Moving through the sullied, almost empty streets of their current path, Grey took the lead, rushing into every new turn with his dagger drawn, tearing through the throat of each zombie he encountered.
Silver was right, Grey thought. The zombies along this way were few, each turn holding at most three to six zombies.
Facing them was not easy for Grey, but at least it wasn’t as ambiguous and impossible as he’d imagined it would be.
Whether it was because of the large forest terrain surrounding the road, with only a few buildings scattered around, or for some special reason, there simply weren’t as many of them present here.
Maybe Grey had turned up lucky today.
However, he did not feel lucky all the time.
Making it to another turn, Grey spotted only one zombie patrolling the street.
Its size was not more than half his own, its body rather skinny and scrawny. And yet, its appearance was terrifying — large wings the size of human hands, a body shaped like an overgrown mosquito fused grotesquely with something human, and large, globe-like eyes darting around the entire vicinity at lightning speed.
Without a doubt, he was staring at another level one Mutated.
And just like the first encounter...
Grey wasn’t given time to prepare.
The horrid beast had spotted him the instant he stepped into the street and sprang forward at monster speed, closing the distance within a mere second, legs stretched out to clamp onto his body, its twisted snout launching forward with ill intent.
Grey leapt to the side, letting the flying abomination miss him by an inch.
He grunted, shuffling back a few meters, only to be instantly faced once again by the mutated mosquito.
It was fast, deadly so. And this time two of its dagger-like legs flashed with lightning-fast reflex at Grey’s face.
He parried them, swinging his dagger in return. The force of the clash caused his shoulder to buckle, his entire arm crying out in threat to give up against the heavy impact.
Grey blinked a few times as the horrid snout sprang out at his throat at the very same moment its legs flashed toward him in a second line of attack.
"Damn!" he grunted, doing his best to sidestep away from both.
He was fast, but not fast enough.
A part of the snout collided with his shoulder instead, just a gentle graze, as many would interpret it.
Yet the effect of this attack was nothing short of devastating.
"Damn it..." Grey squinted his eyes as a horrible pain shot up his arm, his entire right hand from the shoulder downward losing all will to obey his commands, slinging down like a broken harness strapped to his body.
Grey leapt back several times to put distance between himself and the mutated mosquito, sparing his arm a desperate glance before turning back to his opponent.
His face paled.
Grey’s entire arm had shrunk, the flesh withering to little more than dried skin stretched over bone. He bit his lower lip, not from the immense pain shooting up his arm — though it hurt like hell, he could not deny that — but from a single, chilling thought. ’That was just from a simple graze. What would have happened if it had actually made its mark?’
Whatever happened in this battle from now on, Grey knew the corrupted snout of a proboscis the abomination possessed should not graze him — talk less of touching him.
The brief pause between the two had finally ended, and the mutated mosquito was on the move again.
Its wings flapped into a hypnotic buzz as it tore seamlessly through the air at Grey, its mutated snout aimed first, like a battering ram ready to pierce clean through its opponent.
Grey gritted his teeth and shifted all his body weight in desperation to his left, avoiding the twisted stinger meant to pierce him square through the heart, and...
Swoosh!
That attack... was a feint.
As soon as Grey had shuffled out of the way, the mutated mosquito made an impossible turn mid-air, a disfigured leg snapping forward at Grey’s throat, ready to rip right through it, too fast to dodge.
This was an attack similar to how it had struck before — feint a move, then reveal its true game plan.
However, it had made only one simple, but costly, mistake.
Grey was no fool.
At this, he gritted his teeth and braced himself...
Not to die, but to retaliate.
[Dash!]
He dove at the enemy with no fear or hesitation in his movements, ducking under the attack and maneuvering around the horrid abomination in a mere second.
His dagger snapped forward and found its mark at the cervix, connecting the tyrant’s head to its wretched body.
It shrieked, its body convulsing with the agony that erupted through its being.
Yet it did not give up.
Its hind legs twisted unnaturally and whipped forward at Grey’s gut.
[Dash!] He avoided it with a quick jump backward, allowing both legs to clash against each other with thunderous force.
Force that would have surely shattered his spine had they found their mark.
Yet, he was not done.
Grey lunged once more, and his dagger flashed through the air with desperate, unnerving precision. This time it sliced clean through the cervix of the mutated mosquito, severing its head cleanly from its grotesque lower body.
At this, the entire battle went still.
Then the body of the monstrosity buckled twice, and collapsed onto the ground, waves of green blood pouring out from its wounds.
And as though the world was congratulating Grey on his victory, rain tore from the dark clouds and began falling heavily, filling the entire place with nothing but the sound of heavy rain crashing onto the asphalt.
[You have slain a Level one Mutated. Damned Bug]