It was like a wall of rotted flesh was attempting to burst through the open doors. Even though the doors of the church were enough for four people to stand abreast, the zombies in their mindless bloodlust had all tried to swarm in at the same time and had gotten stuck. "Again with this? Come on you morons." I couldn't help but curse at the zombies, if I had a ranged weapon the situation at the time would have been ideal. However, several more roars were still continuing to echo out from further outside, telling me more monsters were on their way. I needed to kill as many zombies as I could before the next wave came, or else I would be overwhelmed. Even though I was now a vampire and my regeneration was even more powerful, I don't believe my body would hold up being dog piled under so many hungry beasts.
For a moment I pondered over attempting to use my new blood manipulation skill, but considering the high cost, extreme focus and the fact I wasn't anywhere close to proficient in using it, especially in an active fight, I decided against it. At least for the moment. Not including besides making myself bleed, there wasn't any blood to be used. After my few second of pondering, the wall of flesh finally bulged out and two of the zombies in front fell to the floor allowing a wave of zombies behind to trample their way through. Clearly, they held no comradery for their fellow flesh eaters, as the two zombies who fell were soon nothing but bags of stomped mush.
Taking a ready stance, I activated the whip's collapsable blades by twisting the top of the handle and swung the whip in a circle above my head before bringing it down in a sharp flick gesture towards the closest zombie. The whips bladed tip slammed down on the zombie's head and split it like the flesh was made of jelly. A spray of blackened blood, globs of brain matter and skull fragments shot out to either side coating the plain grey floor. Finally giving some colour to the bare surroundings since the system claimed the territory for myself.
"Oh, hell yeah. You little shits don't know who you've messed with!" A large grin filled with sharp teeth split my face as I laughed in a sort of twisted glee seeing the shower of gore I effortlessly made. I don't know whether it was the accumulated experiences over the last few days or due to my now twisted bloodline, but their appeared to be an almost overwhelming feeling of bliss at the thought of battle. Battle was probably the wrong word for it though, it felt more like slaughter. These new feelings scared me for only a moment before being swept away by the feeling euphoria as I spun in a circle, sending my whip out in flashes of silver that reaped a zombie's life with ease.
It wasn't like every strike of my whip was an instant kill though, I missed on several occasions or took an arm or a leg. However, with the increased agility and natural finesse I had when wielding the whip, my attacks struck down quicker than most normal humans could even bare witness. I found myself dancing around the empty church like some dainty ballerina. With every passing second, I found my attacks becoming more and more proficient. A clear indication of my new martial affinity. The zombies swarmed over in droves, but fell as easy as if I was felling wheat.
The ground was soon littered with corpses, while the floor, walls and even ceiling was liberally painted with blood and torn flesh. Some of the zombies were even missing limbs, clogging the floor. After a spin and crack, I had to pause for a moment and kick a severed arm out of the way while I said with a frown, "How irresponsible. Don't you know this is a tripping hazard. You're lucky I don't sue." After I kicked the arm, I received the familiar loot notification request. 'Ah, I got a bit swept away.' Even with attacking the zombies still surging through the doors, I managed to kick-loot a large portion, clearing some much needed space. An action I was about to very happy I did.
These plain walker zombies beside appearing in large numbers, now offered very little challenge to the current me. However, that wasn't the case for the variations. Just as two new zombies were trudging their way through the doors and I was swinging my whip above my head to keep the momentum going after taking care of another zombie, a deep bass roar came bouncing through the doors, alongside the sound of heavy steps thundering closer. Before the two normal zombies were even half way towards me, they were both violently tossed to either side with enough force to slam their rotted flesh into the walls with sickening crunch noises.
After the two zombies were sent flying, a hurtling zombie brute was revealed barreling towards me. "How the hell? You sneaky bastard." Without being able to ponder the sudden arrival of the hulking brute, I only managed to mutter a couple words before I was forced to dive to the side. The zombie brute blasted past me before coming to skidding halt, by slamming it's head sized fists into the hard floor causing cracks to spread. Getting back up from my roll into a crouch, I locked gazes with the muscle bound beast who was in a similar position, except his figure was almost triple my own in size.
For a second, it felt as if the world around us came to a pause, with even the dusty air coming to a still. With my enhanced vampiric senses, I could sense that besides a few stragglers the horde of zombies had apparently stopped. 'Looks like this is the boss and he don't like sharing. Want me all to yourself do you? What a greedy fat bugger you are.' As if in response to my words, the zombie brute's square head let out a deep roar, that sounded as if it came from the chest.
Something seemed to come alive within me as the roar washed over my crouched form, it was as if my blood had begun dancing in my veins, as a feeling of overwhelming fury rose in my chest. I heard my jaw click out of place, making a terribly snapping noise, however the fury building inside me washed away any other thoughts. My jaw elongated unnaturally, with my mouth now being almost half a foot long, with all my extra sharpened teeth, I imagined it would have made for quite a terrifying display. That wasn't all however, as my fury reached a crescendo, it desperately needed to be let out immediately. A truly bestial roar escaped my enlarged mouth, sounding like a mix between a tiger's growl and a rat's rabid screech.
The zombie brutes roar was a clear beastial challenge and as if it had touched my own bestial nature, I roared in return. Like separately moving plates, the muscles on the brute tensed all over before he shot off from his crouching position and accelerated right towards me. My own body tense the moment I saw the Brute's but instead of physical movement, I turned into a whisp of darkened smoke and appeared right behind the large beast, using its own shadow against it. The zombie's mad dash, sent it right through my smoke trail and slamming into the wall next to the door.
With a bellow of rage, alongside a shower of dust and debris raining down from above, the brute spun around with mad white eyes looking for my very pretty figure, now standing where it previously was. The moment it spun around, I sent my whip hurtling towards it's massive head, even activating the slotted skill, which brought a shadowed version of my bladed whip speeding alongside it. My attack was on point, with my whip hitting my intended target perfectly, however, I was about to immensely disappointed by the actual outcome.
My new fancy sharp weapon, that was just moments ago slicing regular zombie's heads in like watermelons, appeared to do very little against the brute. If it wasn't for the fact that there were no sparks when my whip swiped across its square forehead, I would have thought the bastard's bones were made of metal. The brute's head moved a fraction from the impact of my attack but did nothing else. Instead, my strike just seemed piss it off even more, if that was possible. Lucky for me though, the brute's attacks didn't appear to have much in the way of complexity. Obviously due to its overwhelming strength it settled most fights, by simply bowling the target over and hammering it into the ground.
The brute roared and charged at me once again, without being able to think of a better solution I repeated my previous action and Shade Step behind it. 'I guess I'll just have to whittle ya down.' I sent out my whip, cutting a deep furrow in its mottled chest, causing its thick darkened blood to leak down its stomach in a line. For the next few minutes we did this dance. Several times I chose to dive out of the way to save my mana. In total I could only do five shade steps in quick succession before running out of mana. And my mana regen wasn't very fast.
I always tried to leave enough mana to be able to at least use Shade Step once in case of an emergency. Opting to instead directly leap out of the way, it was a choice filled with peril though, many a time it was only a fingernail difference that saved me from falling into the ogre's horrible grip. Especially when it swung its meaty arms wide in an attempt to catch me. I had also managed to slam a couple of my throwing knives into the brute, but they did as much damage as my whips were doing. Which wasn't much. After one of the shadow steps, I checked the brute with analyze and saw it was a level twelve, stronger than the one I had previously fought.
Just after another successful leap and roll out of danger and while I was mechanically swinging my whip while turning to strike the brute for what felt like the hundredth time, one of the few straggling zombies, that hadn't been smashed out of the way by the brute or had one of my knives sticking out of its head for getting in the way of our fight, stumbled right in front of the brute. This time however, instead of slamming it out of the way, the brute grabbed its skull in one hand and with a roar threw it straight at me. With my arm raised above my head, I was caught in an awkward position mid attack. Before I could do anything about it, I was slammed into by the zombie turned projectile and joined it in its flight, right into the left side wall.
My body hit the wall with such force it sent cracks running along the stone surface alongside the cracking of what felt like several of my own ribs. We both hit the floor, and ironically the mindless zombie made projectile was relatively unharmed, except for a slightly finger indented head. I had appeared to have cushioned the impact for it and before I could get my bearings or wipe the blood leaking out of my mouth, the zombie had clamped onto my inner thigh. "Argh!" Gasping in pain, I reached out with my empty hand and using my hand like a blade I slammed it into the soft tissue of the zombie's neck.
My hand effortlessly slid in, thanks to my sharpened steel strong fingernails. Once I widened the throat enough, that I was almost gripping the zombies spine, I lifted my hand up and ripped the zombies head clean off. Well not exactly clean, I was soon showered in pussy coated blood and vicesera. With the head in one hand and my whip still clenched in the other, I quickly rose to my feet as the sound of pounding footsteps grew closer. The moment I was on my feet, the brute's towering form was only a few feet away from me. My heart leapt to my throat, and on reflex I chucked the mangled zombie head right at the brute and leapt to my right.
Once again, the brute's large arms swung out to catch me, unfortunately for me, this time it did. It's large hand wrapped around my ankle and with a violent tug, I felt myself flying back the way I had come, and like it was trying to emulate my whip it spun my body like a limp noodle around its head and then into the opposite wall. "Argh." This time I could only muster a groan of pain as I slid to the floor.
It wasn't just my ribs and spine that cracked this time, my organs had also apparently taken a beating and decided they didn't want to live inside my stomach anymore. Alongside a mouthful of blood, my front was soon drenched in bits of organ. I could feel the familiar itch of a notification, that I guesses was trying to tell me I was in a critical condition or something. I didn't bother checking. I could feel my already powerful regen working, repairing my organs first starting with my lungs, as I could finally take a large gasping breath. However, it was all for not, as I couldn't move a muscle at that moment due to the damage to my spine.
While I lied on the floor, still coughing up blood and organs, that were not being rejected by my body for the newer ones, I couldn't help but internally complain. 'I thought that now I was some crazy vampire hybrid, and I got a novel style power up, I would be like those Over-powered protagonists. Instead, the first elite enemy I faced had battered me like a bitch who owes him money. Argh. God damn, that's unpleasant. Growing new organs isn't a painless process either. Oh shit, here it comes.'
With a groan, I watched threw the side of my eye as the brute stomped over to me again. Although, I wasn't in a perilous condition, my heart hadn't given in to despair again, my will to fight, to win, to devour my enemy still raged within me. 'Think Grubbs! Think!' Blocking out the sight of the towering terror coming my way, I spun through multiple plans but was interrupted by another mouthful of crushed organs and blood that I desperately coughed up and onto my chest. The sight of the blood running down my body however made my now blood red eyes light up.
Once again blocking out everything, including the pain or my regeneration, the heavy footfalls of the brute and the annoying itch from the system, I focused only on the blood coating my body. My blood. Even when the brute lifted my body off of the ground, my eyes looked right through the musclebound freak. The brute roared into my face, as if declaring its dominance and seeing no reaction from me apparently pissed it off even more. Instead of hammering my body on the ground like it must have planned the brute instead wrapped its arms around my back. With my chest pressed against his and begun to squeeze slowly. Oh, so slowly.
The new wave of pain was excruciating. My insides were slowly being squished into a jelly, and all the while my face was starting directly into its face. If the zombie was human, I could have sworn that in that moment it was smirking at the anguished look my face must have been twisted into. However, the brute was soon in for its own rude awakening as its actions in bringing my body so close to its worked even better for what I had planned. My dazed eyes snapped back into focus, as I looked into the milky orbs of the squarefaced brute.
After a soft pop rang in my ear, and a tingling sensation ran down my spine, my face split into a grin filled with rows of sharp teeth and with a growl of my own I widened my elongated jaw to its limit, even feeling the sides of my mouth split in the process and slammed my razor sharp teeth into its muscle coated neck. The brute screamed in pain and in response emulated my own action. It's large mouth biting into my shoulder nearly engulfing the whole thing. In that moment though, I focused everything I had, all my will, anger and grief I had been carrying since I had awoken exploded out of me.
What actually exploded out of me though wasn't the immense well of feelings I was bottling inside, but all the blood coating my body and leaking from my shoulder. Like a human hedgehog my blood sharpened into several points and crystalized before shooting out of me and turning the brute's chest and mouth into a sieve. With my position wrapped around its neck, I even saw several needle length blood crystals puncture out of the back of the brutes head and pin against the opposite side wall. I felt a new wave of thickened blood coat my chest, this time however it was not my own.
The muscular arms of the brute, was like a puppet whose strings hand been cut and dropped lifelessly to its side. My body hit the ground in a heap that sent a new wave of pain throughout my body, however, I had no mind to worry about that as I was about to be engulfed by the large mutated hulk as it began to fall towards me like a toppling tower. With pain sending jolts throughout my body, I rolled to the side as fast as I could and only just managed to missed being squashed underneath. The brute's body kicked up a wave of dust and blood once it hit the floor and it twitched for several moments before it finally went still, and I received the itch of a new notification.
Rolling onto my back, I tried my best not to move much as I spat out the foul tasting blood of the zombie elite onto the ground. "I really need to get my hands on some fresh blood. Heh." A wheezy chuckled escaped my lips at the macabre words, as I let my natural regeneration do its thing. Honestly, I wasn't sure how much my body could handle and still repair from, but I had a sort of gut feeling that even if I lost an arm, it could heal back. I also knew that I wasn't invincible, if my body suffered enough damage my normal regeneration might not be able to save me in time. Also being decapitated or being stabbed in the heart would still kill me instantly.
"I also need to watch out for necrosis based attacked. Whatever that means. My blood's like a double edge sword, it does extra damage to them but also takes extra damage." As I mumbled several other thoughts to myself and listened to the pop noises of several bones repositioning themselves, I was interrupted by several rattling noises.
A chorus of in time steps approached the church's doors, alongside the sound of clanking metal. Looking up from position on the ground, I was surprised to see an undead I hadn't witnessed as of yet but that were main staple of any rising from the grave fantasy story. A group of eight bedraggled looking skeletons in rusted armour and wielding a variety of chipped weapons came through the door in lock step by twos. Their bone skull's eye sockets swirling with a blackened ghastly that flickered as they moved. As one they came to a stop and pointed their weapons directly at me.
With a tired sigh, I got to my feet and removed two daggers, holding one in a reverse grip and one pointing up. "I guess it's round two. Come at me you boney pricks!" After spitting out another mouthful of blood, I sprang forwards with a shout.