Level-Up Apocalypse: Surviving With The Assimilation System

As he drew near to the chaotic creature, one of its sharp limbs curved over to cut his path. He calmly moved his hand away from the child's head for only a moment, using his wrist guard to intercept the visceral tendril.

It bounced right off, leaving him to ascend the steps to break the distance between himself and the fiend.

"Ghhhr—!?" The simple-minded shape of flesh growled in frustration.

He could see its limbs curling in around him from all angles, only too slow as he pivoted, delivering a spinning kick to its abdomen. The air cracked from the swift movement, piercing right through its abhorrent gut before splattering the monster against the wall.

It looked like a raw burger that was thrown in frustration, leaving none of it intact.

'Got it,'

he confirmed.

There wasn't a single moment to relax as the presence of the fiends flooded into the stairwell. The sheer panic of the New Moscow citizens made the steps completely inoperable.

"Outta the way…!"

"We're all gonna die!"

"Help-!"

Up and down, people shoved each other, screaming in a panic in a stampede. Finn did his best to shield the girl in his arms, trying to stabilize the situation.

"Hey! Don't panic!" Finn shouted, though his words were swallowed by the mayhem.

A flesh fiend in the shape of an oversized spider used its sharp limbs to stab into a panicked man from behind. Not even a scream could leave the mullet-boasting person's lips before the creature's mandibles clamped onto his skull.

It was a horrific bloodbath that began, forcing him to move.

"Hold on!—" Finn instructed the girl, feeling her clutch onto his coat.

With the stairs completely full and in a panic, he sprinted onto the wall, running along it in a defiance of gravity. A giant, frog-formed fiend hopped in front of him with a croak.

Its mouth opened, springing a sharp tongue right for him. Without slowing down, he slid on the wall, spinning around to slam his boot through its head.

'I need to regroup with them—the situation has gotten out of control,'

he thought amidst his sideways pace.

A spray of blood hit the spot in front of him, bringing him to leap from the wall as bundle of people right below were cleaved through. It was as though they'd been blown to pits, though it wasn't surprising considering what burrowed through the stairwell.

"Hraaaaah-ha-harh!"

A hulking monstrosity of sinister flesh slammed its oversized fist against the wall. Finn flipped right over its head amidst the spray of blood from the unfortunate people turned to splatter.

It was in that single, barbaric rush that a half dozen survivors were blasted into chunks. He delivered a sharp kick to the fiend's head before flipping onto the railings with balance like a shinobi.

"Ooooh?!" The brute released with a disturbed grin.

While the other of the flesh-formed entities had been blasted by his kicks, the muscular giant version hardly budged. It possessed an impossibly muscular body, tenfold of what would be possible in a human body with a frame like that of a bear.

'This one is different,'

he realized.

"Don't look. Just keep those eyes shut for me, okay?" Finn whispered to the child in his arms, feeling her attempt to glance back as he placed his hand on her head.

"Mm-mhm…" Anna accepted, clenching his coat.

Across the scarlet-painted steps, he dashed low, ducking beneath a wild swing of the brute's arm. It fought as though it barely knew how to operate its body, using its limb like a bat.

"Wheeeee—!" The brawny fiend squealed in repulsive joy.

He got within range to counter, pushing his left foot forward as his leg shot like a bullet right against the abdomen of the monstrosity. Against its steel-like abdominal muscles, the entirety of the force seemed to be absorbed as the hulking fiend grinned and cheered further.

'This thing is annoying,'

he thought.

As though pulled straight from a cartoon, the flesh-born barbarian inflated its fists, shouting nonsense as though exciting itself. With hands that large, there would undoubtedly be human collateral, bringing Finn to respond quickly.

He pointed his index finger right at its head that was too small for its broad body, carefully taking aim for a moment as those fists began to be swung–

["

Phantom Piercer

"] [Mana: -200] [4100/4500]

The reckless assault was cut off as a perfect, circular hole was bored through the head of the fiend. Simple and clean; the formless projectile had got the job done as the brute was relinquished to fading ashes.

'Alright, that ones done…Still a lot more to go,'

he told himself, glancing down the stairwell at the sheer mayhem occurring on every floor.

If this was merely one part of the hospital, there was no doubt that the entire situation was indeed dire.

–

Floors below, Charlotte was cut off from both sides, higher and lower on the steps surrounded by fiends as she stood between them and a few survivors that managed not to run out in a panic.

"Stay close to me…!" Charlotte advised the others, though finding her own heart racing at the grotesque sight.

The bodies of those unfortunate enough to stray into the paths of the flesh monstrosities were laid out in mangled pieces on the steps. To her left, a horse-faced fiend approached, while to the right, one with the form of a praying mantis stalked with its sharp limbs.

It was problematic for the spellblade, given such little space to work with, even less with the shivering, frightened people right behind her.

'Most of my skills run the risk of harming them…I have to be careful–no, I have to be precise,'

she thought.

Amidst the clash of focus and panic, a shriek from behind brought her to spin around. From the wall, a flesh-stitched horror stuck out, grabbing a hold of a short-haired woman in scrubs.

"No…!" The nurse shouted in terror, reaching her hand out.

Charlotte reached out, moving to grab onto that desperate hand. Her fingers grazed the fingertips of the nurse before the fiend withdrew the woman, bringing her into the horrific wall as blood spat outward from its cracks.

"Ah…?" Charlotte let out, perplexed and shocked by the nightmarish display.

Seeing the person she sought to help reduced to nothing but crimson liquid across a single moment twisted her emotions.

"Help me–! Help…!"

The desperate scream from a man tore Charlotte's focus back into the dire situation as she looked over. In the buck teeth of the horse-faced fiend, the arm of the gray-haired doctor was being chewed on like a carrot.

Charlotte stepped over quickly, slashing her blade downward against the neck of the equine-humanoid, flesh monster. Though she went right for its throat, her blade only got halfway through, leaving its head intact as the fiend continued chewing on the man's arm.

"Hfff…!" She exhaled, finding herself sweating as her breathing was unsteady.

It was unnatural; the spellblade found herself unable to command her usual strength as her heart thumped in her ears. The situation; the panic in the air, screams echoing off the walls, blood gushing above and below the stairs–it engraved itself into her physically.

"Gaaaaah…!" The older doctor screamed as the monstrous horse-fiend's teeth chiseled through the bone of his forearm.

Being splattered with bits of the blood on her face, she squeezed the handle of her blade, forcibly steadying her focus before slashing again. This time, the edge of her sword cut through cleanly to finish the job, removing the fiend's head.

The older doctor held his mangled arm, huffing and gasping, "Guuah…!"

Not a single moment could be afforded to feeling as though she helped as the situation still laid on the other side of lethal.

'What do I do…? There's so many–it feels endless,'

Charlotte questioned, finding more and more of the fiends surrounding the stairs.

–

At the lowest floor, Jasper had his shoulder pressed against the door as it was slammed into from the other side. Between the seams, tendrils of flesh slipped through, attempting to lash out at the knight as he held his ground.

"Dammit…!" Jasper struggled.

All he could do was place his back against the door with his full weight, staring back at the frightened survivors who relied on him with their lives.

A hopeless situation; a suffocating reality settling in with the horde of violent fiends that cackled, laughed, and howled.

At the highest set of steps, Finn peered over the rail at the spiraling stairs, seeing the chaos going on, briefly seeing flashes of the spellblade and the shouts of the knight. It was becoming clear to him there was nothing that would be done at this pace–they would be overwhelmed.

"Anna, I'm going to set you down for a moment. Just wait here, alright?" Finn calmly spoke to the girl, kneeling down briefly as he placed her on the steps.

There was an immediate whimper from the child, having to stand on the bloodsoaked, concrete step as she clung to his leg, "I can't…! It's too scary–! Please don't leave me here!"

"It'll just be a few seconds, Anna. Don't worry–I'm going to get rid of all the bad monsters," Finn assured her, petting her head.