Chapter 98 - The Shrine - 2 (2/2)

”Yes. I was exploring the ruins of an old fort called the Silvannus fort when I was suddenly transported to this... What is this actually?” asked Shadow

”Silvannus Fort? Hmm. I thought that he actually disregarded his post. Was the fort made by Silvannus Shreeve?”

”I think so. I found his name in the ruins.”

”Guess, a lot has happened, since the elf general was successful. He was the only one who managed to reach the end of the test till now, but even he failed,” said the voice in a lamenting tone.

A spectre like being suddenly appeared in front of him. He had a purple colored halo around him. The worst thing was that Balthazar immediately related him to someone else. It looked to be the same species of that was being tortured by the five lords in the cave. It was flaming skull and had a scaly skin just like the one in the memory fragment.

”I am the guardian of the shrine. Not really a guardian though as I can't get out of this place. I am a remnant of a soul that is responsible for putting you through the test. Based on you evaluation, you will be rewarded,” said the flaming skull.

”Did those lords use the souls of the thirteen guardians to secure the treasures or something,” thought Shadow as soon as he saw the soul remnant.

”You seem to be an assassin. Most assassins tend to focus too much on their quick and sharp attacks and fail to understand that the true path to domination requires on to be strong. Strong enough to endure a lot of enemies. Your test starts now. To complete the test, you need to destroy 5000 zombies in this tunnel. You will be evaluated on the number you defeat before you accept defeat. If you fail to realize the situation and refuse to concede, you might die,” said the remnant as it disappeared.

[Human Zombie] (Common monster)

Level: 13;

HP: 3000/3000;

Zombies started to move towards him from the other end. Zombies are classified as the most basic of undead which had moderate speed, low intelligence and had simple movements which was an extreme advantage for him. They can be killed easily by fire and physical attacks take a lot of time or requires a sharp attack to the head or spines of the zombies. Beheading them killed them instantly like any other monster. Moreover, zombies of monsters are also seen, but these aren't that different and were also slow moving.

The only problem with them was that they would usually be in large numbers and unless one made a fatal attack they wouldn't die and try to kill even if they accidentally attack other zombies. They would not care about their own injuries either and just attack whomever they could find. This makes it difficult to handle when there are smaller number of player and larger number of zombies.

Looking at the situation, Balthazar was initially stunned. He didn't expect such a large number of enemies to defeat. ”I doubt even those gamers who managed to get it last time had a test of this difficulty. Considering that I already have a unique equipment, the difficulty of the test was increased,” thought Balthazar. He didn't know that his difficulty was increased because he was being monitored specially through the game.

”The good thing is that there quite a number of torches here and I am already used to killing zombies. I even got a crossbow from the vault and dynamites for emergency situations,” thought Balthazar reflecting on his previous experiences.

He ran at his highest speed to a nearby zombies kicking it back into the centre of the tunnel. This would aggravate them, and more would come towards him which is what he needed right now. He quickly used his dagger to cut through the bolts and pulled off a torch from its bracket on the wall and smashed it close on the zombies approaching.

The oil from the torch spilled all over them lighting them up in fire. Though he could always keep killing them with a good swing to behead these zombies, killing a number as big as five thousand would put him in dire straits and completely tire him out. He decided to use as many tricks as he had and slowly move ahead without haste and started using the resources which were available in the tunnel.

The burning zombies try to put out the fire on them and in general, zombies which were afraid of fire always tried to avoid it unless a necromancer (kind of summoner) would direct it to fight even while burning. So, elementalists were always considered the best counter to zombies. This was the best thing for Shadow to attack in these circ.u.mstances.

He aimed for the heads of the zombies while he always threw the burning zombies at the other ones. With his attributes, skill and experience, it was quite easy for him to do so. But it was a slow progress. The zombies were slow, and he also didn't attack unless he saw a perfect shot which could take their head off.

By the time, he managed to kill 2000 zombies, it had been about four hours. It could be considered that he took more about 7 seconds per zombie, but it wasn't really so. Shadow was still used to attacking in short bursts like an assassin. He just used the fire to herd the zombies closer in smaller groups so that he could cut through the thin decaying necks of the zombies in the smaller with a single strike each.

He had prepared well with about 100 dynamites for this, some of which he used to escape a few unexpected situations. If he had any regrets about his preparations, it was that he didn't put in enough fruits or food in his bag which were the only way replenish his stamina quickly and there weren't any stamina potions available at this stage of the game either.

After the first 2000 the zombies changed, it was no longer the human zombie, it changed to zombie cats. Zombie cats were a large sub class of zombies including various wild cat monsters which are zombified. Luckily, these didn't have the usual speed of wild cats and were like other zombies. Only difference was they made sudden dashes to attack like the cats and tried to tear the opponent with fangs or claws.

But these weren't considered a tough opponent by Shadow either. It was faster for him to kill these zombies. Once, they made a dash attack that was easy for him to escape it due to his high agility, he quickly cut off their heads which were in close range for him. Apart from trying to herd them using fire and kill the small groups, this behavior of these zombies allowed him to kill faster.