Chapter 33

People screamed and ran for their lives as zombies invaded their villages and towns. 

People hid inside of closets, in pantries, inside of bushes, underneath tables, anywhere they could find protection from the undead beasts that were hunting them down and eating them alive.

Women, men and children alike feared for their lives.

It was utter chaos on the streets and all across the kingdom.

Zombies chased after anyone they could see.

Market stalls, horses, wagons and personal belongings were abandoned as people ran for their lives.

Zombies eating people alive only fueled the terror and horror in the air. Screams and cries of agony filled the air as the unfortunate victims were eaten alive.

Dead bodies laid sprawled and lifeless on the streets and roads.

A woman and her little boy were cowering and trembling in fear as a zombie approached them, arms outstretched and mouth drooling, reaching for its newest victims. The mother had broken her leg after a bad fall and her son didn't want to abandon her so mother and daughter were left at the mercy of the zombie.

Then the zombie went flying into a window shop where the glass cracked and broke from the impact and the zombie was sent rolling into the shop itself.

Catalina stood there, panting and breathing heavily, a hand balled into a fist.

"Take your boy and run. I don't know where but just find somewhere safe where you can hide and wait out this…disaster."

Then Catalina saw the woman's broken leg and understood the situation.

Carrying the woman on her back was no problem for her as she was fit and in good shape.

Her son walked alongside her and Catalina. 

The sounds of fighting were still on-going as members of the Royal Guard valiantly fought the zombies who just kept resurrecting who matter how many times they were "killed". All around them, fighting could be seen.

A man summoned a ball of solid rock the size of a carriage and hurled it at a hoard of zombies. The ball stayed suspended in the air before the man used his rock manipulation abilities to slam the boulder down onto the zombies.

The massive rock crushed up a good number of zombies and turned them into zombie pancakes.

But more and more zombies just kept coming.

The man continued to create stones from thin air and chuck them at the zombies.

Balls of rock the size of fists and apples struck the zombies and it would have been damaging if the zombies were human.

But the rocks did their damage and harm but to no avail in stopping the zombies.

A woman was sitting on top of a building that looked to be a cafe of some sort and she was firing off arrows or spears made from ice at the zombies. The ice seemed to freeze and turn cold around her as she created long and pointy spears of ice from thin air. She made three at once and she lobbed them at the zombies in a way that showed that she was very experienced and practiced in throwing these spears.

The spears headshot the zombies with the spears going right through the heads of the zombies and their bodies but the zombies showed no signs of stopping-or resurrecting- so the woman instead switched to blasting them with beams of ice that trapped them in a pillar of ice that seemed to do the trick.

Another woman was firing off arrow after arrow at the zombies on top of a roof. Arrows pierced the hearts of zombies and their heads. Zombies dropped like flies to the ground only to get back up again in a few minutes.

A young man with long white hair was causing the zombies to freeze in their tracks, paralyzed and unable to move, while another man used his sword, covered in aura and powerful mana, to hack and cut away at the zombies until they were reduced to small pieces.

All around Catalina, a mini war was going on as the ability users fought to protect themselves and the people of this little trading town from undead threats.

Catalina had to turn away and keep on walking whenever she passed by a person being eaten alive by a zombie or a small group of zombies. It was heartless but there was nothing she could do to save them as their throats were ripped out and they were dead in a matter of seconds.

Catalina knew that her poison would do more harm than good in a large and open space like this.

Maybe if she could somehow modify her poison to only target and kill off certain targets…Catalina had been experimenting with it over the last few days as she did her investigation request.

20 people-all perfectly healthy with no history of illness-died suddenly in their sleep one night.

It was suspected to be some sort of poison as there were no signs that an ability or a weapon had been used to kill them.

Catalina spent days investigating the poison.

She had never seen anything like it before.

It wasn't Belladonna.

It wasn't Cyanide.

It wasn't any poison that she knew about.

She examined the victim's bodies and discovered that the poison had corroded and melted away at their organs, that their flesh blackened and shriveled up, that their blood had become poisonous and dangerous to be around, that their bones were brittle and honeycombed.

What kind of poison killed them?

Catalina got her answer when the town was suddenly invaded by these freakish undead zombies and some sort of poisonous creature that expelled a poisonous gas from its body.

The zombies were the main problem. That sluggish and ugly monster snail was not by comparison.

The monster snail expelled the poisonous gas from its body through its pores and mouth. But it seemed to be inactive and less aggressive in nature than the zombies were. But the poisonous gas it produced was no joke. 

Already many had fallen victim to its poisonous gas, both civilian and Royal Guard alike.

Catalina was not affected by the poison as her poisonous manipulation and control ability gave her a passive poison immunity ability as well.

There might have been more victims if Catalina didn't suck in all the poisonous gas into her body. 

Shit, she thought, that poison is so strong that my poison immunity is barely keeping it from killing me.

She quickened her pace.

Almost to the shelter.

But then a zombie charged out of the alleyway at them so quickly that she had no time to react.

The mother and son screamed. Catalina cursed herself for getting caught off guard.

Then the zombie bounced off an invisible barrier and went crashing onto the ground.

"Well, Catty, never expected to see you here."

Catalina turned to the source of the voice.

It was Jasper. Her older brother and Elijah's as well. It had been years since she last saw him.

He looked bad with a small cut on his forehead and his shirt reduced to rags but he was smiling widely.

Catalina would have ran up to hug him if she wasn't carrying the injured woman on her back right now.

"Jazzy…I-"

Jasper caught her off as he created another force shield to protect Catalina and the mother and son from a zombie trying to sneak up on them from behind.

"Talk later, Catty. Right now, let's just focus on getting ourselves out of this crazy place first."

….

Arya sucker punched a zombie in the face and it went flying through the air until it crashed into some bushes and crushed them.

Arya winced. Some innocent bushes got crushed beyond saving because of her.

But now was not the time to worry about plant life.

She, Assyrian, Granite and Elijah raced around the gardens, taking out zombies and saving whatever people they could find.

Assyrian and Elijah had recovered a little bit now and they could continue to burn and fry those zombies so that they couldn't resurrect.

Granite and Arya took the lead.

The two raced ahead of the prince and royal guard, punching and kicking at the zombies and leaving them incapacitated so Elijah or Assyrian could finish them off with a blast of fire or a lightning bolt from the sky.

Elijah blasted a stream of fire at a hoard of incoming zombies and burned them to ashes while Assyrian hurled bolts of lightning at them and fired up badly.

Arya focused on ripping apart those freaks with her telekinesis, she tore off limbs, ripped up flesh into smaller pieces, broke bone into tiny pieces, zombies yanked into the ground and tore into small pieces. Arya also lifted up several zombies at once a few feet into the air before slamming them so hard into the ground that their bodies were completely crushed and broken beyond resurrection, smushed like bugs underneath someone's feet. Good, with nothing left of their bodies, they couldn't resurrect.

She kicked a zombie in the guts and set it flying back towards the hoard of zombies coming at her from behind.

Damn zombies.

Granite smashed in zombie heads, grabbing zombies by the faces and slamming them onto the ground.

Arya seemed to have healed Granite back to full health and strength.

Granite's entire skin was gray and stone-like, hard like rocks, creating an armor for him to protect him against the zombies' bites.

He punched, kicked, smashed in heads, but the zombies kept resurrecting and attacking hi no matter how much damage he inflicted on them.

Several bolts of lightning from the sky crashed down onto the zombies and the zombies were reduced to nothing but a black burn mark on the ground.

Assyrian saved Granite.

…

"FInally, the fighting is over. Man, I thought I was going to die."

Granite could joke around in such a serious situation but Arya didn't feel like joking around.

It was the same as that day. The day those freaks invaded the village she was living in. She jumped to her death only to survive since she jumped into a river instead and the rest was history.

Nasty beasts, Arya thought, as she sat down on the ground to catch her breath. She wished she had her swords with her but all she had was a pretty little pocket knife.

Assyrian sat down next to her.

Arya sighed. Another cousin. Ezekiel was Cousin Number one so Assyrian was Cousin number two.

Assyrian looked nice but was he really nice?

He could be faking it for all she knew.

Assyrian seemed to have read her mind.

"Listen, girlie, I know you're suspicious of me but surely we can get along?"

Arya nodded.

"Yes, yeah, yeah, we can get along. But is she like that to everyone?"

"Who? Marisa? Yeah, she's a real nasty bitch who got her eyes on the throne along with a few more of my cousins. Like Lysandra and Theon. I plan on fighting for the throne."

"Why?"

Assyrian looked like Arya slapped him in the face.

"Well…."

Assyrian had no answer for her question and Arya knew that he didn't really want the throne.

"You don't want the throne. You have no real motivation for it at all. So why fight?"

Assyrian looked like someone had finally lifted a weight off his shoulders.

"My mother. She wants me to fight for the throne against my half-siblings. I have been groomed for that purpose ever since I was able to walk and talk."

"Your mother?"

Assyrian nodded.

"Yep, she pretty much pushed me to fight for the throne. I told her I would just to please her but I really don't want to. I just want to live a happy and peaceful life with my boyfriend."

"Boyfriend..oh wait, Granite?"

Arya hazarded a guess. Granite could have just been a close friend of his but from the way Assyrian freaked out when Granite got injured and how he blushed when Granite hugged him, maybe his feelings towards Granite was more than just mere friendship.

Assyrian nodded.

"Yeah, I didn't tell my mom yet about Granite even though we have been dating for 2 years now."

Arya looked at what used to be a beautiful and pristine garden that was now in ruins thanks to them and the zombies.

Complete silence filled the air but Arya knew that, deep down in her guts, that the fighting wasn't over yet.

"Because she won't accept the fact that you're into men, not women?"

Assyrian shook his head.

"No, because she thinks that all romance and dating is a waste of time when I should be training and preparing to take the throne. She cares nothing about what I want and I had to keep my relationship with Granite a secret or else she'll try to end my relationship with him."

"Trashy mom. Can't she respect what her son wants, not just what she wants?"

Arya never had a mother before since she grew up as an orphan but she was pretty sure that this wasn't how a mother should act.

Elijah blasted a stream of fire at a single zombie that somehow escaped the sheer storm of fire and lightning that had rained down on the zombies just a few minutes ago.

"My princess, I think that's the last of those freaks."

Arya whipped her head around to see Elijah giving her a thumbs up as he wiped his head.

Granite stomped on a zombie and crushed its head underneath his foot.

All done.

Hopefully no more of those freaks would attack them.

…

"Is it over yet?"

A male servant whispered to the others hiding with him inside the dark kitchen pantry.

Baron Pax did notice that it was quite outside and there was no more fighting going on.

But you could never be too sure.

A young girl, a student of the Royal Academy, whimpered and buried herself in Baron Pax's chest.

Baron Pax did his best to comfort the poor girl, patting her hand and hugging her back.

He could hear the thoughts of everyone in the room in his head.

Oh fuck, oh fuck, am I going to die like this?

This can't be real, this can't be real.

My friend just died right in front of me and I couldn't save her.

I just want to go home.

What the fuck are those things?

All the blood….oh my fucking god.

He and around 8 students of the Royal Academy were the lucky ones who had managed to hide and escape from the hungry eyes of the undead predators.

Baron Pax wished he had a more combative ability so he could help to protect the kids and fight off those beasts but telepathy and mind reading were all he had.

He was wracked with guilt over the poor kids and teachers that were killed off by the zombies.

Footsteps approached the door and the door suddenly flung open without warning.

Everyone waited for the worst.

"It's okay, those freaks are gone now."

It was Myna, eyes still glowing a bright gold and looking a little tired.

Cheers and tears of joy filled the room.

… 

Marisa hid inside of her room during the whole ordeal.

Coward. That was what she really was. A complete selfish and cowardly person.

Her mother always told her that kindness and mercy was weakness and to not open up her heart.

But she was now dead. A zombie got her and ate her alive.She didn't die fighting, but died like a coward, begging and crying for her life in the final moments of her life.

Her mother met the same fate as a zombie managed to rip out her throat and she was dead before she even hit the ground.

Dead bodies of servants and royal guards littered the ground, hallways and royal gardens.

The zombies were gone now. Not killed off but disappeared into thin air.

A complete disaster for the kingdom but this was only the taste of what was to come.