Zero to Peak: Ascension Online

Ivan felt that the zombified woman who approached them seemed familiar. He racked his mind, desperately trying to remember where he had seen her before. A sudden bolt of chilling realisation struck him.

'Oh no!'

The zombified lady, despite her grotesque transformation, was still strikingly beautiful. She was slim, with soft, elegant curves and long, flowing black hair. She held a phone bearing a picture on its screen; a picture of a young girl who bore a striking resemblance to her. If one didn't look closely at the picture, they might assume the girl in the image was the lady herself, but at a younger age.

"We saw her earlier," Jiggy said to her, speaking as if to a regular human being. He pointed in the direction from which the previous girl had gone to. "She went that way."

"Thank you, guys. I'm sorry for bothering you guys. She panicked and ran off. She said that I'm turning into a monster. But look at me, I'm fine. You guys can attest to that." The Zombie walked past the trio.

"Ya look absolutely stunning," Door-Knob forced these words through gritted teeth, his expression strained.

The woman's consciousness was still lingering within her body, but it was only a matter of time before the virulent Zombie virus took total, irreversible control of her. The woman suddenly blanked out and growled like a mindless monster. It turned, staring directly at Door-Knob.

Door-Knob drew out his formidable bazooka from his spatial storage. He was ready to fiercely strike the zombie lady if she dared to attack him or his colleagues. The zombie then regained a fleeting semblance of sense. She smiled graciously at the adventurers, seemingly pleased with the compliment from Door-Knob. Her compromised senses couldn't discern that the compliment was, in fact, from only one person.

"Thank you. You guys are sweethearts."

She turned her back on the trio. She blanked out again as she staggered forward in the direction Jiggy had pointed her. Plop! The zombie's beheaded, lifeless corpse fell to the ground. Jiggy had acted with brutal efficiency before Door-Knob could even react.

A grim silence hung heavily over the trio. Door-Knob wanted to complain about Jiggy's decisive move, but he couldn't. Ivan had nothing to say. The whole experience was profoundly heart-wrenching, but he and his new colleagues had developed past the stage of dwelling on such grim events.

The adventurers got going, everyone silent and preoccupied with their own thoughts.

'I hope my friends are safe,' Ivan pleaded silently to the universe. He had unintentionally categorised Daiyu as his 'friends'. She was, in truth, far more than a friend to him.

Ivan couldn't retrieve his phone from his trousers pocket. His armour prevented him from easily accessing it. The only way to get to his phone was to unsummon the armour, but he was with strangers whom he didn't fully trust. His strong sense of duty prevented him from leaving, making a phone call to check on his friends, and then returning. He felt that things might go awry if he left his 'new colleagues'.

"We should check the street the lady came from. It's obvious that she wasn't on this street," Jiggy said casually.

Door-Knob and Ivan followed Jiggy, venturing into another street.

A bizarre scene awaited them. Zombies crawled across the entirety of the street. Infector Zombies predominantly made up the vast horde of creatures on this street. As if the hundreds of zombies crawling the street weren't enough, freshly zombified human beings emerged with staggering steps from buildings on both sides of the street.

These freshly inducted zombies didn't just wander aimlessly; they seemed to converge in a deliberate circle around a point on the street. The trio's sharp eyes immediately caught this peculiar detail, and their curiosity spiked.

"No one should hold back. This isn't the time to uphold the morals of a righteous saint. Slaughter every zombie or bitten person with indiscriminate prejudice," Jiggy uttered a firm, unyielding order.

He burst forth into a furious sprint. He and his rapier danced through the dense crowd of zombies. Blood splattered in all directions, accompanied by the lurching, falling corpses of the fallen.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! A string of powerful explosions reverberated through the air and violently shook the ground. The acrid scent of roasted meat inundated the atmosphere. Ivan didn't back out of the brutal confrontation. He, too, expertly weaved through the monstrous crowd, slaughtering creatures with sharp precision.

The scene was brutally violent and utterly bloody. Amongst the slaughtered crowd, there were a few freshly zombified human beings. Ivan got his hands dirty, no longer minding the gruesome task. This was simply what he had to do. His perception registered that the regret Jiggy expressed was genuine. His trust for the duo increased, though a lingering pang of distrust still resided within his thoughts.

After seven minutes of indiscriminate slaughter, the adventurers cleared the dense crowd, revealing the central point around which the recently inducted zombies had gathered. And boy, it was a grotesque scene they hadn't expected.

The focal point was a three-metre-tall zombie that possessed ten enormous mammary glands, sagging disturbingly to the ground. Unlike the other zombies who were modestly dressed in tattered clothes, this towering zombie was stark naked.

Its facial features were akin to those of a Down syndrome patient, and its unnaturally large limbs and skull—a clear product of lab-induced acromegaly—indicated that this zombie was a failed lab experiment unleashed. Feeding on its sagging mammary glands were ten abnormal ripper zombies. These ten ripper zombies were unusually muscular, bearing large, bulging muscles similar to those of bodybuilders.

The tall, naked zombie gazed intently at the adventurers who had fought their way to this front. It furrowed its brows at them—a subtle hint of nascent intelligence.

"The monster is intelligent." Ivan tightened his grip on his sword, not daring to initiate an attack but poised for immediate action.

The ripper zombies sucking on the glands, dismounted from the gland. A sharp, primal roar announced their collective fury.

The rippers moved so quickly that the trio saw only an after-blur. "On guard!" The trio swiftly blocked the bites and claw slashes targeted at them. Door-Knob was unfortunate; he battled against five monstrous creatures. He expertly used his bazooka barrel to defend himself from the relentless attacks.

Ivan struggled to control the chaotic flow of battle. The monsters were erratic. The three enraged monsters were determined to tear Ivan to pieces.

"Special attack: Meteorite blade!" Jiggy distanced himself from the two monsters that attacked him. He pointed his rapier towards the sky, his left arm holding the weapon fully stretched upwards. The blade gleamed with a bright silver light and subsequently dimmed. Following that, four silver meteorites, burning with immense silvery light, descended upon his opponents, reducing them to naught.

Jiggy then went over to help Door-Knob, who was being suppressed and was almost at the verge of losing. The burly man had suffered deep scratches on his body.

Ivan exploited a crucial opening and slaughtered two of his opponents with a single, decisive slash.

This sudden change in the battle tempo visibly infuriated the exaggerated zombie. It roared towards the sky. The primal cry drew the attention of every zombie within one kilometre towards this precise spot.