The World Cataclysm

Chapter 23: One Against a Hundred

As he dashed towards the group of zombies, he enhanced his body with Reinforced Breathing and Mana enhancement, increasing his strength and agility by 20%. Barging in the ranks of zombies, he lifted his Rusty Sword and slashed at heads of zombies.

Attracted to him, several dozens of them rushed at him, growling and roaring as they started pouring from everywhere. Facing relentless attacks from zombies, Dave killed another zombie, at the same time defending himself from them. Blood and heads flew around him, as he had already killed more than 10 zombies.

Due to the combined roars of zombies, more and more zombies started rushing at him. After less than a minute, more than 50 zombies had gathered in a market street and still more were rushing towards him. They started pouring from everywhere: from buildings, shops and other streets.

'Finally, the thrill of a fight!'

He sensed how adrenaline started rushing through his body, as his movements became faster and sharper. It was his first time fighting with such a big group after he had returned back in time, and he had already started longing for such sensations. Slashing, piercing, blocking and dodging zombies, Dave seemed to be dancing surrounded by zombies.

[You have learnt Basic Swordsmanship (LVL 1)]

[Regression is reacting towards your skill]

[Basic Swordsmanship (LVL 1) has turned into Swordsmanship (LVL 5)]

'Ohh...I found it strange that it never showed up before, yet I think I've never performed all basic movements with a sword. '

When he had been hunting with others, he particularly picked small groups of zombies, so others would gain more battle experience from it, yet he had never gone all out. Indeed, it was safe that way, but his past life had clearly shown him that high gains came along with dangers.

His senses were screaming inside him, as more zombies came rushing at him, yet Dave ignored it. He obviously understood that fighting against so many zombies might cost him his life if he wasn't cautious enough, yet he wanted to see how strong he was respective to the current timeline.

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Reaching another degree of danger, he felt how everything had been slowing down in his eyes, as he started moving faster than before.

[You have learnt Battle Focus (LVL 1)]

[Regression is reacting towards your skill]

[Battle Focus (LVL 1) has turned into Battle Focus (LVL 4)]

Battle Focus was a skill which can be learned only after several dangerous encounters. More dangers you will face, higher its level will grow. It was similar to the battle experience which can be increased only during actual battles. Tensing his mind and concentrating on zombies, Dave decided to ignore notifications from the system.

Seeing how he was welcomed warmly by zombies, he couldn't help but chuckle inwardly. Defending against a wave of relentless attacks, Dave's sense of danger had screamed louder than before. He poured all his strength into his legs and used Flash Step to retreat backwards. At the same time as he retreated, two shadows rushed from the crowd of zombies, sprinting towards him.

'Finally, Hunters are out from the crowd.'

Killing both of them was even more important than killing all zombies rushing at him since 2 Hunters posed the biggest threat to him. He can follow their movements due to his Mana Enhancement and Reinforced Breathing, yet with mana and stamina running out, he may not deal with them after several minutes.

Retreating backwards, Dave covered himself with Mana Barrier to defend himself against combined attack from two Hunters. He used the same tactic as when he had dealt with 2 Hunters before, immobilising first with Mana Threads, killing the second one, then beheading the Hunter who was tangled in Mana Threads.

Killing both of them in a span of few breaths, Dave rushed to the narrow alley, which he had chosen before he had started killing zombies in the market. It had only one entrance point, meaning that he won't be attacked from behind. He planned to deal with all left zombies in the small alley, limiting the numbers of zombies which could attack him.

As fewer zombies were attacking him, he was able to catch a breath and slaughter zombies coming to him. If they even had a small part of human intelligence, they won't have attacked him in that alley since it was a direct path to get killed. Driven purely by hunger, they served experience points to Dave, who was killing them in batches.

After some time, when Dave had killed most of the zombies in the alley, two Giants came stomping towards him. They were slowest among the group of zombies, so they were the last to reach him. Giants didn't even mind other ordinary zombies, as they stomped and crushed everyone who was in front of them.

Even though he had already spent all the mana points that he had, Dave didn't fear 2 huge Giants paving their path towards him since, even without mana, his 16 points in strength was enough to kill them. If he had to evaluate the strength of the low rank 1 Giants, then he would have said that they had 15 points in strength.

"Phew...Interesting, how many Treasure Chests I will get?"

Having his thoughts already drifting, he nimbly dodged the punch from the Giant, as he moved towards its backside, which was a blind spot for a Giant. Even though Giant will still attack him, losing its prey before its eyes will confuse it, buying a time to kill it.

Jumping at its shoulders from behind, Dabe beheaded a Giant with a clean cut on its neck. As its head fell and rolled on the ground, dead Giant also followed after its head, falling with a thud. Unfazed with the death of its kin, second Giant sent a punch towards him, yet quickly, the same fate as with the first one had awaited it.

Finishing off other zombies which particularly weren't a threat to him, Dave was able to breathe out a sigh of relief. As the battle had ended, Dave deactivated Reinforced Breathing and felt as he was drained from energy. Without any additional adrenaline flowing in his blood, Dave was also mentally exhausted since his concentration had reached an apex during the battle.

'Ehh...There is always a price to pay to display strength higher than your level. Reinforced Breathing drains too much stamina depending on the body stats, while Battle Focus puts a strain on the mind. Feeling myself as a shrimp now.'

Grumbling inwardly, Dave opened his bag and searched for something inside. A few moments later, he had a loaf of bread and vial with a blue liquid in his hands. They were Restoration Bread and Basic Mana Potion that he had gotten from 2 Hunters when they had settled in a residential area.

Without any further thoughts, he ate Restoration Bread and drank Basic Mana Potion right after the bread.

[You have consumed Restoration Bread. In the next 5 minutes, your stamina will restore faster]

[You have consumed Basic Mana Potion. Your mana will be restored by 10 points]

[You have consumed an excess of mana. Your mana reserves are increased by 1 point.]

Reading system notification, Dave smiled in pleasure since his maximum amount of mana had increased by a point. He had especially saved the Basic Mana Potion for such a moment. Drinking it with full mana and no mana bore the same result of a 1-point increase in mana reserves. Better not to waste it!

As he was recovering his stamina, Dave decided to stroll through the market and collect his spoils. No matter how much he hated ransacking the corpses, Dave had already grown accustomed to such dirty work.

'I heard that top Enhancers had items to automatically collect Survival Coins. I'm so envious. Hopefully, I would also get one in the future.'

Treasure Chests were low in number, so it didn't take a lot of time to gather them, yet Survival Coins were another deal. They were scattered all over the dead bodies and wasted a lot of time collecting them.

Approximately, after 10 or 15 minutes, he checked every dead zombie and gathered everything he could find lying on the ground. He was able to count close to a hundred dead bodies, including evolved zombies.

Fortunately, he had found 3 White Chests, 2 of them were dropped from Hunters and another one came from a Giant. On the other hand, he found no Treasure Chest next to the second Giant.