![City of Desire [Kingdom Building]](https://at-global.global.ssl.fastly.net/at-global/cover/67f0960bc1d9793202a144dd.jpg?time=1743820299570)
“You need to cut off the head of the zombie to kill them; the same with skeletons, though you will need to crush its head afterward as our blades are not covered in holy element,” Leena said.
I nodded dumbly before walking toward her and looked at Zombie; she had decapitated.
“I think we should get out of this manor; it is what they are targeting,” said Leena, “What about finding a safe place?” I asked.
There are so many zombies outside it would be hard to get out without them attacking.
“It would be hard to find a safe place in chaos, but we will keep an eye; if we do not find one, then getting out of the mansion would be the right choice,” she said pragmatically, and I so much wanted to decline.
Focusing on finding a safe place sounded much better.
“Ok, we will do what you say,” I said; there was no other option; she is one who has experience with the undead.
“Let’s go; the more we stay here, the more dangerous it will be,” she said, and we stepped out of my room, and the moment we did, I saw the utter horror.
The things that will give me nightmares for months to come.
Everywhere I look, I see the undead; zombies and skeletons are everywhere, fighting humans and killing them.
“Fuck!” I cursed as I saw a man in his sixties gutted into his stomach by a skeleton.
He is Germain White, was a jovial old man, and now he is gutted in front of me before the skeleton is decapitated by a guard and its skull crushed under his foot.
“Let’s go,” said Leena a little loudly to get my focus, and we moved; our focus was to reach the ground.
It is a five-floor building, and we are on the fourth floor; taking the elevator is out of the question, so the only choice we have is to go down the stairs, killing many zombies and skeletons.
Thankfully, it seemed like we were not the only people thinking that; some other people are too thinking the same, wanting to get out before more zombies swarmed into the manor.
Leena is ahead of me, and Dan is behind, while I am in the middle, protected by both sides but not truly safe given the numbers of undead roaming on the floor.
A few seconds later, one Zombie and skeleton walked out of the room, and Leena moved quickly.
She decapitated the skeleton instantly, dodged the Zombie’s attack, and decapitated it a moment later before crushing the skeleton’s head with her food as it fell down on the ground.
I couldn’t help but become surprised by the practiced ease she had finished the two undead before moving forward.
A few steps later, we come across the body of a man; I don’t know who it is, as it is face down, and they have done quite a work on him.
Another zombie came out, and immediately, Leena killed it, and at the same time, two skeletons burst out of the room behind and directly went for Dan.
I froze before moving to help him, but it seemed like I was worried for nothing. The moment they attacked him, all the fear and hesitation had disappeared from his eyes, and he attacked them.
He decapitated them in a single strike before crushing their skulls with his feet, though with much less grace than Leena had.
“Try to avoid using the skills; these undead are swarming type enemies, and we are going to face a lot more when we come down,” she said to Dan without stopping.
It took a few minutes for us to reach the stairs, and by then, we had finished nineteen undead.
Soon we reached the stairs, and to my horror, it was blocked by a large number of undead. Some people are fighting them already, but it is clear that they are having a hard time fighting them.
Seeing the sheer number of them froze me on my spot.
“We will need to clear them; it is the only way out,” she said, looking at me especially.
“Ok,” I said after a moment of silence.
As I had said, Leena moved forward and began to hack the undead with four other guards, two of them were part of our entourage that came from the Greltheaven.
They begin to hack the zombies and cut the skeletons, but there are too many of them; nearly a hundred and more and more are piling up every second, even from behind; the few are coming, which are being handled by the Dan.
Hun!
For nearly a minute, I watched a massacre before suddenly, one Zombie slipped and came toward me.
Leena and others ahead could not help me; they were swarmed by the undead, same for Dan. He is busy with a group of skeletons, and by the time he comes, it will be too late.
I will have to deal with it myself.
I knew I would have to fight the undead, but still seeing one coming toward me couldn’t help but shake me, given its grotesque appearance.
There is no other choice than to fight it, or I could choose to die in a very horrible way, as I have seen few people do in the past few minutes.
I gulped down my fear and stepped toward the zombie, appearing directly in front of it.
“Die!” I shouted louder than I needed to and swung my rapier at it, with enchantment runes lighting up across the rapier’s blade.
Pachak!
The blade of my rapier touched the neck of a zombie before cutting through it like butter till its head flew in the air.
I watched it with open mouth, and even the embarrassment of unnecessary shouting vanished from my eyes as I looked at the zombie’s head rolling across the stairs.
I had not used any skills, just my strength and enchantment of rapier, which is mainly the reason why I was able to cut through the neck of the zombie.
The neck is the hardest part of the zombie and, thus, the hardest to cut; one needs a sharp blade and sufficient power behind the attack to cut or just needs a sword like mine, which had been enchanted with sharpness enchantment.
I am really glad that I have not sold this blade, it would have solved many of my problems, but I did not.
I wish I could enjoy my victory properly, but I could not as a few seconds after I cut down the zombie, another one came, and it did not come alone; it had brought a skeleton.
Brimming with more confidence, I readied myself, and just when the undead appeared, I moved.
I appeared to the left of the skeleton and slashed at it, avoiding its sword, which was coming at me at about the same speed as mine but with the skill of a child.
Khak
I avoided its sword and cut through it before taking a step right and hacking toward the zombie.
Pachac!
I decapitated it while avoiding its rusted sword by an inch.
Hun!
I had just finished that when I saw a skull coming toward my legs, it scared me, but I reacted immediately, crushing the skull with a satisfied crunch, and was quite surprised that it had been crushed.
If it had been a human skull, it wouldn’t have broken up so easily, but I did not think about it further and looked ahead and was quite relieved when I saw no zombies or skeletons coming toward me.
I did not use any skills; the first time, I did not do that intentionally, but the second time I did that intentionally.
I heard the warning from Leena and know I have to preserve my skills and use them at the right time, and there will be the time I need to use them, so much so that I won’t have the energy to use them further.
I have seen the number of zombies and flashes I got from windows of other rooms; I saw more of them coming from the seas.
So, there is no doubt I will need to fight a lot of them to survive, and like now, my guards would not always be available.
Little more than five minutes passed when we were finally able to clear the hallway. I have finished nine of them alone.
I couldn’t help but feel proud of myself for that.
As we cleared the stairs, we stepped into the second floor, which was filled with undead, with some humans fighting against them, but it seemed like a losing battle seeing the sheer number of the undead coming at them.
What was even more horrifying was the scene on the first-floor hall, where the largest group of humans was fighting.
I could not see what was happening properly, but the scenes I saw chilled my heart, and we were going there.
“Undead are coming,” warned Leena to those who were watching the battle below with horrified eyes.
I immediately focused on the coming undead, and they were more than what we had faced on the stairs.
I could see the sigh of relief coming on the faces of a few humans as the undead came toward us, lessening the pressure on them while some among us cursed, seeing numbers, but nobody hesitated and attacked the undead as they appeared.
I also moved; there was far too many undead; they could not protect me against all. I will need to kill those coming toward me.
Fighting the nine undead have given me confidence and a pretty good idea about their abilities, and the best thing I learned is that they are dumb bastard; they may have speed and strength, but they don’t have any skills.
They are just dumbly swinging their weapons without any skills.
Pachac!
So, as I appeared in front of them, I moved by dodging their attack before swinging my sword, cutting the zombie’s head and skeleton through the chest, before avoiding the attack of the last skeleton and moving forward with a slash.
Crunch Crunch!
I cut the head of the third skeleton and crushed its head first in two stumps of my feet; the head of the first skeleton, which had part of the chest attached to it, had resisted a little before getting crushed.
I had read somewhere that it is harder to crush a skeleton which had more parts of the body attached to it.
So, it seemed to be true; the part of the chest being attached created a greater resistance.
As I finished with them, we moved forward, and more undead came toward us; we faced them as we moved toward the stairs, which were getting closer with every step we took.
Soon, we had reached halfway, destroying hundreds of hundred; I myself had finished over thirty of them.
As we reached halfway, we have met a group of four; just a few minutes ago, there were six people, and now, they’re aware of only four.
All four of them are guards; their employees seemed already been dead, and not that I could blame them for that.
In this place, in front of such a large number of undead, it is very hard to defend their employer.
Even their safety is not guaranteed, much less of their employers.
If I did not know how to fight, then I would have died too. It is a simple harsh truth.
Rip!
Five undead came at me this time and, for the first time, were able to land an attack on me.
Giving me a cut across my stomach.
I shuddered when I thought about the infection; I would have, but I bit down those thoughts and fought the undead without using Skills, despite wanting to use them very badly.
I am getting a glimpse of the downstairs now and then, and seeing that; I know I cannot use them, not yet, not unless I reach downstairs, where I will need to use every Skill I have.
Everybody seemed to understand that, as nobody was using their skills; they were killing them through the sheer power of their attributes and combat skills, which they learned through practice and experience.
We moved forward, and two other teams joined us, taking our numbers to seventeen, which increased our power, and we began to move swiftly.
Finally, we have reached the stairs, where another big group of eleven was fighting, and strangely middle of them, three non-combat personnel.
All three of them huddle together, with their shaking hands holding the swords; of the three people, one of them, I know and am quite surprised, seeing him being alive.
Though I shouldn’t be, of the eleven of those who are fighting, two of them are mages. They were our mages, part of our security team, and seemed to be casting shields to protect the non-combat whenever the undead attacked them.
Their eyes lit up as our big group joined, they were swamped, and if we had not arrived, it would have been quite bad on them.
Some of the people from their group seemed to have died, on whose bodies we stepped foot; I even saw the familiar face of mason guild Guildmaster’s face among the dead.
“Remus,” said Locke with a shaking voice as our group joined theirs.
Pachac!
“Locke,” I said as I decapitated two zombies coming toward me at once before moving to the skeletons.
“I had not quite believed when you had said you fought against the rogue, but it seemed it like, it had been true,” he said mirthlessly from behind.
I did not reply more than hmm, as I killed one undead after another, as they kept coming at me.
Rip Rip Rip
As time passed, more came, and some of them were able to cut me, but these were just minor cuts.
I have learned quite a lot from instructor David.
One of the skills he used me to use to turn his blade ethereal when it touched me, and the deeper it went, the greater pain it would give me. The pain was so bad that I collapsed if his blade went deeper than an inch.
It had trained me to avoid the deeper cuts, which are now helping.
Pachac Crunch Pachac
We killed one undead after another while slowly climbing down the stairs.
I think I had crossed a number hundred by the time we had reached halfway in stairs, where things became even more intense.
The mages, who began to rest after we joined, began to cast the spell now and then.
With everyone fighting other than three, we cut through the undead and finally reached the first floor, where we saw the scenes which chilled our hearts and filled us with horror.
A man beside Locke had pissed himself, and I wish I could blame him as I am moment doing it myself, seeing the sheer number of undead in the huge hall on the first floor.
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