' It's now or never!'

Edward roared in his heart and jumped from behind the truck, ready to face his greatest fear…one of his greatest fears actually.

The zombie was charging over madly with its arms thrashing about in the air, the zombie had actually not seen Fablo and was attracted over by the noise he had made so it did not know that Fablo had run away, it instantly turned its focus on Edward when Edward jumped on the road suddenly.

Edward clenched his steel tightly, his palm was suddenly sweaty and nervousness slowly crept up his heart but he refused to move and waited for the zombie to get a bit closer. The zombie finally got within a few meters of Edward when it finally set its eyes on Edward and the hunger that was burning in its red eyes instantly died out. Edward could almost see the confusion in its red eyes that was supposed to be dead and expressionless.

Edward had expected this, no, more like he had hoped for this. The experience of that abnormal zombie that had attacked him at the store back then had caused Edward to doubt that other zombies actually avoided him or there was a condition for it that he was not aware of.

Pushing that thought out of his mind, Edward lunged at the zombie but it was not close enough. He did not want Fablo, who was watching from somewhere to find out about any of his secrets as he was not entirely sure of the man's thoughts as well.

The zombie though had suddenly lost interest in Edward, had not stopped trashing forward, and was still stumbling toward Edward with its arms spread out in the air. So when Edward suddenly lunged at it, the zombie roared and focused its attention on the betrayer; Edward, since it had taken him as one of them.

Edward stabbed out his steel at the zombie, he planned to destroy the zombie's virus box with one strike. He did not hold back at all and used all of his strength so that the blunt tip of the steel could pierce into the zombie.

"Ahhh!"

Edward let out a loud grunt as his steel came in contact with the zombie but he ended up missing his mark for some reason he had strongly miscalculated his strength as the steel plunged into the area below the zombie's virus box and the force blew off everything in that area instead of simply piercing it.

The rotten skin and organs of the zombie in that area were completely destroyed by Edward's strike but he did not manage to kill the thing in one strike.

The zombie did not react to the gruesome injury at all and did not pay attention to half of its organs that were now dangling outside nor the green blood that poured out from the wound, it grabbed Edward's steel in a firm grip and pushed itself through the steel to get close to Edward.

Its face came right up in front of Edward and it opened its mouth and roared in his face. Edward's eyes shrank as the zombie's hideous face was so close to his face, not to speak of the terrifying stench that almost made Edward pass out when the zombie roared in his face, the fear from having a zombie so close to him made Edward's mind to go blank for a split second and he was unable to think or react; he had frozen again.

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The zombie did not care if Edward had frozen or not, it opened its disgusting mouth and was about to bite down on Edward's shoulder when Fablo suddenly appeared behind the zombie and landed a solid kick on the zombie's arm. Blowing the zombie away so that it rolled for over five meters before coming to a stop, the arm that Fablo had kicked had bent in a disturbing manner that should have become useless in normal situations but zombies were unable to feel pain so the zombie immediately raised from the ground after it stopped rolling.

Meanwhile, Fablo was shaking the frozen Edward and trying to wake him up.

"Hey, Edward. Snap out of it, it's coming already so wake up. Damnit!" Fablo shook Edward's shoulders but there was no reaction from the kid and the zombie was already back on its feet.

He started to move the instance he saw that Edward had failed to kill the zombie in one hit, who knew that his impulsive action would have saved Edward's life? Had he hesitated or refused to move in the belief that Edward would take care of the zombie even if he missed the first time, Edward would have been bitten and thus infected. He would then have no choice but to kill him.

"Wake up damnit!"

Slap!

A slap suddenly landed on Edward's face, successfully waking him up from his blank state. No, he had actually been awake all this time and had seen everything but his body had refused to listen to him just like last time and he could only watch as he was almost bitten and how Fablo had timely come to his rescue in a daze.

'That was close, I almost got exposed' Edward breathed a sigh of relief after he recovered from his frozen state. He was obviously not afraid of getting bitten by a zombie, he was more afraid of Fablo finding out his secret.

"Thank you" Edward quickly said to Fablo.

"No time for that now, that thing is coming back," Fablo said and passed his steel to Edward because the zombie was still holding onto Edward's steel when Fablo kicked it away and Edward had lost grip of it as he was not able to move.

Fablo had not killed the zombie since it would make their trip here meaningless, their plan was to help Edward and he would make sure that was what they did; Edward had to be the one to kill this zombie no matter what.

Edward nodded and took the steel from Fablo before turning to face the zombie that was already coming at them again, Fablo had also retreated and left Edward to face off against the zombie by himself again.

Edward waited for the zombie to get closer and prepared to aim for the head properly this time, but the damned zombie suddenly jumped when Edward was about to stab its head. This sudden action caught Edward by surprise and he was unable to react properly, he had completely forgotten that this was one of the zombie's auto-attack styles.

Edward could only put the steel in front of him to block the zombie but it was not enough as he was not standing properly for such a collision so he ended up falling on his back with the zombie on top of him.

Roar!!

The zombie roared at Edward again with their face so close, almost as if it was mocking Edward for freezing the last time.

Edward's eyes shrank and he could feel his mind going blank again.

'Oh no! Not this time'

He exclaimed in his thought, gritted his teeth, and suddenly did something he would have never imagined…he bit on his tongue.

One had to know that one of Edward's greatest fears was pain, he would rather flee from salvation if it would result in pain. So it was unimaginable that he would cause pain to himself.

The pain from biting his tongue spread all over his body and jolted his mind, forcibly pulling back his body under his control. Only then was Edward able to turn the zombie over before escaping from its relentless attack for a brief moment.

Fablo stopped in his tracks when he saw this. He had moved when Edward fell over but what happened next had surprised him in a pleasant way that he did not know that a smile had formed on his lips.