Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

The fight started as a typical slugfest when both sides threw everything they had at the other party, hoping the combined power they could bring to the table would prove to be sufficient.

For zombies, it was their unusually high adaptability and numbers. Those two advantages alone, when coupled with the extreme strength and resilience of the high evolved zombies, were enough to corner Mathew.

On the other hand, Mathew's agility, experience, and weapon allowed him to bring down one of the high evolved zombies. And if the situation were to continue as it was, he would likely win by slowly accumulating the damage on the zombies.

Yet, the moment horde's mob entered the scene, Mathew suddenly found himself in a situation with no way out.

And what could one do in a perfectly helpless situation?

Give up?

No.

If the situation was helpless, then all one had to do was change it. And for Mathew, that meant killing off all the horde mob, using their lives to increase the affinity of his saber, and then using this enhanced saber to take down the high evolved zombies.

It was a simple plan. A plan that rewarded aggression, Mathew's ability to take the mob down as soon as possible so that he could finish the fight and head off toward Norbert to help him.

And yet, rather than rushing things, Mathew took the fight as slow as he could.

'Not yet,' he thought when he managed to strike off the attacks from both of the high evolved zombies, creating an opening to jump away, gain distance, and then use it to bring all his power on one of the mobs.

No, the only mob that he could access was in a group of three which bore the risk of his attack failing.

'Not yet,' he thought when he managed to knock one of the high evolved zombies away, buying himself a good ten to fifteen seconds during which there would be an opening after every attack of the other evolved.

And yet, Mathew refused to go out of his way to attack the mob as the situation still wasn't perfect.

'NOW!' Mathew thought, his entire body tensing up as he jumped into the fray.

It wasn't even an opening, more like a mere shadow of it.

Assuming the zombies were as fresh as they were when the fight started, Mathew couldn't even hope to slip right between them when their bodies angled in just the right way.

Their reaction speed would be too great.

But just like Mathew continued to exhaust his energy, the zombies continued to strain their corpse-like bodies, burning away at the finite fuel that prompted them to move.

'Whatever makes them move, it doesn't matter,' Mathew thought, lunging forth, right between two of the enemies he couldn't disrespect. 'Because their bodies wear off all the same!'

Mathew lunged forth… and slipped right between the two evolved ones.

They instantly turned around, eager to punish Mathew's reckless move… Only to hit each other instead.

'Now!' Mathew thought, making another leap as soon as his legs touched the ground and jumping slightly off to the right. The evolved zombies regained their position right as Mathew stepped down on the shoulders of one of the mob, pushing the fingers of his left hand into its left and currently empty eye socket.

'Mind's flesh!' Mathew thought, calling forth his ability.

This time, however, he didn't mess around with other zombies.

No, this time, he used the spell to add power to his pull right as he ripped the skull of the mob zombie apart.

'I can do one more,' Mathew thought, turning his eyes towards the next nearest target.

His eyes locked on a hunched-down zombie.

'Is it trying to prevent me from stepping on its shoulders?' Mathew asked himself as he kicked off the corpse of the zombie he just finished, leaping for yet another time.

He then landed on the ground, only a foot away from his target.

'Hunching down won't help you now,' Mathew thought, crashing shoulder-first into the zombie, knocking it off its stable footing before driving the tip of his saber right through the zombie's eye and into its skull.

'That's enough,' Mathew decided, instantly rolling away before jumping back up to his feet and raising his guard.

When the fight started, it was nothing but a simple slugfest at its core. Sure, zombies had different than Mathew. And neither of the parties actually made it a contest of pure physical strength.

But now, the fight was different. Because what Mathew fought for wasn't the complete domination of the battlefield that he would usually aim for.

This time, all he wanted, was control.

'Guard, guard, leap,' Mathew thought, swiping his eyes across the area to reconfirm its state and the position of the remaining opponents.

The original fourteen of the horde mob now dwindled down to a mere seven, giving Mathew a lot more room to move around.

'It's roughly as hard as it was to fight three evolved ones at the same time,' Mathew took notice, only for his mouth to curve up. 'And I already proved that's something I can deal with!'

The rest of the fight went without any surprises. From the moment Mathew focused on remaining in control of the flow of the battle, it was only a matter of time before he picked off the last of the horde mob.

Deprived of their support and a factor that forced Mathew to split his attention, the high evolved started to struggle.

Their attacks would be knocked away by Mathew's feet, left palm, or, most of the time, the blade of his spear.

And so, by the time Mathew finished off the last of the mob, the hands of the high evolved turned into a complete mess, no longer posing any threat to Mathew's defenses.

'I guess it's time to wrap it up,' Mathew thought, recognizing how the sound of the shoots coming from somewhere near continued to decrease in frequency.

'He is saving the ammo… but he is still shooting,' Mathew thought, too focused on fighting for his own survival to actively keep the connection to Norbert up.

'That means, I really need to hurry,' he thought, gritting his teeth as he added even more power when striking down the attacks of the high evolved.

And for the first time, since he killed the first of the three high-evolved zombies, Mathew went on the offensive.

Now, every time he would strike an attack off, a riposte would follow, marking the already messy corpses of the high-evolved with yet another deep wound.

As it turned out, while the effects weren't as big as Mathew hoped them to be, killing the mob really ended up enhancing his weapon.

He couldn't simply cleave through the high-evolved. No, that kind of feat was still beyond the range of what Mathew and his weapon were capable of.

But the shallow cuts that his saber was only capable of at the start, now turned into proper, deep wounds.

And while the zombies didn't bleed making those wounds far less dangerous than they would be to a human…

They still relied on some semblance of physicality to move around. And with their tendons, joints, and muscles cut apart, both of them soon reached their last stand.

'Here,' Mathew slashed, creating a deep dent into the neck of the zombie that fell to its knees when Mathew cut at them from behind.

"We…" Mathew now allowed his thoughts to surface as his words while retracting his saber… only to then cut right at the same place.

"GO!" he shouted, striking the high evolved's neck for the third time and, at last, bringing the cut all the way through and sending the zombie's head rolling.

Two of the high evolved zombies fell. Fourteen of the horde mob turned back into the corpses they were.

And with only one high-evolved one left, and one covered in deep wounds all over its body at that…

'Hold on!' Mathew closed his eyes and shouted into the nothingness as soon as he cut the last of the evolved zombies into pieces. 'I'm coming !' he thought, hoping Norbert would still be alive and well enough to receive his message.

"Actually…"

Mathew's body came to a complete stop when he noticed the awkwardness behind Norbert's voice.

"Nadia already came to help."