Very soon, he reached the door of the room in question and was pleasantly surprised to find out that there were no zombies waiting for him in there.

That was the riskier element of his plan.

Though he had been able to see somewhat inside the room from his initial position – behind the cover of the toppled barricade -, the difficult angle made sure that the bigger part of its interior was hidden to his sight.

For all he knew, there could be a few of them hiding in a corner and whether there were no zombies in there, or if there were multiple ones, would make a hell of a lot difference going forward with his plan.

Fortunately, he had worried for nothing as there weren’t any enemies to ambush him inside.

Given that the room was empty of threats, Danny had some time to prepare without any interruptions. He could take the best possible position to receive his first customers of the floor and focus entirely on dealing with them without having to worry about his back.

Shortly after entering the room, Danny let his backpack slip from his shoulders before throwing it at a mattress that lied close to the back wall, the soft object cushioning his pack’s fall and making sure that none of its contents would be damaged.

Not that Danny could afford to worry about the integrity of his belongings at the moment. He would have thrown his bag away even if such a convenient place to toss it was not present inside the room.

He needed to be in peak condition for the following fight. Unencumbered. Every fiber of his being had to be focused on the showdown. This was the most undead he faced at once until now.

This would be a trial by fire to see if he could take on the even more numerous horde downstairs.

He waited with anticipation, fully protected by his black and grey gear and helmet, while gripping his hammer tightly with both hands for his first enemy to present himself. His nerves taut and knees flexed, like the string of a bow ready to unleash a deadly arrow.

Confidence in his theoretical ability to handle the challenge did not exhume him from the anxiety that crawled out from the depths of his mind and made his heart pump faster.

A couple of seconds after his hurried entrance into the room, the first zombie of the wave followed him inside. The former male had his left arm limping to the side. A product of the numerous missing pieces of the limb that had been bitten off, no doubt.

Danny let the creature enter the room unmolested, crossing the doorway, before he took advantage of its handicapped side and struck its head from that direction with a powerful one-handed horizontal swing.

The creature toppled to the side like a falling tree which had its supporting trunk chopped down. Never to rise again.

His strike had been well measured and aimed and got the job done even if he did not use his capabilities to their fullest. There was no need for Danny to put all his power into his swings.

The empowerment granted by the soul gems gave him more than enough strength to kill off his enemies in one hit without going all-out. Putting everything he got into each strike would only serve to drain more of his stamina and diminish his accuracy while accomplishing the same results.

‘To get through this battle unscathed I need to be as efficient as possible and keep up my tempo. I can’t give any chance for these zombies to get a grip on the situation and pile up inside the room…’

Danny reset his stance – his legs apart from each other and his hammer semi-raised while being held by both of his hands over his right shoulder - while calmly preparing for more enemies to join in on the fun.

He did not have to wait long, as another zombie crossed the doorway and into the room soon after, followed immediately by another one.

Taking advantage of the close proximity of his foes from one another, Danny unleashed a mighty front kick to the chest of the first one. He could feel through the sole of his foot its chest bones give in to the force and crack.

The force of the blow pushed the first one back and was transmitted to the one behind it through the contact when they inevitably collided with one another. The crash of the first zombie into the back one caused this second one to fly out of the door it had just came from.

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It was just as if Danny was playing a game of billiard. His feet the rod, the zombies the balls and the doorway the hole.

After transmitting most of its backward momentum to his follower, the zombie with the broken bones came back once more to challenge Danny once it managed to rebalance itself a few seconds later.

‘Did not get enough, did you?’

Danny responded to his foe’s eagerness with a downward two-handed strike of his hammer that caved in its skull at the top part of its head, sealing its fate.

Grabbing the body that was falling in his direction due to the accrued momentum with his left hand, Danny threw it sideways and out of the way. His strength making it easy to simply toss it aside with just one arm, something he would have never been able to do before he started consuming the gems.

Though that particular zombie was not that tall or large, it was still quite impressive to raise an adult human body with one arm and throw it aside.

The zombie that had been tossed back out of the room and was still in the game had bought Danny a few precious moments to reorient himself.

When it stumbled out of the room, pushed out by the momentum of his now downed ally, the zombie ended tangling himself with other two that were making their way towards Danny. The three of them fell down in a heap of jumbled bodies, clogging the way and making it harder for others to get inside.

The path was not completely blocked though, and soon another challenger managed to get inside. Danny was not complaining however. That was actually a good thing.

An entry point that was obstructed but not entirely closed off was exactly what he wanted to see. It was the best-case scenario for him, since it allowed him to keep mowing his enemies down while at the same time tipping the pacing of the fight in his favor.

He had not planned to get this outcome at all when he kicked the now dead zombie in the chest, but it had worked far better than it would have if he had tried to intentionally do so.

In any case, he would not miss the opportunity.

He quickly took care of any enemies that succeeded in getting inside his kill zone while the clumsy undead kept trying to untangle themselves while still obstructing the passage.

One by one the intruders fell to his hammer. Danny had little trouble dispatching the ones that managed to get through.

With their biggest advantage of numbers taken out of the equation for the moment, the uncaring undead could only throw themselves into the slaughterhouse. Adding to the body count without really putting any pressure on Danny.

By the time the trio finally managed to untangle themselves and separate from one another, clearing the way once more, Danny had added seven more bodies to his collection that was rapidly piling up to the sides of the room, putting a significant dent in the number of enemies.

The temporary blockade also gave him another added benefit. Danny had enough time in-between duels to push aside the bodies of his fallen opponents. Allowing them to litter the floor would be asking for trouble. He could not afford to trip and fall or to lose his balance right now.

There was very little room for mistakes.

More and more zombies kept coming at him. They brandished their claw-like fingers, jumped in suicidal tackles, dragged themselves forward when downed and every other tactic their simple minds could conjure to get closer to Danny and eat him.

Through it all, Danny stood there with a stoic face. Dodging left and right with as little movement as possible to avoid slipping on the pooling blood or tripping on an arm or leg that – despite his previous efforts – crowded the floor.

He lost count how many he had killed somewhere after he had reached the double digits. It simply did not seem to be that important anymore.

All that mattered was the fight. There was him, his weapon of choice, and the enemy in front of him. Nothing else was of importance.

So he kept swinging. He hit a head whenever he could with the steel part of his hammer. Otherwise, punches and kicks, elbows and knees and anything else he could make use of to kill the enemy in front of him, anything at all that he could use to hit them with, Danny would go for it.

After a while, it felt like he had entered into some kind of trance or as if he was performing a dance. He had to read the body language of his opponent in front of him and react accordingly.

Sometimes, he missed the pace and his rhythm was off by a few steps or instants. On some occasions he could brush it off and recover as if nothing had happened, but sometimes he paid a price for his errors.

A scratch here, a bite there.

His mistakes were his teachers and they were harsh in their lessons indeed. Quite demanding tutors to charge such prices for such small occasional missteps, but life was not always fair.

Thankfully, his upgraded gear had come through to save him once again.

It prevented him from suffering worse injuries than simple but painful bruises and scratches, but it was still terrifying to see a zombie latch onto your hand, trying to bite your fingers clean off.

It was not necessary to mention how painful a jaw’s unhinged strength could be when the biter itself discarded any thoughts of self-preservation or about the integrity of their teeth.

Danny had experienced that reputedly in this fight. It had hurt a lot to be on the other side of those clamping jaws.

Even so, he survived. After minutes came and went, the situation finally seemed to calm down.

Danny stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by dozens of corpses and drenched in the blood of his enemies. The carpet that was once gray was now stained in brownish-red tones.

He had endured.

Only he remained. The second floor of the factory now remained silent as if paying its respects to the sole survivor. The bodies that lied at his feed crowning his victory.

Danny panted as he stared at the door. Waiting for more enemies to arrive while gripping his hammer with the strength of an ox. Still patiently waiting for the show to go on.

Even so, no other creatures took him up on his challenge.