Seeing that he had been discovered, Danny stopped his descent at the twisting turn of the stairs at the second floor.

The small intervals at each floor - where the stairs turned 180 degrees to change directions – had a little bit more of space and even ground for Danny to maneuver, so he decided to make his stand there.

Holding his position there meant that, if any zombie dwelling at the second floor proper managed to somehow open the emergency door leading to the stairwell where Danny stood, it would immediately be able to ambush Danny from behind.

A scary prospect indeed…

Even so, Danny did not think that such scenario was likely to happen. The stairwell was fairly insulated, so any sounds from the coming fight would barely leak outside of it.

Also, from what he could hear, there were not that many zombies trapped with him inside the stairwell, so he did not expect this battle to last long enough to attract attention from any undead on the other side of the emergency door.

Yes, Danny was taking a decent risk by choosing to hold his ground there. He could not be sure things would go the way he predicted. Danny could very well draw the short-straw and unluckily have to fight zombies from two fronts if the worst -case scenario came to pass. Even so, that was a calculated risk.

There was no such thing as a perfect world.

Ultimately, he had to make a choice between stand there and fight, or run away to the roof, and Danny liked his chances in there better. That was what he felt like anyway, so in that split-second, Danny chose to remain in place and face the threat there.

‘I can’t expect that every single fight will be under ideal circumstances…’ He thought resolutely while his enemies made their way to his location.

All those considerations crossed Danny’s mind in but an instant. In reality, only a couple of seconds had passed ever since he realized that the zombies at the bottom of the stairwell had noticed him.

Following that, he only had time to adjust his light a tad bit, pointing it slightly downward in the direction his enemies were coming from in order to better illuminate them.

Soon after, his first enemy revealed itself as it charged up the stairwell.

A deceased young male which wore a bloodied checkered shirt and a pair of stained jeans, appearing to have been in his mid-twenties before he drew his last breath, presented himself to Danny as his first challenger.

While the stairs allowed for two people to climb it side by side, his initial opponent of this battle had come alone. Rushing ahead of the others that would undoubtedly soon follow.

His enemy came fumbling and tumbling up the stairs, his wobbly gait making it surprisingly difficult for Danny to properly aim his strike at its head.

Instead of risking a miss which would open him for a counter-attack, or worse, being tackled down, Danny opted to deliver a front kick to the chest of his enemy in order to push him back down, choosing to wait for a better opportunity to kill the zombie to present itself whenever his foe manages to climb back up.

With a satisfying crunch, the sole of his boot connected with the right side of the zombie’s torso, fracturing a couple of ribs in the process of throwing it back down.

A full-power kick from Danny, specially one with his entire weight behind it, was no joke. His strengthened and compressed muscles packed quite a punch after all.

Even so, the wound made little difference for the falling monster in question, as a couple of broken ribs were hardly a setback for the unfeeling creature.

Danny could not pay attention to the fate of the zombie that now tumbled down anymore, as another one circled around his falling companion and rushed him, demanding his undivided attention.

This one presented an easier target, as the last steps it had taken to reach Danny had not destabilized the creature. The extra stability with which the zombie approached him let Danny accurately aim his hammer at his enemy’s head.

Then, with a powerful horizontal swing, Danny struck the temple of the monster with the steel head of his hammer, brandishing it from the right and killing the zombie immediately as a solid thumping sound reverberated through the stairwell.

He did not have time to celebrate his first kill of the fight though, as another zombie already came from behind the fallen enemy even as its body dropped to the dusty concrete ground.

Without space to reposition himself or time to recover his stance from the previous killing blow, Danny could not face the incoming threat comfortably. Thus, in order to gain some time, Danny kicked the dropping body of his downed foe in the direction of the incoming zombie, obstructing its path and making it tumble down thereafter with the added weight on top of it.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The extra breathing room gained from hindering his enemy was enough to give Danny some much needed reprieve and allowed him to quickly reposition himself, recovering his stance.

With his hammer lifted slightly above his head, Danny waited for the next zombie to approach with a semi-prepared attack, ready to strike it down at first notice.

The next one to reach Danny was the same one he had kicked down beforehand. It had come back for round two, undeterred by the earlier failure.

Before it could attack him, however, Danny took advantage of the couple of seconds he had left to quickly take in the sight of the battlefield.

On the right side of the stairs, the zombie Danny had thrown the unmoving body at was still untangling itself from it, blocking that part of the passage in the meantime. Meanwhile, on the left side, the zombie with the broken ribs approached, followed closely behind by another one.

It seemed that when Danny had sent it tumbling down with a kick to the chest, the undead in question had gotten in the way of the other ones still coming from down below. While it recovered from Danny’s merciless blow, slowly getting back up, the zombie in question had prevented the latecomers from getting closer to him. An unexpected, but much welcome development for Danny.

For all its help, Danny rewarded the previously wounded undead with a decisive strike to the head.

This time, its gait had been more stable, so Danny risked an attack. Fortunately for him, his aim was true, and with a downward strike, Danny cracked its skull, mashing its brain and making sure that his enemy would not rise once more.

The dropping body, and its subsequent tumbling fall that followed the zombie’s death, caused the other one that followed it up the stairs immediately after to lose its balance and footing. As the body of Danny’s latest kill rolled down the stairs, the zombie behind it tripped over the falling obstacle and, with a graceless stumble, the undead in question fell face first onto the steps just below where Danny stood.

‘Damn. That would have hurt like hell if it could feel anything.’ Danny thought after watching his enemy’s face make intimate contact with the edge of the concrete step below him.

His thoughts did not slow his movements in the least however.

Not missing the opportunity to take advantage of his foe’s fall, Danny held the handrail at his side with his free hand – to make sure he would not be returning the clumsy zombie’s favor by losing his balance as well –, before stomping hard on the face-down creature’s neck, breaking it with a crunch.

Though breaking the zombie’s neck was not enough to kill it, it was definitely enough to cripple it.

Even if the zombies were much more resilient than their living counterpart, and could endure a great number of wounds inflicted on their bodies that would outright kill any human being, a lot of the working principles and baseline functions of their body remained the same as they were when they were still among the living… kind of…

With a broken neck, the zombie had lost most of its mobility. The entirety of its body below the chin was now paralyzed.

Whilst only by destroying the brain would one ensure a kill when fighting the undead, Danny was not confident that he would be able to break the zombie’s tough skull with a single stomp. The skull was one of the toughest parts of the human body after all, if not the toughest.

The neck, however, was a much softer target…

Besides, by breaking its neck, Danny had effectively removed the zombie from the fight, which was almost as good as killing it. The only thing the creature could do now was to helplessly keep snapping its jaws shut, fruitlessly hoping that it could reach Danny and take a bite off him.

After disabling the third zombie of the fight, Danny got back to his position and calmly waited for the next enemy to come forward.

A female zombie who had been limping up the stairs approached him slowly from the left. However, the fact that its left ankle had been horribly twisted in a manner that should not be ordinarily possibly made the undead an easy picking for Danny. As soon as the highly slowed creature got close enough, Danny greeted it with a downward swing of his brandished hammer, easily dispatching it.

A few moments later, the one on the right, which had been fumbling around with the corpse on top of it until now, finally managed to free itself. Soon after it recovered its freedom, the zombie ran at Danny with tireless vigor, completely unphased by its earlier fiasco.

Unfortunately, this time Danny missed his strike when he tried to hit the creature’s head.

A last-second stumble on the zombie’s part saved it from being wacked on the head, making Danny’s blow hit its shoulder instead and disabling one of its arms.

Even though it had suffered significant damage, the zombie unflinchingly threw itself at Danny with its remaining working arm stretched and its mouth opened, as if it could already see the moment where its teeth ripped Danny’s flesh apart. It could already taste him on its tongue.

The sudden development had thrown off Danny’s tempo, however he quickly reacted, mostly on instinct. To face the threat, Danny awkwardly rose his free left hand and held the male zombie by the collar of its shirt.

He managed to stop the creature’s advance when its snapping jaws were only a few centimeters off his left shoulder, cold sweat pooling at his lower back.

While Danny held it in place, the undead scratched and grabbed at the side of his torso, trying to wound him or get a good-enough grip on Danny in order to close the distance between its biting teeth and Danny’s mouth-watering shoulder.

However, Danny’s new body armor proved its worth at this moment.

The solid plates and resistant material that composed his upper body protection prevented the zombie’s enlarged nails to reach Danny’s skin, easily enduring his enemy’s assault.

In the end the zombie did not manage to cross the final distance that separated it from its prey. Danny’s firm grip unwaveringly holding it in place.

After dozens of soul gems consumed, Danny’s strength completely surpassed his foe’s. His strength was already overcoming the peak of what was humanly possible. Therefore, there was little comparison between him and the flailing undead he held at bay.

After the initial surprise from missing his strike and after successfully containing the zombie’s dangerous charge, Danny forcefully threw his enemy against the handrail.

Then, he proceeded to smack it three times on the head in quick succession until the creature finally stopped moving. This time, for good.