When the roar sounded again, the spiders stopped abruptly.
Aleen could hear the spiders screeching frightened, and some of them were even shaking, but for some reason, they didn’t dare to move.
At the same time, he noticed that Aya and the cat, Lily, were shaking too.
If Aleen was unable to realize that something was wrong after seeing it, then he was a fool.
But even if he knew, he could do nothing to stop ‘It’ from coming.
Because ‘It’ was already there.
It walked slowly from a building, looking curiously towards Aleen and the others as a child finding a new toy.
But Aleen felt a chill running through his body when ‘It’ looked towards him.
The pressure coming from that creature was greater than any other zombie, and its eyes shone with wisdom. Aleen immediately estimated the strength of the creature before him.
‘Level-three!!!’
And with that information, he understood its identity.
‘Patient zero!’
Yes, it could only be the patient zero indicated in the side mission.
Different from the other zombies, the patient zero carried a strange kind of charm with him. Its head was bald, and its skin very pale, like a corpse; but it was strangely beautiful in an androgynous way. It was completely naked, but Aleen could not say if it was a man or a woman before becoming a zombie.
The creature closed slowly the distance between them, as if it was not worried about them running away. But to be honest, Aleen was not confident in escaping from the creature even with his skill.
After all, ‘Lightning Movement’ only allows him to move around fifty meters with every activation, but Aleen had the feeling that this creature could reduce that distance before he could use the skill again.
At that moment, one of the spiders tried to run away from the creature.
The patient zero frowned displeased when it saw it. It moved its gaze to the spider and roared softly. The spider immediately stopped and began to tremble in fear.
But the patient zero wasn’t conformed with it.
It deepened its frown and extended its hand towards the spider. Then, it clenched its hand slowly.
The spider began to scream in pain, but the patient zero didn’t stop. It continued clenching its hand and put a smile of pleasure. Then, its hand was clenched completely.
Immediately, the spider exploded.
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The others spider screeched loudly when they saw it, but none of them dared to move. The patient zero curved its lips in a smile so innocent as it was sick. Then, it clenched its hand again.
Immediately, more than thirty spiders exploded in a rain of blood and monster’s flesh.
Only one spider remained alive, but it began to walk slowly towards the creature. The spider struggled and screamed in fear, but it seemed as though its limbs were not under its control.
Under the terrified gaze of the group, the spider walked slowly until where the patient zero was, and stopped. The patient zero then extended its hand and stabbed it through the head; then, it grabbed the brain of the spider and brought it to its mouth.
The patient zero ate the brain slowly and smiled at the group.
Aleen’s chills intensified at that moment.
His instincts screamed that something was wrong, and ‘Lightning Movement’ activated without his consent. Then, he saw the monster move.
Even when everything in his surroundings was slowed down, the patient zero was still moving.
Its movement was slow, but it was clear under the stillness of the surroundings.
Aleen endured the desire to charge towards the monster immediately. He knew that he only had one opportunity to injure the creature. Once it was wary of his speed, it was going to be many times harder to hurt it.
So Aleen waited.
The creature ran towards the group and extended its hand forward. With its first step, it was ten meters away, with its second step, it was five meters away, and with its third step, it was before Aleen.
At that moment, Aleen released all the mana inside him.
Lightning surged through his body, and his sword was coated in a thick layer of mana. Even the amount of vibrations per second produced by Sharp Blade increased drastically under the pressure of the patient zero; it increased directly from thirty to fifty.
The patient zero immediately noticed that something was wrong.
But unfortunately, it was too close to Aleen to evade the attack.
Aleen didn’t hesitate. He took a step forward and slashed towards the monster’s chest. Aleen knew that it was impossible to kill the level three with just this one attack, even if it was caught by surprise, so he aimed to hurt the patient zero as much as possible.
As Aleen expected, the level-three zombie was able to react despite its surprise.
Though it could not avoid the sword completely, it twisted its body to reduce the damage done by the sword. If Aleen would have attacked the head, it probably would have evaded the attack completely.
At the same time, it extended its left arm to block the attack.
But it underestimated the sharpness of Aleen’s sword.
Though Aleen didn’t have any attack skill, Dark Night’s sharpness was first-rate even between level-three weapons; besides, it was enhanced by Sharp Blade with fifty vibrations per second.
On the other hand, though the patient zero was a level-three, it was not a monster specialized in defense.
So, when the sword met the arm, the result was already decided.
In an instant, the sword cut through the patient zero’s arm and severed it completely, then, it continued in its path and cut into the monster's chest, leaving a gigantic gash on it.
But Aleen wasn’t finished yet. Once he passed the monster, he pressed his right foot on the ground and spun around quickly, attacking the zombie again.
Unfortunately, the level-three was already prepared this time.
It screamed furiously and jumped aside to avoid the sword, but Aleen’s speed was faster. Though he was unable to hurt the monster gravely, the sword cut into its right leg and almost severed it completely.
When Aleen saw it, he sighed in pity. If he could cut one arm and one leg of the patient zero, then he would be more confident about fighting it; but now that he managed to cut only an arm, and it was wary of his speed, then the fight would be more bitter.
Fortunately, Aleen injured its right leg, so it probably could not move as fast as before.
Aleen turned off his skill and looked towards the monster that had retreated to its initial position.
It was bleeding from its left arm, chest and right leg; and its appearance was miserable, but Aleen didn’t dare to underestimate it.
The patient zero looked towards Aleen with hatred, and its vicious smile turned into an expression of rage. Its bloodshot eyes observed the group calmly, and then it roared.
“ROAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!”