Chapter 56: Race against time (7)

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You obtained 06 experience points.

You obtained 06 gold coins.

Congratulations! You have leveled up.

You obtained 05 status points.

Everyone was left speechless with that attack, even Luke. While Rina buffed his strength, a level four skill shouldn't have that much power. Not even in the hands of someone who was only level twenty-four. Nevertheless, if Luke could do that many more times, perhaps they had a chance, or so Amanda, Celia, and the others thought. Thanks to that, their eagerness to fight increased quite a bit...

"Rina, SP potions!" Luke said.

There were some potions on the ground, a hammer, and a ring, but Luke asked her to use his potions because he used Dash to grab those as fast as possible. Only a single weapon didn't seem enough considering the number of zombies that died, but it was better than nothing.

The hammer was just a tier-three weapon that had no effects, but the ring increased Luke's strength by three points, so he immediately equipped it. At the same time, he allocated the status points he just received into strength and focus. Strength to maximize the effects of Weapon Augmentation and focus on giving Rina and Shalia more chances to help.

Without hesitation and once again, Luke used Weapon Augmentation. Luke's arms began to burn again, but this time the skill forced him to spin around toward the enemies at a fearsome speed. Luke was completely defenseless and remained so for five seconds, but the zombies never touched him. They just were stopped by the hammer and were sent flying to the distance. Even the fat zombies that tried to use Body Slam on him failed at reaching him. Unfortunately, when the skill's effect ended, Luke retreated by using Stinger since he was a bit dizzy.

"Shalia, focus on slowing down the zombies instead of killing them while I recover," Luke said.

"All right," Shalia said and then threw some Ice Bullets on the ground that froze the road.

When the zombies started to cross the frozen areas, they began to slip. Thanks to that, they fell and became easy targets for the others. Things worked well for a couple of seconds until the fire zombies used Fireball to melt the ice. Once that happened, Luke recalled that he had other weapons in his backpack, five grenades, a handgun, and a machine gun. He smirked while imagining what he could do with them. Nevertheless, he used Weapon Augmentation level four after pulling the pin of the first grenade and throwing it at the zombies. Much to Luke's surprise, the projectile just turned into five before exploding and making the entire area tremble.

You obtained 06 experience points.

You obtained 06 gold coins.

You obtained 06 experience points.

You obtained 06 gold coins.

…

Luke received that notification around fifty times, so he already knew the result. Nevertheless, Luke was surprised that grenades and knives were in the same category. Instead of projectiles, grenades were more like explosives, after all.

"I can sense that a skill book just dropped," Rina said. "They can be destroyed, so you should stop the use of the grenades."

"Skill books can also be found like that, huh… how surprising," Luke said.

"The possibility is extremely low, but it is possible," Rina said. "It is in that direction, but I can't tell what kind of skill book is."

"It doesn't matter, if it can give me status points upon leveling up, I want it," Luke said. "Shalia, help me open the path."

The path was already free of corpses due to the explosions, but new zombies were approaching. Unfortunately, it wasn't a small group. The more the fight dragged on, the more zombies of the horde noticed a group nearby that they could eat. Just like before, Luke advanced while using Stinger level two several times in a row, and Shalia beheaded the zombies on the side with her Ice Saws. Their combination was quite fearsome, so it made Rina jealous since she couldn't be more active when helping.

You obtained 06 experience points.

You obtained 06 gold coins.

You obtained 06 experience points.

You obtained 06 gold coins.

…

In the end, Luke easily found the skill book, and even though he already had two skills that consumed his SP, he wanted another one that could be used as a utility. However, what he found was a white skill book that had nothing on the cover. Still, Luke grabbed it and soon received a notification.

Congratulations! You learned the skill Pain Resistance. 

Pain Resistance: Decreases the effects caused by pain by one percent per level.

Luke sighed since he wanted something that would be useful right now, but at least that skill would level up by itself, and he wouldn't have to use MP or SP. Soon, Shalia's spells disappeared, but the zombies didn't have the chance to surround Luke; some arrows hit the zombies nearby and made them explode. That was quite some aim considering that Amanda and Celia had been only fighting for three days, and they hit something fifty meters away from them.

While Luke was retreating, he used Weapon Augmentation and threw one grenade behind him. Just like before, the attack decimated almost one hundred zombies and knocked down many others in the area. Luke used that chance to kill them before they could get up, and the group behind him did the same. Amidst that chaos, Luke saw a spear falling on the ground. It was another tier-three weapon that wouldn't be very useful in the group's hands since it had a weird blade that bent to the side… It was more like a reaper's weapon that could behead enemies from behind. Nevertheless, Luke used Weapon Augmentation level four again, and he opened his eyes widely when he was forced to swing the weapon and send a sharp wind burst toward the zombies… easily cutting the heads of dozens of zombies. It was a pretty nasty scene, but it was one that Luke had already got used to...