As Danny worked his way through the tunnels the number of zombies grew, and his level of concern grew at the same pace. This was a lot of people and he wasn’t sure where they had all come from. Madley had a homelessness problem like most metro cities but he had come across at least 30 zombies at this point. That wasn’t a massive number, but it was growing, and it wasn’t insignificant. They all had to come from somewhere and he wasn’t sure they were all from the homelessness demographic.
So, how are they ending up down here? Danny’s ruminations were interrupted by a change in the mana around him. It took on a life of its own, becoming animated. The mana thumped through the air, seemingly growing excited. The hair on the back of his neck raised and he knew what was coming. He reconnected to the super zombies, or now more accurately the last remaining super zombie, Fighter.
Found you.
That it certainly had. It was charging through the tunnel toward him. Danny backtracked as hard as he could and pushed his minions toward the charging monster. Danny felt his connections to the zombies disappear. He wasn’t sure if they had been killed or if Fighter had done something else. Either way, it wasn’t the time to think about it.
Danny made it back to the space where a few of the tunnels connected, something slightly more spacious than the cramped tunnels. Danny didn’t want to fight in such awful conditions. Danny shut off his connection, not wanting the intelligent monster to be able to copy his usage of mana or be able to read his thoughts.
Danny pumped his mana around his body, doing what he could to reinforce himself to the maximum amount possible. Then he summoned the spears. Spear after earthen spear was summoned and sent hurtling down the tunnel. He knew when the first one hit because he heard the scream. Danny wasn’t going to let up though. He kept summoning the spears, his mana being near limitless when used at this capacity.
A glow began to emerge from the tunnel, along with pained cries. The glow was getting closer. Danny created more spears. Bigger spears. Faster spears. He spun them in the air, listening to them rip through the air as they flew. He didn’t let up, but after a while, the glow continued to close in on the space he was in. Danny finally came face to face with Fighter. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it had a surprisingly human face. Take away the deep orange glow, the completely orange eyes, and the rapidly healing wounds, and it looked like a normal, middle-aged man. A naked, jaked, and furious middle-aged man. The spears tore into Fighter and Danny watched as they visibly did less and less damage to the creature.
The wounds healed visibly, holes closing up and flesh rebuilding. Danny’s spells clearly weren’t doing significant damage but certainly had hacked it right off. Fighter locked eyes with Danny, its orange eyes dug into Danny’s. The creature released a bestial roar and charged at him with renewed vigour. It shrugged off the spears that hit it, the ones that missed ended up lodged metres into the stone wall, attesting to the force behind them.
Danny didn’t panic. He summoned shortened walls of earth between him and Fighter, using massive chunks of mana to do so. The super zombie’s hands tore through it like butter. The mana coursing through its body was like a beacon, brighter than anything Danny had ever witnessed in his life. Its limbs were so reinforced that Danny doubted steel would put up must resistance against them.
The strength that Fighter was wielding was likely unmatched by anything remotely of this world. Danny really didn’t want to be on the receiving end of its attacks. So, he threw all caution to the wind and got running. He channelled as much mana as he could into his legs and ran. He also spared no expense in terms of mana when it came to summoning spears. He made them as mean as he possibly could and launched them toward Fighter as he ran.
He also summoned small walls, barely with any mana behind them, not like it would make much of a difference to the monster. It tore through them in moments, but each one was another moment it paused in its chase. Danny tried to stay calm but he did not like the predicament he was in. He had hoped that his spells would have more of an effect than they were actually having. Part of him had known that they wouldn’t be as effective because even he was somewhat resistant to spells, but this had been disappointing.
He wasn’t sure what to do. He looked down at the rifle he was carrying but acknowledged that it was going to have little to no effect. It was worth an attempt though. Danny spun, summoning a new set of walls and opened fire on Fighter. The bullets had more of an effect than suspected, injuring the super zombie, but far from anything fatal. Danny immediately threw the gun to the side and got back to running.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
What happened there? Danny immediately put together a hypothesis. Whatever their bodies did, it was resistant to mana-based spell attacks. The spears he summoned, while made of hardened sand, were still constructs of mana. Somehow the mana aspect of the spell reduced how much it damaged Fighter. What did that mean? Could he use conventional attacks to hurt Fighter more?
Danny thought fast. As he was running he sent some mana into the space around him. He wanted to try and manipulate the natural earth around him to attack Fighter, but he wasn’t sure what he was doing. He couldn’t connect to earth that wasn’t made of his mana. He could send his mana into it, but that was going to take time. Time he didn’t have.
Danny kept running, doing his best to slow the beast behind him. The roars sent chills down his spine, but he was heart was beating wildly. Part of him wanted to turn around and duke it out with the monster, to try his best to consume Fighter. His rational mind knew this was suicide though and he was fighting the impulse down. So, on he ran, summoning spears and walls that barely tickled the super zombie. Danny gave up trying to hurt it, instead aiming to hinder it as much as he could.
The tunnels flew by, intersection after intersection bleeding into each other. Danny instinctively knew he was heading deeper into the depths, the mana continuing to grow thicker in the air. He noticed the walls had changed at some point, the dated bricks giving way to more modern concrete. They widened as well, which made his life harder. Fighter had a bit more room to simply evade what Danny was throwing at it.
Danny couldn’t stop to inspect the changes in the environment but they didn’t bode well in his mind. He had a feeling he was stepping into whatever Tamm had set up. Danny kept running though, knowing that as soon as Fighter caught him things were going to get ugly. Massive pockets of zombies came and went, going by too fast to properly count. Small enclaves would open up and zombies were gathered there, eating. It scared Danny, but he couldn’t indulge the feeling.
Soon Danny saw something that truly frightened him. Lights had appeared along the tunnel a while back and they now illuminated what he was running towards. The absolute last thing he wanted to encounter at this point. A wall. A large metal wall. A dead end in the tunnel. Danny quickly closed in on it and Fighter closed in on him.
“Rats,” Danny cursed as he was forced to stop running. He spun and used a massive amount of mana to summon a series of walls between him and Fighter. Fighter came to a stop a short distance away from Danny and grinned. Its lips cracked open to reveal teeth covered in the familiar orange liquid, no doubt from its recent victim.
It simply stood there and watched Danny. He had nowhere left to run and they both knew it. Danny felt more presence approach from the tunnel they had just run through. It was the zombies. Fighter’s grin deepened and Danny felt it reach out to the zombies, taking command of them.
Danny realised what it was doing all too soon. The zombies strode past Fighter and shambled their way toward Danny. There were hundreds of them, packing the tunnel tightly. Danny couldn’t connect to them, he couldn’t command them to turn around. They had their orders. He was their target.
Danny thought fast, he needed a plan to deal with Fighter. The zombies weren’t going to be a problem at all, he summoned cheap spears of sand to take them out in droves. He knew once they were gone he’d have to face off against the big bad. Fighter was trying to wear him down, at least mentally, with the waves of lesser zombies. Danny needed a way to beat Fighter.
Danny sent his mana down into the earth and a basic plan formed in his mind. Danny had a few things that Fighter had yet to develop. He still had the edge in intelligence. He had spells. He had far more trained fighting experience as well. Danny needed to take these things and leverage them in his favour.
The waves of zombies kept coming, which made Danny think. Where had all of these people come from? Why were they being kept down here? By who? This seemed like a project larger than something a single person would be able to put together and upkeep. Did Tamm have a secret team? Or perhaps was she part of something larger? Retta had made it clear how desired a condition like Danny’s would be. The different kinds of zombies, the infection, it was all telling Danny that this seemed produced.
If he was right, that meant he was probably being watched by whatever group had set themselves up down in the tunnels. Even if he came out on top of the clash with Fighter, he would have to be prepared for the next fight.
But first, he had to deal with Fighter. The hoard of zombies was beginning to thin and the boss fight was about to start. At least the first boss fight that Danny was going to have to survive to make it out of these damned tunnels.