Taking control of a zombie, Michael also gained new knowledge. Knowledge in relation to the zombie that he was controlling from afar. Its attributes. Its abilities. It status. Even the very person it once was before it was killed and turned into an undead minion was known to him.
And that was quite disconcerting.
Luckily, its memory was fragmented and disorganized. Thus, his mental state was relatively unaffected unlike when he had absorbed the memories of Eric Cromwell.
Michael currently did not have the time to fully comprehend the newly acquired memories as he was currently in battle. He casted those memories to the back of his mind and evaded several slashes that meant to cut his body into pieces.
His displayed of nimbleness despite being a zombie surprised his attacker as well as the other heroes.
"What the!? Did you guy just see that?" Lance questioned and raised his heavy sword before slashing out at Michael once more. Much faster this time around, implying that Lance was holding back, most likely to conserve his stamina.
Fighting horde after horde of relentless undead would drain a person. Of course, Lance and his friends had stocked up enough stamina potions to last them for a while, but to make use of those potions, he and his friends would need some breathing rooms.
Considering that Lance was a Warrior class, it was up to him to give his party that breathing room. His taunting aura alone attracted most of the mob, distracting them from his allies. And any mob that got within range was quickly dispatched with a slash or two.
Except for Michael, and that surprised Lance.
Michael easily evaded the follow up strikes from Lance with the speed that should not be possible for what essentially was a moving corpse with ravenous hunger.
Ravenous hunger aside, Michael was also surprised at his speed and nimbleness, considering the fact that he was a zombie, and zombies were supposed to be the weakest and slowest undead. At least in all the media he had seen.
It was then that Michael realized that his knowledge of zombies came solely from games and movies, and thus, it could not be relied accurately upon. This world was not in any sort of game or movie, and the zombies were obviously not the same.
Michael quickly searched his new memories and learned that the zombies were in fact far stronger as well as faster than normal human due to all the biological restrictions had been removed upon death and reanimation.
Zombies did not need to breath or eat or sleep. They were relentless and would not stop until all living things were dead.
The only reason that zombies appeared to be slow-moving was because they were mindless corpse. If they had a will of their own as well as the intelligent to back it up, they could be quite deadly. As such, in the control of someone like Michael, zombies were a force to be reckoned with.
"It just did it again! Shit! Anna!" Lance called out.
Anna was one of the two girls in the party. Her class was that of a Mage, and hearing Lance calling out for her, she quickly rendered him aid. It came in the form of several fireballs, which was technically an overkill for taking down just a lone zombie.
Zombies were highly flammable. In fact, fire was one of their weaknesses, as indicated on the window, hovering in front of Michael.
It was a status window, and it was visible only to Michael.
Michael did not need to open the status window to learn of the fact that zombies were flammable. It was kind of obvious, and he actually knew everything there was to know about the undead minion he was controlling via a spell.
However, it was still good to confirm the information in his mind.
Since the status window was actually blocking his view, he closed it with a gesture of his hand before using the same hand to erect a frost barrier to block the incoming fireballs.
Fire was weak against water. The true held in reverse as well if the flames were hot enough. However, in this case, his frost barrier was far more powerful than that of the incoming fireballs. Therefore, they exploded harmlessly against his barrier.
"Watch out! That thing can use magic!" Anna called out and attempted to cast a new fire spell. A more powerful one from the formation of a magical incantation array.
Spells casted with magical incantation arrays were far more powerful than that of any other methods, especially silent and gesture ones, but they were costlier in terms of mana, not to mention the casting speed.
"Silence," Michael cursed, and the curse immediately took hold of Anna, preventing her from casting any spell. She could, however, silent cast, but she was too shocked to do so before Michael followed up with another curse: "Sleep."
Anna collapsed onto the ground instantly, alarming the rest of the party. They could not fathom that their mage could be taken out like that despite her incredibly high magic resistance.
"Anna! Shit! Wake her up, Emma!" Lance called out.
Emma, the Cleric, tried to cast a spell, but she too was silenced by Michael. Unlike Anna, she instantly buffed herself, removing the curse. She then buffed her resistance against curses to prevent being put to sleep like her friend had.
"It is targeting Emma!" Lance called out and attacked Michael along with the other two heroes.
Michael would have cursed Lance if it wasn't for an arrow. He evaded the arrow and came face to face with the Jake, who slashed him several times with twin daggers in an instant.
It was so fast that Michael could not react at all, and he was decapitated soon after. Like a doll without string, he collapsed onto the ground. Michael had lost his control over the zombie.
"Damn thing," Jake cursed after the deed was done, earning the cheers from everyone. "Emma, wake Anna up before we are swamped!"
Emma immediately woke up Anna with a spell, removing the curse that inflicted upon her while Lance and Jake engaged the undead. Bruce, whose class was the Archer, helped from range.
The curse would eventually run its course naturally, but that would mean a couple of hours. Less if the cursed person had high magical resistance, particularly resistance to curses and hexes.
"Ugh… what happen?" Anna questioned and pulled herself off the ground. She then looked down with a sour expression. "Woah? Why am I so dirty!?"
"It cannot be helped, Anna," Bruce said as he continued to send arrow after arrow at the undead. "You were put to sleep by a curse. If Emma wasn't quick enough, I think we would be in deep shit."
"I was put to sleep?" Anna uttered in shock. She had the highest magic resistance in the entire group, yet she was put to sleep by a simple curse. A verbal curse too. "Who did it?"
"That zombie… what the!?" Bruce pointed at the dismembered zombie only to see its body rising from the ground and reassemble itself, becoming whole once more. "Holy shit! Lance! Jake!"
Lance and Jake heed Bruce's call and double team the zombie that Michael had just healed with a dark healing spell. Like holy-attribute healing spell, death-attribute healing spell would heal any undead.
Since Michael was so high level due to the amount of miasma he consumed, his healing spell was very powerful. Powerful enough to revive and repair any undead.
"Like that is going to work again," Michael spoke up through the resurrected zombie, causing the party to tense up. "Sleep."
Lance, Jake and Bruce instantly collapsed to the ground. Anna and Emma managed to resist the curse due to the combination of their magic resistance, buffs and awareness.
"Holy…" Emma attempted to cast a holy-attribute spell. Such attribute was highly effective against the undead. Even more so than fire-attribute spells.
"Silence," Michael casted much faster than her. In a fight between spellcasters, the person who could cast the fastest would win. "Drain."
Emma screamed as mana was tore right out her body, depleting her mana pool in an instant. She fell onto her knees, panting heavily. Her consciousness was waning due to the forced extraction of all her mana.
"Anna… run…" she uttered just as her consciousness slipped away.
Anna was paralyzed. She could not believe that everyone was taken out that quickly by what appeared to be a zombie. Even if it could use magic, there was no way it could have overwhelm them so easily.
By the time she found her wit, Michael was right in front of her.
"Eek!" Anna shrieked and fell backwards onto her bottom. She was surrounded by countless undead, and they would rip her into pieces before she could cast a single spell.
"No… no… I don't want to die! No!" Anna screamed as Michael towered over her and reached out his rotting hand. He grabbed her by the throat and lifted her to face him. "Please. Don't kill me. I just want to go home. Please. Let me go home. Please."
Michael had to suppress the urges to take a bite out of her. It was overwhelming when Anna was held so close to him. So close that Anna wanted to throw up due to the stench of rotting flesh oozing off of him.
"Home… tell me, Anna. Is it Earth?" Michael questioned when he noticed Anna had just peed herself.