It was a bloodbath around the city, the zombies were more restless than ever before. The regular zombies were somehow stronger, possibly because the game was reaching its end.

  Anna, the scarlet woman, stood above a building watching the madness happen from all around. She was also looking at the map of the city, seeing only the location of the boss and the last quest object, which was up north but also near. She had already claimed one of the items.

  “Where the hell did that guy go?” She asked herself, wondering how he disappeared off the map. “I know he has the two other pieces for the quest, so why isn’t he on the map?”

  Mia then appeared from the door leading to the top of the roof. “I’m done looting! There wasn’t much to find worth taking, though.”

  Anna walked back to patted her sister on the head, who then smiled. “Good job, Mouse, we only have 3 hours left to retrieve the last item, and hopefully that asshole will appear again.”

  “You’re still salty about losing the item? Get over it, sis.” Luna laughed a bit.

  “Hush up, Luna, it’s time to go.” Anna kneeled down with her arms behind her, ready to give her sister a piggyback ride.

  Luna got on her sister’s back and held tight. Anna started to move towards the final quest item and bolted off. Leaping across building to building. Luna was enjoying the experience of soaring through the air with every moment.

  A couple of minutes went by, and they were making pretty good travel distance until something fast zoomed by that almost hit the two. Anna slowed down and halted onto a building, lying low.

  The two inspected where it came from by peeking over the top of the roof.

  It was a group of skeletons on undead horses, armed with a shield and a cannon like arm. One of them noticed them peeking and fired a couple of speeding spears of bone, logging inside the side of the building’s structure.

  “Seems like those guys managed to tame some horses.” Luna said.

  “So it seems…” Anna replied, her voice trailing off as she heard something in the distance. “...what is that sound?”

  The two scanned their surroundings, trying to locate the noise Anna was hearing, until she stopped to look in one direction at something in the sky.

  She could see what appeared to be birds, hundreds of them, soaring through the skies shrieking. “Those crows are new, we have to get out of here.” Anna hoisted Luna on her back and was back on the run again.

  She weaved through the barrage of flying bone spears being sent her way. Anna had a high agility score, so dodging each shot wasn’t too difficult. The birds were slightly slower than Anna, but eventually Anna would need to seek shelter before her stamina would become an issue.

  Something then caught Luna’s attention while she was riding on her sister’s back. It was as if a figure kept blinking in and out of her peripheral vision. She couldn’t see what it was exactly.

  “There’s something else following us! I don’t know what it is exactly, it keeps disappearing.” Luna warned.

  Anna acknowledged it and kept focus, keeping a look-out for this unseen foe. She spotted a library building that she could enter through the door on the roof.

  She hurried over and dropped Luna, “Unlock the door.” She asked, and Luna got on it, pulling out her lock picking tools while she stood guard.

  The birds were far enough to not worry about at the moment, but the unseen enemy Luna was talking about was on her mind.

  A few moments went by when Luna heard a click, “It’s open!” She informed and opened the door.

  The very moment Anna turned back around to walk through the door, she heard faint footsteps and turned back around to see nothing. Then suddenly, a ghoulish like undead took shape in front of her. It had pale gray skin with beady black eyes, long sharp claws, shark like teeth and a frog like tongue sticking out.

  The instant appearance of the undead spooked Anna, causing her to stumble back through the door, bumping into Luna. She slammed the door shut, avoiding one of it’s claws from slashing at her and instead hearing it scrap onto the other side of the door.

  “Found the fucker that was tailing us.” Anna was still a bit shaken up. “Be careful and stay close, there might be more of them that turn invisible.” She held her little sister’s hand firmly.

  “He was that ugly, huh?” Luna joked.

  Anna didn’t respond as they walked on downstairs to the upper floor of the library. When they arrived in the main library on the highest floor, they each received a notification of the last quest item being found.

  “That’s great, saves us the trouble of having to go look for it.” Anna was relieved but was still concerned about how they were going to complete the quest without the rest of the items that the other guy was holding on too.

  “Anna, the people who retrieved the last item are heading our way.” Luna was looking at the map. “...and the undead king is too!”

  Anna grumbled, “Perfect, why not bring the whole circus.”

  In the center of the whole library was a singular pillar with a gap that had a view to both the high and low level floors. Each floor containing shelves of knowledge, there were cozy chairs, couches, tables, etc. The place would be great to relax in if it wasn’t for the whole world going to shit.

  Anna was unsure if she should run even further away, since the undead king was technically coming over to say hello.

  She decided that they would hang tight for a bit by hiding in the upper floor close to the stairway leading to the roof. So that's what they did by trying to find the best spot inside to hunker down.

  It was complete silence in the library, it had seemed it was just the two of them alone.

  Anna kept a watchful eye, using her passive from her Assassin’s Class. With it, she was able to heighten her senses even further and perceive any ill intent from any being she had sight on, any person that had bad motives in the current moment would emit a red aura around them in her eyes. But so far she wasn’t seeing or hearing anything at all as they moved through some bookshelves.

  That was until Anna noticed one of the bookshelves shake ever so slightly, along with hearing tiny tap sounds. There was nothing there when she looked.

  With Anna caught off guard, an unexpected tongue lashed out from behind her, wrapping around Luna and snatching her off the floor.

  Anna heard Luna yelp and saw a ghoul on top of a bookshelf holding her sister captive. Rage rose inside Anna, and she dashed at the ghoul without hesitation.

  But the moment she tried to attack the creature, it placed Luna in front of itself, causing Anna to stop her attack. ‘What the fuck!?’ She was surprised that it was intelligent enough to use her sister as a shield, knowing she wouldn’t hurt her.

  The ghoul went back to being invisible, only concealing its entire body, making it seem like Luna was floating by herself. The ghoul then took off with Luna, having Anna to chase it down to save her sister.

  It led the sisters to the center of the library, with the creature sticking to the center pillar, still unseen.

  Anna was not able to perceive the creature’s red aura with her passive because it was invisible, but she still had a trick up her sleeve that she could use.

  She leapt from the floor, towards Luna with knives in hand, ready to strike down the ghoul where she suspected it to be at. The ghoul once again tried using Luna as a shield to block her assault, but instead, Anna blinked in a cloud of black smoke.

  She then reappeared behind Luna above and thrusted her dagger down onto the supposed location of the ghoul and managed to land her attack. The creature dropped Luna, retracting its tongue, and tried to retaliate against Anna.

  Anna dodged its claws before swiftly stabbing it into the head and then teleporting below to catch Luna to prevent her from crashing on the 1st floor flat like a pancake.

  When she did catch Luna, Anna shoved Luna, landing her onto the 2nd floor before teleporting on the floor as well, then performed a barrel roll to slow herself down. She got up to check on her sister who also tumbled a bit but seemed fine. Anna and Luna heard a loud thud coming from the 1st floor. When Anna inspected the sound, she saw that it was the ghoul that she had killed.

  “Are you hurt?” Anna asked her dear sister, showing concern.

  “Yeah, I’m fine- Look out!” Luna reacted fast enough to push her sister down, avoiding the bone spears that were being fired at them from the first floor. It was the skeleton crew that had dismounted their horses and were actively on the move inside after breaching through the entrance.

  Anna planned to go back out through the roof again, so she took Luna and began hopping from railing to railing, skipping the stairs as she quickly tried to jump between floors. Once they had reached the top floor, she backtracked to where they came from.

  When they arrived at the stairway, Anna could hear the door from above being breached, then saw a swarm of crows breaking through the door from above and then make their way downstairs.

  The two immediately turned back around, locking the door. “We’ll have to try making a way out of the front entrance.” Anna was not liking the current situation at all, it was just one bad thing after another.

  Anna heard more of the bookshelves near them shake, and she instantly knew it was more of those ghouls. Holding Luna close to her, on her back, she stormed off.

  She dashed to the center and jumped off, both avoiding the barrage of bone spears and landing on each railing of each floor. Her stamina was getting kinda low at this point, but she was determined to protect her sister with everything she had.

  When she landed on a bookshelf from the 1st floor, two spears flew towards her, grazing both of her legs. She gritted her teeth from the pain before falling, tilting in a way that her chest would come into contact with the floor, so her sister wouldn’t get hurt.

  “Anna!” Luna quickly got off her sister’s back to check on her.

  Anna lifted herself from then floor and rubbed her sister’s head, assuring her that she was alright. “Tis but a scratch Mouse.” She told her with a smile.

  Two skeletons appeared from both ends of the bookshelves they were between and fired their shots. Anna and Luna went prone again, avoiding the shots, both of them landing into the skeleton’s shields.

  Anna picked up Luna and vaulted over the bookshelves, aiming straight for the entrance. More skeletons and zombies showed up, they could hear ghouls from behind trying to restrain them with their frog like tongues.

  Anna dashed through the shower of spears, weaving between zombies, a few spears nicking her body. And when she thought she was close enough to the entrance, Anna threw Luna over the wall of skeletons, just enough for her to teleport in the air and catch her before landing back on the ground.

  The two had made it out of the library of fuck all. Anna was incredibly exhausted from zooming around, but she kept running away as best as she could at the moment.

  “Anna, maybe we should go to the others and hand off our item to them. Let them deal with the enemies.” Luna suggested, not wanting to see her sister push herself any further.

  Anna shook her head. “No, we can only trust ourselves to protect it.” She turned to enter a random clothing store and dropped Luna down. “Short break mouse.”

  Luna brought out a couple of the supplies she had been looting, replenishing mainly Anna’s resources like her HP, stamina, and mana. The way mana was restored was either by passively letting it regenerate naturally or by consuming current drinks such as soda, juice, etc.

  After about 5 minutes, they decided to head out on the run again but paused when they felt a bit of rumbling that seemed to intensify. It was coming from the streets. They peeked out and saw a large mass of people running away from something that was completely understandable.

  There were two large 15ft tall giants that were simply meshes of zombies and flesh slapped together. All performing their duties as the giants natural body movements. The giants shoved vehicles around with ease and were even capable of launching zombies from it’s body towards the people. Around it, were about all the different types of undead that she had face before. Those being the classic zombies, hounds, skeletons, and ghouls.

  “This is not our problem, I’ll scoop up the item when they are dead.” Anna said as she shook her head, she only cared about her and Luna’s survival at all cost.

  Anna knelt down and motioned for Luna to get on her back, but Luna did not. “Luna?”

  Luna was looking at the map of the city and had a look of being both surprised and thrilled. “We may want to stick around now, actually…”

  Anna was confused, “Why’s that?”. She then brought up her own map and found out what Luna meant. “About fucking time that asshole shows up!”

  There on the map further down were two objects stacked on top of each other for the quest, moving towards them at a steady pace without stopping.

  “Anna, we need to stay and help everyone else until that guy arrived. All 4 items need to be together in order to complete the quest, and we only have about an hour left.” Luna figured fighting as a group rather than as individuals would be better. The more people they had, the greater their chances of making it through the event currently. The announcer did say it would be better to work together.

  Anna looked at the ceiling, clenching her teeth with disgust before finally responding to her suggestion. “Alright fine. I won’t just stand by for last pickings…I would like to give that guy shit for being late.”

  Luna smiled. “That’s the spirit! Teamwork makes the d-”

  “Don’t finish that sentence, this is only temporary.” Anna gave out a yuck face before leaving on her way out the store entrance.

  The other people were almost close by with the new friends they had made along the way. “Stay away from this area and let the grown-ups handle this. Got it Mouse?” Anna ordered her sister.

  “Sure, I’ll be safe away from the trouble. So go all out, sis!” Luna encouraged, throwing out a high five before scurrying off to go hide.

  Anna mentally prepared herself for the army of the dead that paraded the streets ahead. Closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath, she went into her stance, getting ready to bolt into the fray as she tied her hair into a bun.

  “Finally, I can finally…” And when she opened her eyes, they shined a crimson red shimmer of color, from her perspective she could see a multitude of undead enemies that gave off a red aura. “...LET LOOSE!”

  In an instant, she bolted forward, pushing back a gust of wind from her initial start, daggers in each hand that she had obtained. Anna zoomed in a beeline, breezing past a couple of the people that were running away before zigzagging through a couple more people who were struggling, helping them out with quick and efficient stabs in the head.

  In the eyes of the people that were fending off the army of zombies the best they could, Anna was a whirlwind of steel blades, a cloud of daggers sending these undead fiends back to the afterlife. Some people who were helped by Anna would take a moment to catch a glimpse of her dance like movements as she travelled further down like a vicious ballerina.

  A couple of hounds tried using pack tactics against her, one lunging in as a distraction while the other set up for the perfect moment to chop down on her neck, but she was aware of her surroundings. Anna slid under the first hound and threw two knives at two other hounds that had leapt after, landing both attacks in the center of their heads, subduing them. The first hound tried again with another attack, but she simply side stepped it, plunging her dagger into it’s skull, finishing it.

  Further, she continued, helping out each person she came across. Her assistance with the people in the fight was boosting the morale for everyone, everyone that was further behind her were able to push up and help the rest and so on.

  Eventually, she would encounter the two giant meshes of zombies, evading a slam attack from one of them with ease. Anna took the chances she got from dodging these slow but heavy attacks by slashing at its arms, but it wasn’t looking like she was able to do any harm to it. This enemy was just a tank and wasn’t sure where it’s real weakness was at.

  ‘How am I supposed to handle you two?’ She wondered, shuffling to the side to avoid another slam attack. Nothing was coming to mind of how she was going to eliminate this massive hulk of animated corpses. Her daggers and strength weren’t enough to dice up it’s body into pieces.

  Anna decided she would deal with as many of the zombies and ghouls as possible. The skeletons were more time-consuming to handle with their boney exoskeleton like armor. So she went back to help out the other people, but was then being shot at by more skeletons. She took cover behind a car with some other people.

  “Hey!” A man with a beanie and scruffy beard called out to Anna.

  Anna turned to look at the man, “What!”. The windows of the car they were hiding behind shattered, bone spears breaching through.

  “The Name’s Kyle, but that’s not important right now. You seem pretty capable of dealing with these zombies, I see. So I’m thinking you must have one of the quest items, seeing as how it looks on the map. Yeah?”. He questioned.

  “Yeah I do, I assume that’s why everyone here travelled down to meet me here with the whole monster mash!” She responded, sounding a bit irritated.

  Kyle laughed at her joke, which irritated her even more because that wasn’t her intention. “I knew it was you when I saw you dancing around slaying these blighters!”

  More undead came from around the vehicle, and Anna had to get out from cover to swiftly dispatch them all while avoiding hostile fire. “Now! Isn’t! The time! To! Conversate!” She yelled back, finishing her sentence with decapitating a zombie before going back to cover.

  “Right, my fault.” Kyle apologized. “Listen, my brother and sister have one of the quest items, but they’re back behind us. They’re names are Eric and Kat, go look for them while we hold the frontline, seeing as how you have fancy feet and all.” He asked with a slight smile.

  Anna was hesitant about agreeing to go find his siblings and taking the quest item from them, but didn’t question him given the dire situation. “Fine…hang tight. The other two quest items will be on the way as well.”

  Kyle was confused as to why she meant the last quest items would arrive as well but nodded. “Understood Bloody Mary!”

  That comment ticked her off and caused her to dip out of there before she felt like hurting him for making another stupid comment.

  She looked at her map as she moved to track down where Kyle’s siblings were, helping out the backline as she zoomed by. Freeing people that were restrained by ghouls by cut their tongues off and ending them personally, those things creeped her out the most out of the undead.

  As she made her way, she heard a voice call out “Eric!” with her acute sense of hearing and followed it while using the map. The map had led her to an alley, spotting a teenage boy wielding an iron pipe and a brunette woman holding a shovel. Both surrounded by a pack of hounds.

  A bright, luminous light rose from the man-hole that the two were standing on, to which the woman shouted a firm “Yes!”

  “Hey! I’m here to-” Anna stopped her sentence when she saw the two siblings disappear from their position. She was astonished and pissed at what had just happened. “Fuck! No! Why!”

  The hounds turned to face her and decided on feasting on her instead of the two that had just disappeared from the scene. “I don’t have time for this!” She dodged and weaved through their bites and claw attacks, giving each one a quick stab in the head, defeating them.

  Anna wasn’t sure what to do now, she inspected the spot where the two were at previously. It was a normal man-hole they were standing on, but nothing was happening when she stood on it. “What?” She was so confused.

  Suddenly, the sounds of cars crashing and rubble falling drew her attention back to the mayhem that was happening in the streets. Anna could only think that the giants were pushing even further down, causing more destruction.

  When she stepped back out to see what was going on, that was not the case. She found that it was instead 3 undead knights in dark ebony armor wrecking everything around. “Another group of enemies that I don’t match up well against. Great!” Things were looking more grim than ever.

  She had to at least try to distract the knights before they slaughtered everyone else. So she jumped in and engaged one of the knights wielding a lance and shield.

  Anna attempted to target the straps to its helmet if possible, her first strike towards it was waved off by its shield, surprising her of how fast it was despite being in armor. ‘It’s reaction time is faster than it appears.’ She thought.

  The knight had prepared a thrust attack with its lance and executed its maneuver. Anna hopped over the lance and dashed across it, attempting another try at its helmet.

  The knight flicked its weapon upwards, tossing her in the air and threw out a couple of quick stabs, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to dodge at all in the air.

  But she was prepared for its counterattack and played her surprise trick. She teleported from behind the knight without it noticing, managing to sneak in two cuts on the helmet straps through the small openings of the armor.

  She then quickly swiped the helmet off before the knight spun around to try and swat her with its shield, but she had teleported away from it, reappearing on a car. ‘I actually managed to remove its helmet, nice!’

  When the knight turned to face her, it revealed it’s pale gray fugly face, half torn mouth with decaying teeth, ripped flesh, and yellow-orange eyes that stared at Anna with madness.

  Anna was ready to try to deal with the knight now that she was able to expose its head out in the open, but was caught off guard by another knight who swung it's hammer at her. This caused her to urgently teleport away again to avoid being clobbered.

  There were now two knights that she had to deal with, the chances of her attempting to beat the first knight was pretty much out the window seeing as how good they were at fighting back. The two knights engaged her, Anna nimbly avoiding each attack they threw at her the best she could without having to teleport away. She couldn’t rely on her teleportation too much because she didn’t have a lot of mana to use it excessively, if she did, then maybe she would have a better shot at handling the two.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Whenever she would go after the one without its helmet, the other was sure to defend its pal from any opportunity she saw to take at attacking its weak point.

  More people tried to back her up but were overwhelmed by the knights physical capabilities, so the people kept their distance from the knights and focused on dealing with the lesser undead.

  Anna was starting to look pretty worn down from fighting both of the knights after a while. She was sure she could take down the vulnerable one if she really tried, but that would depend on some factors such as how tanky it was in terms of health, and it would cost her all her mana and stamina.

  With all her attention focused on the knights, a couple of stray shots from some skeletons ahead flew by, hitting her shoulder and hip. She fell to the ground off a car in pain. The knights took this moment to capitalize on it.

  The first knight, with its lance, charging towards her like a straight arrow. The second knight followed behind with its hammer ready, Anna was forced to teleport away behind a bus, attempting to hide from the two.

  However, this would not work out for long, the second one knew Anna would blink away and remained watchful of its surroundings. It dashed up to the bus she was hiding behind, smashing it and catching Anna by surprise. Anna hopped backwards a couple of times to try and get away, but then saw the lancer rushing towards her, forcing her to teleport again before she got skewered.

  She reappeared behind another car, lying low, hoping they hadn’t found her yet. ‘These guys synergy and teamwork are so on point that it's scary. I don’t know if I can drag this fight on for long.’ She was fatigue, Anna wanted to leave to save herself and get Luna out of here but knew she couldn’t, she had to buy more time.

  Cars from all around were getting knocked to the side by the knights, trying to find out where she was hiding, she tried moving but was too exhausted to get back up and when her position was about to be exposed, she teleported away to a random location.

  Anna reappeared lying in front of a knocked over car. She had played all of her cards and was out of luck, when she looked up, she saw the fugly looking lance knight. With her last bit of energy, she threw a dagger at its forehead, which stuck in place. The knight seemed a bit unfazed, probably needing a couple more hits in the head.

  She then flipped it off, “Fuck you.” She told it with hate. “Would have had you if your buddy didn’t show up…”

  The lance knight responded to that comment by prepping a final thrust with Anna closing her eyes accepting her fate. ‘Sorry Luna…’

  Suddenly, something big crashed into a car near her. She turned her head to the side to see what it was and looked shocked. It was one of the knights, but this one had an arm amputated and only wielding a shield in the other. Its helmet was banged up, unsure of what was capable of even denting it.

  Both Anna and the lance knight looked onwards and spotted the hammer knight locked in combat with someone, it seemed. The hammer knight had blocked an attack with its shield and was pushed back against a couple of cars.

  The lancer decided to ignore Anna to assist its comrade in undead arms. Anna was both relieved and curious what was so dangerous that was causing the hammer knight to struggle and prompt the other to come and help.

  She would very soon discover who it was that was giving the knights a challenge when she heard a loud and angry voice that sounded familiar and would fill her with rage.

  “I’m in a fucking hurry right now! So let’s get this rematch out of the way quick!” Barry yelled out, directing it towards the two knights who stood side by side with each other, watching for Barry’s next move.

  Anna couldn’t help but yell at him from afar, “In a fucking hurry, my ass! Where the hell have you been!”

  The two knights dashed in together, with the lancer taking the lead of the charge. It initiated the attack with a piercing thrust that could punch a hole into a building, but Barry twirled around it and slashed down on its arm, cutting it off with swiftness. He was wielding the sword of the other fallen knight that he had defeated.

  Next was the hammer knight who remained concealed behind its pal and was preparing its own attack, swinging it at Barry from a blind spot. But Barry was able to react fast enough, strangely to catch the swing with a single hand and yoink it off its arm.

  He was now dual wielding both weapons, a sword and hammer in each hand. Barry dashed up to the amputated knight in an effort to finish it off with a couple of bashed to the head, but the other knight ran up front to block it assault with its own shield. Despite it looking like a losing battle for the knights upon Barry’s return, they still remained in sync, looking out for each other.

  Barry pummeled away the shield to the side and aimed at its shield arm, cutting it off and slamming his hammer on its helmet, caving in its skull. There was now one last knight remaining, it looked at Barry for a moment, almost as if it resented him for what he had done to its brothers. ‘Do these knights actually have emotions?’ He wondered.

  The knight, who had its arm amputated, picked up its lance and got into a charging stance. Barry humored it, allowing it to ready its self and for him to get into a stance of his own to challenge it.

  And for some reason, Barry felt some sort of excitement for allowing the knight to retaliate back at him for defeating its battle buddies, if these knights truly did have emotions, then he acknowledged them for their in sync combat skills. Maybe in their past life, they were true friends as they went to war with each other, looking out for one another. But things were different, they were slaughtering people and were part of the world’s problem now…and yet Barry couldn’t help but feel some sort of appreciation for looking out for each other.

  “You knights are something else, I give you that. You all sure gave me a rough time back at the park and could read each other's movements, and I acknowledge your teamwork, but you all need to be rid of this world.” Barry acknowledged the knight, hoping it could understand him.

  The knight remained still for a moment, maybe taking in his words. Then, in an instant, it bolted forward with its lance, cracking the concrete it stood on and zooming past Barry with a gust of wind following it.

  “However…” The knight then fell to its knees, still clutching its lance in hand before falling to the ground completely with its head decapitated. Barry had counterattacked with a swing of his own sword, the side of his torso had been nicked but not too bad. “Despite the situation, I’m sure you and your buddies were great defenders in your past lives. Rest well.”

  He then looked over to Anna, who was still lying on the ground, and rushed on over with both weapons still in hand. She was shocked, speechless as to how easily he defeated them all. Anna wondered if he was as strong as he was before, as he was now. What would have happened if they had actually fought.

  Barry was the first to speak, “I took a nap.” Barry said bluntly, responding to her previous question of where he had been.

  Anna took a moment to process what he meant when he said that after watching his showdown with the knights and realized what he meant, going back to being furious. “YOU SLEPT!”

  “The quest item, hand it over.” Barry asked, placing his hand out.

  Anna shook her head, “What? Hell no! I got mine fair and square.”

  “We’re on a time limit with less than 30 minutes, you’re not in any condition to say no. I’ll simply kill you for it if I have too.” Barry responded nonchalantly, bringing his sword to his shoulder, letting it rest.

  Anna was frustrated, he was right that she was in no condition to fight anymore and that she should hand over her item. So she opened her inventory and pulled out one of the quest items called ‘Noble’s Silk Scarf’. She handed it over to him “Here, take it. Just remember I contributed.”

  “Will do.” He replied with a nod, stowing away the scarf. His entire body surged with newfound energy, he felt a lot stronger after obtaining the third quest item. Anna noticed this and thought it was strange, wondering how gaining another quest item would make someone stronger. He had also became level 9 as he carved and fought his way to retrieve Anna’s quest item after awakening from his sleep.

  “I was just about to retrieve the last one from a group of people but they disappeared in a flash of light. I have no clue where they went on the map either, just like how you vanished a long while ago before. Any idea why?” Anna questioned, curious as to what happened to him.

  The sounds of destruction and people shouting down the end of the street brought their attention. The two giant hulks of zombies were continuing their stroll down the road, bulldozing everything in their way.

  “I do know where they might have gone, and when they return, have them give me their quest item. That way I can end this damn nightmare, once and for all.” Barry answered, clutching both his sword and hammer in hand.

  Anna sighed, irritated that she was taking orders from someone who stole from her twice. “Whatever asshole. But tell me, what’s your name at least since I’m helping you basically getting the highest reward from this event.”

  Barry got ready to dash off into the fray, his legs in a stance to take off as he looked back at Anna one last time. “It’s nothing special, just call me Barry.” He said, then blasted off from his initial start, a gust of wind blowing against her face.

  Anna thought about his name for a moment as she continued lying on the ground taking a moments rest. She had to agree with him on that. “I would have thought your name was something edgy but wow…that is a boring name.”

  The two giant hulks were demolishing the city as they went, crushing and assimilating any of the people that tried to stop their rampage. Tendrils would creep out of the hulk of meshed zombies, grabbing corpses of any kind to merge it with itself. This tendrils would also whip out and attack people as well, possibly even stabbing them if able.

  “How can we fight these things!? They’re literal giants that won’t go down!” One of the people struggling to fend off the monsters panicked.

  A giant swung its meaty arm at a group of people who froze in terror, their lives flashing before their eyes. When, almost on queue, Barry arrived in time to obliterate its arm with a swing of his hammer. Zombie, human, corpse parts of all kinds went scattering about, showering the people.

  The giant tried retaliating against Barry with its tendrils, each one whipping out in a consecutive rhythm but he evaded each one with ease, slashing back with his sword in his other hand. Tendrils would continue to emerge out of the hulk to try to slow Barry down for it to wind-up another fat slam attack but it didn’t matter. Barry would dash forward, dodging its tendrils and breaking apart its arm with his hammer. He then took this opportunity to jump it and give it a personal clobbering.

  He landed on it’s shoulders after slicing up any of it’s tendrils that appeared to defend itself before bring the hammer down on its body. Barry continued to break away the layers of the body, he figured the only way to defeat the monster was to keep bashing it till the whole body crumbled apart. But he would soon realize what was really hidden under all these layers of dead corpses.

  There inside of the body was a glowing orange-yellowish head of a zombie with tendrils connected to the giant it had created, this was the true weakness of the giant. The strange creepy zombie head tried stabbing Barry right in the center of his head with a spear like tongue from its mouth but he tilted his head to the side to avoid it.

  “Playtimes over you damn parasite.” Barry told it before plunging his sword into the zombie head, causing the hulk of flesh to collapse, breaking off into pieces of all kinds. The people who were watching Barry’s one on one fight with the giant were astonished, he had defeated what seemed unstoppable with ease.

  The last giant was nearby, giving more of the people a rough time but now that Barry knew these foes weakness, he had a much easier time handling the next one. He charged at the next puppet of corpses, subduing it in similar fashion but faster. His display of conquering the two giants, boosted the morale of the people around him, giving them some hope to cling on too. But even still, Barry needed the final item to finish this hell they were in.

  The ground started shaking to rumble and from down the streets he could see the cause of it. Barry took a deep breath and let it out, mentally preparing himself for the real challenge that was about to come. ‘This time…this time I am ready for you and I won’t run away.’ He encouraged himself.

  A wave of zombies and bones flooded the streets as they came towards him, either shoving or consuming everything that came into contact with it, wailing out a moan of suffering and dread. The people that were behind Barry looked onwards and retreated, not wanting to be swallowed by the tidal wave that approached. And there seated on top of the wave of undead on a throne of skulls and bones was the one who sealed their way out of this event. The Undead King.

  Barry gripped his weapons in both hands, hammer and sword, locked in focus at the big bad of the quest. He took his stance to begin his assault in an attempt to strike down a king as the storm approached him. All he had to do was stall the king for about as long as he could for the last item to get to him.

  When the wave of undead came rolling close enough, he leapt on top of it, the flooring feeling a bit awkward given that it was made of corpses and bones. Two spirals of undead hands protruded out of the wave towards Barry who readied his weapons. “Go time.”

  He lunged forward evading the first attack and responding to the other with a swing of his hammer, cold dead hands went flying around. The king waved his hand at Barry, commanding his sea of corpses, sending more appendages of attacks at him but Barry repelled each move, steadily making his way to greet the king personally.

  The sea of undead had hands that rose from above, trying to grasp at Barry’s feet but were either too slow or weren’t strong enough to hold him down. Spikes of bone shot out from the sea, trying to impale him but did nothing but slow him down just a bit.

  This was when the king began to rise from his throne, halberd in hand pointed skywards. Walls of flesh and bone rose, blocking off Barry’s path only to be paved and cleaved through with both sword and hammer. He kept paving his way until there were no more walls to tear down and discovered that the king had disappeared.

  There was a moment of silence aside from the clattering of bones stirring up from the sea Barry stood on. He stood ready to act at whatever was about to be thrown at him.

  The sea began to shift and walls of undead, much thicker than ones from before that he demolished, stuck out around him, caging him in like an arena. The walls circled around him, getting smaller and smaller. A gap quickly opened up from one section of the walls, a halberd swung out almost cleaving Barry’s head if he hadn’t reacted fast enough. This continued as the space inside the arena continued to minimize, limiting his range of movement.

  ‘He’s getting tricky now, I’m barely managing to avoid his attacks.’ Barry wracked his brain, trying to come up with a way to get him out and quit playing peek-a-boo. ‘This might be stupid but it’s the only plan I’ve got.’

  Barry waited for a moment that the king would strike again and when he did. He dropped his hammer and grabbed onto the halberd when it poked out. He was then pulled inside the walls and that was when he met face to face with the king himself.

  When the king pulled back his halberd within the walls of the dead, Barry and the undead king locked eyes with each other. Barry could see the glowing wicked crimson eyes that gazed into his very soul as it shrieked at him before waving his halberd outward, knocking Barry off as well as dropping the make shift arena he had created.

  Barry tumbled across the sea of undea but caught himself and stood back up with something to say to the king. “No more tricks king! Let’s just have a proper 1v1 duel, you and me!” He then pointed his sword at the knight, hoping that if the knights he had fought had emotions, then the king must also be able to understand him as well.

  The king stood tall and proud, taking a moment to decide if he would agree to his duel. Then it raised its weapon towards the heavens before sweeping it around and aiming it at Barry, agreeing to his challenge.

  For the first time ever since Barry awakened, he felt thrilled. He wasn’t sure if it was adrenaline but he was genuinely feeling some sort of excitement as he was about to fight the king himself. He couldn’t help but smile a bit, ‘Why do I feel this way? When I should be worried about completing the quest…did I enjoy fighting in my past life or is it because of another reason…’ He wondered, hoping he would survive this hurdle to uncover more of his past.

  The sea of undead settled down, zombies and other sorts of undead stopped fighting the people which was confusing to them. It was pure silence, the two challengers stared down at each other, waiting for the other to make a move.

  Barry knew he was on a tight schedule so he couldn’t wait too long and made his move first. He stepped up, dashing towards the king with a fake right swing that switched into a side step lefty. Too bad for him, the king had seen right through it and parried it with ease, knocking him on his back with the bottom of his halberd.

  Barry recovered from his fall quickly and attempted to try again but it was the king’s turn to attack, starting with his own swing of his weapon that was ducked under but turned into a shoulder tackle that staggered Barry who tried blocking it.

  The king then followed it up with a spin of his halberd that ended with a final thrust with the spikey tip of the halberd. Still trying to block the attack with his sword, Barry was sent tumbling back as he gritted his teeth, his sword slightly cracked from the blow.

  As far as Barry knew, he had no actual fighting experience aside from when he first woke up to slay zombies. The knights and the king were true fighters with tons of experience under their belt, he was only able to survive up till now because of his fearlessness, pure instinct, and one other factor that he had obtained for himself recently from his slumber inside the last hidden room…

  When Barry stopped himself to regain his balance, he charged again once more. ‘Just gotta keep trying, I’m no professional combatest but still…I have to try.’ He swung his sword again at the king after a bit of footwork that he mixed up, utilizing his agility the best he could but was blocked by the king with no effort. He kept trying, again and again but was making no progress. At this point, the king seemed to be messing with him because Barry wasn’t being retaliated.

  ‘Is he toying with me?’ Barry wondered how many opportunities the king had to hit him if the king wanted too. Then he got an idea.

  Barry charged once more with his sword prepared for a downward slash, the king readied again to parry Barry’s next move for the thousandth time but this moment would be different.

  Using his momentum, Barry let go of his sword and and slided under the king’s legs, grabbing his ankles and pulling him down to the ground. ‘I don’t have any true fighting form unlike you and the knights. But I at least know when to resort to fighting dirty if I have too.’

  The king was taken by surprise and tried to turn on it’s back to face Barry but was being restrained with him on top. Barry began throwing out right and left hooks at the king’s skull, watching his HP bar slowly chipping away. Each time Barry felt the king was going to free himself, he would stop to readjust himself to prevent the king from breaking free.

  The king could do nothing but get pummelled repeatedly by Barry, the king was simply put into a lock. Barry was confident that eventually with enough hits, he might actually be able to win against the boss without having to destroy all the quest items.

  While Barry wailed on the king with his fists, a shiny golden cross necklace with an angel dangled from his neck above the king’s head but just enough to be seen. As the king struggled to free himself, he caught a glimpse of the necklace with his leering eyes and immediately something awakened inside of the once noble ruler.

  Dark purple malicious aura started seeping out of the king that Barry would slowly come to realize until it was too late to react to what was about to happen next. The aura enveloped the king around himself before unleashing it in a pulse, knocking Barry off of him. The king would then rise from his feet with his halberd back in hand with newfound strength that at had emerged from within.

  Barry picked himself back up and looked upon the king’s new form with curiosity and caution ‘This can’t be good. I had him restrained and suddenly he’s back stronger than before…’ The king’s HP bar was a bit below 50%, Barry was bothered by this sudden turn of events.

  The king twirled his halberd and flung it around in arcs, this time sending out blades of purple energy at Barry, who went wide eyed, not expecting the king to have any range attacks in his arsenal of moves.

  He weaved through the ranged attacks with some effort, it seemed that each attack was getting faster and faster the more blades the king sent out.

  Eventually, it got to the point where Barry couldn’t keep up and took a hit to the chest, it felt like he had been hit with a sledge hammer in the chest more than getting slashed with a blade. He stumbled back from the attack, not realizing that the king had dashed up to him in a flash, striking him with the spike at the end of his halberd, sending him flying back.

  Barry skidded across the floor of corpses, trying to slow himself down by stabbing the floor with his sword until he came to a halt. Barry tried thinking of another game plan to take down the king but this new form of his was something strange, this dark energy that he was emitting from within was dangerous along with his new set of attacks. With time of the essence, he had to keep going on till the final quest item would arrive.

  The king began to manifest a dark purple skull using his mysterious aura that he channeled, shaping it as big as a bus before sending it outwards towards Barry.

  Barry couldn’t avoid the cackling purple skull attack but he could try his best to dampen it with an attack of his own. He readied his damaged sword with both hands, waiting for the right moment to counter it as he took a gulp of air before exhaling it as he countered it at the last moment.

  The two attacks collided, Barry felt a bit of impact from the king’s attack but wasn’t too bad seeing as his own swing of his sword dampened the damage he took.

  As the purple skull dispersed in a cloud of smoke, Barry saw a light of hope appear before his eyes. A screen notification appeared, stating that he had leveled up and asked something crucially important that just might turn the tides in his favor. ‘Character class loading in progress’.

  Barry’s confidence rose once he saw the notification, he wondered what sort of class he would get that would aid him in his current fight. ‘Downloading Character Info’ it read with a loading bar starting up but something odd happened.

  The bar never moved and the screen began to glitch and flash red with words reading ‘error’ on repeat. It keep doing it until finally the screen turned red with words that shook him to the core ‘Character Class creation failed. Not enough info obtained.’ and the screen disappeared.

  “What!?” Barry shouted, dumbfounded as to how there wasn’t enough info of whatever it required to create his character class. His light of hope that he believed he saw was just a mirage, he had nothing else that would help grant him an edge in his fight.

  Suddenly, by surprise, a gauntlet reached out from within the smoke, grabbing onto Barry’s collar and lifting him up. The smoke dissipated, revealing the king who was the one picking him up. He looked around Barry’s neckline and found what he was seeking.

  Barry tried to free himself from his grasp by kicking and trying to pry open the king’s clutches but no attempt was successful, as he watched the king stick his halberd into the ground and pluck the golden cross necklace from his neck before tossing him aside.

  As Barry landed on the floor, he could feel his entire body losing strength and stamina drastically. He laid there on the sea of corpses, nearly exhausted to death.

  That necklace he had obtained from the last hidden room was what granted him the power to overcome the knights and survive up until now against the king. The necklace was only wearable for this specific event and provided him a huge boost of stats for every quest related item that he had in his inventory. But now that it had been ripped off himself by the king, he lost all his stat buffs, reverting back to his original stats but too drained to continue fighting.

  He looked at the king who eyed at the necklace, almost as if it was admiring it. Barry still had 3 of the quest items but needed the 4th to end everything. ‘When is the last item coming? Theres less than 5 minutes remaining…’

  Then as if on queue, he heard a voice call out to him it seemed. “Hey! Crazy guy!” The nickname sounded familiar to him. He turned behind himself to see the same brunette woman he had savd before next to Anna.

  “Here! Finish this!” Kat then threw out a satchel to him. Inside was a crown for a noble queen and a single rose in a durable glass jar.

  He grabbed them with what little strength he had while the king stayed distracted with the necklace. Barry then received a notification stating he had obtained all quest items. All he had to do now was destroy them all and this whole nightmare would be over, luckily the hammer that he had dropped before was withing arms reach and he grabbed it in hand.

  Barry brought out all of the quest items he had obtained, but when he did, he would unexpectedly receive another headache the same as usual from before. ‘Why now??’ He then saw more images of the king’s past life, only this time it was the king watching his wife’s final moments before her passing as his kingdom fell out of control from the plague and to the riots. Then Barry saw the queen lying in her bed ill with her husband at her side, listening to the same music box that he had obtained from the first hidden room he visited. There was a single rose in a flower pot next to her and she also wore the same necklace that he used in his fight against the king and his army. These were not his memories that he was playing in his head but it was similar to the ones he saw in the hidden rooms.

  “What are you doing!?” Anna called out, bringing him back to reality somewhat. “Destroy them!”

  Barry lifted his hammer and tried to bring it down upon the items that laid out. Yet, for some reason once again, he wasn’t able to bring himself to smash them because of some strange force inside that would prevent him from doing what he wanted. His vision blurred and he blacked out again, Barry knew that this time he would remember something that was his.

  In his mind, he faintly saw a person sitting in a chair playing a video game intensely for one moment and then in the next moment stop and stare at the screen for sometime, possibly thinking hard about something.

  The person sighed and set the controller down before talking to himself, “Man, what an ending. That was such a good game, I loved the boss fights and the NPCS with tons of character depth. But man…the villain of the story had it rough! He suffered so much for his people, making lots of sacrifices only for the world to turn against him. He stuck to his morals and kind hearted nature for a long time until his mentally couldn’t take it anymore and decided to turn his own back against the world. I only wish there was a different route I could have taken to try and save him or even redeem himself, but I don’t think there is?”

  The guy then got on his phone to try and look up online if there was a secret ending and when he thought he found something, he jumped from his seat and shouted “Fuck yeah! There is! But damn, I have to do a 100% run for this, fuuuuuck…well whatever. I’ll do it for you big bad, even though your not real, I believe you deserve a better ending than this!”

  The gamer picked his controller back up and started his next playthrough of the game to try and get a 100% completion run. Barry’s memory fragment would soon fade away as his vision returned back to normal and his headache almost gone. He still held his hammer up high above the items, the king returning his focus back at him from a few yards away when he saw the ruler prepare an attack with his weapon.

  Barry thought about his recent memory and the items, he sighed and shook his head ‘This is going to be fucking stupid, god dammit!’ He thought.

  Just then the king lunged forward, swinging his halberd at his head. ‘THIS IS STUPID!’ Barry then raised all of the objects up in front of his face, which surprisingly caused the king to halt his assault.

  Barry then quickly spoke to the king. “King, I’ve realized you’ve been seeking these objects that were once your faithful and loving wife, to remember the good times you once had with her. Not only were you a loyal husband, but you were also a prosperous, highly respected, and noble ruler of your once great kingdom in your past life that I have seen. The fall of your kingdom must of really crushed your soul knowing there was nothing you could do to stop the plague going around and the mass riots that arouse. So king, I apologize for holding your keepsakes hostage, it was very cruel of me to do so and I hope with these returned to you, that you will finally find peace once again.” He then laid out the objects of the king’s sentimentals, one by one as well as playing the music box as the last item. Barry also stayed down, kneeling with his head tilted downwards.

  There was a moment of silence, Barry checked how much time was left and there was only less than a minute. The king stood still and raised his halberd high towards the sky as the sun was beginning to rise. A bit of worry sweat teared down from the side of Barry’s head, he was starting to regret the choice he had just made.

  The king then plunged his halberd downward, Barry could hear the attack coming and he closed his eyes, believing that this was the end of his journey and knowing he would never find out who he was before in his own past life.

  But a second passed and he heard a notification windom pop up, opening his eyes, he found a window with the text ‘Hidden Quest Achieved! Hidden Quest Details: Give the king back at least 3 out of 4 of the hidden quest items from the hidden rooms along with the rest of the main quest items. Bonus rewards will be received!’.

  Barry looked to his shoulder to find the the king’s halberd a few inches above it, looking as if the king was dubing him as a knight. He then looked up at the king and was able to see that half of his face was human bearing a smile. “Thank you, little knight. May your journey hold good fortune, farewell…” The king told him before fading away into ashes that scatter with the wind.

  Barry couldn’t help but feel relieved. He sat back looking upon the morning sky exhausted. “Holy fuck…can’t believed that actually worked.” He so glad that his action was the right one.

  Suddenly, he heard cheers from all around himself, scanning about he realized that a mass of people that were in the fight against the undead army had gathered around. They roared with joy as all the undead turned to dust, disappearing from the city completely. The nightmare had was finally over…or so it seemed.

  An unforeseen event began to happen, one person began to glow faintly before slowly becoming dematerialized, breaking down until they were gone. People from all around began to panic, wondering what was going on.

  Anna herself was beginning to disappear and looked at Barry. “Barry, do you know what’s going-” She was gone.

  The brunette woman, Kat, he remembered this time, too was beginning to vanish from the world as she looked at him. “Barry! I don’t know what’s going on but I know that my family is safe because of you. If we see each other again, I’ll return the favor-” Kat was removed from the world as well.

  All around he saw people disappearing and as his eyes gazed everywhere, his eyes stopped as he sighted someone that sparked his rage once more.

  “DOCTOR!” He shouted out loud, spotting the very same doctor that had abandoned him from the very beginning.

  The doctor was with a group of people and was in fact the last one of the group that had remained. The old man with amber eyes heard Barry shout out in a fit of rage and looked at him with those same leering eyes before dashing off into an alley way.

  Barry tried getting up to chase him down but fell back down, his body was too tired to move. His hand was the first to begin dematerialize, watching it travel down to his body. He wanted so bad to go after the doctor but wasn’t able to. ‘I’ll fucking get you, I swear I will-’

  His vision then went white as he had just disappeared from existence, his mind and body was then elsewhere in the void where he was able to see at least one blue screen window that appeared that read the words, ‘End of Tutorial’