Chapter 25: We’re Surrounded
The collapse of the second floor brought the entire building down around Merek. Walls cracked and groaned before crumbling inward, beams snapped like dry twigs, and chunks of concrete crashed to the ground with deafening force.
Dust billowed up, thick and choking, only to be dampened quickly by the falling rain. But even the rain had weakened—it was no longer the relentless downpour from before, now reduced to a softer drizzle.
None of this mattered to Merek.
His eyes were locked on the remains of the powerful zombie. Near it shimmered three essence orbs—two red and one green. But Merek didn’t have the luxury of celebration. All around him, from every corner, the groans and snarls of approaching zombies grew louder. A new wave was closing in fast.
He needed time. Time to breathe. Time to recover his mire.
The thought struck him like an instinct: consume the core.
Only two of his undead remained capable of fighting, Yuki and one Vulture. The Vulture that had been used as a bludgeon against Yuki had mangled legs and could barely move. The other, the one smashed into a wall, was little more than a shattered shell. Its cuirass was crushed, and Merek could sense almost no energy from it. Almost.
Somehow, it still clung to existence—barely. Likely sustained by the last remnants of essence it absorbed from the zombie just before death. Had it been even a second later, the wraith would have dispersed entirely.
As Yuki and the remaining Vulture fought to stem the flood of zombies, Merek moved.
He staggered toward the corpse of the armored zombie, blood still oozing from the eye wound Yuki had left behind. Its entire body was protected by an incredibly hard carapace—one that neither Yuki’s sword nor his bullets had managed to scratch. There was only one vulnerable point.
Bracing himself, Merek thrust his hand deep into the ruined eye socket of the creature.