Joinining Forces

"Is that everyone?" Dean Siphon asked as she sized everyone up. Having woken up early in the morning and having picked up Luther's hang on their way, the team led by Dave had finally reached the underground complex.

Dave had taken with him the main team members that consisted of Adam, Brian, Rebecca, Arthur and Evelyn, plus the whole Luther's gang and some new Enhancers they had discovered before while killing zombies.

And, plus Richard, who nervously stood at the rear, catching sideways glances from his ex-subordinates.

"Yes, as agreed, I've taken the strongest fighters among us," Dave replied, catching a slight doubt in her voice. Well, it wasn't surprising since their numbers would barely reach 30 and only less than 10 of them were Enhancers.

On the other hand, the dean had gathered double of their numbers and had slightly more Enhancers in her team. Considering Dave's confident demeanour and that they had survived on the surface, she had expected more people to come, but...

"Don't worry. We'll be able to hold the end of our deal." Dave said as he noticed Dean Siphon's doubtful stare.

Evelyn, who stood behind the group, pushed others as she strode forward. As her eyes landed on the dean, her lips trembled a bit as she said, "Mother!"

Hearing a familiar voice, Dean Siphon glanced in the direction of the voice. Noticing Evelyn in front of the group, she smiled slightly yet still said coldly, "Evy, I'm glad you're alive. So let's have a chat after this."

Calming down herself, Evelyn said in a similar cold but understanding tone, "Yes, mother."

However, deep inside, she was slightly saddened by her mother's cold tone as her ruby eyes flickered in a grim light. As far as she could remember, her mother was always like this...cold and unemotional.

However, Evelyn was already used to it.

No...She needed to become used to it for her own emotional wellbeing.

Although she tried not to show it, Arthur immediately noticed changes in her mood, so he lightly patted her on the back to comfort her.

...

As they reached the underground complex, Dean Siphon led them to the gathering point, where they joined with others and finalized the details of their mission. After discussing everything and sharing the information with the whole team, they exited from the complex by a ladder leading upwards.

Moving up by the ladders, they ended up in a narrow alley. It was a common alley that was made by two adjacent buildings.

"We've already killed most of the zombies in this area, but I still recommend you be cautious." Dean Siphon said in a low tone, trying not to attract any unwanted attention. "Let's go. We'll lead the way."

With such words, she took the lead for the whole group. Most of the Enhancers were positioned on the first lines, including Dave and others. The dean, Dave and Brian were at the head of the group. They had discussed everything before the mission and knew how useful was Brian in their situation.

...

"There are zombies on our right."

"Let's take a slight detour."

"This place has the lowest numbers of zombies. We need to pave the path for ourselves." Brian kept commenting as he was constantly checking their surroundings with his [Life Pulse]. Having him with them, they easily avoided the crowded places on their route.

"People like him would have saved us from a great deal of troubles." Dean Siphon said as she wondered why they didn't have someone like Brian among them.

Brian had saved them from lots of unnecessary fighting on their way. Even if they fought with zombies, they were low in numbers, so most of the zombies were dealt stealthily. Adam and Rebecca were saving their strengths for evolved zombies, so they didn't use their unique abilities.

After half an hour, they finally reached the living complex and temporarily hid in an alley. Sending a Life Pulse, Brian reported, "Ehm...If we want to go into the living complex, then we need to fight through zombies surrounding it."

Knowing all the risks before raiding the living complex, Dean Siphon calmly responded to Brian's words. Instead, she asked, "How many zombies are there? How many of them are of the strength and agility variant?"

"Let me check...4 Giants, 3 Hunters, 1 Ghoul and 1 slightly stronger Giant," Brian said in a ponder as he counted stronger auras of zombies.

Before going to the mission, Dave had already shared with her his knowledge about different types of zombies and how he calls them, so she easily understood what he meant by it. As she listened to Brian, she hesitated a bit, 'Aren't there too many evolved ones? Could we kill them? Shouldn't we retreat?'

Noticing her internal struggle and guessing what she was worrying about, Dave said, "We can't just go back now. Furthermore, let me show how we survived for the month on the surface. Our numbers should be enough to deal with those zombies."

Next, he started giving commands to others, "Adam, take down one of the Hunters. And if you can, you also go for the second. Rebecca, kill as many evolved zombies as you can. You can summon Star. Brian, throw a fireball at a Giant with the most zombies around him. Evelyn, Richard and Arthur, you'll join me after the fight breaks in."

He marked out people with skills that could attack from long distances to cut down the numbers of evolved zombies as much as they could. At least, Adam, Rebecca and Brian could kill 3 evolved zombies. Later, they could deal with the ones that were left. And of course, Dave would take a Ghoul and a mid-rank Giant on himself.

"Okay, let's go," Dave said his last words as he led them towards the horde of zombies. Coming closer to them and stepping ahead of others, Dave whistled as his eyes fell on their numbers. There were quite a lot of them, even more than when he killed zombies in the market. And even more zombies would come attracted to the noise.

Behind his back, a blob of light hovered above Rebecca, the fireball formed in front of Brian and the spear with half of its shaft hovered before Adam. All of them waited for his command.

"Shoot," Dave dropped one word as he smiled in satisfaction.

At his words, the spear went straight towards the head of the Hunter, piercing it and appearing from the other end of its head. Next, Adam's spear didn't stop in its tracks as it started to kill other ordinary zombies, heading towards another Hunter.

The fireball hovering before Brian flew in an arc, straight to the towering Giant. Having been hit by a fireball, a large hole appeared in its head. At the same time, the fireball exploded after a collision and set other zombies around the Giant on fire.

Star appeared above Rebecca and started forming light blades around her. The largest one went after a Giant, halving its head as its brain matter slipped from the cut. The smaller ones were shot at ordinary zombies, killing several of them.

Having finished giving their welcomes, Dave barged at their ranks and cut down all zombies attacking him. He immediately activated [Mana Enhancement] and [Reinforced Breathing] to aid himself. At the same time, the effects of [Battle Sense] were taking in.

Dave was paving his path towards the Ghoul as he killed all zombies on his way while defending himself with Mana Barrier. Getting overwhelmed by the numbers, Dave formed a platform from mana below him and stepped on it using the [Flash Step] to shorten the distance between him and the Ghoul.

Caught off guard by Dave's sudden appearance before him, the Ghoul wasn't able to respond timely as Dave landed right on top of it, piercing its head with his Steel Sword. Taking it down, Dave exhaled a mouthful of air as he mumbled, "One down."

As he landed on top of the Ghoul, small light blades appeared from his rear and timely killed zombies that surrounded the Ghoul. Thanking Rebecca inwardly, Dave had no time to catch his breath as he headed towards the mid-rank Giant.

...

Surprised, Dean Siphon was staring at Dave that moved among other zombies. She was even more surprised when her eyes landed on a levitating spear, hovering light sphere and fireball. However, when she saw how Dave fought she thought, 'Isn't his style...'

As she was staring at everything, Evelyn came running to her, "Mother, we need to take some pressure from Dave."

Waking up from her ponder, Dean Siphon quickly took a hold of herself as she commanded people beside her to charge at zombies. At the same time, Arthur, Richard and Evelyn also joined the battle.