Chương 22: Taking Heavy Damage

Vince stepped slowly into the bedroom, his nose wrinkling at the faint stench of decay. He swept the room with his eyes. The layout was abnormally sparse. There wasn't even a wardrobe; the only piece of furniture was a large bed. The windows were shut tight. Unless the zombie in this room had decided to commit suicide by jumping out the window overnight, it had to be here. Though he knew that was impossible, Vince genuinely wished it were true.

The atmosphere in the room was overwhelmingly oppressive, so suffocating that his mind couldn't help but spiral into wild hypotheticals. If I could just confirm the zombie was still hiding in this room, then... Under the bed! Without lowering his head to check, Vince gripped his spear with both hands and thrust it viciously beneath the bed frame! It hit empty air... Only then did he bend down to look. The space under the bed was completely empty, covered in nothing but a thick layer of undisturbed dust. Nothing?

Vince tightened his grip on the iron spear, his eyes darting warily around the room. Finally, he spotted the one blind spot he had overlooked. The small, square nightstand beside the bed. It was barely forty centimeters tall... When he first walked in, Vince had subconsciously dismissed the tiny cabinet. There was no physical way a human being could hide inside it. But looking at it now, his danger instincts screamed like a siren!

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth! He gripped the middle of the spear shaft with one hand and braced the butt end with the other... Holding his breath, Vince backed up silently until he reached the far wall. Just like he had done on the balcony upstairs, he planted his back foot against the baseboard, bent his knees to build tension, and launched himself forward with explosive force!

His entire body became a crossbow bolt, the spear tip acting as the arrowhead, hurtling straight toward the tiny nightstand! Thwack! A sharp crack, followed immediately by a dull thud! The spear tip instantly punched through the thin veneer of the cabinet door! Carrying immense momentum, the powerful thrust drove the spear completely through the cabinet and nailed it deep into the concrete wall behind it! [-96!] Got it!

The impact of the spearhead striking the concrete sent a violent shockwave up the shaft, leaving both of Vince's hands numb, though his thick gloves prevented any actual injury. Feeling the heavy resistance on the shaft after piercing the door, combined with the glowing damage number, he knew his wild guess was right! As impossible as it seemed, the zombie was actually hiding inside!

"SCREEEEEEEEECH—!!!" Before Vince could even wrench the spear free from the wall, an ear-splitting, agonizing shriek erupted from inside the cabinet! Damn, didn't hit a vital spot... The thought barely had time to cross Vince's mind before the piercing shriek slammed into him like a physical blow! A blinding spike of pain pierced his brain, as if two chopsticks had been jammed through his ears and were violently stirring his gray matter! He didn't even have time to cover his ears!

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. With a deafening RIIIING, he completely lost his hearing. The sonic wave was so intense he could physically feel his eyeballs vibrating in their sockets... The world before him flickered violently between light and dark, warping, swaying, and spinning out of control... [-1] [-1] [-1]... Engulfed by the sonic attack, Vince watched his Max HP continuously tick down! No! I have to get out of the room!

Through the blinding vertigo, he couldn't see exactly how much health he had lost, but the visual length of his Health Bar had noticeably shortened! Fighting through the nausea, he used his backward momentum to yank the spear out of the cabinet. He had barely staggered back a few steps when the sonic vibrations abruptly ceased! But even though the sonic attack had stopped, his vision continued to warp and distort. The vertigo hadn't subsided in the slightest!

Through his blurred vision, Vince saw the top panel of the nightstand slowly splintering apart. Something was growing out of it. This monster severely damaged me using nothing but sound! I can't let it get out! Realizing the extreme danger of whatever was inside, Vince leaned heavily on his spear with his right hand while his left fumbled to draw the iron baton from his waist.

Staring at the iron baton—which was currently splitting into two, then three overlapping images in his vision—Vince frantically tried to recall the effects of his potions. Strength... no. Suddenly boosting my physical power right now will just throw my motor functions even further out of balance. Swiftness... even worse than Strength... He took a deep breath, steeled his resolve, and viciously smashed the iron baton directly into his own forehead! CLANG! [-5!]"FUCK! That hurts!"

The sharp, explosive pain struck the top of his head like a lightning bolt, forcefully tearing through the suffocating vertigo clouding his brain! Hitting himself that hard sent a warm trickle of blood oozing from his brow, running down the bridge of his nose... Surprisingly, this brutal home remedy actually worked. Driven by the intense pain, his eyes finally began to focus! The overlapping double-vision slowly merged into a single image. Only then did he realize his HP had plummeted by a staggering 49 points!

Subtracting the 5 points of self-inflicted damage, that monster's single scream had drained 44 HP! [113/170!]"Dammit!" Vince cursed instinctively. He felt the vibration in his throat, but heard absolutely nothing. His ears were filled with nothing but a continuous, deafening ringing. He watched as the top of the nightstand was slowly forced open. A twisted, grotesque arm and the upper half of the monster's body "grew" out from the splintered wood!

It felt like watching a distorted, silent horror film from the last century. Every movement in Vince's vision carried a slight delay and motion blur. He could only barely make out the glaring red Health Bar floating above it! [773/869!] One of the monster's arms was pale, sickly, and unnaturally elongated, coiling in the air like a python! It writhed and squirmed, obscuring most of the monster's main body. The hand at the end possessed five long, slender fingers that tapered into vicious, needle-like points.

The monster's main body seemed to be stuck, unable to completely break free from the small cabinet. Vince hesitated for exactly one second before deciding to strike first! He knew perfectly well that his current lucidity was hanging by a thread, fueled entirely by the adrenaline spike from hitting himself in the head! If he backed down now, he would likely collapse unconscious the moment the adrenaline faded! Retreating means death!

My only chance of survival is to kill this thing before the vertigo completely swallows me! Strike while it's vulnerable! The edges of his vision were already beginning to darken. He could only force his eyes to focus on that pale, striking long arm, using it as the sole anchor point for his vision! In his blurry sight, the arm swayed slightly, like a venomous snake coiled to strike. Venomous snakes, pythons, lizards, reptiles...

He felt his brain turning sluggish, forcing himself to recall the movement patterns of similar animals. The elongated arm before him shared a structural similarity with those creatures. If the anatomy was similar, the kinetic logic had to be similar as well. Predicting animal movement tendencies was practically second nature to Vince. He watched the five needle-like points at the end of the monster's arm track his movements from afar, subtly shifting direction as he moved...

I'm almost certain the arm's primary attack method is a forward thrust... At the very least, its opening move will be a thrust. If it were preparing for a sweeping strike or a grappling coil, the "fingers" acting as the weapon's point wouldn't be oriented like this. Furthermore, my blind thrust earlier clearly interrupted some sort of mutation process, causing the monster to get stuck halfway out of the cabinet. Holding his spear horizontally like a staff to guard his body, Vince inched forward step by step.

It felt like he had downed two pounds of bootleg liquor. Every step felt like walking on cotton—one foot heavy, the other light. Just maintaining his balance was draining his energy! The moment he crossed a certain invisible threshold, the pale arm—which had been the anchor of his focus—snapped forward, extending into a blur as it shot straight for Vince's chest! The speed exceeded the absolute limit of his currently impaired vision! Vince's pupils shrank to pinpricks. He couldn't rely on his eyes to block this!

He let out a furious, silent roar. Though he couldn't hear a sound, he could feel his chest cavity and his heart resonating violently! His vision suddenly snapped into razor-sharp clarity! Channeling every ounce of strength in his body into his arms, he swung the heavy spear shaft in a sweeping horizontal arc across his chest, relying purely on instinct! The spear met heavy resistance! A hit!

The monster's incoming arm was violently deflected by Vince's sweeping parry, plunging deep into the mattress beside him instead! Only then was the monster's true face finally revealed!