Chapter Thirteen

Divine lightning was terrifying.

It was terrifying, but costly. If she didn’t level up, she would have had 100 charge left. What if she didn’t kill all the zombies? She would have been helpless. As powerful as the divine lightning was, she needed to save it as a last resort or if they needed to bombard something.

Her eyes ran over the melted bricks on each side of the alley. If they needed to siege a castle or something, she was the woman for the job. She doubted anything could survive a direct hit from that.

Though despite the results, it didn’t seem that good at killing crowds. If they weren’t packed so tightly and she wasn’t so close, she doubted she could have killed that many with one blast of divine lightning. The fact that the buildings on each side survived with only some melted bricks proved it was more of a wide beam of lightning than an area of effect attack.

Though she wouldn’t tempt fate. As tempting as it was to find the elemental fleet and smite the flagship, she was sure they had countermeasures. She doubted she was the only one with divine power at her fingertips. Well, she knew for sure she wasn’t the only one, as Sereia most likely had some sort of divine water, though she wasn’t sure what that would do.

Elysia trotted back to her father’s crushed truck and slipped on her ring. The moment it came in contact with her skin, it glowed as she felt a wave of weakness. Fortunately, it passed a second later. A quick check of her charge told her it took back 3000 of her charge, confirming it was active.

After storing away the truck and her ball bearing bucket, she picked up her knives. She took one last glance at the devastated alley, then trotted down the back alley toward the hardware store.

Instead of killing off the last zombie horde and at this point, she knew it really was the last one, she entered the hardware store. That divine lightning bolt’s crack had to have traveled for kilometers. She was surprised her sister didn’t check on her, though maybe Sereia trusted Ione to keep an eye on her.

Their need to watch over her really didn’t make sense to her. Sure, she made some stupid decisions at times, but she survived on her own for this long. She didn’t need babysitters. Though having their support filled her with warmth, if only they trusted her more. To be fair, her recent decisions weren’t the best, but if Sereia tried to use them against her, she had plenty of ammo to throw back at her. Of the two of them, Sereia definitely made more impulsive decisions.

Like the time she used a year’s worth of allowance to buy some antique, thinking she could flip it only to find out it was a fake. Last time she saw it, the pocket watch was in her closet. Maybe it was still there. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to stash it in her ring as future ammo. One can never have enough ammo against a sibling, especially a twin.

Suddenly, she wanted to crush the dungeon as fast as possible just to see if their house survived, but there was no point in rushing. If it survived the merge, it would survive a little longer.

To take her mind off their family home, Elysia trotted through the dark back storeroom of the hardware store into the familiar aisles. A prod of her bond with her sister told her Sereia moved on somewhere to the west, probably in one of the clothing stores.

The temptation to throw everything she could find into her storage manifested, but she pushed it down, knowing most of it would be useless for her. Besides, it would only clutter her ring. What if she needed to use her divine lightning? If she had an entire hardware store in her ring, it would take forever to empty it. Even if she just held the stuff until she reached Umbra, she doubted there was much more room in the storage room.

Instead of wondering randomly, she went back to where she found the ball bearings and grabbed another bucket of a slightly smaller sized bearing. Next she checked out the nuts and bolts section, only to frown upon finding they were in separate drawers. It wouldn’t be worth grabbing a bucket and dumping each drawer into it.

Should she just store the entire drawer unit? She may as well worst case she placed it in her bedroom closet for storage. She doubted she would need the thousands of nuts and bolts stored in it for one dungeon. Still, who knew when the next time she had a chance to stock up on small metal objects would be? She may as well prepare when she could.

With that thought, Elysia pressed her hand against one of the drawer units, causing it to disappear. She repeated the process with the three others, though by the fourth it took a few moments longer to store it.

Curious, she tried to store a box of screws only to find nothing happened.

A glance inside her storage space showed there should be plenty of room, but apparently there wasn’t. Maybe there was a limit on the amount of objects she could store. She did just pilfer thousands of nuts and bolts, so it made sense. The Chrotile made it seem like the total storage space is the only limit, but they probably didn’t think she would store likely over ten thousand little throwable metal objects. All the more reason to only bring what she needed in her ring. What if she found another serpent to strip of scales or something? She didn’t want to waste perfectly good disposable lightning anchors.

The thought of removing her father’s truck presented itself, but she shook it away. She would return the truck to their family home whether or not her family home survived. It just felt right to return it.

On her way toward the door, a prick of pain in her bicep drew her attention downward to the knives tucked there. She spun on her heels, remembering one of the reasons she entered the hardware store.

Some searching later, she spotted a box of shop towels in the automotive section. She tore open the box and grabbed one of the white towels, then wiped her knives clean. Knowing the dungeon would reset when she completed it, she dropped the now black towel onto the floor, then returned her attention to the box.

Curious if it would work with lower quantity items, Elysia attempted to store the box of fifty shop towels, finding it worked. Either there was a limit on how much of one material she could store or the towels snuck under the quantity limit.

Before the temptation to stuff more things into her ring got the better of her, Elysia trotted out the front door, then turned the corner to face the zombies. For some absurd reason, she found several of the zombies weren’t stuck in the back, they just blindly shuffled in place as if stuck on a wall while auto running.

As usual, Ione sat next to her in guard mode, though a hungry glint in her eyes gave away what she really wanted.

Obliging, Elysia withdrew a handful of nuts, curious how they would respond compared to the ball bearings. She tossed them underhanded over the top of the zombie blockage, only to realize she didn’t have any lightning to release. Her face reddened as she watched the nuts harmlessly fall on to the horde. Fortunately, the brain-dead zombies didn’t react to the attempted attack, allowing her to retreat into the hardware store.

With now practiced motions, she siphoned off a couple dozen strands, deciding to stop there as she would need to top off before they made the push into the cemetery.

She remained in the hardware store until the headache dissipated. So much for thinking she had enough lightning queued when she entered the dungeon. Though she was hardly in danger, at least until they entered the cemetery.

This time armed with lightning, Elysia trotted out the door and stood before the zombie horde. Like last time she withdrew a handful of nuts, then with an underhanded throw, she tossed them over the top of the zombies.

A six strand lightning strike followed. Spots filled her vision, but she persevered in keeping control, as usual. This time, she paid careful attention to how the lightning reacted to her control. The lightning bolt was sluggish to respond to sharp turns as if momentum carried it forward but is soon as she directed it at a nut spinning just above a zombie, it shot over.

Unlike how she expected, however, the lightning didn’t jump off the nut to hit any zombies. Instead, it streaked through the air to the next nut after melting down the first with a little prompting from her.

This time, the nuts dropped into the horde of zombies, causing the lightning bolt to tear through several on its way to its target. The sequence continued from there with a slightly weaker lightning bolt tearing through helpless zombies as it reached each nut until there were none left.

Unfortunately, her lightning grounded out on the wall, with half the zombies remaining. She withdrew a handful of bolts, this time ready to toss them at the remaining zombies, only for them to turn in her direction in unison, no longer stuck in the alley with half their numbers killed.

The bodies of the brethren would have at least slowed them down, but Ione and her impatience swooped in and absorbed them the moment they died.

Elysia jumped back as she tossed the bolts directly at the shambling horde, releasing a twelve strand lightning bolt a moment later. The lightning bolt tore through another half of the zombie horde, but in her haste, she lost control of the lightning bolt, causing it to the ground out before she could jump it to a nut.

In a panic, she launched another six strand lightning bolt using the last of her stored up strands. Of course, yet again, it halved the group of zombies, no longer considered a horde at just over a dozen.

She glanced at Ione for help, only to find the feline busy absorbing the fallen zombies, not paying attention or ignoring her. Probably ignoring her as she seemed still annoyed that Elysia vaporized several hundred zombies with her divine lightning.

Thinking quick she focused on her core as she turned to run. She siphoned off a single-strand then spun back toward the zombies, throwing knife in each hand. Her ring shined as lightning coursed down her arms to her knives.

If she couldn’t handle these weak zombies, she wouldn’t hear the end of it from Sereia.

Like old times, she dashed into melee range, stabbing her knives into zombies as she passed, causing them to lock up and release an inhuman scream. Despite her inelegance, each zombie fell with a single stab to their chest before they could defend themselves.

Anti-climatically, Elysia stood surrounded by zombie corpses, knives still sparking with electricity. That was way too easy. They were much harder to kill with her old spear. Was her lightning that much stronger now compared to her level? Not that she would complain about the easy kills. She still would rather avoid close range fighting.

The only reason she was willing to risk it was because she knew Ione would jump in if she was really in danger. Maybe her lightning had some purifying effects, killing the zombies a lot easier. Whatever the reason, she’d rather avoid doing that in the future.

She withdrew another shop rag and cleaned her zombie gut covered knives before sheathing them.

Before venturing further, she focused inward at her core. With her mental hand, she encircled her divine spark then siphoned off over forty strands, finding it much easier than before as if something clicked when she panic grabbed the previous strand. That didn’t mean it was easy. A hammering migraine pounded away in her head, but like usual, it dissipated soon after she released control of her divine spark.

Now armed, Elysia trotted toward the cemetery with Ione following close behind. As if summoned, Sereia came trotting out of a clothing store as they passed.

With her family together, she reached the gates of the cemetery. She paused for a moment, tempted to check the notifications she heard after killing the last zombie with her knives. After a moment of thought, she discarded the idea, not in the mood for the system’s sass. Maybe after she conquered the dungeon with her family.