Fighting zombies

The inside of the cave was chilling to the bone. Licht had to use his aura to surround both Midas and Daren as even Midas had problems moving forward. That was how much oppressive the aura from the cave was. As they walked they finally encountered something odd, they saw a group of people that had been immersed in the aura for god knows how long. Their skins were black with red streaks flowing through their bodies like veins. Their eyes were blank.

"Zombies," Midas said

"Yeah but these zombies are different. They are stronger than average zombies of the same rank as they had been immersed in this aura for a long time" Licht said and continued "And these are the weakest ones cause I can sense stronger ones inside"

He looked toward Daren and said "Since they are brown rank, they are your prey. We would use this unfortunate incident as a training exercise for both of you"

Daren was still nervous at the concept of undead but he buckled up. He brought out his Kodachis from the back of his waist. He had been learning dual-wielding on the journey here. He was still rusty so he would have to learn and improve on the go. He ran to the five plus zombies and then said "Shadow boost".

Since the cave was dimly lit with lots of shadows, this was his domain even though the zombies were around the 6th and 7th brown layer. As he boosted into one of the unsuspecting zombies, its head was sent flying off its neck and that was when the remaining zombies found the intruder in their midst. They all attack together and they were a bit faster than a 6th brown ranked human, but to Daren who was using a massive speed boost, they were just fast but not as fast as him.

He slashed toward one of them and his attack was blocked by the nails of the zombie. As his attack was blocked another zombie attacked from behind which Daren narrowly dodged. He now realized how difficult a group battle will be.

He sighed and looked at his master and Licht but they both seemed unbothered. He swiftly jumped back into battle again. He disappeared from the view of the zombies who were confused but before they could process what happened, Daren's blade impaled the head of another zombie then using his second blade he sliced the head of the third one in half horizontally.

Now it was only him and two zombies, he moved fast as he could feel his ether energy swiftly dropping so he chose to end this as fast as possible.

"Shadow bind," He said and his shadow stretched out and connected with the shadow of the two zombies. The two zombies could no longer move. This was a skill that kept the target of the spell immobilized for a few seconds.

Daren dashed toward both of them and stabbed through the bottom of both their jaws. They were still standing due to the shadow bind casted on them, when it wore off, they both fell over.

Midas saw the souls of the zombies and they were relatively normal but he did not absorb them because he only absorbed the souls of his enemies and not innocents. He saw that they looked at Daren with gratitude in their eyes as they disappeared.

Licht frowned as he stared at the souls but he stayed silent. They continued onwards, Daren was a bit exhausted but he was given ether stones by Midas to replenish his energy and also helped with his cultivation base.

Every brown rank zombie they encountered on their way was all handled by Daren. By the time they stopped encountering brown-ranked zombies, Daren was already at the 8th brown rank, one rank away from becoming yellow rank.

Now Midas took the lead with his soul summons, the bandits as they were all peak yellow ranked summons due to leveling up from killing and evolving from souls they consume, they swiftly dispatched any zombie they came across like it was nothing, well that is because it was nothing for beings at their levels.

The battles kept becoming harder and harder for the summons as more zombies kept coming and their levels became higher and at a point, Midas summoned the manticore to assist them helping them and reducing the difficulty of the battle. He also started to absorb the souls of some of them as they felt far darker than the previous brown ranked souls. He figured they were adventurers and mercenaries with a bit of blood on their hands so he did not mind.

Finally, they started running into blue-ranked zombies and the summons were all recalled except the manticore and Wrath were also summoned. Ever since her evolution, she had not been in a battle to test her new abilities so she was excited.

She was rampaging through the cave, ripping the zombies in half with her bare hands, slashing them into bits, or just burning them to ashes. The manticore was not any better as this was what it loved, having to rampage without remorse and no one to stop him. Midas just ran in punching their heads off or literally pulling out the souls from their bodies. Even when they were facing peak blue rank zombies they did not slow down, that was until the first green rank zombie showed up, Midas recalled Wrath and then wore his manticore armor with the giant claymore.

He dashed towards the zombie and cleaved downwards, the zombie attempted to block with both hands only to see both of them being chopped off, After the first cleave downwards, Midas brought the claymore upwards as fast as possible without losing momentum, that was the second cleave, sliced in half from the groin upwards, the zombie fell.

Green-ranked zombies occasionally came out and were swiftly taken care of by Midas till he encountered a late blue stage zombie. His claymore was only leaving scratches and marks but did not go deeper. The zombie punched Midas in the gut, the armor dented inwards and Midas was sent flying till Licht caught him. He was spitting blood and Anger could be seen on his face. He got up and went for attack again. Every slash and stab he attempted were all parried by the zombie, it punched, kicked, and scratched Midas down several times but he got up albeit more exhausted every time. After the zombie left a big slash that went through his armor, he was flung again and this time as he was about to get up to attack again, Licht tapped his shoulder and said "It's my turn now"

He walked as he slowly removed his robe and kept it in his soul space, now Licht only had pants on. With a body that looked like that of a Greek god, he was absolutely built, not too burly and not too skinny, just perfection.

A twig came out of the ground which he picked, he then swung three times, the zombie had three lines appear on its body and its body separated piece by piece. All three pieces fell to the floor while Licht continued onward with Midas and Daren following behind him.