After Liam and Serra had gotten dressed, the group made their way down the stairs. Zeon motioned for them to stop just as they reached the halfway point, and he decided to scout first before just rushing in. He shared his thoughts with the group, and they quickly agreed to his line of reasoning; as he was the strongest fighter, the responsibility naturally fell on his shoulders. Zeon stealthily made his way down the st few steps. Having reached the bottom, he stuck his head out to see what y ahead. The hallway was packed with seven undead, wandering in groups of three, with a single undead moving on its own. He used his Analyze skill to check their levels and was surprised by the result as the two groups of three were just level 1, but the thing that surprised him was that the lone undead was level 2. The undead did not look much different from his low-level counterparts, but there were differences as this one seemed to be more muscur, and it had longer cws, but other than that, it looked virtually identical.

  As he had finished scouting, Zeon made his way back to the rest of his group and shared his discoveries. The news of the level 2 caused a minor uproar, but Zeon quickly silenced them, afraid that the noise might attract the undead.

  “We need a pn.” Malcolm was the first to speak up after Zeon’s little revetion.

  “Agreed, we can not just rush into this or we might meet an early grave.” Zeon agreed as he tried to think of a suitable pn. The only thing he could think of was to lure the zombies group by group, helping Liam and Serra level up as they would require the extra assistance. Only after they had cleared out the low-level undead could they even think of attempting to fight the level 2.

  Having made up his mind, Zeon shared his thoughts with the group, he could see the disgust and fear on Serra’s face at the mention of having to kill the undead. Liam had a face of reluctant acceptance as this would have been inevitable whether it be now or ter; it would happen. In the end, they both agreed. Looking over to Malcolm, he noticed that his friend seemed to have something on his mind.

  “What’s on your mind?” Zeon asked, seeing no reason to stay quiet as any input would help.

  Malcolm seemed reluctant to answer, but he just sighed and said it anyway. “We seem to be overlooking the fact that these things level up just like us, meaning they will only get stronger. That means we have no choice but to become stronger as well or else.” He stopped there in an attempt to prove his point.

  His words caused a seed of worry to grow within the hearts of the group, but it also seemed to have had a positive effect on Liam, as he looked to have steeled his will for what was to come.

  As they ironed out the details of their pn, Zeon mostly stayed silent as he felt a change within his eyes. He saw a soft blue glow in the corner of his vision. Turning to look at the cause of the light, he was quite frankly shocked at what he saw. His mouth opened and closed as he tried to understand what he saw. There, at the epicenter of the glowing light, stood an ethereal figure. It looked vaguely human with an expression of anguish etched on its transparent face. It was standing at the bottom of the stairs, bnkly staring forward. The thing seemed to be fading in and out of existence as it stood; a cold chill ran down his spine as he looked at it. On instinct, he used Analyze and what he saw only left him more confused. “Apparition lvl 1 - Unbound.”

  The second he analyzed it, it turned its head to look directly at him, staring directly into his eyes. It looked as if it screamed, but no sound could be heard as it started to move closer toward him. Zeon was scared, but he knew he had to do something, so he activated his Avatar skill, hoping that it would be able to do something as the thing was already upon him. He reached out with the cwed hand of his avatar and attempted to stab through the apparition, but something strange happened when he made contact with it: a message appeared in front of his vision. “Would you like to bind lvl 1 Apparition? Requirement - Exceed it in level. Cost - 1 Soul slot.”

  Now Zeon was thoroughly confused, bind, soul slot, what does that even mean, but it piqued his interest nonetheless as he chose “Yes”. The apparition simply vanished as a notification fshed in the corner of his vision. Focusing on it, it opened up his status screen.

  Name: Zeon Whither

  Level: 2 (exp to next lvl 0/100)

  Race: Human Rank Initiate

  Css: N/A

  Profession: N/A

  Health: 50/50

  Mana: 75/80

  Stats: Strength: 4

  Agility: 7

  Toughness: 5

  Intelligence: 10

  Wisdom: 11

  Perception: 7

  Stat points to invest: 0

  Active Skills: Avatar lvl 1 (Transform your soul into a weapon; you and your avatar fight as one.)

  Passive Skills: Sorrowful Sight lvl 1 (Your Sorrowful eyes can see the damned.)

  Analyze lvl 1 (By focusing on something, you can gain more information.)

  Soul Slots (1/5): Apparition lvl 1 (Born from a person who died in great anguish.)

  Empty

  Empty

  Empty

  Empty

  Looking at his status screen, he noticed the new category that had appeared but he was still confused as to what it was. But before he got the chance to explore it further, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Excusing the screen, he looked up and saw Malcolm was the one who had pced his hand on his shoulder an expression of worry marked his face.

  “Are you okay?” Malcolm asked, but Zeon just waved him off.

  “I am fine. Are we ready to go?” Zeon asked to try and divert their attention from him, he was not sure he wanted to share this information yet as he did not fully understand it; besides, it is always good to have a trump card or two up your sleeve.

  Malcolm gave him a look as if he did not believe him, but chose to ignore it as he said, “Yes, we are ready.”

  With that, the group moved down to the bottom of the stairs. Their dorm rooms had been located on the second floor so these were the only stairs they would have to go down. Once they reached the bottom, Zeon separated himself from the group to check on the positions of the undead. They had not moved much since the st time he was here, but the furthest group had moved closer to the level 2, which was good for them as they would not have to worry about biting off more than they could chew. With the new information, he moved back to the group, and they got into position, with Zeon and Malcolm’s two undead in the front, Liam and Serra would be behind them, with Malcolm covering their fnk. The pn was simple: Malcolm’s undead would distract the zombies while Zeon would work on immobilizing them so that Liam and Serra could get the kill and get their first skill.

  With everything in pce, they moved out into the hallway, turning to the left where the nearest group was located. They moved without hesitation, Zeon activated his Avatar as he got close, feeling the mana leave his body as he did so, it was like a fire was traveling from his abdominal and exiting through his pours, he did not have time to think on it further as they had arrived and the undead had already noticed them. The undead let off a low growl as they approached.

  Malcolm’s undead were the first to react as they stopped the approaching zombies, holding them back from attacking the group. One of them sustained damage as a zombie had cwed at its stomach, ripping it open. The undead's entrails started leaking out, but it was otherwise unaffected. This was when Zeon made his move. As he dashed forward, pivoting on his right leg, he ducked underneath the cwed hand of a zombie and shed out with the cwed hand of his avatar. It struck the elbow joint, severing it clean off. Bck blood sprayed from the wound, drenching him in the process. But he did not have the time to compin as the zombie attacked with its other hand with a vertical swing, trying to cw at him. He took a step back to catch his breath before moving back into the foray.

  Zeon dashed forward again and, using the momentum of his dash he nded a devastating blow to its other arm, that was one less zombie to worry about. As he was distracted by the first zombie, he almost missed the second one's attack. He narrowly avoided the blow by a mere inch, he could feel the wind brought from the blow on his face as he stepped back. His body was drenched in sweat from the fight, but he could not stop, as stopping would mean death. So he unched himself at the zombie as it was still recovering from its attack. It had overextended, so he took advantage of that by attacking its shoulder, but he slipped on blood and missed his attack, striking it on the bisep instead. It still had the desired effect as he sliced through bone.

  At this point, Zeon was struggling just to breathe, but he continued to fight as he periodically dismembered the limbs of the st two zombies, killing one in the process. Zeon was bone tired so after Liam and Serra got their kills, he called a retreat so that he could recover. They had been lucky as Serra had gotten a healing skill although it did require physical touch to activate, while Liam got a physical augmentation ability allowing him to 2x his strength.

  They rested for a few hours before tackling the next group, but this time, they were better prepared as they now had Liam to help with a golf club as his weapon. They approached the second group using the same formation as before with Liam now walking next to Zeon and they quickly dispatched the group of three, before they approached the level 2 they took a small breather so that they would be in peak condition during the fight. When they returned to the hallway for hopefully the st time, they saw the level 2 at the far end of the hall just standing there as if it was waiting for them. They moved slowly as they approached it, the ctter of their shoes on the floor was the only sound present, once they got within 3 meters of the zombie it turned toward them and with surprising speed it dashed toward them, it reached Malcolm’s undead and decapitated one with a swift motion, using the momentum of its swing it charged toward Liam, almost catching him unaware, but Zeon stepped in and attacked it with his avatars cws, the zombie barely dodged only receiving a scratch in return.

  The speed and intelligence shocked Zeon as he moved back in for another attack this time he feinted low abd quickly switched to a high attack, his attack nded on the zombies leaving a deep gash on its bicep, bck blood flowed from the wound but the zombie was unaffected as it dashed toward Liam once more. It nded a devastating blow, knocking Liam off his feet and pushing him straight into Serra. She quickly used her healing skill, “Saint’s Touch,” as it was called, on Liam. It healed the deep gash on his chest to some degree, stopping the flow of red blood and leaving a rge scab in the process. Zeon was not able to observe this as he and Malcolm’s undead were locked into a deadly battle with the zombie. The undead managed to bite off one of its hands, while Zeon used the momentary distraction to nd the killing blow as he tore out the zombie's jugur. Zeon colpsed onto the ground after that, completely exhausted from his exertion in the fight. He struggled just to breathe, but they had done it.