"You fight like a brute. You would most likely lose if you encountered an opponent close to your strength," Queen Anna said, shaking her head in disapproval. "However, with that terrible, unique talent and skills of yours, it will likely take some time before you do."
Elias didn't pay any attention to her after he was certain that she had shown no intention of harming him. Even if she did, from the overwhelming power she radiated, he wouldn't be able to stop her. Instead, he focused on his current situation.
As he walked down the hall, he felt the urge to vomit. The corridor was painted in blood, littered with mangled bodies of students, including those already transformed into zombies.
Even though he had just killed six zombies and a zombified beast minutes ago, he had been able to easily do so because he had mentally prepared himself, thinking of them as necessary obstacles to level up and survive, or else he would become their meals and would end up being transformed into a zombie as well.
Still, the sickening sensation of their flesh and the corpses' twisted forms made his stomach churn.
Witnessing the other human corpses in such a gut-wrenching state, Elias couldn't help but feel a wave of discomfort rising in his chest.
Along the way, Elias encountered a few normal and mutated zombies, which he swiftly executed with his overwhelming strength.
[You've killed two Level Three normal zombies. +60 Experience Points]
[You've killed two Level Three Wide-Mouth Zombies. +120 Experience Points]
[You've reached Level Two. You've obtained 3 free attribute points.]
Elias decided to take a breather and opened his status window.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Name: Elias Miles ]
[ Race: High-Human ]
[ Age: 20 ]
[ Level: 2 (70.00%) ]
[ Title: ]
[Class: ]
[ Unique Talent: Solar Ascendance (★★★★★ Legendary Tier) ]
[ You can absorb sunlight, refine it, and convert it into stat enhancements. Growth potential is limitless, bound only by the availability of radiation and personal evolution. As a result, you are proud and arrogant. Powerful during the day, weaker at night. ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Health: 202 (606)
Mana: 27 (81)
Strength: 23 (69)
Constitution: 22 (66)
Agility: 24 (72)
[Stats points: 3]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Racial Skills:
Adaptive Evolution (Passive): Your body adapts to stress, danger, and energy faster than any race. The more you train, the quicker you progress. Resistance to poison, magic and pain slowly increases over time. ]
[ Unique Skills:
Solar Ascension (Active/Passive Skill) L.V.1: Enhances all stats by 200% for 10 minutes. Physical and magical attacks become superheated. Exceeding this time limit puts severe strain on the body.
Solar Infusion (Passive/Active Skill) L.V.1: Channel sunlight into weapons, fists, or spells to deal fire or light, penetration or burn damage.
Cruel Flare (Active Skill) L.V.1: Unleash a controlled solar flare of around five meters. It can blind the weak, stun enemies, and incinerate projectiles.
Thermal Immunity (Passive) L.V.1: Fire damage is reduced by 80%. Solar or plasma damage heals instead of harms.
Light Eater (Passive Skill) L.V.1: Moonlight, firelight, neon light, and reflected light offer a reduction of radiation absorption by 15% or less.
Radiant Heal (Passive/Active) L.V.1: Heals major injuries, purifies toxins and disease, restores stamina, and reduces fatigue. ]
[ Skills: None ]
[ Equipment: None ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
(Please note that the status window was placed after the chapter was written, so it isn't a word filler.)
Elias saved his attribute points for later, seeing no need to use them now. His earlier allocation was only to test the feeling of distributing free attribute points across his stats. Dumping them into a stat randomly right now would simply be a waste of effort.
Elias sensed that 60 per cent of his sunlight reserves had been depleted. Pushing [Solar Ascension] any further would only put his body under strain and exhaust his remaining sunlight reserves.
That was something he wanted to avoid, considering that he needed to be at his top strength for whatever dangers he might encounter. Especially when his unique skills, which were currently his most powerful asernal, appeared to only be able to function with sunlight.
Without hesitation, Elias deactivated [Ascension]. His body returned to its normal size. He rested in a hidden corner of the hallway, reflecting the bright sunlight from outside until his sunlight was replenished.
"Smart," Queen Anna muttered under her breath, as though sensing Elias's thoughts.
Elias didn't know how, but she continued following him from behind undetected. Still, he paid her no attention. Twenty minutes later, his sunlight reserves were replenished.
Elias quickly activated [Solar Ascension], transforming into his three-meter muscular form and made his way toward the exit as silently as possible to avoid attracting the nearby zombies.
As Elias reached the exit, he saw that the campus had descended into bloody chaos.
Students, teachers, and workers were running frantically, pursued by zombies, mutated insects, animals, and oversized monsters that had appeared out of nowhere.
Some of them were bleeding and screaming constantly, calling for help, only to attract even more monsters that rushed toward them like predators.
Zombies and monsters also attacked and consumed one another to grow stronger, continuing the cycle.
Humanity had fallen from the top of the food chain.
The law of the jungle has risen.
"It takes a while, but after a few days, or perhaps weeks, you'll get used to seeing such sights," Queen Anna, floating behind Elias, said calmly.
Elias gritted his teeth in anger and frustration. Although he understood what she meant, how could he get used to seeing this?
With his current strength, he was certain of his own survival, but if everyone here died, wouldn't he be left alone without human interaction, ultimately living a life of isolation, surrounded only by monsters?
He still remembered the family he had just gained, and the last thing he wanted was to lose them once more.
As an apocalypse expert, he understood that the current world would bring out the evil in some people, but that others would also show the goodness in their hearts. For now, he realised that he needed to save as many people as he could while also guaranteeing his own survival.
Queen Anna remained silent, staring at Elias with a curious glint in her eyes, as though waiting to observe what he was going to do next.
"...HELP ME!"
Suddenly, a boy being chased by a large, three-foot-tall zombie rat was pushed to the ground by other students. He could only scream for help as he watched in fear and horror while the zombie rat approached him.
As though hearing his cries, a woman entered and swung a wooden chair against the head of the zombie rat before stabbing its sides with a broken wooden stick.
"SHRRIEEKK!!" The rat screamed in pain, convulsing and falling to the side.
"Are you okay?" the woman asked, reaching out to help the boy up.
The boy nodded frantically in response.
"Good. Follow your classmates to the gymnasium. I'll do my best to send as many students as I can there and will meet you shortly once you arrive," the woman said, her tone and expression solemn.
The boy nodded quickly. However, just as he was about to respond, his eyes widened in horror, and he promptly turned and ran away, screaming.
Before the woman could react, a terrifying force slammed into her back, throwing her to the ground.
"Ahh—" Her body ached as pain spread through every fibre of her being.
Turning around, she saw that the zombie rat had risen to its feet with the wooden spike still embedded in its body.
It whipped her back with its tail, its expression tinged with fury and pain as it advanced toward her, ready to consume her.