If you asked Dante what he was feeling right now he would tell you two things.
First would be disgust and second would be more disgust!
This bastard had one of the thickest armour despite being super fast. He couldn't count the number of times he had attacked only for the Resonant chain blade to only leave a nick on the bone which quickly dissapeared due to its superior regeneration.
To add salt to injury,the only flaw of the Killmonger—the gaps in their exoskeleton wasn't fully formed thus there were no gaps to exploit.
He was helpless as there was nothing he could do about it.
The Mantis Killmonger was also in a pinch since it couldn't really penetrate Dante's armour. Although they were renowned for their armour piercing capalities this Mantis Killmonger had just begun it's mutation, it's deadly blades weren't that sharp yet.
At this point the battle was becoming a war of attrition. Whoever made a mistake first would lose and losing meant death.
While the Mantis had high stats it lacked one thing which Dante possessed an abundance of.
Experience!
While he had never fought a Killmonger in his past life, he had heard a lot of stories about the creatures.
Unlike other apocalypse creatures, the Mantis Killmonger wouldn't never die even if it's head was destroyed making them somewhat invincible.
This was due to the fact that their brain could be located in any part of their body!
The good news though was that a normal pistol was enough to kill it if you knew the location of it's brain.
The bad news was you never knew where the brain was,thus making that knowledge useless. The chance of finding the brain was harder than winning the national lottery.
Unless he was a Wuxia Heaven's chosen there was absolutely no way he could ever land a hit that would coincidentally land on the brain.
"Wait what if….."
Suddenly a thought came to his mind as he remembered something. However this lapse in attention was all the Killmonger needed as it suddenly stabbed both bone blades at Dante's head.
Instinctively,he dodged backwards narrowly avoiding the stab.
Before he could rejoice though the blades of the Killmonger suddenly flashed and appeared from down below,the next moment the white bone blades took on a greyish sheen before piercing forth in one deadly strike!
"Oh shit it's a feint!"
Crack!
Since he wasn't expecting this attack there was no way he could dodge this and thus with a sound like glass breaking the reinforced chest plating of the armour shattered explosively.
Using the momentum from the attack Dante retreated at the fastest speed he could muster while a look of horror appeared on his face.
His armour had been destroyed!
The armour had been holding up exceptionally well so much that he had forgotten that it had no power source of it's own.
Therefore the moment the Killmonger had launched it's sneak attack he had used all his Gear force to push the power armour to it's extreme limits allowing it to dodge the first strike. How could he have known that it was just a cover for the real sinister strike?!
Without his armour there was no difference between him and a normal human in front of the Killmonger.
"Am screwed!"
By now their fight had strayed away from the western wing of the second floor into the central axis of the second floor. With the intensity of their fight and the noise it generated he didn't need to think twice to know that a horde was coming over in fact he could already hear them.
Standing across from him the Mantis Killmonger bent low in the same position it had assumed when they first started fighting.
The bone blades on it arms were also turning longer, whiter and sharper visibly as it looked at Dante with excitement in it's eyes.
It's mutation was actually advancing!
This human, this prey that had fought it for so long was finally going to perish under it's blade causing it to feel a sense of satisfaction.
As a killer and hunter it's greatest joy was overcoming strong prey as that was the only thing that defined it's existence.
It was what made it stronger.
In it's mind it had already made a decision that this humans head would be kept among his collections when suddenly it froze.
Although the temperature was low it couldn't affect a monster like it. The reason it froze was because it felt an extreme danger that threatened it very existence.
It smelt death.
Looking up at the human before it a hint of confusion appeared in it's eyes as it suddenly saw a weird looking weapon appear in the human's hand. It recognized the weapon as it was the same one another human attacked it with earlier.
"Hey bone freak, greet your ancestors in hell."
Hearing the voice of the human it suddenly felt uncontrollable fury rise in it.
While it wasn't able to understand what he said it still got angry and decided to just kill him first!
Screeching, it darted towards the human, first it would tear him to pieces limb by limb!
At the same time Dante pointed the Serax pistol at the Killmonger while muttering to himself.
"Please let the passive ability activate!"
The next moment he pressed the trigger.
WOOSH…
There was no explosion of gunpowder, nor was there the sound of a bullet whistling through the air. It was almost like he hadn't shot a gun but an airsoft gun instead although he wasn't sure if the Serax pistol used gunpowder anyway.
By now the Killmonger had already arrived so close to Dante that it only needed a single leap to tear him apart. However, it was destined to never make that leap as it suddenly felt itself weaking rapidly. Soon it could no longer maintain its speed causing it to crash on the floor just right in front of Dante unmoving.
"Phew!"
Looking at the huge hole on the Killmonger's abdomen he felt a tension he wasn't even aware of leave him which was soon eplaced by excitement.
"Haha! This daddy just killed a Killmonger!"
In his past life, the number of people who had an encounter with a Mantis Killmonger and lived to tell the tell were very, very few. Meeting a Killmonger was literally a death sentence to anyone.
[Ding! Champion has slayed his first Corrupted,...]
"Oh I even got a reward, hehe….seems like I truly am Heaven's chosen."
Looking at the dead Killmonger he kicked it around for a bit wondering why it even showed up. He had only survived by a very thin margin.These monsters were supposed to only start appearing weeks into the apocalypse and also not in Brayden city.
Thinking about this he couldn't help but ask the system.
"Hey, system this is just the first day and I'm already suffering this much. Are you sure you didn't swipe away my tiny bit of luck when you came over?"
[Champion you have no luck so to speak so don't blame me. It's not my fault you're useless.]
Hearing the systems words he nearly chocked on air.
The system was as ruthless as usual.
Right then he heard the sound of footsteps causing him to perk up. He soon relaxed though when he saw that it was none other than Jason and the three girls while putting on his nonchalant expression.
"You guys made it?, I thought you were gonna die or something."
Jason:"...."
The three girls:"..."
Seeing the stifled expressions on their faces,a smug feeling arose in Dante. Since he couldn't beat the system at scolding them he would vent on other humans.
This was the way forward!
When Jason finally regained his senses he suddenly spotted the monster
.
"Wait you killed that thing?!"
At the same time the three girls also saw the dead Killmonger on the floor causing them to gasp in shock.
Seeing the dumbfounded look on their faces a smug smile rose to Dante face as he calmly replied.
"Oh that, couldn't even take my full power before it died."
He was about to continue when he remembered that the zombies were still prowling around. Bending down he quickly cut off the bone blades of the Killmonger, they were useful.
" Anyway we have to move now, there's no way we can make it to the underground exit tonight so we find a place to stay any suggestions?"
"I know a place we might be able to stay in."
Right then Susan suddenly spoke up causing Dante to look at her.
"Huh? Where?"
"The cinema."
"This place has a cinema? Weird, lead the way then."
With a puzzled expression,Dante wondered why the mall would have a cinema in the first place but quickly shoved that thought to the b
ack of his mind. Now was not the time to be bothered by that as he could already hear the growls of the zombies.
First they had to get somewhere safe.