Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

There were only three zombies within range of Mathew\'s sight.

Only three of them.

And yet, the young man stopped completely.

"So did I," he informed Norbert of the situation while staring down the three monstrous beings that stood only about two hundred meters away. "How\'s the situation on your end?"

Mathew struggled to keep his eyes both open and closed, unwilling to let the three zombies out of his sight… while at the same time doing his best to maintain communication with the rest of his local group.

"Nothing yet," Norbert reported quickly, allowing Mathew to dedicate most of his focus to the enemies he found.

Those zombies… were unlike any of the ones Mathew fought with in the past.

They weren\'t monsters, as he could still recognize the general human-like shape of their bodies. Yet, at the same time, they reached a level where it simply felt wrong to call them zombies anymore.

There were no signs of rot or festering wounds on them as if their bodies were composed only of the perfectly fine parts of a thousand different rotting corpses. Their skin even had this lustrous, shiny aura to it, something that any girl across the world and throughout the ages would happily go to war for.

But the thing that left the greatest impression on the young man… was their aura.

There was this extremely oppressive feeling around the three zombies, making Mathew feel like vomiting, choking, and suffocating at the same time.

And all of that with just a single look.

\'This is going to be one hell of a pain,\' Mathew thought, forcing his body to play along with his wishes as he pulled out his saber.

\'Huh?\' Mathew shrugged slightly when all the weight of the zombie\'s aura suddenly vanished as soon as he wrapped his fingers around his weapon\'s handle.

That oppressive aura was still there, Mathew could feel it perfectly well… But right now, there was a strange force in play that barred said force from interfering with Mathew\'s mind.

\'No matter what happens,\' Mathew thought, gulping down his saliva before readying himself for a tough fight, \'this world only throws more and more questions at me!\'

The zombies finally noticed Mathew. Or maybe they approached close enough to make a charge justified?

Whatever the case, the zombies rushed ahead… And Mathew refused to let them do one better over him.

\'I can\'t just rush it,\' the young man thought as he ran straight ahead, making it seem as if he was some kind of lover that the zombie trio would reunite with after years of heartwrenching separation.

Yet, instead of hugs, as soon as they reached each other, the two sides exchanged attacks.

The zombies slashed with their hands, baring their long claws and nails at Mathew\'s skin.

On the other hand, Mathew swung his saber, knocking away two of the attacks before taking the third on the flat side of his weapon.

\'Ugh…\' Mathew forced himself to hold the sigh of surprise and exhaustion when the attack nearly forced him through the asphalt and into the solid ground.

It was THAT heavy.

\'Just like I thought,\' Mathew gulped his saliva down once he pushed his body to its limits and managed to knock the attack out of the way. \'They are unlike anything I fought with before!\'

Save for their insane basic speed and strength, not to speak senses, and processing power, those zombies were hardly any different from all the others within the horde\'s mob.

They bore no special traits like wings or horns. They didn\'t display special abilities like breathing fire or creating spheres of the void by sucking in all the air around them.

No.

They were simple zombies… Just far faster and stronger than Mathew ever expected them to be!

Clash.

Clang.

The fight ensued, with all three zombies throwing their attacks haphazardly, making it seem more like a competition to get Mathew\'s brain rather than a cooperation to take him down.

And it was precisely due to this reason that Mathew managed to survive the initial onslaught.

\'I can\'t face them head-on!\' he shouted in his mind, slashing with his saber right at the hand aimed for the side of his left shoulder.

The saber and the zombie\'s hand clashed… But only a tiny cut appeared on the surface of the zombie\'s hand.

\'Is that all that this attack did?\' Mathew thought, jumping to the back when he felt his surprise becoming too great to warrant a controlled fight.

Up until this point, Mathew only ever struggled to cut a zombie when facing the leaders of huge hordes or evolved monsters.

\'I know they are higher evolved than the ones I fought in the past,\' Mathew thought, gulping down his saliva as he retreated his hand and unleashed a barrage of slashes, cuts, and smacks, all to keep at least one of the zombies at bay.

But the others weren\'t going to give him the room for such an outrageous tactic.

Before long, Mathew was back to the defensive, desperately struggling to ward off the attacks coming from literally every direction possible.

When they fought first, the zombies would show their rivalry in their greed for Mathew\'s brain… or whatever was prompting all those spawns of the apocalypse to lust for human means.

Yet, as the fight went on, the zombies continued to learn from their former mistakes and improve upon them.

\'I need to end this quick,\' Mathew thought, gritting his teeth as he forced his body beyond the limits established by his system.

If there was anything good that came out of just how desperate this fight was…

It was the ability that Mathew rarely used just because of how extremely inconvenient and simply troublesome for it to activate.

"Overuse!" Mathew shouted, hoping for at least a placebo effect to take place after he cheered himself on.

And his next slash... Managed to cut right through three of the zombie\'s fingers, stopping only on the fourth!

\'It works,\' Mathew thought, ramping up the rate of his attacks. \'It fucking works!\' he thought, overjoyed by the sensation of his body getting on fire.

He wasn\'t aware of his own movements. It was his body that fought along the lines of what he developed in the previous fights.

And it was this lack of active thinking that allowed Mathew to focus his brain on other tasks.

Tasks… like strategizing a way to actually win this fight rather than just stalling the inevitable in hopes of some reinforcements.

And soon, this tiny window of opportunity for Mathew to think was exactly what he needed.

Powered by his active overdrive, Mathew singled out the weakest of the zombie trio before shifting his focus more and more toward it.

Soon, his entire fighting choreography ended up limited to just two phases.

During the first phase, Mathew would frantically repel all the incoming attacks while forcibly creating space between each of the zombies.

Then, for but a single instant of the second phase, Mathew would focus all of his attacks on his real target, quickly overwhelming it and stacking some wounds on it.

And then, as if nothing ever happened, Mathew would go right back to the defense, jumping like a cat, slashing with his saber as a furious cat would slash with its nails, and pushing the zombies aside whenever one of them got too close.

It was a tedious tactic. One that made it impossible for Mathew to contact Norbert.

But soon, it proved to be effective enough when Mathew\'s saber finally found a good angle and enough momentum to strike at the neck of the weakest of the trio… cutting its head away!

For a single instant, relief overwhelmed Mathew\'s soul.

And yet, in spite of their ally falling, the other two zombies didn\'t cease their attacks.

They didn\'t even slow down for a moment, perfectly willing to capitalize on Mathew lowering his guard.

But it was all an act. And now that there were fewer opponents than before…

Mathew suddenly found himself well within the scope of the fight, perfectly capable of managing two zombies of this level at once.

It was a tough task where even a single hit landing could spell Mathew\'s doom.

And yet, the moment three pairs of hands turned into two, the degree of exercise Mathew had to go through to ward them off… vanished.

Yes, it didn\'t change. And the remaining two zombies would be anywhere but easy to topple.

But in this brief moment, Mathew understood the crucial truth.

\'If it\'s only those two… I can win!\' he thought…

Only to realize that while he was focused on staying alive, a pack of roughly fourteen horde mob zombies entered the alley and were now rushing toward the battle!