Wave After Wave

[You've got the be fucking kidding me... how can I have such dogshit luck? It's only day four since The Path's emergence and I've already faced a level 25 and now two Enlightened Tier monsters?!

How are they leveling so quickly?!]

While Grant was grumbling to Sherlock in his mind, he had finally reached the front of the store where he was planning to fight of the waves of zombies that were undoubtedly approaching this area.

And sure enough, not even thirty seconds after having reached the area, the zombies came swarming at him from every direction.

Without waiting for the zombies to surround him, Grant dove head long into the group that had reached the area first. His plan was to dispatch as many zombies as he could before the entire group managed to congregate in the area.

If he gave the zombies a chance to gather together, it would make the fight even harder than it looked like it was already going to be.

As Grant dashed throughout the massive group of zombies, swinging his sword with controlled and yet reckless abandon, notifications began to stream down the side of his vision.

Since he wasn't absorbing stats from any of the monsters, he simply ignored the notifications. He did glance at the levels of the first few zombies that he killed to confirm their levels but since none of them exceeded level 5 he stopped paying attention to the notifications.

What concerned Grant the most about the current fight was that, although he was managing to keep the monsters from completely surrounding him and cutting off his movements, if he didn't dispatch them quick enough it was only a matter of time before they inevitably overwhelmed him.

After trying to fight the swarm of zombies straight up for a few minutes, he decided that he needed to come up with a better strategy, so he cut a straight line out of the crowd of zombies until he reached the outskirts of the encirclement.

Once he reached the outskirts of the group, he turned to face the group while slowly backing away from them hoping to prevent them from coming from any direction except directly in front of him.

However, seeing the zombies' reaction his movements, Grant couldn't help but start to accept the fact that just maybe someone really was controlling them because instead of immediately charging straight at him and fighting him head on, a small group of zombies broke off from the main group and tried to flank him from both sides.

Almost like the armies he had read about in history books, they were trying to slowly surround and devour him.

The only saving grace for Grant in this situation however was the fact that he was so much stronger and faster than these zombies. So no matter how hard they tried to flank him again, they were never able to reach his back because he was constantly moving in different directions to prevent them from accomplishing their goal.

When a group of zombies would start to get an angle to surround him, he would immediately attack the group and whittle it down until their were no more zombies left in the breakaway group.

After a few more minutes of back and forth with the zombies, Grant had finally managed to reduce the number of zombies within his view to no more than twenty.

The problem was, before he could completely finish off the first group of zombies, another group of 100 or so came out from the direction the first group had come.

[Ah, I see what's going on here...

It's like CoD zombies where you have to face wave after wave and survive as long as you can.

So the leader of this group is trying to test my limitations? Or slowly whittle me down until I can't continue any longer?

Cheeky bastard.

Once I'm done with all these zombies I will find their leader and slap the shit out of him for making me work this hard.]

After finishing off the first group of zombies, and before engaging the second group, Grant started to feel his blood boil. He was actually starting to get excited for the incoming waves.

Up to this point he hadn't really taken pleasure in the fights that he had been forced to partake in, but at some point he realized that he was starting to enjoy himself.

Sure, he was fighting with his life on the line and one small mistake could lead to his inevitable death, but the thrill of growing stronger and proving not only to himself but also the world at large that he would prevail, was invigorating.

What made him more happy than anything was that just three days prior, he was sitting on his couch wondering what to do with his life. Now, he was faster and stronger than anyone in the world, at least he liked to think so.

With the adrenaline pumping through his veins and a smile plastered on his face, Grant charged into the second group of zombies that were approaching and began the next round of slaughter.

As he was killing the second group of zombies, Grant glanced at the notifications streaming in once again and noticed that the levels of these zombies were slightly higher than the first group he fought.

They were still relatively low leveled, but it was clear that they were at least stronger than the first group. Even with the increased speed they were displaying, it was still nothing in comparison to Grant himself.

Grant wasn't surprised by their levels though because anyone with a large amount of disposable troops would always send the weakest of the group first to waste even a sliver of the enemies energy before sending the next group, then the next, and then the next until either all the troops were lost or the enemy was inevitably overwhelmed.

And thus, he fought.

After fighting for what felt like an eternity but really only amounted to about fifteen minutes, Grant managed to dispatch the fifth wave. By this point the zombies' levels were in the double digits and the strongest one he had killed had actually been level 18.

While Grant wasn't exhausted to the point where he couldn't continue, he was definitely starting to get tired. Although his stamina was already above 100, it wasn't unlimited. He knew that if this were to continue, he would eventually need to retreat.

He realistically could have turned tail and run long ago but not only did he want to test himself, he wanted to see if he could reach level 25.

Since level 25 would allow him to enter the Enlightened tier and begin walking his Path, he would try and seize every opportunity that would allow him to level up.

But even after killing all of those zombies he still hadn't leveled which was mildly disappointing for him.

[It must take a shit ton of experience to reach level 25... I've killed like 2 thousand zombies and monsters over the past few hours and yet I'm still level 24...]

{It takes the same amount of experience to go from 24-25 as it does to go from 1-24. Don't be surprised by the amount of time it is taking.}

While taking deep breathes and trying to recover as much energy as he could before the next wave came, Grant silently acknowledged Sherlocks revelation. After a few minutes, Grant realized that no more zombies were attacking.

He wasn't sure if whoever or whatever the leader was, had run out of disposable zombies, was purposefully giving him a chance to recover, or was done testing him, but he was ever so slightly disappointed.

After a minute or so of just standing there and waiting for something to happen it appeared that there weren't going to be any more attacks. So, Grant decided to try a playful taunt to see what would happen.

"Is that all you've got?! I thought you were going to keep sending wave after wave until I became zombie food?!"

With how powerful Grant was at this point, it was only natural that his voice was just as powerful, so his taunt ended up echoing throughout the entire store for a few seconds.

After another couple of minutes of waiting, Grant finally heard the sound of footsteps.

Apparently it seemed that his taunt had worked.

However, the zombies that rounded the corner this time were not like the ones he had originally fought.

The new group only consisted of 10 zombies.

But these zombies were nearly twice as large as the original zombies and were actually carrying weapons.

Some had baseball bats, others were carrying large pieces of wood, and others had household tools you would find scattered around a Walmart.

[Holy shit! It's a real zombie army! Can it be called an army with only 10 zombies?

Wait, that isn't important, what's important is, if these things can be taught, in a sense, to carry weapons, why didn't the first five waves have weapons?! That just seems wasteful if you ask me..]

While Grant was thinking to himself, a final enemy came walking out from behind the 10 zombies.

And this new enemy wasn't like the rest.

"Skeletor?!"