Chapter 172: Spiritual Attack

“Level 40 intelligence-enhanced zombie variant: Type I Commander Z1”

As soon as the Commander Z1 zombie saw Yue Zhong, it uttered a sharp cry. The L2 that was carrying it seemed to increase its speed as the group fled.

However, not all of these zombies fled. Like a ghost, three S2 zombies rapidly drifted towards Yue Zhong.

Yue Zhong smiled at the three incoming S2 zombies. Then he suddenly accelerated and sprinted with all his might. He seemed to become a bolt of lightning as he charged towards the Commander Z1 zombie.

As he passed by the incoming S2 zombies, there was a flash of light. Then he continued to chase after the Z1 zombie at full speed, ignoring the S2 zombies. Shortly after, the bodies of the three S2 zombies collapsed lifelessly onto the ground. The scariest thing about these corpses was that each of the corpses had no head. Then, as if answering the question of what had happened to the heads of these zombies, the heads landed a short distance away from their bodies. In the short period of time that the two parties had charged past each other, Yue Zhong had cleanly lopped off the heads of the three S2 zombies!

Looking at the ease with which Yue Zhong had dispatched its guards, the Z1 began to panic. It cried out a call of distress. Following its cries, three massive L2 zombies turned away from the group and charged toward Yue Zhong.

Each of these L2 zombies could withstand massive amounts of punishment before collapsing in permanent death. Their rock hard muscles were capable of repelling most ordinary swords and bullets. Even Yue Zhong found it very difficult to use the Tang Imitation Sword to hack apart a single L2 zombie’s head. These three L2 zombies were indeed, very formidable opponents for Yue Zhong. Luckily for Yue Zhong, although these creatures were very tough, they were relatively slow compared to him.

Looking at the three L2 zombies smashing apart anything in their way as they charged towards Yue Zhong, Yue Zhong began to frown. He immediately activated his skill Devil Fire. In his right hand, an orb of devilish-red coloured fire that could burn anything into ashes was formed.

Taking advantage of his speed, he ran in front of a hulking L2 zombie. Before the zombie could react to him, Yue Zhong had already launched the orb of Devil Fire in his hands towards the head of the zombie. The Devil Fire was truly worthy of its name, as even the powerful and extremely tough L2 zombie’s head was burnt into ashes.

The power of the Devil Flame skill depended on Yue Zhong’s Spiritual Power, Stamina, Strength, and Vitality at the time of casting the skill. The stronger these four attributes were, the stronger the power of the Devil Flame.

However, if Yue Zhong wanted to increase the power of the Devil Flame further, he could sacrifice more Spiritual Power and Stamina to do so.

Similarly, Ice King Zhang Yun was able to take advantage of this loophole to create a wall that was able to withstand the might of a 12.7 heavy machine gun. Normally his ice wall could not last even a few rounds of bullets. But by expending a massive amount of stamina and spiritual power, Ice King Zhang Yun was able to strengthen his Ice Wall.

By using the Devil Flame, Yue Zhong was able to one-shot kill an abomination L2 zombie. But this kill came at a cost to him. He had expended 2 points of spiritual power and 2 points of stamina to do so. He had already tried to minimise the usage of Devil Flame by using it only to burn the head of the L2 zombie, instead of using it to burn the entire L2.

“Looks like I will also need to increase my spiritual power.”, thought Yue Zhong

Yue Zhong’s body seemed to flicker as he temporarily disappeared, and reappeared in front of one of the two surviving L2 zombies.. With a Devil Flame in his hand, he burned the head of the creature into ashes. Then he repeated his movements and dispatched the last L2 zombie that charged towards him.

Although he had managed to destroy three L2 zombies, he had squandered 6 points of spiritual power and stamina to do so.

After obliterating the three L2 zombies, Yue Zhong had rushed in front of the group of the bodyguards. With a stinger gun in hand, he pointed the weapon at the Z1 zombie and pulled the trigger.

At that exact moment when Yue Zhong was aiming towards the Z1 zombie, the Z1 zombie dropped down from the body of the massive L2.

As well, three S2 zombie appeared out of nowhere and used their bodies to block the bullet. The stinger gun blew apart the shoulders of an S2 zombie.

Having missed his shot because of the interferences of the S2 zombies, Yue Zhong refused to give up. He stepped forward and attempted to chase the Z1 zombie. With a Tang Imitation Sword in his left hand, he beheaded an S2 zombie that was blocking his way. But he was greeted with the sight of a powerful fist smashing down towards him as an L2 zombie attacked him. One usage of Devil Flame later, the L2 zombie’s massive body collapsed lifelessly onto the ground as its head was burned into ashes.

The Z1 commander zombie’s eyes turned bloodshot at the carnage Yue Zhong was wreaking on its forces. It stared at Yue Zhong with eyes filled with unbridled fury. Then it focused and launched a mental attack at Yue Zhong.

A wave of spiritual power discharged towards Yue Zhong. At this exact moment, Yue Zhong was blocked by an S2 zombie and an L2 zombie from advancing any further. The spiritual power hit the S2 and L2 head on, and their head exploded from the impact of the spiritual attack.

Although the two zombies in front of Yue Zhong borne the blunt of the attack, Yue Zhong was also not spared from this powerful attack. He felt as if his head was hit by a baseball bat. His world spun in circles, and he could have sworn that he saw stars circling around his head. He could not maintain his balance, and collapsed onto the ground.

The mind blast attack is an area of effect (AOE) spell, that does not distinguish friend from foe. It directly blew apart the brains of the zombies near Yue Zhong, and almost knocked Yue Zhong unconscious with a single blast.

Seeing that Yue Zhong had fallen, three S2 zombies immediately rush up towards Yue Zhong, intending to finish him off. Three massive L2 also began to walk towards Yue Zhong.

Yue Zhong was shaken, and his vision was blurry. He seemed to see double or triple of everything. He bit down hard on his lips, until he was bleeding. The pain seemed to jolt his brain into working again as his survival instincts kicked in. Finally he regained control of his body. His first action was to rapidly retreat!

Yue Zhong believed that the mind blast had a limited range. If not, Yue Zhong would have already been hit with the attack from afar, rendering him unable to fight the first group of three S2 zombies that charged towards him.

From the sky, Little Greenie become a ray of green light as it charge down towards the zombies. A mighty swipe of its claw separated the head of an L2 zombie from its body.

Yue Zhong was still feeling a bit groggy from the mental attack and was not as fast as before. The group of three S2 zombies were able to rapidly close in on Yue Zhong.

Yue Zhong tried his best to focus, and calm his mind. At that instant when the three S2 closed in on him with their terrible claws swiping at his head, three bone spikes were launched from his bone armour, and directly penetrated through the heads of the three S2 zombies.

Their claws was but a few centimetres away from Yue Zhong’s head, when they lifelessly collapsed onto the ground.

Yue Zhong was able to withstand the impact of the mind blast only because he had strong spiritual power. This ability was further augmented when he equipped several items that enhanced his spiritual powers. For instance, the white jade ring he had taken from the corpse of Ice King Zhang Yun had provided a massive increase of 6 points of spiritual power. Hence, he was able to partially resist the power of the mind blast.

Although the mind blast attack had not blown apart his head, it still managed to make him feel highly disoriented and dizzy. He had managed to shake off most of the effects of the mind blast, and his condition had improved somewhat.

After killing the group of S2, Yue Zhong stepped forward and pat his hands on the head of an L2. He was intending to use his Devil Fire to burn the brain of the L2 into ashes. But suddenly he felt a massive headache, and his spiritual power seem to be drained and unstable. The Devil Flame did not appear.

(note: I used Devil Fire and Devil Flame interchangeably)

The L2 raised both its fist and smashed down towards Yue Zhong.

Like a gust of wind, Little Greenie appeared behind the L2 zombie. With its mighty claws, it lifted the L2 zombie off the ground as it flew upwards. Then it flew downwards rapidly and sent the L2 Zombie smashing headfirst against the concrete floor. The poor L2 zombie’s head and its upper body turned into a spectacular display of bloodletting as the floor around it shook from the impact.

Yue Zhong had no time to worry about Little Greenie. There was still two more L2 zombies that were charging towards him. He used his superior speed to apply behind one of the L2 zombies. With the stinger gun in his hands, he blew apart the brains of this L2 zombie.

The last L2 zombie suddenly did something very surprising: It turned and tried to run. Normally L2 zombies were without fear. Perhaps this L2 zombie was trying to rush back to carry the Z1 commander zombie away to safety instead of fighting. But how could Yue Zhong let such a good opportunity slipped by? He pointed his stinger gun at the back of this zombie and fired 3 stinger bullets.

Each stinger bullet had explosive penetrating power. The bullets tore through the back muscles and bones of the L2 and blew apart its brains. The L2 zombie collapsed in a pool of blood.

But when Yue Zhong saw the shadow of the Z1 zombie leaping off from the L2 zombie arms at the exact moment he fired the stinger bullets, he understood why the L2 had ran instead of fighting him. For some strange reasons, all the commanders he had met so far were cowardly in nature. This include the Z1 commander zombie, and the Mutant King Rat.

Although the Z1 zombie had very short limbs, it speed was not slow at all as it scrambled off to safety.

If the Z1 zombie had chosen to fight and launch another mind blast, Yue Zhong would be in trouble. But for some strange reason, the Z1 zombie had chosen to run and exposed its back to Yue Zhong. Yue Zhong had no qualms about killing an enemy from the back. In fact, there was nothing he liked better. He grinned and activated Ice Cone spell from his white jade ring.

Runes appear from the air around Yue Zhong and a cone of ice flew towards the Z1 commander zombie. It tore a massive hole in the Z1 commander’s body and proceeded to encase the body in a block of ice.

A massive globe of experience flew from its body toward Yue Zhong.

“Congratulations! You have advanced to level 33 and have gained 2 stats points.”

“Put all the stats points into Spiritual Power” groaned Yue Zhong as he rubbed his head. He was having a spitting headache.

Once he made his choice, he could feel some spiritual power entering into his body. His fluctuating spiritual power seemed to be stabilised somewhat.