Storm of Slaughter

The moment Rowan and the door came flying by, he crushed a zombie that was right in front of the door, turning it into little more than a paste. The moment he entered battle, his vision immediately changed as color drained from the world around him. Then, across the ocean of zombies, they all had their heads turn a bright red. While a single black dot now decorated the base of their spines. He knew that this was the effect of weak point detection, telling him where his strikes would matter most. Rowan kicked off the door, sending it soaring into the crowd and knocking down a collection of zombies while vaulting him higher into the sky.

He could see several zombies above Lvl 10 sprinkled in the crowd. Their eyes showed intelligence that the lower class zombies were not capable of. They would wait for Rowan to be weak enough before they opted for a single, strong attack. He would need to be wary of them since they were capable of using active skills after Lvl 10. Rowan landed lighter than he should have and the horde surged towards him.

He could use active skills one of two ways, a vocal command or by using prior reference to execute the skill perfectly, so in terms of the active skills cut and stab, he didn't even need to say anything. His left hand shot out and stabbed through the throat of a zombie and lightly touched the black dot that stood out in his vision. [Storm point activated] Rowan was confused at the message, his status said nothing about a storm point but Rowan got an answer rather quickly as his right arm stabbed through a zombie on his right side and the message flashed again and as the zombies collapsed a small cyan light stood in the exact place.

Rowan activated storm steps and he could tell that a line existed between him and the storm point as information flowed into his mind non stop. It wasn't just the system any longer, but the moment the two zombies dropped, it was like a switch was flipped. Cyan light coated his feet and formed what looked like boots. He took what should have been a single step, but he vanished from sight for a moment and suddenly ten zombies in between him and one of the hidden level ten zombies had their heads explode.

His increased vision, in concert with his bloodline ability, was feeding him information while storm steps made him so fast not even he could fathom. He used the heads of the lesser parasite zombies as stepping stones, but the storm had no intention of letting them go and as his feet touched them, the storm released a pulse of his mana, making him even faster while popping their heads like grapes. Rowan appeared behind the level ten zombie like a phantom; both daggers crossed through the black dot on the back of its neck and decapitated the zombie while the daggers cut the parasite in two before it even crawled out and could die in the air.

The other level ten zombies knew they had to do something to avoid the same conclusion, so the farther one hurled a ball of fire in his direction. He smiled at the incoming flame but suddenly he was zipping in a different direction as storm steps made use of the lines that connected him to a storm point and rubber banded him to the location of the first storm point created. He would unlock new things to do with these storm points as he leveled up and unlocked more skills, but for now, it allowed his storm steps to almost instantly teleport him to any storm point that was created.

Rowan became one with the storm, his hands danced as he weaved and left a trail of bodies in his wake. The storm left none of his enemies untouched and his hands struck with ruthless accuracy while no zombie under Lvl ten required more than a single attack. He was getting messages from the system, but he ignored them all. He was one with the slaughter and the storm, and it was all that mattered in this moment.

Then he suddenly came to a stop after a period that not even he took notice of and realized that it was only him and five level ten zombies left standing. He lay among a sea of corpses, but it did not mortify him. He admired his own handiwork. The five level ten zombies all looked different, but it seemed like they all had the same attunement because they each had a fire blaze to life in their hands as they hurled balls of flame at Rowan.

He still had storm steps active and could easily move out of the way. He had leveled during the slaughter and broken through level ten thanks purely to quantity. He was stronger than ever. He kicked his foot at the first fireball to reach him, and it shattered while the cyan light snuffed out the remnants. Through battle, Rowan understood his attunement more and more thanks to the increased battle sense. There were three components of the storm.

He jumped into the air and stepped on the air like it was the ground, leaving a cyan imprint on the sky and rocketing towards one of the five zombies. The zombie blinked and its arms were simply gone. The first component of the storm. The wind increased his speed and allowed him to step on the air like it was the ground while storm steps were active. Rowan followed with a spinning kick that took its head clean off of its shoulders.

The second zombie hurled a fireball double the size, but the storm was more than just wind and in Rowan's case his defensive aspect was the water while a skill he had created through manipulating mana had come into effect during the course of the battle here. He realized that he could now freely manipulate his mana as of lvl ten, which meant he could create his own skills. He never even looked at the fireball. One of the storm points that formed when he fell, an enemy released a spinning deluge of cyan light that flowed like water and defended his back from the fireball.

The final aspect of the storm was the lightning which boosted his speed even further and his attack power by several levels. The simple daggers now glowed with a cyan light that, as he threw the one in his left hand it sped through the air and pierced another fireball while still humming with cyan mana. His storm attunement encompassed all of these things, and all his enemies saw was that this cyan light was capable of changing how it flowed and struck when he did.

The lighting formed a chain between him and the dagger that he threw that now pierced through the head of the zombie that threw the fireball. It surged with the same lightning previously mentioned and cyan sparks forked out of its brain and turned its insides into a smoldering mess, dropping him to the ground while Rowan yanked on the lightning chain and pulled the dagger back to him. He made short work of the remaining zombies and leveled up again. He thought how effective this all was when a message flashed across his eyes [of course it's effective, it's a dungeon. Prepare the first sub boss approaches] Rowan felt all the hair on his body stand up as his senses screamed danger. He pivoted on his left food just as a black shadow swept past where he would have been. There was a zombie garbed in black cloth from head to toe, and shadows seemed to drip off of the zombie.

Where its hands should have been, there were bladed fingers instead. The zombie realized its sneak attack missed, and it waved its hand. A wave of shadow shot out from its hands and suddenly zombies from all over the campus were appearing here. Rowan looked at the scene with wide eyes when he finally noticed the black garbed zombie's name. There was a flashing symbol of an ornate beetle next to its name. [Caravan Zombie Lvl 21] it had ten levels on him without even trying and it had used shadow magic to somehow replace all the zombies he had killed with new ones.

There was another horde of zombies here in the flash of an eye, all crawling out of the inky black portal that had spread from the zombie. It clearly wasn't strong enough to bring through zombies that were higher than level ten, but once again, the zombie exhibited intelligence as each of the zombies present was level 9. The zombies, on the other hand, stayed exactly still while the Caravan zombie started emitting terrible screeches. The zombies responded to the sound like it was ordered as they formed units and began to close in on Rowan.

Rowan connected a glowing line of cyan mana to the handles of both daggers and lightly grabbed the line of mana. He slowly started to spin while flinging out both of the blades. He became a tornado of death that tore through the center of what were hundreds of zombies in formation meant to trap and kill him. The blades would pass through and create a storm point and the second blade would follow the first blade and activate one of three effects, keeping the zombies at bay with cyan light or decimating them. He brought himself to a stop, ending the blender that tore all the new zombies to shreds with brutal accuracy.

He yanked backwards on the line of mana, and the two daggers went to close the loop, with them facing each other and the caravan zombie conveniently in the path. The zombie roared and slashed its blade fingers down at the perfect time to stop it from being beheaded. Rowan had 100 mana points left, which meant he had 100 seconds of storm steps left to end this fight. Rowan became a blur, rapidly moving between storm points. He would appear in front of the zombie and slash with one of the daggers before dragging himself out with a storm point.

The zombie screamed in frustration as Rowan came back in and its body exploded with darkness that ate the remaining storm points. Rowan kicked into its shin with the power of storm steps and his entire strength stat. The force of the blow blew its leg inward and the sound of bones shattering echoed in unison with its scream. It stabbed one bladed hand directly for Rowans heart but before it could Rowan drove a single blade through its wrist and the line of mana snapped from the other blade to a storm point right above its wrist that cost him mana to create causing the wrist to move in a counterclockwise motion in three hundred and sixty-degree range.

Rowan stabbed forward with the blade coated in cyan mist while the zombie met the blade. It's one arm hung in the air where the blade in the storm point kept it while Rowan met the other in a heated confrontation. He was lucky that it did not use its element in a more offensive way, otherwise this would be troublesome. Rowan shifted a storm point with all of his focus to behind the zombie's knee and set the thinnest line of mana. It was like he set the dagger up on a rail system. The zombie then struck and when their blades met Rowan, let go and let the dagger righted itself and rode the cyan mana to pierce the creature's knee.

It still had a good hand but Rowan did not care he was focusing on moving the mana around him and as he did, he executed stab with nothing but his finger wrapped in cyan mana as it formed a small tornado of cyan mana around his glowing finger as it dove right through its throat crushing the brainstem and the parasite while the blade hand fell limp.

Rowan pulled his finger back, and his vision finally returned to normal. His sub quest did not complete so there were still other zombies left, but he knew he had demolished a decent chunk of them.

He was about to check on the girls when he noticed them moving among his carnage towards him. A quest hurriedly flashed across his eyes [Urgent quest! Survive the chase.] Rowan was confused by the new urgent quest, but Camille and Em both got the same quest because they looked at Rowan confused as he stood around nothing but corpses that he was preparing to loot. It scrolled further [The zombie king has noticed the decrease in strength due to a large portion of his horde dying including a sub boss. He has decided to end the problem personally.]

[Objective:Survive the pursuit of the zombie king and make it into the relative safety of Evergreen stadium.] [Reward: Passive skill box] Rowan grimaced and pulled Em into his arms and grabbed Camille's hand and dragged them towards his car. There was a part of him that wanted to fight the zombie king here and now, but while having to protect Em and Camille, he would be spread too thin, not to mention that his mana had, in fact, bottomed out now.

A timer appeared in the top left corner of his vision with ten seconds on the clock. An overwhelming feeling of danger blossomed, and his vision turned black and white again. His eyes acted like binoculars as they zoomed in on the cloud of dust that was making its way towards him. The engine roared to life, and he ignored everything and drove straight over the grass towards the road that would get out of here. They blasted down the road for close to ten minutes when he once again noticed the zombie king behind them. His hyper vision was able to see the Zombie King as if Rowan were standing right next to him.

He was able to see the ground beneath his mount's feet shrinking for him. He was able to see that the zombie king, in fact, looked exactly like a normal person and its skin was no longer pale, but in the center of its eyes, the iris was shaped like a beetle. He was able to see the massive great sword that hung from its back, but most importantly, he was able to see its name and level. If the ornate beetle was what denoted an elite enemy, the symbol next to the zombie king's name was simply a crowned insect that looked exactly like the parasite that crawled out but fatter.

The name itself shined with a blood red light.[Zombie King Garda Lvl 29*] Rowan immediately turned the car onto the highway. How fearsome of an enemy was this to chase them this far. If he was considered the start of rank 2 after lvl 10 and this enemy was on the cusp of rank 3, Rowan shivered and the car swerved onto a main road. His blood slowed to a crawl and he could see the Zombie king pull its arm back. Rowan veered to the left, right as a segment of the road got blasted to kingdom come by a javelin made of pure earth and thicker than a football goalpost.

A rock exploded out and shattered the back window while Rowan kept one hand on the wheel he snapped the other one backward to and caught a stone that would have collided with Em's head. "Both of you hunker down in the seats and keep your heads low. He's gaining too quickly when I yell now Camille, take Em in your arms and run with all your strength towards the gates of the stadium." Camille nodded to him "What about you?" he had recovered exactly ten points of mana in the time that he had been driving and dodging the pillars of earth thrown at them. Rowan smiled at Camille like the words coming out of his mouth were not absolutely insane.

"I'm gonna slow down the zombie King. Just make sure the guards at the gate don't close it. The zombie king won't charge through the stadium with his current strength.The quest hinted at this being the only spot being safe from him." "Em, can I borrow your bracelet, i'll be sure to bring it back." Rowan could feel the fear for her life radiating off her body, but if this was going to work, he needed more than ten points of mana. She nodded yes and slid the bracelet around his wrist. She had used most of it, which made him realize just how many zombies had gone after the two of them. The bracelet had a 100 points left when it was slid onto his wrist but unlike Em he had a mana space so the bracelet converted the mana in it to his own and fed it back into his mana space giving him 110 mana left which should be just enough.

"Camille, grab Em and get ready. I'm gonna have to let you all out abruptly!" She reached back and wrapped Em up and hardly had time to ask what he meant when she saw that instead of the singular javelin, the zombie king had instead opted for a rain of regular sized stone javelins. The zombie showed excellent control over its mana as it kept splitting one massive javelin until all above them was blotted out. Rowan slammed on the brakes and the car slid sideways he slammed himself into the passenger door and the whole car followed his momentum and flipped while he smashed the door downward and with his free hand a gentle pulse of cyan mana pushed the remains of the car into the sky to be their umbrella.

The car became a beehive before exploding while Rowan was riding the door like it was a skateboard with Camille in his arms. Cyan mana coated their bodies and with all of his strength, he threw them towards the stadium, carrying them right out of the javelin rain. He skid to a stop and wielded both daggers. He smashed into javelin after javelin, moving them out of the way and stopping them from killing him. The police manning the door had noticed the commotion and had come forward to receive Camille and Em and seen the madness in front of them.

They yelled into a radio as their eyes went wide as Rowan's hands became a blur as he parried Javelin after javelin with rapid swings while even with his mana coating the blade; they started to crack. The javelin rain finally stopped and Rowan stood there panting. Garda stood not even a hundred yards away from him, riding a massive brown bear with pulsing, red eyes. Garda pulled the great sword from behind his back and pointed it at Rowan."You... Die…"

Rowan was down to 65 mana after that show. He grit his teeth and continued the gamble. Storm steps switched back into active and he left a trail of steps in the air as he climbed high into the sky. His fairy bloodline was clearly a combination of things. He had noticed that with the random falcon ability he got, but in that case, without knowing the rest, he did know a little about falcons and their signature hunting technique. He looked down and his voice spoke out like this skill was already known, but no such skill existed on his status page before he did this.

"Storm Stoop!' He pressed off the sky and used the sixty mana to create six storm points., throughout the battle, he had realized that even without striking a critical point he could create his own with ten mana. He hit the first storm point and accelerated while the storm point formed around him.He hit the second one and reached upwards of 200 miles per hour. The third and he hit 300 mph and the shattered storm points formed the image of a massive cyan falcon diving towards Garda. The fourth storm point and he hit 500 miles per hour.

The fifth storm point and there was a popping sound and‌ cloud burst and one could no longer see his shape, just the cyan falcon. He had broken the sound barrier with his physical body and at this rate, even with the mana protecting him, cracks had formed in his physical body. He was not strong enough to pull this off yet. He hit the last storm point and accelerated to close to 1000 miles per hour and without his prompting, the falcon figure let out a raptor call that echoed throughout the entire vicinity.

He reached Garda and slashed down with both daggers, but not even Rowan realized the difference between him and an existence one foot away from tier three. The bear mount turned to paste beneath him as all the surrounding buildings had their windows shatter and cracks spread through their frames.

Rowan's left dagger had indeed pierced all the way through Garda's shoulder and blown a hole in it the size of a watermelon. That was the distraction blow, though the true blow was the one from Rowan's right hand that had been aiming for the throat. He was going to go through the front of the neck to reach the brain stem. Garda had stopped the strike with the flat of his great sword. He grimaced and smiled down at Rowan as he turned his body sideways and, with one massive upward swing, aimed to cut Rowan in two.

The blade cut deep into Rowan's front but the increase in battle effectiveness showed its worth right in the moment as the sword had cut deep enough for his bones to be seen he leaned his body along with the edge of the blade rolling his body backwards and shooting back towards the stadium using the momentum from the slash. He bounced off of the ground, once and then twice, before skidding to a stop a little ways away from the wide-eyed guards and Camille. He struggled to his feet and looked at the infuriated Garda. Garda saw the other people coming from the stadium and huffed before turning around to leave.

Rowan wobbled to his feet before falling over. He could feel that before he slammed into the ground, two different pairs of hands did their best to catch him despite the grievous wound on his chest.