Bab 13: 13: Misfortune can also strike from the sky!

Standing in an inconspicuous place and covered in the darkness of the night, Val took in the many streets of the city that was infested with crawling hordes of the undead.

An almost endless sea of zombies swarmed these streets, each horde easily numbered in the hundreds!

Strong as he was, taking on a small cluster of zombies was well within his capabilities.

But a horde of this magnitude?

That was beyond his current ability!

He knew that engaging such a massive, rotten wave of the undead was a battle he could not win at his current capability level. He also recognized the inevitable fallout of igniting such a conflict: the ensuing ruckus would be a siren call to every corpse in the city, potentially even drawing the attention of the more formidable Level 2 zombies. It was an engagement he had no chance of surviving. That's why he moved away.

"I'm not strong enough to fight a horde of zombies. Best to steer clear from these streets for now," Val mused to himself.

Heeding his own advice, he deliberately circumvented the streets swarming with zombies, opting for the path where he spotted a pair of zombies staggering about.

Cautiously, he crept up to the back of these solitary walkers. One swift, brutal arc of his sword was all it took to sever their heads from their bodies, the grisly spectacle of their blood spraying into the air as a mess of flesh slumped to the ground. With swift follow-up strikes, he pierced their decaying skulls again and again, ensuring they were truly dead.

[Ding! You killed 1 Level 0 Zombie and 1 Level 1 Zombie. You get +4 EXP.]

Just then, two grotesque figures staggered out of the shadowy alley to his right.

Gah~ Gah~

They roared as they charged towards him.

Their aggressive charge didn't rattle Val.

These zombies, clearly Level 1, were on par with humans in strength but significantly lacked their intellect. Though they were as fast as an average man, they were no match for Val's agility. He was faster than them.

He smoothly dodged their clawing attacks by dropping low.

Their frantic swipes met nothing but air while Val's sword swept through their legs. The very next moment, their legs detached from their bodies. With no way to support themselves to keep standing, the zombies toppled over. Their subsequent fall to the ground was accompanied by a gruesome squelching sound.

These zombies that were crawling on the ground without legs were completely at his mercy!

Val, wanting to conserve his blood bar, opted for a messy, primitive method to end them. He decided to finish them off without utilizing any special abilities so as to preserve his blood bar.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Using the hilt of his sword, he hammered their skulls, the impact shattering the bone and sending viscera spraying. Their brains, the thing that kept them moving, transformed into a grisly paste under his blows!

[Ding! You've killed 1 Level 0 Zombie and 1 Level 1 Zombie. You get +4 EXP.]

A satisfied grin etched itself on Val's face. He had been teetering on the edge of leveling up. Now, with the brutal end of these two zombies, he had accumulated enough points.

He was ready to level up!

[Ding! Congratulation, Host! You have leveled up. You have reached level 3 from 2. You get +2 Stat Points, and a slight upgrade in your Blood Devil Bloodline.]

He had been using the alleys to get around. This time too after killing the zombies, he entered an alley, which was squeezed between two long-abandoned stone buildings. The walls of the buildings, worn by time and decay, towered high, blotting out the moonlight, turning the alley into a chilling corridor of darkness.

Whoosh!

Val's instincts honed by battle jolted him into action as the air pressure shifted alarmingly. A dark shadow swooped down from above, but he sprang backwards in a blur of motion, narrowly dodging the falling object.

Crash!

The earth quaked as a two-foot-tall zombie landed precisely where he'd stood moments before. From the point of impact, a spiderweb of fractures radiated, spreading all the way up to Val's feet.

He scrutinized the creature in front.

Its grotesque form was an unsettling sight. It had a musclebound frame, and its hands were encased in reptilian-like scales, and veins as dark as pitch snaked over its grey, leathery skin.

Val could tell that this was a Level 2 zombie, a monstrous foe that only those wielding Bloodline powers could tackle!

Then, he saw the zombie crouching. What wasit up to?

The next moment, his eyes widened.

Whoosh!

Lurching forward with frightening speed, the zombie launched a punch at Val.

With icy calm, Val dodged, springing backwards as the scaled fist swiped through the air, smashing into the alley wall and leaving a crater in its wake.

"That could have pulverized me," Val thought, adrenaline sharpening his focus.

Taking down this behemoth without invoking his bloodline power would be an immense challenge. Add to that the risk of drawing a horde of undead to their location due to the sound of their battle, the stakes were perilously high.

"I guess I have no choice but to go all out." Val said under his breath, bracing for battle.

The very next moment, the zombie lunged forward.

In response, Val flicked a finger over his sword, animating the black bloodstains that had dried on its surface. Immediately, crimson tendrils burst forth, snaking around the beast and shackling its convulsing limbs mid-air.

The zombie struggled fiercely against its bindings, but a contemptuous snort from Val saw the tendrils tightening, halting its thrashing.

Seizing the moment, Val lunged forward, his blade glinting ominously as he aimed it at the zombie's distorted face.

Whoosh!

His blade cut through the air, its high-pitched song echoing in the narrow alley. There was a moment of resistance as steel met hardened flesh, then the blade snapped, victim to the corrosive undead blood and the tough hide of its foe.

Simultaneously, the zombie managed to free itself from the tendrils of blood binding it, freeing itself from the restrictive grasp.