"There's no difference between killing once and killing a hundred times... they're already dead anyway."
Raven exhaled a long breath. With a steady heart, he stepped forward, gripping the chain-disc tightly in his hand.
His steps were slow. All around him, the screams of terrified people echoed without end. As he moved further ahead, the putrid stench of the undead grew stronger and he hadn't even walked a full minute before they appeared.
"Ahhhh~!"
"Run! Don't stop... RUN!!"
People dashed past him, fleeing in panic from the swarm of undead closing in behind them. These weren't just one or two stragglers, there were nearly twenty of them.
Each and every one of the undead looked corrupted, whether skeletal or still clinging to rotting flesh.
Their speed rivaled that of an average person maybe even surpassed it in some ways.
Raven stood his ground, gripping his makeshift weapon. His expression hardened as he observed the undead's erratic, jerking movements. To say he wasn't shaken would've been a lie. Even though he had steeled his resolve, the reality of this twisted new world was still hard to swallow.
The people who passed him had faces pale with horror, some crying, some screaming but none of them looked back. They didn't even glance at the ones being torn apart behind them.
'Instincts… I still don't know how we're supposed to understand them. It has classified people in different groups, some people cower, some flee, some fight, and all of that for the same reason. But the outcomes are always different. I fall into one of those three too… but I'm not going to run. I won't freeze in fear.'
'Even with all of them in front of me, I feel like… I can do this. I don't know if it's the weapon in my hand or something else, but...'
He shifted his right foot back, adjusting his stance to stabilize himself. With a few lingering doubts in his mind, he closed his eyes and gripped the chains tighter, ready to strike with full force.
Ting~
The brake disc hit the solid ground, making a sharp metallic sound. Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the undead closing in on him. For a moment, time seemed to slow. Flashes of long-buried memories rose to the surface, memories that had haunted him for years.
"Not anymore. Not from now."
His mind was clear now. Nothing was holding him back.
Raven opened his eyes and whipped the chain toward the oncoming undead. The weapon whistled through the air with a sharp swoosh, the disc spinning straight toward the lead zombie.
Bang! Crack!
The force of the strike shattered its skull in a single blow.
Ding~
[You have killed an ordinary undead.]
"I won't stop, not even if I have to face death itself!" he roared, his hand moving in sync with his emotions, determined to break free from the chains of his fate.
He was a loner, but not anymore. In a world that had abandoned him, Raven had no choice than remaining a nobody but in this new world, he would be reborn, not as prey, but as a force to be feared.
[You have killed an ordinary undead.]
The sound of metal meeting bone filled the air, loud cracks followed by lifeless thuds. His weapon, crude as it was, served its purpose well. With every swing, a system notification confirmed another kill.
The chains danced through the air, spiraling and slicing through one undead after another.
[You have killed an ordinary undead.]
[You have killed an ordinary undead.]
...
They charged him like mindless beasts, but Raven didn't back down. He roared in defiance and they fell before him, one after another.
Within a minute, all twenty-three of them had their skulls crushed, bones splintered and broken by his relentless assault.
[You have killed an ordinary undead.]
Huff... Huff... Huff...
Raven stood amid the carnage, hunched over, drenched in sweat. It had lasted barely a minute but it had drained him completely.
'There's no way I can handle another group like that. Dammit… my body feels like it could break any second now.'
After all the physical exhaustion from the day, this was pushing his limits. He could keep going for a while, sure, but if he kept getting into fights like that, it wouldn't be long before he ended up like the guy who'd just died nearby.
He glanced at the unmoving undead. Some still twitched faintly. One look told him all he needed to know.
'So unless I destroy their skulls, they don't die completely. And no star fragment notification… I guess I have to extract them from the bodies.'
His gaze drifted toward the boy who had died earlier. He looked to be about Raven's age, maybe slightly older not that it made any difference now.
Raven's expression turned cold. For a moment, something unplaceable flickered in his eyes. The death in front of him didn't shake him at all. Instead, he exhaled slowly and moved toward the fallen undead to collect the star fragments.
Just as he had suspected pulling the fragments from their corpses truly ended them.
[You have obtained 24 star fragments. Collect 76 more to gather a star.]
[Current kill count: 25.]
He didn't even glance at the system notification. Instead, his mind was elsewhere, wondering just what these star fragments really were.
"Guess I'll only know once I gather all 100... But for now," he muttered, glancing up at the sky.
It had turned completely gray. He couldn't even tell if it was day or night anymore. But regardless,
"I need rest."
He still needed to climb higher. He knew that. But before that, he needed to rest. And more importantly,
"I need food."
It was almost laughable, really. A few hours ago, he was delivering food. And now, here he was hungry, aching, and exhausted.
Why hadn't he eaten earlier? He couldn't. Simple and straight.
'Let's find a food store.'
---
Thanks for reading, everyone.
I kept the fight short in this chapter because I want to focus more on the core plot and development going forward. Hope you understand!