire body throbbed with veiny muscle that looked like it taken a bath in a pool of blood.

“What is that?” Grey asked with a racing pulse

Tti-ring

[Tier 1 Juggernaut (Unranked Zombie) ]

The system identified the zombie by showing its name over its head in red letter.

“They have rankings now?!” Grey frowned. He wondered what the ranks of the zombies he has been killing were. But the fact he had discovered this, meant telekinesis zombie and speedster zombie were a possibility after all.

The juggernaut obviously wasn't a regular one, heck, its size wasn't regular. It was bigger and stronger, unless its bulging muscles were made from inflated balloons and were just for show.

Grey could also sense the raw power coming off it. He didn't think he could take it in a fight. In fact, all of his senses were urging him to flee.

Grey wasn't sure he could defeat the creature with his current strength or not. And he wasn't going to risk his life to find out unless he was completely sure.

However, as he thought of this, the system did something shocking…

Tti-ring

[Emergency Quest: Defeat Juggernaut Zombie]

[Reward: Unknown]

[Time Duration: 30 min]

[Failure: System Disabled]

“Eh…”

(ノ｀Д´)ノ彡┻━┻