Kaius, Lieutenant Bennet, and the entire undead army eventually made their way to the west section of Georgetown.

Using Starpho, Kaius had managed to discover the existence of only one Stonetusk Boar and 200 Stonetusk Piglets.

Kaius shared the intel with Lieutenant Bennet and asked, “How about testing out your new skill on that oversized boar? My evolved zombies will be the main damage dealers. You just need to support them from the side.”

“Sure, I’m eager to see how well I fare against a rank 1 cursed beast myself,” Lieutenant Bennet nodded.

Lieutenant Bennet checked his own stats one last time before charging forward with the rest of the undead army.

Name

Michael Bennet

Class

Guardian

Level

25

Health

Normal

Mana

225/225

Strength

40

Vitality

65

Dexterity

34

Intelligence

13

Skills (active)

General

Intermediate Vitality Enhance (25MP): temporarily increases Vitality by 9. Duration: 30 minutes.

Intermediate Dexterity Enhance (25MP): temporarily increases Dexterity by 9. Duration: 30 minutes.

Hold The Line (20MP): caster must shout out the phrase “You shall not pass!” in order to activate the skill. Upon successful activation, increases Vitality by 12, summons a great barrier capable of block all damage types or reinforces an existing barrier type skill.

Guardian

Shield Wall (15MP): create a translucent wall-shaped barrier in front of the caster. Barrier is two meters tall, three meters wide, and five centimeters thick. Barrier thickness increases if caster is wielding a shield before casting. Duration: 10 minutes.

Final Stand (25MP): increase caster’s strength by 3, vitality by 30, dexterity by 3, intelligence by 3. Vitality stat decreases by 5 every minute. When the skill ends, if caster’s vitality is below 10, suffer severe injuries and permanently decrease all stats by 90%. If vitality is at or above 10, decrease all stats by 90% for 240 hours. Able to pre-emptively cancel skill before duration ends. Duration: 25 minutes.

Skills (passive)

Lesser Mana Affinity: increases base MP by 100.

Nether Lord’s Aura!

Corrosive Nether Domain!

Kaius cast his spells and watched from the side as the two armies engaged each other.

Given the higher numbers and attributes of Kaius’ undead army, they easily overpowered the Stonetusk Piglets upon their first clash. All the Stonetusk Piglets at the forefront got knocked back and suffered serious injuries from the unstoppable charge attack of the reanimated Stonetusk Piglets.

Oink!

Seeing the Stonetusk Piglets losing, the Stonetusk Boar squealed in anger and tried to go help them out. However, Dio, Cenos, Calydon, and Lieutenant Bennet intercepted it and blocked its way.

Dio, Cenos, and Calydon lured the Stonetusk Boar over to the edge of the Corrosive Nether Domain so that Lieutenant Bennet can stand outside of the harmful domain while still providing support with his barrier skill.

Whee!

Calydon let out a provoking squeal and charged head on towards the Stonetusk Boar.

Seeing a boar with no balls dared to provoke it, the Stonetusk Boar squealed back in anger and charged forward as well.

Stone Armor!

Bam!

The Stonetusk Boar got sent tumbling backwards a dozen meters. Due to the difference in attributes, Calydon managed to win the first exchange.

Taking this opportunity, Dio began to spray out spider silk to limit the Stonetusk Boar’s mobility, while Cenos delivered swift attacks with her claw and increased the Vital Break stacks.

Enraged, the Stonetusk Boar turned its head and tried to gore Cenos, who was closest to it.

Shield Wall!

The Stonetusk Boar’s sharp tusks hit the translucent barrier that suddenly appeared, causing large cracks to appear on it.

Lieutenant Bennet let out a muffled groan due to the cracks and quickly activated his enhancement skills.

Intermediate Vitality Enhance!

Intermediate Dexterity Enhance!

Oink!

The Stonetusk Boar let out a furious squeal and tried to ram the translucent barrier again.

Lieutenant Bennet’s gaze turned resolute and shouted out loud, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”

A surge of potent mana coursed through Lieutenant Bennet’s body and flowed into Shield Wall.

All the cracks on the translucent barrier healed up in the blink of an eye. The thickness and size of the barrier both increased dramatically.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

The Stonetusk Boar rammed the translucent barrier repeatedly, but the barrier stood tall without any signs of breaking.

The double Vitality enhancements caused Lieutenant Bennet’s Vitality stat to increase to 86, making him more than capable of defending against a Stonetusk Boar whose attributes got weakened by 13%.

Over to the side, Kaius was satisfied with what he saw and decided to lend a helping hand to end the battle early.

Grasp of Enfeeblement!

The deathly ray of energy in the form of a hand easily hit the distracted Stonetusk Boar.

Shadow Bomb!

Kaius let lose the Shadow Bomb that he had been charging for the past 30 seconds.

Sensing danger, the Stonetusk Boar tried to dodge out of the way.

Shield Wall!

Another translucent barrier appeared and blocked the Stonetusk Boar’s escape route.

Left with no choice, the Stonetusk Boar activated its innate ability and charged headfirst at the incoming Shadow Bomb.

Boom!

A large, shadowy explosion engulfed the Stonetusk Boar.

Without waiting for a result, Kaius fired off one Shadow Bomb after another into the current explosion.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Dust and debris flew everywhere. After firing off 50 Shadow Bombs, Kaius finally stopped.

After a short while, everything finally settled.

The Stonetusk Boar laid motionlessly on the ground. Its dark brown fur had been dyed dark red by its own blood. Large chunks of flesh were missing from various parts of its body. A large pool of blood had formed underneath it.

“Put it out of its misery.”

Cenos’ figure flashed and arrived in front of the Stonetusk Boar in the blink of an eye.

Puchi!

Cenos mercilessly stabbed her claw through the Stonetusk Boar’s eye and shredded its brain.

[Level up!]

[3 attribute points acquired.]

[1 additional attribute point acquired due to Nether Physique.]

[Intelligence increased by 5 due to Nether Physique.]

[2 additional attribute points acquired due to Favor of the Nether God.]

Two white orbs of light floated out from Stonetusk Boar’s body.

Kaius distributed all attribute points into strength and collected the two items dropped. One of the white orbs gave 542 System Coins, while the other one gave a cube-shaped item.

Kaius stored Stonetusk Boar’s corpse inside Fay’s Ring and examined the cube.

Name

Side Shop Keeper’s Lost Cube

Category

Consumable Item

Use Restriction

Minimum stats requirements: Intelligence: 20

Description

Upon use, grants temporary access to the Side Shop functionality. System Coins can be used to purchase the items within. Duration: 30 minutes.

0/3 Use

“So this is what System Coins can be used for,” realization dawned upon Kaius. He decided to store the cube inside his inventory for now since there were still cursed beasts in the west section of the town.

After the death of the Stonetusk Boar, Kaius sent Dio, Cenos, and Calydon away to reinforce the rest of his undead army.

“How was the new skill?” Kaius approached Lieutenant Bennet.

“It’s great!” Lieutenant Bennet beamed with confidence. “I can finally hold my own against a rank 1 now. The activation phrase is catchy too; it really gets my blood boiling after shouting it. Maybe I should shout out phrases when I use other skills too.”

“Eh?” Kaius gave the lieutenant a weird look, then coughed softly to quickly change the topic. “It doesn’t seem like there are any more rank 1s in the west section. Once we clear this area, the entire town will be under our control.”

“Hm,” Lieutenant Bennet nodded. “We can use this place as a temporary base while we bide our time.”

A few hours later, the entire west section had been conquered by Kaius’ undead army. Kaius made his undead army gather Stonetusk Piglet corpses so that he could use his Lesser Reanimation spell until he reached its current max limit of 360.

As it was already evening, Kaius and Lieutenant Bennet decided to stay inside a random house in the west section.

“So, what’s our next move?” Lieutenant Bennet asked while cooking up some Stonetusk Piglet ribs that had been cleansed by Kaius.

“Let’s spend some time to observe what those guys are up to,” Kaius replied. “They must have some sort of plan since they dared to forcefully take over Milton like that. We can figure out our next move after that.”

“Hm, sounds good,” Lieutenant Bennet nodded.

Thinking of the upcoming fight against Antonio’s group, Kaius decided to take out all the rank 1 cursed beast corpses from within Fay’s Ring, leaving only a Devourer corpse inside.

Kaius summoned Dio, Cenos, and Calydon, and allowed them to consume all the rank 1 corpses in order to grow stronger.

Next, Kaius summoned a Starpho and commanded it to fly to Milton.

…

Early morning, inside the city of Milton, everyone had gathered on the grassy fields behind EC Drury School once again.

Antonio, Elroy, and a few other people stood at the front of the crowd.

“Everyone, thank you for coming,” Elroy spoke to the crowd through a microphone. “Those of you with specialized knowledge such as doctors and farmers had already been assigned tasks. As long as you complete your assigned tasks everyday, you can continue to live inside this city. As for the rest of you, accept the party invite that’s about to appear in front of you from the System.”

“Party invite?”

“Ah! I see a message from the System!”

“I’m getting invited to a party by Antonio.”

“I hope everyone can accept the party invite,” Elroy said with a smile. “We all know what happens to uncooperative people.”

A wave of low murmur swept across the crowd. Everyone promptly accepted the party invite.

Elroy looked over at Antonio and saw him nod back.

“Wonderful!” Elroy said with a smile. “I shall now explain your task.”

“Everyday, 2000 people will be chosen and split into ten groups of 200. Each group will be accompanied by 20 soldiers, hence there will be 200 soldiers in total. This overall group comprised of 2200 people will be supervised by someone at the Captain rank.”

“The purpose of this group of people will be to go outside the city to kill regular zombies and cursed beasts. You are to leave in the morning at 7am and return to the city by 6pm. Since we have around 60,000 eligible people to choose from, each person will only have to do this once every 30 days.

“Go outside?”

“That’s too dangerous!”

“You’re practically telling us to go suicide!”

“There will be soldiers protecting you, so you have nothing to worry about,” Elroy reassured. “Also, those who perform above expectations will be greatly rewarded.”

“How can we kill zombies and cursed beasts without any weapons from the System?” someone asked.

“Don’t worry, once you meet up with your assigned soldiers, they will provide you with a Basic Short Sword,” Elroy explained. “When you return to the city in the evening, you are to hand back those swords. Now, please make your way inside the school and head to the corresponding classroom according to your last name. The people inside will tell you your schedule. Those who have been chosen for today need to assemble in your designated areas and meet up with the soldiers. Once your entire group is ready, you are to head out and follow the soldiers’ instructions.”

Nobody moved after Elroy finished speaking. Everyone had gloomy expressions on their faces.

“No one is forcing you to do this, of course. But if you refuse, you’ll be banished from the city,” Elroy kindly reminded.

Under the threat of banishment, the crowd reluctantly made their way inside the school.

A short while later, the “lucky” people had been identified and met up with the soldiers at the designated city entrances. Ten groups of 220 people left the city in various directions.

One of the groups went west towards the direction of Campbellville, a small rural community situated between Milton and Guelph. All the cities to the west of Milton had fallen, hence many zombies from the Durham and Wingham zombie portals had managed to make their way to this rural community.

After speed walking for almost two hours, the group finally reached Campbellville.

The newcomers attracted the attention of dozens of zombies. The civilians instantly became nervous; some of them gripped their Basic Short Sword tightly, while other had thoughts of running away.

Slash! Slash!

The soldiers went forward and sliced off the legs of the zombies with their own Basic Short Swords. In a few short minutes, all the incoming zombies had their legs sliced off and could only crawl on the ground using their arms.

The civilians watched in awe at the soldiers’ display of strength. They never imagined that zombies could be taken down so easily.

“Since this is your first time, we’ve softened up the zombies for you,” said one of the soldiers. “Pick a target and stab your sword through their head. Each of you are required to kill 2 zombies.”

The soldiers stepped back and waited for the civilians to take action.

The vast majority of civilians still hesitated, but a small group of people bravely went forward.

Puchi! Puchi! Puchi!

One zombie after another got stabbed in the head, dying instantly. Seeing this small group of people kill the zombies so easily and quickly, another group of people managed to work up their courage and stepped forward to kill the remaining zombies crawling on the ground.

Soon, all the legless zombies were killed. The people that took advantage of the legless zombies celebrated their easy kills, while the remaining people lamented the lost opportunity.

After eliminating this first batch of zombies , the soldiers led the group and proceeded deeper inside the rural community.

Uuugggg…

Dozens of zombies swarmed out from various houses and buildings.

“You people take care of the North and East side. We’ll take care of the South and West said,” one of the soldiers instructed the civilians.

The soldiers separated into two groups of ten and went to their respective sides to engage the zombies.

Slash! Slash!

The soldiers effortless decapitated one zombie after another. They opted to use their swords again in order to same ammo.

Over on the other side, the civilians all had frightened expressions as dozens of zombies marched towards them.

“I… I can’t do this!”

A middle-aged woman that stood near the front trembled with fear. She turned around and ran to the soldiers’ side for protection.

Bang!

The sound of a gunfire rang out.

The middle-aged woman widened her eyes in disbelief. She looked down at her body and saw blood gushing out from a bullet wound near her heart area.

Thud!

The middle-aged woman’s lifeless body slumped to the ground.

A soldier with a gun in his hand stared at the civilians with a cold gaze.

“Let that serve as a reminder for the rest of you. All deserters will be shot on the spot. All cowards hiding in the back will be shot on the spot. Anyone being a hindrance will be shot on the spot. Stay on your designated side and kill all the zombies or you will be shot on the spot. Do I make myself clear?”

The civilians stared in shock at the ruthlessness of the soldier. Faced with the threat of being shot on the spot, some civilians gritted their teeth and went forward to fight the zombies.

“Die, zombie freak!”

“This is all your fault!”

“You ugly bastards ruined my life!”

A few brave civilians slashed and hacked at the incoming zombies. Faced with the relatively slow-moving zombies, some civilians managed to stab their sword straight through the zombie’s eye socket and into its brain.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Several zombies had their brains pierced and slumped to the ground.

“I… I did it!” A plump man with blonde hair celebrated his unexpected victory against a zombie. “You zombie freaks are nothing! Imma kill all you zombie fu – Ahhh!”

A zombie had managed to sneak up on the plump man while he was busy celebrating and chomped down on his neck.

“Help…” The plump man reached out his hand towards the nearby civilians.

“Ahhhh!!!”

“Shit!!”

“Somebody go help him!”

The nearby civilians shouted in fear, but nobody stepped forward to help.

Several zombies swarmed the helpless plump man and piled on top of him. His body twitched and spasmed in pain while he was being ripped apart piece by piece.

A short while later, the pile of zombies stood up and went after other civilians. The plump man that should have died also stood up; large chucks of flesh were missing from various parts of his body.

Uuuggggg!!!

The zombified plump man let out a load groan and went after the civilians as well.

“Watch out!”

“Kill him!”

Panicked yells rang out across the battlefield from the civilians. Even though they outnumbered the zombies, their fear of being bitten and their inexperience prevented them from dealing with the zombies effectively.

Luckily, the soldiers managed to clear their sides after a few minutes and came over to reinforce the civilians.

After half a day of intense battle, the group finally managed to clear out all the zombies from this small rural community.

It was getting close to sundown, hence the group started to make their way back to Milton.

On the way back, all the civilians had gloomy expressions. They started out with 200 civilians, but only 183 survived. They lost almost 10% of the people even though they outnumbered the zombies during every skirmish. Watching people get eaten alive had instilled various degrees of trauma inside each person. However, there was also a sense of relief. Since they had managed to survive, they can live safely inside the city for another month before they have to go outside again.

Later that night, inside the local police station, Elroy stood in front of Antonio and Alonzo and gave a report of today’s battle.

“Today, 200 soldiers and 2000 civilians went out,” Elroy began his report. “Each group fought for 4 hours and managed to kill a combined total of 420 zombies and 1337 cursed beasts. There were no casualties among the soldiers, but we had 179 civilian casualties.”

“The casualty rate is within expectations, but the number of kills is too low,” Alonzo commented. “Decrease the food allocation by half for anyone that didn’t meet the quota for 30 days. That is all.”

“I will pass along your orders,” Elroy bowed politely and left.

“How much experience did you gain today?” Alonzo turned his head to Antonio and asked.

“Not enough,” Antonio shook his head. “At this rate, it’ll take months before we can achieve our objective.”

“Let’s put these people through some military training,” Alonzo suggested. “It should help increase their efficiency rate.”

“Sure,” Antonio nodded. “What about sending out more people at a time?”

“My soldiers are already stretched to the limit, but I’ll see what I can do,” Alonzo replied.

“We need to do whatever it takes to make this work,” said Antonio with a hardened expression. “This is our last chance.”

“Don’t worry brother, we’ll make it work,” Alonzo comforted. “Once you reach level 50, you’ll be a core member of the family. Then, we’ll finally have enough strength and authority to carve out our own place within this hellish world.”

…

Several days later, inside Georgetown.

Kaius and Lieutenant Bennet had just returned from a battle. Over the past few days, the duo had been exploring the areas northwest of Georgetown.

Unfortunately, the northwest areas only had regular zombies. Hence, the best Kaius could do was to use them to replenish his zombie and skeleton warrior counts. After maxing out their limits, Kaius summoned his evolved zombies to kill off the rest of the regular zombies. All the zombies killed would not have been enough to help Kaius level up once, so he allocated the experience to Lieutenant Bennet instead, allowing the lieutenant to level up twice.

Over dinner, the main topic of discussion was Milton once again.

“How’s the situation there?” asked Lieutenant Bennet.

“Not good,” Kaius’ expression darkened. “Seems like Antonio had been using the party function like us, except he was forcing the civilians to go out and earn experience for him. There had been casualties everyday.”

“That bastard!” Lieutenant Bennet cursed. “He’s trading people’s lives for experience to power level himself. What should we do?”

“Tomorrow morning, we’ll ambush the soldiers once they escort the civilians to their usual hunting spots,” explained Kaius. “I’ve been observing their routes. One group had been getting closer and closer to our location, while another group was moving towards the town of Acton, which is west of Georgetown. We’ll take care of the soldiers from these two groups first and rescue the civilians, then move onto other groups.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lieutenant Bennet nodded.

…

Beside the Durham zombie portal, 99 rank 1 zombies and 1901 regular zombies stood obediently in front of Bob.

Roar!

A Bruiser had just emerged from the portal.

“Quiet…”

Bob released control of a regular zombie and placed the newly emerged Bruiser under his control.

“It is time…”

“The advent of Bob… is here…”

Bob pointed his finger towards the direction of Milton.

“Kill…”

All 100 rank 1 zombies and 1900 regular zombies began to march in uniform.

…

Within the city of Mississauga, inside the Square One Shopping Centre.

In the deepest level of the underground parking lot, a 7-meter-tall dark purple spider was resting on the ground after devouring countless human corpses.

An Ash Spider Lord respectfully approached the dark purple spider.

Skree! Skree!

The Ash Spider Lord let out an aggrieved screech.

Skree…

The dark purple spider gently screeched back.

Skree!

The Ash Spider Lord pointed one of its legs towards the direction of Milton.

SKREE!

The dark purple spider let out a commanding screech.

Skree! Skree! Skree!

All the nearby Ash Spider Lords let out fanatic screeches.

Looking down at the Square One Shopping Centre from the sky, a sea of gray could be seen pouring out from the underground parking lot.

Numerous streams of gray were also converging towards the gray sea from every direction inside the city.

Looking closer, this sea of gray was actually made up of countless Ash Spiders and Ash Spider Lords.

The dark purple spider stood tall in the middle of all the Ash Spiders and Ash Spider Lords.

SKREE!

The dark purple spider screeched loudly.

All the Ash Spiders and Ash Spider Lords began to crawl towards Milton in a frenzied manner.