Lord Of Ashes

"Forget it," John muttered, gripping the machete in his hand. "Eight points of attack power isn't much, but it's enough to deal with zombies." He reasoned that these undead were slow and clumsy, vulnerable even to blunt weapons like baseball bats. His machete, made of sturdy iron, combined with his strength, should be more than sufficient to take them down.

His immediate goal was clear: clear out the apartment next door. "If I remember correctly, the radar showed a police zombie in there," John said to himself as he organized his belongings. His old shoulder bag, now considerably lighter, held only the essentials: an enemy radar, a small bottle of magic recovery potion, and the key to his apartment. The bulk of his supplies—extra potions, alchemy materials, water, and canned food—were left in the room for later use. After all, his energy reserves were nearly full, and carrying excess weight would only slow him down.

Earlier, John had scanned the area with his enemy radar. It revealed that only the corridors on the fifth and sixth floors had scattered zombies. His plan was straightforward: clear each room along the corridor, one by one. He wasn't sure how many soul points he would earn from ordinary zombies, but he hoped it would be enough to reach Level 4 soon. Currently, he needed 270 more soul points to level up.

Locking his apartment door behind him, John hefted the machete and headed toward Apartment 302. Upon reaching the door, he knocked on the reinforced security barrier with the flat of the blade. Almost immediately, he heard the guttural growls of a zombie inside. A faint smirk crossed his face. "Perfect. Let's adjust your position a bit, shall we?"

The radar indicated that the zombie was standing in the center of the room. To draw it closer, John knocked on the door a few more times, ensuring the creature shuffled toward the sound. Once satisfied that it was directly behind the door, he took a step back and delivered a powerful kick. The security door crashed inward with a deafening bang, slamming into the zombie and pinning it to the ground.

John entered the room cautiously, machete in hand. The zombie, trapped beneath the heavy door, flailed uselessly. His experiment was about to begin. John had always wondered if he could examine an enemy's attributes just as he could his own. Kneeling beside the immobilized zombie, he focused intently. To his surprise, a transparent panel appeared before him, detailing the creature's stats:

Police Zombie (Common)

Level: 1 (0 stars)

Talents:

Slow Decay

T-Virus Vector (Evolution Failed)

Slow Decay: In zombie form, decay rate and stamina consumption are reduced by 90%. Physical strength increased by 10%.

T-Virus Vector (Evolution Failed): Due to insufficient immune function (physique less than 10), the host failed to resist the T-virus. After death, the host was reanimated as a zombie, instinctively spreading the virus through bites and scratches. However, secondary infections are not possible.

HP: 25/60

Energy: 0/0

Strength: 4

Agility: 3

Physique: 4

Intelligence: 1

Charm: 0

Skills:

Bite

Scratch

John's eyes widened. "So, I can actually see their attributes... Interesting." He studied the data carefully, noting the zombie's talents. "Wait a minute. Why does this zombie have two talents when I only have one? That doesn't seem fair."

His mind wandered to stories he'd heard about awakeners attempting to unlock a second talent. Such experiments rarely ended well. Just last week, he recalled, a lightning-powered awakener had tried to forcefully awaken a second ability by channeling enormous amounts of energy into their body. The individual climbed to the top of a building during a thunderstorm, holding a lightning rod, hoping to absorb the storm's power.

The result? A cleaner discovered the charred remains the next morning. Despite the awakener's heightened resistance to electricity, their body couldn't handle the surge. The empire even sent a retroactive-powered investigator to analyze the incident. Their findings confirmed that the experiment had been a failure from the start; no signs of a second awakening had been detected before death. The excessive energy flow merely convinced the awakener to keep going until their body gave out.

Shaking his head at the memory, John refocused on the zombie before him. "Physique immunity to the T-virus kicks in at ten points or higher, huh?" he mused. "That's... convenient." With his physique stat already above the threshold, John realized that the virus posed no threat to him. This immunity drastically reduced the danger zombies presented. Furthermore, the virus's inability to spread beyond the initial host limited its outbreak potential. The days of exponential infection, where one zombie turned into ten and then a hundred, were over.

Curious about the zombie's attack power, John decided to conduct a risky test. Holding his left hand steady, he extended his index finger toward the creature's mouth. This finger, incidentally, had already been used to test his machete's sharpness earlier. The zombie's jaws snapped shut, its teeth grinding against his finger, but a faint, earthy glow enveloped the digit, blocking the attack entirely. No matter how much force the zombie applied, it couldn't break through John's defensive aura.

"Figures," John said, unimpressed. "A human's bite force isn't all that strong—around 40 kilograms at most. And the further forward the bite is, the weaker it gets. Zombies are no different. They're nothing compared to larger dogs, which can easily exert two or three times that force."

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Read up to chap 20 at [email protected]/Onesword