Broken Interface - Kernal: Post Apocalyptic Zombie LITrpg Progression Fantasy, page 56
Priscilla? She was behind him, but she had taken one look and seen something she disliked and then refused to scout. Not even chips had gotten her to move, and that worried him. The only thing that kept him moving was that a monster that terrified a mouse might not be quiet so fearsome to a human. Whatever scared her was probably small, fast, and not a threat to a heavily armed person.
Without firm intelligence, they proceeded cautiously.
“What’s up?” Ivey called out from behind him. “Are you scared without me backing you up?”
“Absolutely,” he said with a wink before walking away. Let her work out what whether he was being mocking or not. After all, he hardly knew, himself.
Reaching the landing to their floor, he let everyone catch their breath.
“Be ready for anything,” he warned them, and then pushed the door open.
Chapter 84
Both Daniel and the juggernaut burst out into the corridor. Animal Sense was useless for these floors. There was either nothing threatening – or if there was, it could evade the skill. Given what he had seen of the world, he was backing it would be the latter. “If in doubt, imagine the worst case” was rapidly becoming his motto.
The big man next to him was dressed in jeans and wielded a shield that was the better part of a door by itself. He turned left, so Daniel went right two steps and then stopped, watching the corridor. The others spilled out after him, and he noticed the juggernaut had grounded his shield and was doing a good job hiding behind its size.
Without his own interface, he did not get to experience the learning process; but apparently, with every level earned, besides granting specific attributes like Strength and spells, they also taught real-life techniques and knowledge. Small things like battle tactics, or the right way to hold a sword or how to use a shield when faced with an unknown enemy. The weird half-club, half-spear design the juggernaut had requested was extended, ready to be deployed against anything that tried to attack.
Luke shifted into position next to Daniel.
This was another reason him hogging the experience gains was negative for the group. The benefits that he got per level were fewer than everyone else received. While he got an attribute point, and his spells might be improved slightly, he was not receiving all the hidden extras that others gained. Nuggets of knowledge that resulted in a fat plumber wielding a sword like a pro and knowing how to shift between difference stances seamlessly.
Arrows were on bows. Magic crackled on fingers, and they stood there, examining what they faced. The hallway was different to the ones even two levels down. Everything was more worn; the carpet was torn up and frayed, and there were large gaps in the walls. Several doors that he could see were open; others looked like they had holes bitten out of the lower corners. The gap was only enough for a normal cat to get through, so it did not scream threat, but it showed that something had happened on the floor, and that unknown chilled Daniel to his stomach.
Because of all that structural damage, debris spread across the floor.
Looking up, he saw that many tiles were displaced, with the crawl space revealed.
A tiny pulse of Animal Sense spread out to check the roof space above and the nearby rooms.
They were not alone.
The moment he realised it, an alarm spiked from Priscilla. His body felt like it was made of stone, the air cloying and restricting, his clothes holding him in. Time itself was the enemy. His mouth went dry, and with awful clarity, he knew they had stuffed up. Priscilla’s slowed time started to release, and Daniel reacted. He enhanced his Speed, twisting and stepping to swing the club above Ingrid’s head. By the time he had turned around, the monster was already falling.
Over-utilising Speed.
The club sang in excitement. It shaped itself into a gaping maw.
Daniel hit the critter that was dive-bombing, seeing only the slimy, purple body before the club snapped shut and the shape vanished. A second one was falling, this one on top of Gabby. The two monsters had coordinated the attack, and it was just that Gabby was shorter, giving Daniel more time to respond.
The weapon demanded extra Speed from him. He was going to regret this, but he summoned all the Speed overload that he could and tensed his body. The club swung blindingly fast and struck the creature, with the wind of its passing ruffling Gabby’s hair. There was more twisting, and the club did not swallow the whole body of the monster this time. Instead, a chain of teeth dug into the tiny monster and closed into its centre, grabbing the core. Then his swing continued, and two purple blobs were launched away to slam into the wall.
“What?” Ingrid said as everyone flinched and looked up at the ceiling.
“No more.” Once more, he focused outwards. He did not know what those creatures were, but they had felt both powerful and evil. His crew should have proceeded more slowly, but they were committed, and all he could do was to fight what was out there.
“Oh god,” Ingrid said. “They were parasitic mind worms. Able to burrow into a host in seconds. Almost untreatable, and they send the target mad within days. Hosts can be recognised by purple shadows around the eyes.”
“Focus,” he snapped, realising that he was puffing. Using so much Speed had stretched his reserves.
Another pulse of Animal Sense.
“Are there any more worms?” Ingrid asked tentatively.
“Nothing within ten metres.”
“We need to warn the others,” Ingrid pressed.
“I’m not sure there are any below us, and if there are, it’s probably too late. We will worry about them once we are out of here. I don’t like this,” Daniel said unnecessarily. His instincts were screaming at him, and from the tightness in everyone’s eyes, so were theirs.
They stood in silence. There was a noise, then scurrying in the walls. Lots of movement.
“I wish I had insisted that we go slow,” he muttered to himself. “I wish the monsters would show themselves.”
“HELP!” Gabby yelled suddenly.
“No,” the juggernaut snapped, but it was too late. There was an abrupt rush of movement. A swarm of insects charged towards him.
The club demanded electricity, and he had learnt to trust its needs and channelled accordingly. Lightning exploded from him into the club, and then controlled sparks of it shot out at the approaching horde. The smell of burnt bug filled the air. There must have been fifty charging from his side. All as large as guinea pigs and as ugly could be imagined. The sparks kept flying, and the energy he had imparted was expended. The zaps of electricity had hurt them. They all moved more slowly, wisps of smoke curling up from most of them, but only a few were dead.
That was thirty percent of his mana.
He gave the club more, imploring it to focus on the attacks better. Kill rather than hurt. The club started probing, faster than he could have. One, two, three strikes just milliseconds apart. The target stopped moving. Repeating on a different victim. This time, two near-simultaneous flashes finished it off. The weapon had increased the energy in each strike to just kill the bugs.
Apparently calibrated, fifteen thick strands arced from the club. Fifteen bugs died instantly. Over a third were dead, but it felt like nowhere near enough, and Daniel lacked the mana reserves to devote more to the attack. He would keep his mana for emergencies.
He wished he had a massive shield like the juggernaut as the creatures charging him appeared to have a nasty bite on them. He was using his weapon alternatively, like a golf club on the way out and like a hammer on the way back in. He’d knock them flying away and then squish the ones getting close on the backswing. He’d crush them between the club and the floor. Fire blazed past the Black man’s shield, and splinters of ice were arcing over Daniel and helping thin the numbers swarming him.
Daniel tried to ignore those outside noises and focus on getting his club to dance as a weapon of insect killing. His foot touched Ingrid’s behind him, and he realised he no longer had room to retreat.
He initiated Speed. Same motion but three times as fast. He could step forward, and then he released the energy when the flood slowed. He killed the last couple, then spun to see how the other side had survived.
His chest was heaving.
While he fought, he had heard the occasional exclamation of pain, but nothing that made him think people were dying or that their defensive line had failed. Everyone was still standing. The numbers were slowing. His knees almost collapsed at the relief that washed through him. Blackened, dead insects covered the other side of the corridor. The fire wizard had done his job and absolutely destroyed the swarm.
There were a few still twitching, but the archers were finishing them up.
“Bloody termites,” Ingrid said. “I preferred when they were smaller, and I hated them then.”
Animal Sense.
Using it just in case some more of the mind worms were sneaking up on them, that was another five percent of his mana gone. The spell, while vital to their survival, was a massive mana hog.
There were no immediate threats, but something pinged his awareness down below. What was it? It was not just Ivey’s group that he had sensed. A more targeted pulse. No, he thought in alarm. They were in trouble.
“Downstairs,” he screamed as the full extent of what he was sensing became apparent. Ivey’s group was being overwhelmed.
Chapter 85
Only Ingrid reacted as fast as he had. She had thrown the door open, and the desperate screams from below reached them.
Ingrid slowed momentarily, surprised by a scream that sounded a lot like a death yell. Smart woman, Daniel thought even as he pushed past her. She needed someone between her and the monsters.
Downstairs, the entrance to the stairwell had been wedged open, and a woman whose name he had never learned was clawing her way through it back to the safety of the stairs. He leapt past her, his club smashing down on a termite, and it was immediately clear that Ivey’s group had gotten it worse than Daniel’s had. Besides the termite wave, the air was filled with moths the size of dinner plates. They were nothing like the monstrosities from the lift wells, because he could see broken moth bodies, and the well moths did not go down that quickly. These were weaker, moved more slowly, and based on the frigid air and the icicles, were utilising ice magic.
Daniel stepped through the door, pausing only to smack one moth away. Its body shattered under the strike, killed outright. His eyes assessed what had happened.
Like them, Ivey’s group had been swarmed by a hundred of the weird insects; but unlike their group, the ambush occurred after they had left the safety of the stairwell choke point. They had been only a couple of metres down the corridor, but the wave of bugs had cut off their retreat and overwhelmed them.
His eyes continued gliding over the disaster, and then his heart caught in his chest.
Ivey was down. Possibly even dead. Dave was standing over her, roaring and using the claws on his feet to squash anything that came near him, his club abandoned. Blood was visible on Dave’s grey fur.
The entire strike force of ten was down, except for Dave and the girl he had stepped over. The tank had perished. The termites had torn him to shreds and had as good as burrowed through him. Everyone else he did not know. Last week they would have been mortally wounded, but with healing magic, you only needed a sliver of life and you could be brought back from the dead.
The group may have fallen, but they had also broken the mass of monsters attacking them.
He wanted to strike back. Unleash everything in a tsunami of fury. Lightning stirred, and he felt the club almost light up in excitement. Through me, it seemed to say. I have proven myself. Push the energy through me. Let’s eat and kill together. It responded to his fury, eager to please and contribute.
Lightning flowed into the club. Not as much as he would like, as his mana levels were so low. But it was substantial. Sparkling electricity danced around the weapon, which had abruptly become a lot more spikey than usual. Daniel’s mana was bottomed out completely, but the electricity stayed in it, and that small trickle of mana that continued to flow into him was sucked out by the club to expand the energy it had captured. The headache was acute.
It seemed to be filled with excitement, and the communication he had with it was crisper than normal.
Kill!
Revenge or saving the survivors—the purpose did not matter. Either path required him to smash them.
He swung the club, and just its very movement through the air left afterimages; but as it passed near a moth, three arcs of electricity flew out. The moth burst into flames.
Dark smoke boiled out of it.
Another moth, a little further away, had five arcs lash out at it. Daniel expected the crackling energy to dim, but somehow that did not happen.
Ivey might be dead. Rage filled him.
He demanded destruction and death. He would crush them. All of them, not just the termites. All of that. By the time he had finished, every monster in Melbourne would be dead.
“DIE!”
Speed.
Bursting out to close the gap between himself and Dave, Daniel understood how to use the power.
Lightning from his hands was directable but unpredictable. It could hurt friend and foe alike. But channelled like this, through the club, it became a precision instrument. The closer he got, the less energy would be lost on transmission. If he could flat-out squish the bastards, that was even better.
As the club swept just centimetres above the clumped bugs, specifically directed sparks rained down upon them. The termites shrivelled up, and smoke puffed out from their heads. Upstairs, the monsters had looked fried. These appeared almost untouched by the destructive energies. The club had learnt exactly how to kill them with the smallest amount of power possible. None that the lightning touched moved again.
Thirty bugs died over the next three swings, and the crush around Dave was easing. The ball of electricity on the edges of the weapon still crackled brightly. Good, he could kill more.
A group of six moths descended upon him. He swung, hitting them one-by-one. Electricity sparked, and they fell. Every hair on him was standing. Even Dave’s heavy hair was sticking out, such was the static electricity that his attacks had generated. That club sparkled, threatening to explode out of control, but the intelligence in the weapon controlled the power.
“Help,” he roared. “Healers!”
A sweep of the club, this time down low to stop the charge of the next row of insects. Sounds of sizzling and crackling greeted him, followed by the stench of burnt bug. He kicked a living bug, and it went flying to splatter against the far wall.
“Dave,” he snarled, nodding toward Ivey. Dave responded, leaning down to pick her up. Even if she was dead, she deserved a proper service and not to become bug food. Most of the survivors would not be here without her. Himself included.
Through his broken interface, he could still sense her. She was still alive. Chunks of her flesh were missing, but she was still alive. It was a relief. Partially.
“Evacuate,” he roared. “Healers! Get her healed.”
Swiping again, three moths fell, and Daniel realised that, while it was easy for him to hit the flying creatures, these may have been the straw that had broken Ivey’s team. He had only allowed them to split because her team had been the strongest. Stepping back towards the door, if truth was to be told, most of the swarm of monsters had already been dealt with, but there were still too many of them. His team was pulling bodies or corpses to safety, but none tried to grab the tank. The boy was clearly dead. Captain Australia had fallen in his first real battle. His superhero name had not saved him from his overconfidence.
Another low sweep and more of the termites died, and Daniel realised that the previous eye-wateringly bright flashes around the spikes on the club were fading. He was running out of energy, but that was not a problem. There was a commotion in the stairwell. Tamara’s team had arrived.
With a thought, he encouraged the weapon to preserve its remaining power for the moths. Then he leapt over the packed, descending bugs and swept the club through the area where the moths had gathered to avoid him. They saw him coming and tried to spread out, but it was too late. There must have been twenty of them clustering. The club sparked. Cracks of light that left afterimages seared into his vision. There was the smell of burning, and the disgusting furry bodies plummeted to the ground. Their exoskeletons and wings barely touched, but their brains inside them had been fried. The club was back to its normal, muted appearance, the sparkling energy spent. Daniel was happy that last strike had done what it needed to do and removed the aerial threat. Fifteen of the remaining twenty flying monsters destroyed, and they—not the termites—had been the true danger.
Without Speed, Daniel swung his club at one of the undamaged moths, and it flapped easily out of the way. It was what he had feared: He could only hurt them with his superpowers.
Speed.
The one trying to sneak up on him got caught by the burst of Speed. At the club’s urging, Daniel twisted it as he went past, and the small hooks that had come out of the surface of the weapon shredded it.
Back to normal time, the remaining moths fled from the carnage, having realised that the lightning was not the only danger that he represented. The wave of termites that had been single-mindedly charging the door split, with half of them peeling back to get him. Keeping an eye out from above, he smacked them when they got too close, retreating further from safety, but knowing he could not let them reach his feet. Finally, they thinned enough for him to leap over them and flee to the stairwell and the rest of their fighters.
An optimistic moth drifted too close.
Speed.
It got splattered.
Arrows were joining the fight, and he was glad to see that Ingrid was targeting the moths that, having presumably recovered from their shock and avoiding him, were re-entering the fray. The battle now felt like that first one in their room when the electricity centipedes had fallen upon them. Once they survived the initial shock, it just became a matter of clean-up.
