Chapter 175: Juggernaut
Kael walked out the building, the door creaking faintly behind him as it swung shut on its own weight, finding a group of Zombies loitering around the block.
The street outside was quiet in that wrong way, no wind, no distant noise, just the occasional wet shuffle of decaying feet dragging across concrete. The air smelled stale, faintly metallic, with that underlying rot that never quite left this place. The Zombies stood scattered, not in formation, not coordinated, just... present. Waiting. Existing.
"Alright these guys should be good target practice." He muttered to himself.
His voice sounded flat in the open space, swallowed quickly by the empty buildings lining the street. His eyes moved, not locking onto any single target just yet, counting, measuring, mapping angles.
Still, he didn’t want to simply jump into the fight. He needed to understand his surrounding first and make a plan before acting. Especially with how risky he believed his rune testing will be.
He shifted his weight slightly, testing the ground under his boots, letting his breathing settle into something controlled. The belt sat at his waist, unfamiliar in a way that demanded respect. New tools got people killed if you trusted them too early.
He still needed to fully comprehend the limits of his new tool.
The belt offered acceleration at a cost.
And he couldn’t just go on sprinting into a group of mobs without a solid plan.
His fingers brushed against the leather-wrapped mechanism absentmindedly, feeling the slight protrusion he had memorized earlier. It was there. Ready. But readiness didn’t mean safety.
"Thinning down the numbers comes first." He said as he checked his minimap just in case someone else was in the perimeter.
His gaze flicked to the edge of his vision, the faint overlay stabilizing as he focused. The map pulsed once, then settled. No extra dots. No hidden movement creeping in from the edges. And especially no other climbers that could jump him for the gear he was currently wearing.
After verifying that there were only three Zombies around, he stepped forward.
One step. Slow. Controlled.
He tapped the belt, enabling momentum and he could feel the effect immediately.
It wasn’t subtle.
It was like something grabbed onto his body and nudged it forward, not violently, but insistently. His balance shifted a fraction ahead of where it should’ve been, like his center of gravity had moved without permission.
The moment he removed his hand from his belt and tried to aim the fire rune toward one of the Zombies, his hand overshot and went higher than he expected, way above where he usually aimed. His arm snapped upward faster than intended, muscles overcompensating as the acceleration bled into even small movements. The motion felt exaggerated, like his body had suddenly forgotten its own limits.
"That’s to be expected," he muttered as he lowered his hand slowly to take aim.
He adjusted carefully this time, deliberately slowing the motion, forcing his muscles to compensate for the extra push. His jaw tightened slightly as he recalibrated. It felt awkward and unfamiliar, but also needed and imperative if he truly wanted to survive this floor and this damned tower.
He let his energy through his gauntlet, and the flames manifested.
The familiar sensation returned, heat building from within, not burning, but heavy. Controlled. Directed.
First the energy swirled down from deep within him, following the path of the Anchor rune, down to the magnifying Heft Rune, and finally released by the Output Rune, Fire.
He could feel each step of the process like gears turning in sequence. No resistance. No misalignment. Clean.
The fireball swirled in front of his palm rapidly then let loose like a freight train.
The air warped slightly around it as it launched forward, a burst of heat and force ripping through the space between him and the target.
The effect was expected and at the same time disappointing.
The fireball reached its target in matter of moments, and blasted it and another Zombie behind it.
The first Zombie took the brunt of it, its torso caving inward as flames burst outward, igniting what little remained of its flesh. The second staggered as the blast clipped it, stumbling back with charred limbs.
"Unfortunately... Momentum isn’t affecting the projectile itself." He said.
His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the aftermath. No increase in speed. No amplification. Just standard output.
Kael realized then that the new rune only affected his body, much like Presence.
It didn’t affect external spells.
The ’magic’ that separated itself from the source which his his body became its own ecosystem. It was no longer bound to him anymore.
Which meant no shortcuts.
"Alright, now for the risky stuff,’ he said as he took a single step forward.
The words left his mouth quietly, more for himself than anything else.
Nothing seemed to happen at first.
Just a step. Normal. Grounded.
Then he took a second, then third then began a trot.
The push started to build. Subtle at first, like a gentle incline.
The trot turned to a run, and the run turned to a sprint, and after that it was an uncontrollable speed toward the last Zombie.
The world began to stretch.
The distance between him and the target collapsed rapidly, buildings blurring slightly at the edges of his vision. Wind started to press against his face, jacket tugging backward.
Unable to stop, Kael’s stomach tightened.
There it was.
The problem.
If he continued on this path, he would collide with the Zombie up ahead.
And not lightly.
A few bruised bones would be the least of his worries, and in case the collision wasn’t perfect, he felt that it might force him to veer off the straight path he was taking and collid into a wall, or worse, fall and trip then meet concrete.
His mind ran through outcomes fast, too fast to enjoy.
So instead of colliding body to body, he raised his palm, slowly, but it still shot up forward, opened in a grasping motion, it collided with the turning Zombie’s head.
Even that motion overshot slightly, but it didn’t matter.
The collision was immediate.
The impact didn’t stop him.
It transferred.
The collision was immediately expressed as Kael simply picked up the entire Zombie by the head and continued running forward.
There was resistance for a fraction of a second, then it gave.
The creature’s entire body flailed aimlessly as it was ripped out of the ground it stood on and was forced to follow.
Its limbs jerked violently, scraping against the air, feet no longer finding purchase.
The panicked, ’if it could panic’ zombie gripped at Kael’s arm trying to tear away at it.
Its fingers clawed uselessly, nails scraping against leather.
It failed to even leave a mark on the hardened leather jacket.
An idea popped in Kael’s head.
A quick one. Brutal.
Since he was still accelerating without stop, he pushed his right arm down.
The Zombie’s head, back, and whatever else slammed into the concrete hard while Kael sprinted in a half hunchback state, dragging the creature across the concrete, and reducing its ’mass’ using friction and speed.
The sound was immediate and awful.
A wet grinding noise mixed with scraping stone. The body bounced once, then flattened into the drag, leaving a dark streak behind them. Bits of flesh tore away under the force, scattering behind in uneven chunks.
Kael leaned forward instinctively, stabilizing himself as the resistance shifted. His arm vibrated slightly from the friction, but the grip held.
Soon the pressure and grip on Kael’s arm lessened and he raised his body up, realizing that he would soon reach the end of this open street.
The weight in his hand... changed.
Lighter.
Too light.
He didn’t need to look to know what that meant.
He tapped his belt using his other free hand which stopped acceleration and his rapid speed began slowing down untill he stopped.
The deceleration hit differently.
Not abrupt, but heavy.
Like his body suddenly remembered everything it had just done.
Immediately a huge wave of fatigue hit him.
His chest burned, his leg muscles burned, his entire body felt like it was overheating. His breath came out harsher than expected, shoulders rising and falling as heat pooled under his skin. His legs trembled faintly, not enough to fail, but enough to warn.
But the results were undeniable.
The flail-less Zombie was the victim and the proof was the long streak of blood and guts that painted the entirety of the main street.
The trail stretched behind him like a grotesque line, marking every meter he had covered. Dark, uneven, impossible to miss.
What was left of the zombie was literally half its body, as the other half was grinded against the concrete into mush.
The remains dangled limply from his grip before slipping free and dropping to the ground with a wet thud.
Kael stared at it for a second.
Then looked back at the trail.
Huffing and puffing Kael muttered, "This is some damn good workout."