Chapter 207: Cunning
This was more than just a difference in rank.
Pandora was confident that if she had just one more day—no, half a day—her Witch’s blood would have her back to eighty or ninety percent combat strength.
Even now, as tragic as she looked, she still had about thirty percent of her power left.
She couldn’t beat a fully recovered Wilbur, but escaping in a place like this was definitely an option.
However…
that raised the question.
Did she really need to run?
Pandora leaned against the cold wall. Her eyes, usually clear and calm, now held a faint reddish hue.
Not the red of burst blood vessels. It was more natural, like her pupils had been stained by the faint scarlet of a red moon.
That touch of crimson was deep, misty, and carried a non-human, bewitching eeriness.
Her pale red eyes quietly reflected the two figures across from her.
The next moment,
the corner of her mouth lifted, forming a smile that was playful… and held a trace of mockery.
..................
Wilbur stared at the critically wounded woman.
After taking his full-power punch, she had definitely lost the ability to fight.
She probably couldn’t even stand.
Looking at her face—pale before, but now flushed with a strange, bloody vitality—Wilbur felt a mix of things.
Satisfaction…
Respect…
And a sliver of fear—of that sword, of those eyes—that he’d never admit to.
But despite all the twists, even being ambushed by that wretched zombie, the final result was good.
The Scarred Woman had clearly lost the will to resist.
She wasn’t dead.
But to him, still at full strength, she was no different from a corpse.
If she was willing to beg for mercy, maybe he could be benevolent. Let her live a little longer.
He could drag her back to Lord Aldrich, let the Lord kill her personally.
That might make up for his botched mission and the shame of returning wounded.
Wilbur’s thoughts raced as he stepped forward, deliberately slowing his pace.
He subconsciously lifted his chin, the better to look down on the injured, weak woman in the corner. The victor’s perspective.
“Ahem...” Wilbur cleared his throat, trying to make his voice sound majestic, commanding. “‘Scarred Woman,’ your strength is indeed impressive.”
“But unfortunately, you...”
Before he could finish,
he saw her mouth curl into that playful smile.
That smile, on the face of a defeated loser, was so abrupt. So…
out of place.
The next moment,
before he could process what was behind that smile,
a massive force slammed into his side!
It was heavy, brute force, carrying a nauseating stench of decay!
Wilbur’s vision spun, the world blurring into streaks of light from the high-speed impact.
CRASH!
His body was slapped away, smashing into the ground and sliding dozens of meters, knocking over a row of shelves.
Then came a low, skin-crawling zombie roar. A familiar one.
“SKREEEE—!!”
Deep and turbid, but with a hint of… mocking intelligence.
“Dammit...”
Wilbur pushed himself up from the swirling dust and debris.
He brushed the dirt off his clothes. He looked a little rough, and the wound on his arm was ghastly, but he hadn’t taken any real secondary damage.
His reflexes weren’t slow.
If the Scarred Woman’s bizarre smile and state hadn’t distracted him, he would have sensed the movement behind him.
He might not have even been hit.
He looked up, his gaze hardening.
It was a zombie. And it looked exceptionally nauseating.
Its body was only slightly larger than Wilbur's, barely holding a basic human shape.
However…
it was flipped inside out!
The organs that should have been in its chest cavity were gone—either discarded or fused into the exposed flesh.
The wet, glistening cavity that should have been on the inside was now completely exposed, radiating a stomach-turning stench.
Its limbs were bent backward at unnatural joints, supporting its grotesque body as it scurried toward him like a giant spider.
This was…
an inside-out “Flesh Centipede.”
Wilbur got it instantly.
This was the “fat zombie” he’d been fighting. The one that was so cunning.
The creature before him proved the bloated body was just a shell it controlled for disguise and combat!
That shell was still stuck to the floor below. Its main body must have realized it couldn’t break free, so it severed the connection, abandoning the heavy, useless mass.
Like a hermit crab abandoning a glued shell.
But Wilbur wasn’t afraid.
On the contrary, a cold light flashed in his eyes.
In its new form, it was more agile, faster. But for a Transcendent of his level, the frontal threat was low.
This parasitic Third-Rank zombie, without its reinforced, high-mass host, was like a tiger with its teeth pulled. Its direct combat power was weak.
“Just as expected. A zombie is just a zombie...”
“Brain dead.”
Wilbur stared coldly at the deformed creature crawling toward him like a spider.
If it were a human, the rational choice when facing an overwhelming enemy would be to run.
But this zombie hadn’t made that choice.
Instead, it was still driven by instinct, still chasing him.
It was attracted to the special scent of a Corpse-Plague Acolyte, its bloodthirst drowning out its self-preservation.
Even if it was cleverer than other zombies, it couldn’t escape its primal urges.
“Since you’re here...”
Wilbur flexed his right hand, which he’d just forcibly treated.
“I’ll finish you off first.”