‘Disaster item? It sounds familiar,’ Jack thought. A memory of Peniel explaining about this item soon came back to him.
“Why are you still standing here?!” Peniel exclaimed as she urged him to move.
Jack turned around and ran. He still looked back as he ran and saw the black fog was getting thicker and larger. It started swirling as if a hurricane was forming.
“What is it?” John asked. He saw the person from the coalition and Jack was now running away from each other.
“It’s a weapon of mass destruction!” Jack replied.
“A what?”
“It’s a nuke! A bloody nuke!”
Jack was sending the message in the guild chat so everyone read it. Everyone started panicking and went into hiding behind the guild wall.
“What are you doing hiding behind the wall? It will only be blasted to oblivion. Let’s escape back into the headquarters!”
Many started running towards the building.
“Hey! Why is everyone running into the building? You should stay at the wall and defend as you did. Your best chance is still using this main chokepoint for defense,” Peniel said loudly.
Jack had already arrived back to the main group, so Peniel’s words were heard by everyone there. Jeanny asked, “isn’t that a nuke?”
“What’s a nuke?” Peniel asked.
“Uh… It’s a thing that goes kaboom and levels everything around it?” Bowler said.
“Who said it’s that kind of a thing?”
Everyone turned to Jack, who became uncomfortable with all the stares. He said to Peniel, “Uh, um… Didn’t you once say that a disaster item is a weapon of mass destruction? Something that will destroy everything around it?”
“I said it is a disaster item, and yes, it aimed for indiscriminate destruction to everything around it, but I never said it will go kaboom. Look over there!” Peniel pointed at the black fog that had grown exponentially. They could see moving shadows inside. Not long after, countless figures emerged from the fog. All the players recognized those figures because those were the very first opponents they had encountered. Zombies.
“Bloody hell! You should really choose your words better when you communicate,” John complained to Jack, then to the rest, “everyone, return to your post on the wall! Assume defensive positions!”
“It’s just zombies, nothing to worry about,” The Man uttered.
“Did you hear when I mentioned the word disaster?” Peniel said with exasperation.
“Their number is worrying,” Jeanny commented as he saw more and more zombies come out of the black fog.
“This is just the start,” Peniel said.
As they watched, they noticed that the horde of zombies did not just come to their side. They poured out of the fog and spread out in all directions. Now everyone understood why the coalition members were retreating. These zombies didn’t seem to target a particular foe.
From the platform inside Guild Hall, John could see the coalition continued to retreat again after the zombies appeared. They probably thought their current distance was still not enough. The poor guy who was sent to activate the Disaster Item was already drowned by the sea of zombies.
Everyone from Everlasting Heavenly Legends and White Scarfs was now back into position. Jack took on the frontline where the Squires formed a wall. The other melee players stood behind as backup. Everyone had drunk recovery potions to refill their HP, stamina, and mana.
“Hold…” Jeanny gave the command for the Bandit Archers and the range players above. Almost everyone used Inspect on the zombies once they were close enough. Jack did the same.
Zombie (Basic monster, undead), level 30
HP: 12,000
“Hah! Only Basic monster. Nothing to be scared about. Let’s waste them, lad!” The Man declared with vigor.
“Oorah…!!” His underlings cried in approval. The orcs’ battle cries were especially loud.
“Hey, it is not just zombie…” Bowler pointed out.
They could see now that there were other monsters in the mix amongst the zombies. There were Skeleton Thug and Skeleton Captain. The Skeleton Captain was a level 32 Elite.
“Don’t be discouraged! They are not something we can’t handle!” Jeanny called out, giving motivation to the others As the first wave of zombies came into range. She gave the command for the troops above the wall to fire. Spells and arrows bombarded the undead army.
John controlled the Squire to block the advancing tide. He opened small gaps at an interval, allowing a small number of zombies to pass through, only for the players behind to hack them to death.
Jack was as before, he dived into the zombies and reaped as much of the undead’s lives as possible. Different from the previous fight with the coalition, this time the players gained exp point from this undead. Jack hurriedly set his exp setting so all the exp received went to Blade Dancer class. He didn’t want to level up his Mage class until he upgraded it into Archmage class.
Despite the undead army providing exp points, they gave no loots though.
As he weaved through the undead ranks, Jack suddenly felt a heavy pressure. He turned in time to see a large monstrosity towering over him. It was a bizarre creature that seemed like several zombies and skeletons were pasted together into one. It was lifting its mangle-looking but massive arm high before it was brought down heavily with an open palm. It wanted to slap Jack into a paste.
Jack evaded its attack easily by relying on his mana-sensing ability. He inspected the monster while using Cross Slash.
Skeletal abomination (Special Elite monster, undead), level 35
HP: 89,000
Jack’s Cross Slash resulted in 1800 damage. This Skeletal Abomination’s defense was much lacking compared to players, but its HP more than made up for its lack of defense.
Not fazed by Jack’s attack just now, the Skeletal Abomination sent an attack with his other arm as if nothing had happened. Jack used his footwork to evade without moving away from the abomination. He then sent Flame strike at the abomination’s knee, which forced him to kneel.
Jack then used the pause to deliver the burst attack of his Formless Flowing Sword Style. Twenty-four slashes landed on the monster at almost the same time. After his last usage of this burst style, he noticed that the damage increase started after the tenth hit. Each rapid combo after the tenth produced more damage. It was much easier scoring this combo multiplier on a monster compared to a skilled player who could actively block and evade.
His normal slash scored more than 500 damage on the abomination. After his rapid twenty-four combo slashes, the abomination lost around 15,000 HP. He had taken almost a quarter of the monster’s life with this single move, but he felt very tired afterward. He just realized that he had not rested since last night. He figured he couldn’t abuse this martial art move too much.
He didn’t use the burst style anymore as he was afraid this battle would last quite long, but he continued to use the Formless Flowing Sword style as he danced around the Skeletal Abomination. He didn’t get the combo but he did his best to not break his attack chain, fully utilizing the Blade Orbs buff which at maximum granted him 20% increased damage as long as his slash continued to land on target.
It took him some time, but at last, he took down the Skeletal Abomination. His guildmates who saw his feat all cheered and had their morales boosted.
When the Skeletal Abomination fell, it released a cloud of smoke. Jack received damage from the smoke and was afflicted by Poison status. Jack used his Golden Noble Headband’s ability to cleanse the poison.
As he heaves a relieved sigh, his vision caught several large figures coming out of the black fog which was still expanding. Some twenty Skeletal Abominations were coming their way.
Jack stared at those monsters speechlessly. His guildmates defending the wall who had their morales lifted just a while ago, felt it plummet down again mercilessly.
Peniel who sensed his uneasiness, said, “I told you it is a disaster item already. Do you think this is a simple monster attack? This is just the beginning, there will be more.”
“How much more?”
“A lot more. Their levels are tied to the one using the item, though. The person who activated that disaster item just now must be level 30. That’s why the zombies are all level 30. That disaster item is called Undead Horde Curse. It will last for five hours. At the end of its effect, you will face a level 55 rare elite boss.”
“Le… Level 55 rare elite…?” Jack found the thought suffocating. He looked around. The number of skeleton thugs and skeleton captains had increased. The last batch of the zombies coming out from the fog was also level 31 and 32, they had increased in level.
‘Five hours…’ Jack thought in dismay. They most probably won’t even last half that long.
“Peniel, what will happen if it were monsters that destroyed our guild core?” Jack asked.
“The headquarters will disappear, as if never existed in the first place,” Peniel answered.
