I saw a whole band of them running toward me and my body shivered with a mix of excitement and fear.

To fight them all? Moreover at the same time? I didn’t want to make a joke out of myself. So I decided to run. No, not run away from them, but run in front of them.

See, there is technique that I remember called kiting, which is a bit difficult to perform, if you are slow as a turtle that is.

But I had enough speed to go against the fastest sprinter of our colony, so what were those clowns to me.

I would have loved to disable the queen in the middle of this mayhem, but she was on the other side of the canyon or the room and between was the wall of zombies checking me out.

So I started running with all of them following behind me and ran out of the room. Unfortunately not all of them really followed me and ten stayed behind to take care of their queen. I snickered thinking they were loyal even in death.

{High Stamina Regeneration has risen to lv 8}

{Stamina Preservation has risen to lv 7}

Having managed to create enough distance from them, I started attacking them air bullets, which were easier to make and cost efficient, but they didn’t have much effect on the zombies. Their Exoskeleton was too hard.

{Air Bullet has risen to lv 9}

I even tried lacing the air bullets with a spray of acid before launching them, but even that didn’t’ stop anyone. Though Acid Mists level did rise by two levels.

So, I changed my strategy and started aiming for their legs. After all my late team leader always used to say, ‘Why waste time fighting enemies like tanks head on, it is better to disable them and then eat them alive.’

Though I am sure those weren’t her exact words, but as they say, ‘Do whatever works.’

And aiming for legs turned out to be more effective than anything else.

I was able to disable five and even earned myself a new skill [Marksmanship] which improved my aim and decreased my chances of missing the target by 4% every level and another level in air bullet.

I had been running in front of the zombie for the last ten minutes, though it seemed easy at first, but sprinting at your full speed and then constructing, aiming and firing spells was more taxing then even fighting others head on.

Though the level gain in [Haste], [Clarity] and [Perception] felt real good, but they didn’t help much otherwise.

The thing which amazed me the most was their immunity to pain. NO matter how many times the air bullets struck their faces, the acid destroyed their exoskeletons, no matter whose leg I destroyed with my excellent marksmanship which was already at lv four, no one and I mean none of them cried in pain or even shivered, trembled, or left the group in fear of getting hurt.

It was like they things like, pain and emotions held no meaning to them.

“Maybe that’s it! Maybe because they are dead, they are not bound by emotions and the like and are free from the limitations of a living being! Maybe that is also the reason why they can display strength, endurance and agility unlike what the stats of a being of their rank should allow them!”

{Knowledge has risen to lv 4}

[+1 Knowledge.]

It was a decisive find. I was able to find out that no matter how hurt they got they would keep on coming after me until either their master asked them to stopped they died.

“Hum… well that’s good.”

While kitting allowed me to weed out the weaker ones, but even then I was only able to kill five of them using a mix of [Spear manifestation] and [Root].

Turns out the spell root could not only be used to bind others, but when I used spear manifestation on them, the roots themselves turned into spears and stabbed the bodies of everyone they were in contact with.

But the spears turned out to be too fragile and dull to kill every single one of them. In the end only the five weak zombies, who I had already weeded out by breaking their legs died and I gained 110experience, before the kiting stopped working. The rest of the zombies were too strong to die from the barrage of constant air bullets and spikes.

Other than the Experience from killing the zombie I also got four levels in [Root] and two in [Spike]

I was at a disadvantage. They had no stamina and my stamina was reaching its end. I had once again entered the queen’s quarters, but seeing the guardians waiting for my arrival, my will shook a little.

The moment it happened, my body gave in and [Haste] got cancelled forcefully. My speed dropped, and five of the fastest zombies caught up to me in a matter of seconds.

“Yes, yes, kill him!” and hearing their masters excited shouts, they jumped at me.

Covering their bodies in black miasma, which was even stronger than my acid, they appeared in front of me like plague, ready to devour me and I wasn’t able to dodge.

Looking for a way to dissipate the mist, I hurriedly used the combination of [Acid mist] together with [Mend Wave] which had once proved to be quite useful.

I was only hoping for the acid wave to push back the miasma a little bit and give me room to breathe, but instead the acid wave worked better than my expectation. It not only pushed away the miasma, but also burned it down. And while some of the miasma still remained intact, the echo following closely behind easily took care of the rest.

I even gained the skill and pinned the thought in my mind to try experimenting with my skills in free time.

[Skill: Acid Wave gained.]

“Take that, you mother fuck-“

I wanted to celebrate for having found a way to defeat their strongest attack, but I couldn’t, because the zombies were right over my head. The acid wave defeated the miasma, but it wasn’t able to push the zombies back.

*Slam*

One of them tackled my body and sent me flying, and another jumped at the opportunity it had found at my sudden lapse in concentration.

It tried to take a bite out of my head, but I maneuvered my neck across its mandibles and safely dodged his attack. It missed, but I didn’t. I retaliated with an air bullet to its face which the zombie tried to dodge by copying my motions, but because of its low dexterity and rotting joints it failed to do so.

[Reflex has risen to level 16]

*Bang*

The air bullet stuck its eyes and *Plop* busted it apart.

“Serves you right!” I yelled in happiness, but it didn’t give me much time to celebrate and instead of crying or shouting in pain, it positioned itself and instead of running away, looked at me with its left eye and gunned toward my neck.

“Bastard…!”

I knew there was no salvation for it and turning my leg into a spike gave it an uppercut.

The spike easily entered the bottom of his jaw, went forward and pierced through its joke of a skull and directly made paste out of whatever that remained of its brain after the worm had snacked on it.

[Surprise attack has risen to lv 8]

[Spike has risen to lv 22]

[Inter. Martial arts has risen to lv 6]

[Killed Zombie ant RK 1 / LV 17 / 44EXP gained.]

Cold dark fluid splashed on my face, as I recovered my leg from its skull.

The moment I pushed it out of its head, I dropped on the ground.

I was going to stand up, but before I could, a zombie which I had somehow missed came from behind and bit my shoulder.

“GOOD JOB! Hold down this fucker and don’t let him go! He is almost here. Just don’t let him go!” The queen yelled aesthetically, seeing me getting pinned down by one of her own.

“Ahhhh!” I cried.

I didn’t have the sense to think about what the queen was taking about.

I tied to stand up, but I couldn’t do so and got pinned to the ground under its immense strength. I even tried to shake the zombie away, but instead of falling down, its mandible entered deeper into my shoulders and my health made a sky dive.

[-24HP], [HP: 100/?]

Tears appeared in my eyes, as I saw the zombies encircling me from all the sides. Even the zombies guarding the queen came to join in the fun.

My stamina was down, my heath was falling. My body felt heavy and it was becoming difficult and difficult to breathe.

My blood was leaking and mana was running low. I didn’t know what to do. And while I was slowly loosing the confidence to defeat the zombies and put the queen to sleep another bad news assaulted me.

The queen stopped her zombies from killing me and said, “No, no, no… stop for a second. I just had an excellent idea. Why don’t you become one of us?”

And I knew where this was going.

“Fuck you…!” I shouted and started turning right and left, but my body had turned too heavy and my strength was draining fast.

“Give it a thought~”

“Never will I stoop so low and become garbage like you.”

I used [Heal] with hopes that it would improve my condition, but it gave me a surprising result instead.

A golden glow covered my body and my health started rising again. My stamina didn’t increase, but the heaviness I was felling subsided little by little.

But the process of recovery was slow and I could already see a worm coming out from the mouth of a zombie standing near me.

The ant dropped on the floor just as the worm left its body. It stretched on the floor and then slowly started crawling toward me.

“Don’t worry, it will be alright.” The queen smiled brightly.

“Fuck this shit…!” I yelled, but I was crying inside. I didn’t want to become a zombie like them. I had many place to see, many ants to meet, many insects to kill.

“There I no fucking way I’ll succumb to this shit!”

I thought I was going to die, and the thought deepened a little more when the duration of [Heal] ended. I panicked a little, but then remembered that there was still the [Echo] left, but my heart stared racing when the [Echo] didn’t appear.

“The hell…!” I thought, but then I felt the pain coming from my shoulder reducing a little. Following which the zombie holding me down started growling.

“In pain?”

I couldn’t believe that.

I pushed my back onto the zombie and its mandible easily came out of my shoulder.

“What the actual fuck?”

I really couldn’t believe myself. Was it luck? Some kind of divine intervention saving me from the cruel fate of turning into a zombie?

I hurriedly stood up, back flipped over the zombie standing (now on the ground) behind me, as the worm came even closer.

I fired an air bullet at the worm just as my feet touched the ground, squinting because of the golden light that was covering the zombie and the worm died without any resistance. Just like that.

“Not so tough are you?”

I spat on the side, feeling disgusting, looking at the black blood flowing out of the worms blasted head. Nodding my head to the masterpiece I had made with the worm, I finally looked at the zombie who had failed to hold me down, to see what made it falter and release me. And saw it writhing on the ground.

A golden glow covered its body, while its yellow exoskeleton was bubbling under it. Its eyes had already melted under the effect of god knows what kind of a bio chemical attack that golden glow was.

Moreover the zombie who had no emotions or feelings, whose nerves didn’t work, was crying in pain.

“Gaaaa!”

The sound that its coarse broken throat emitted wasn’t easy on the ears, but to me who had to bear their trauma inducing nature alone, it was world’s greatest music.

“You deserved it.” I said out in cold emotionless voice and it felt pretty great.

A few seconds later the golden glow subsided and I, the queen who had turned mute, and the zombies who were back stepping, clearly saw the result of [Heal] on an undead.

I was not a fool who wasn’t even able to make the connection with my Missing [Echo] and the golden glow which had burned the zombie as if it was napalm.

Puss leaking ulcers had formed all over its exoskeleton. Its eyes had melted. Its legs had swollen to the size of its abdomen. Its abdomen had already exploded and its insides were all on the floor for everyone to see.

All in all, what even a wind cannonball wasn’t able to achieve, a minor [Heal] had done, with a lot of margin and power to spare I would say.

The only conjecture I could arrive at seeing the result of [Heal] was that maybe it had tried to bring the ant back to its original state from that of a zombie, but because there was no ant left in this thing, it had instead failed and acted as the world’s greatest acid against the zombie.

Or

Maybe because [Heal] was an evolution of [Faith] which depended on god’s benevolence and the zombies were undead beings, so it had reverse effect on them, and rather than healing them, it acted as kind of poison to them.

“Seems like I have found a great weapon to fight against you guys.”

[Eye of terror has risen to lv 7]

My eyes meet with the queen and I smirked. She gritted her jaw in anger and her eyes turned red.

“You wait, you fucking piece of shit! Just you wait, let him arrive and we’ll see who will have the last laugh.”