In the wake of the tremendous lightning strike that far exceeded anything Abby’s skill had ever produced, silence reigned. To Zeke, it felt like it lasted an eternity, but in reality, that unnatural silence only persisted for a scant couple of seconds. And when it broke, it did so with the roar of a million zombies and a dozen knights. Zeke barely had time to think before they rushed toward him. Their metaphysical weight – that indescribably presence that came alongside any creature of sufficient power – slammed into him like a physical thing.

But Zeke paid it no mind. Instead, as his mind struggled to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, his body moved of its own volution. Harnessing his racial ability to enhance his weight, he lowered his shoulder as he barreled into one of the knights. As he did so, a sword glanced off of his armor, the screech of metal on metal cutting through the cacophony of the agonized and enraged zombies. Anchored as he was, Zeke had no trouble pushing through the obstacle, and after a brief moment, he found himself standing over the charred form of Abraham Micayne.

The lich still clung to life, if only barely, and he glared at Zeke with undisguised hatred. With a voice so raspy that it was almost intelligible, he spat, “I came in peace! Why? Why did you betray me?!”

Zeke didn’t answer, and not only because he hadn’t been the one to make that call. More importantly, he didn’t have the time to have a leisurely conversation. So, he hefted his mace, activated every skill he could muster, and brought the head of his weapon down on the lich’s face.

Bolstered by Zeke’s abilities to manipulate weight, Voromir tore through the air, and when it hit, it did so with the momentum of a fallen meteor. The weakened lich never stood a chance. Nor did the ground beneath his charred form. Or the zombies and knights that were thrown back by the mere shockwave of the strike. Dust and pulverized rock billowed into the air as Zeke pulled his mace back. Then, in another sledgehammer swing, he brought his weapon down once again.

And again.

Three more times in rapid succession until Zeke was sure that that the monstrous head of the undead army was, indeed, truly dead. He hadn’t intended to kill the lich. In fact, he’d chosen not to even try. However, he wasn’t about to leave a betrayed, wounded, and powerful enemy behind him. So, he’d seized upon the opportunity and ended the threat then and there. It wouldn’t solve the problem the zombie armies presented; the Radiant Isles were still doomed, as far as he could tell. But at least they wouldn’t make a coordinated effort to hunt him and his companions down.

Only once the lich was dead did Zeke turn his attention to more pressing matters – like escaping alive. As he turned, he saw a giant form crash into one of the barely visible knights, throwing it to the ground. A moment later, the dust-filled air was bathed in red-and-black fire that tore into the undead creature’s torso. Pudge swiped the unfortunate knight, sending her careening into her fellows.

Meanwhile, Talia flashed in front of Zeke’s eyes before burying her claws into the stomach of yet another knight that had been in the process of aiming an overhand sword strike at Zeke’s head. Chaos reigned all around him, but Zeke felt comfortable in its familiarity.

“We must go!” Talia shouted, whipping her head around to look at Zeke. “There are too many, and they are too durable!”

Zeke didn’t need her shouted reminder, because even as she spoke, the knight that had borne the brunt of her attacks had begun to fight back. Talia dipped under a sword strike, then aimed a beam of concentrated decay at the creature’s face. In the space of a second, half its head rotted away, but still, it kept coming.

At the same time, Pudge went flying through the air to collide with a dozen zombies. He flattened a few of them, but there were plenty more that swarmed over him without a moment’s hesitation. With a roar, Pudge shot to his feet, flinging the unwanted passengers aside, but quite a few continued clinging to his hide, scratching, clawing, and biting all the while.

Zeke dashed toward his companion, leading the way with his mace. With every mighty swing, zombies were crushed into so much unrecognizable meat. However, when a pair of boss-tier knights – a former man and woman, both encased in matte black armor – barred his way, he knew he couldn’t quickly rescue his companion. Pudge would have to fend for himself for now.

Embracing [Weight of Two Worlds], Zeke forced a torrent of mana into the skill. Instead of simply increasing the gravity around him, though, he focused on the skill’s other function – forcing gravity to pull in two separate directions. Suddenly, the air was filled with the squelching sounds of zombies being ripped apart at the waist as the skill went to work. Even the knights were affected. Though they weren’t pulled completely apart, they were stopped in their tracks as their bodies rebelled. That was all the opportunity Zeke needed.

Using [Life Scythe], Zeke sent a blade of red energy to slice through the two knights before he leapt into the air. His ascent was unimpeded by his drastically lightened body, but when he reached the apex of his jump, he increased his weight by a dozen times. That combined with the unique weight-shifting aspect of his mace to imbue his subsequent overhand attack with a ridiculous amount of force. It crashed into the male knight’s head with a sickening crunch that sent it staggering to the ground. A front kick aimed at the female wasn’t quite as effective, but it resulted in her skidding backward until she reached the edge of his skill’s effect. The sudden absence of opposing forces caused her to stumble and fall.

Zeke didn’t pay much attention to it, though. Instead, he raced forward to save Pudge, who had been further buried under hundreds of zombified humans and monsters. Through their bond, Zeke felt Pudge’s building panic as he bucked and heaved, killing and tossing the creatures aside without much difficulty. However, each destroyed zombie was soon replaced by another. And another. Their numbers were endless, and the moment Pudge had given them an opening, his fate was sealed.

The infernal bear roared as his flesh was ripped and shredded by a thousand sets of claws. Even as his skill petered out due to a lack of mana, Zeke carved a path through the forest of zombies, but his progress continued to slow as more and more of the enraged and empowered creatures surged around him. He scarcely had room to swing his weapon, much less make quick headway.

“Talia!” he growled between shortened swings of his mace. Every swipe felled at least a few zombies, but there were so many that his efforts made little difference. “Help me clear a path to Pudge!”

Talia was at his shoulder almost instantly, her long claws slicing the zombies to ribbons. Then, she shot out another concentrated, black beam of decay into the waiting horde; Zeke took that as his cue, embracing [Unleash Momentum] and letting it loose with a mighty overhand swing of his mace. The resultant force tore an opening through the densely packed monsters. More importantly, it freed Zeke to sprint ahead. His momentum built, and he used every point of strength at his disposal to propel himself forward. At the same time, each step thundered with increased weight until, at last, he crashed into the zombified creatures, splattering a few of them to rotting paste along the way.

And he didn’t slow until, at last, he reached the small mountain of zombies that had piled onto Pudge. Every now and then, the heap of decaying flesh would tremble and shake, but of Pudge, there was no sign. If Zeke hadn’t been able to feel his companion’s mind, he would’ve thought him dead.

Even so, the sight ignited a renewed wildfire of fury in Zeke’s heart, and he set to the pile with reckless abandon. Talia guarded his back, her claws blurring as she diced the rotted zombies into a thousand pieces, but the horde was endless. Their efforts futile. The only hope left was for Zeke to rescue Pudge and escape, and even that might have been a tall order. If he’d have had his wits about him, he would have cursed Abby for putting them in such a situation.

At first, Zeke continued to use his mace, pulverizing his way through the small mountain of zombies, and he made plenty of headway like that. However, the moment he caught a glimpse of Pudge’s bloody hide, the fires of his anger erupted into a volcano of rage. Seeing red, he plunged deep into the horde, and poured every ounce of mana he’d recovered into [Weight of Two Worlds].

And it was enough. Barely.

But contrary to his previous use of the skill, when he’d had plenty of mana to fuel it, the effect wasn’t nearly as spectacular. Zombies were ripped apart, but not as violently. And some of the stronger ones managed to resist the effect, similar to the knights. However, it was just enough to allow Zeke to burrow his way toward Pudge and drag him out.

One hand on the ruff of Pudge’s neck, the other swinging his mace, he carved his way back out of the writhing hillock of zombified flesh. Blood, ichor, and other disgusting substances coated Zeke’s entire body, but he continued to push forward until, at last, he tasted fresh air once again.

The battle, though, had only just begun.

Even if the aim was to retreat, the zombies had descended into an absolute frenzy, and the knights had recovered enough to organize a pursuit. And with a dozen or more boss-tier creatures bearing down on him, Zeke knew that he had no choice but to run.

“Talia,” he croaked, his shoulders sagging with fatigue and lack of mana as he dragged Pudge’s limp form out of the heap of still-grasping zombies. Their claws were sharp enough to carve deep furrows into the infernal bear’s hide. “We need to retreat.”

“Yes,” was her rasped reply as she rammed her claws into the rotting torso of a zombie; it punched through the other side, and when she pulled back, she was sprayed with what was left of its entrails.

Zeke glanced back at Pudge, who was even worse off than he’d expected. The bear’s hide was coated in so much blood that he looked half his normal size. It was like he’d just climbed out of a lake of oil. On top of that, a deep gash along his side left a good portion of his ribcage exposed, and one of his horns had been entirely ripped away.

But he was still breathing. He was still alive. And Zeke aimed to keep it that way.

Dragging Pudge behind him, Zeke forged ahead. As he did, he had one hand on the scruff of Pudge’s neck, while with the other, he cleared the way. Most of the humanoid zombies posed little in the way of obstructing his path, but the bigger creatures were far more difficult to manage. And then there were the flesh golems and reapers who, by themselves, weren’t terribly dangerous to Zeke. Accompanied by a tidal wave of zombies, though, they were a wholly different beast. Still, Zeke knew what was at stake, and he arduously cleared the path.

Along the way, he took hundreds of wounds on the unarmored portions of his skin, all of which almost immediately began to fester with rot; most of that was mitigated by the constant stream of vital energy provided by his skill, [Life Scythe], but even that was slowed by the sheer volume of injuries. Until that point, Zeke hadn’t realized just how much he had relied on his armor while fighting the undead. Without it, he was half-exposed and wholly vulnerable.

Even so, there was little else to do but to continue on.

Meanwhile, Talia guarded their back, seeming to be everywhere at once. One second, she would flash in front of Zeke, taking out a reaper, and then the next, she would rip through a cluster of zombies pressing in on them from the rear. Over and over, she arrived at just the right moment to keep Zeke from behind overwhelmed, and like that, they gradually waded through the sea of zombies.

In the past, Zeke had considered himself well-suited to mass slaughter. And in a lot of ways, he was. However, in this case, everything was working against him. The battle had begun before he was ready, and as a result, he’d been in a terrible position. On top of that, his new skill, though powerful in that it increased his stats, was incomplete, and because of that, it offered spotty protection. That was further exacerbated by the fact that it had somehow absorbed his armor, so, for a little less than half of his body, he had no more protection than what his endurance could provide.

And finally, he was encumbered by his unconscious companion. Pudge didn’t really weigh that much, but he was enormous, making for an awkward burden. Not that Zeke ever thought about leaving the infernal bear behind; he’d die before abandoning Pudge. But it did slow him down.

The result was one of the worst experiences of Zeke’s life. Every step came at a high cost and, for each foot he traveled, it felt as if he’d walked a mile. Soon, his mana ran completely dry, and he felt [Avatar of the Beast] fade away from Talia. It was either that or release his [Life Scythe], which was the only thing keeping him upright. In that way, it was not a difficult choice.

Talia slowed, but her efforts never ceased. They were like a pair of purpose-built machines, slowly grinding their way through the ocean of rotting flesh. Until, at last, they broke free.

Zeke briefly stumbled at the sudden cessation of attacks, but he quickly righted himself and continued going. The zombies would follow, but now that he and Talia were free of the mass of clawing and biting creatures, they could outpace them. And so, they did, traveling for what felt like hours. Out of the corner of Zeke’s eye, he caught sight of Abby, who was running along a parallel track. Every now and then, she would loose an arrow at the following horde, but as they left the zombies behind, even that ceased.

Finally, after hours of constant running, Zeke’s body gave out. He fell, slumping to the ground, and he was vaguely aware of Talia shouting something at someone. He had the presence of mind to summon the tower, but beyond that, he could only surrender to unconsciousness. As he did, he caught a brief glimpse of Abby leaning over him.