Power to Ignore

Meanwhile in some Association Building:

[SYSTEM 345 REQUESTING ASSISTANCE — S RANK]

[TRANSFERRING COORDINATES . . . ]

"Hi—I need urgent attention at report number 34—assistance requested from System 345 with the current threat level standing at S tier. The coordinates are located in the Northwest of Gravestown."

"Roger," replied the man on the other end.

Soon after, the message reached the ears of higher ups, "what did you say?! System 345?! Arial is requesting urgent backup?!"

The man that went into panic upon the message was someone whose entire role in the Association was handling the incoming information in regards to Players on missions—his name was Angelo, a Level 6 Player with one of the highest Intelligence stats in the Im City.

"Arial is an irreplaceable asset to the Association—we can't risk the possibility of him losing his life." Angelo subsequently put his hand on an orb of an unknown color—closed his eyes and began injecting his MANA into the orb, which started letting out shadow particles upon the MANA contact—he was directly sending information towards every Player of high stats in the Im City.

The perspective of Dantes continues:

"Aaaaaaaaahh!!"

I was rolling on the ground holding my neck using my left hand—kept trying to grab it with my right one unconsciously, thinking I still had my arm.

"D— Dantes, h— hold it in," whimpered Xter, also in severe pain and agony; he then looked in front and pointed his finger—I took a peep and more of the people that attacked us were coming in.

For some reason, my heart wasn't pounding the way it usually did—it wouldn't pound at all until doing singular, massive beats that led to further, long pauses in beating. "D— da…" I glanced at Xter, he was holding up a piece of his shirt—I knew what he was trying to tell me right away.

My teeth were clenched, blood was pouring out of my shoulder non-stop, yet I fought the shivering and took the piece of cloth in order to put it in my mouth—I bit on it hard and then took out my blade—my eyes lit up and the determination to survive wholly surrounded my existence.

*Guuuuuuuuuuush!!*

One of them instantly exploded—God laughed at us and said we weren't covered in blood enough, apparently, because that solidified the appearance that we took a nice long bath in scarlet red blood.

They started running towards us and I consequently screamed, "aaaaaaaahh!!" The fastest one tried to slice me with long, seemingly sharp nails—I quickly managed to dodge to the left side.

With all my strength, I swung the blade towards the man's neck, but just as the blade connected, the other one bit me from the side.

"Uhghhhhh…" stepped a few steps forward almost falling down, holding the man's whole weight while he was munching on my neck, then swung the blade at my back—it sliced his head a little too smoothly, as it slightly cut into my neck as well.

I dropped the cloth from my mouth and proceeded to breathe heavily... my vision was getting fuzzy and unclear.

"Dant—" shouted Xter; prompted me to turn around as quickly as I physically had the strength to.

One of these zombies was attacking us again—he was running towards me with an open mouth trying to dig in like the rest of his buddies.

Xter proceeded to let out a desperate shriek and then held up his left hand in my direction—his shadow scythe materialized as he was falling over because of his missing leg.

I couldn't position my blade in time—neither could Xter remain in the position to block the attacker; he fell over on the ground with the scythe.

Just barely, I managed to hold up the blade high enough for it to be in the direction of the attacker—he proceeded to get impaled by it into the stomach, and then bit my neck regardless, which was just high enough that I could feel my head being crunched on.

I screamed in torment, "f— fu… ahhh!" Then as I attempted to gather all my strength, from below Xter, started raising himself with his left arm and pushing my blade up with his right one—we collectively, as a team, cut the man from the stomach up to his heart—blood began pouring all over Xter from the man's insides but it nonetheless didn't stop chomping on my neck.

Fell over along with the man. "Dan…tes…" Xter said with barely any life or energy in his voice. 

He started crawling towards me—climbed up on both of us and put his scythe on the neck of the man, then put his right hand on the scythe and started pushing it towards its neck—the head got cut off and then both of us just got on our backs while heavily breathing, trying to not pass out from all the blood loss.

With just barely any energy, I glanced at Xter and his eyes were completely covered in blood—did he cut off his head while being completely blind or what?

Then I noticed… from the direction of Xter another two were walking towards us—this time they weren't running, just gradually, eerily and menacingly stepping.

"X… again… look…" he didn't glance at them, yet raised his hand and his scythe proceeded to materialize regardless of the fact; our bodies were getting pushed way over our limits out of pure adrenaline and unadulterated desire to survive.

I put down my blade and then moved my hand on my chest—my heart was barely beating and it was overwhelming even all the other injuries I've sustained.

"X… ah… hey…" without any breath… "can you… try throwing it?"

Then faintly, in almost silent whispers, "can't… move… head… or... see..."

Instantly, I began crawling closer to him, then wiped away the blood from his eyes and pushed his head towards their direction; subsequently, I proceeded to french-kiss the ground because of the lack of strength left in my body. We were lucky these two were slow.

Xter moved his arm to the left side and then with all his strength bobbed his hand with the scythe to the right one—it went just barely flying and scraping one of the two.

Afterwards, he had the scythe disperse and then re-appear—he threw it at them again and this time half of its neck got cut open—its head wasn't holding on well enough and consequently he fell over without moving further.

I picked up my blade again and started crawling over Xter—he seemed out of it, so it was my turn to do everything I could possibly do.

Then suddenly, the sound of a million cuts shook up both of our eardrums—the last one that was stepping towards us, along with the one whose neck was only half-way cut, subsequently exploded so hard that even the blood evaporated into nothingness.

"I'm sorry for taking so long," apologized Arial in the process of us glowing green—all our wounds stopped bleeding.

I couldn't tell what kind of expression he had—be it all the blood covering him or my vision being fuzzy, but his voice was suggesting something rather unsightly, as it was hurt beyond anything I've ever wanted to hear from someone as incredible as him.

Subsequently, both of us started glowing red—this time it was the product of Arial casting some sort of spell—immediately, I started feeling like I was no longer gradually becoming unconscious, but Arial consequently dropped down on both of his knees and started heavily breathing.

"A— are you okay?" I asked in unease and crippling anxiety.

He took a deep breath, stood up and answered, "I'm completely fine—I'm low on blood, but that's only a mental barrier when it comes to someone like me, absolutely nothing else—and moreover, I have just the spell to deal with something like that anyway."

Arial looked up to the sky—took another deep breath, then began looking towards three more of them running to us.