A week after Dan and the girls left towards the harbor town, Kio and Miyu finally arrived at the teleport room.
"Where is this place...?"
"I'm not sure. Dan only told me that the Return Stone would bring us to a city called Karkin."
As their eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, they noticed that the whole room was filled with cuts, as if a battle occurred here recently.
"[Summon Dryad]!"
Miyu tried to summon Flora to their location, but nothing happened even after they waited for a few minutes. This caused Kio to further believe in his previous assumption, where a suitable environment is required to summon Flora.
"Miyu, I don't think it's going to work here. You can try using your skill again later once we get to a place surrounded by trees and flowers."
"Mmkay…"
Miyu was slightly upset that they would have to leave Flora alone by herself in the village. However, she reminded herself to immediately use her skill once they reached a more suitable terrain.
As they looked around the place again, they finally noticed the pile of corpses at the back corner of the room. Seeing all the dead bodies caused Kio to worry, so he checked his [Minimap] again to make sure everyone else was still alive.
"Phew…"
"What's wrong?"
"It's nothing. I was just worried about everyone else. With all those corpses there, the zombie infection must have reached this place too."
"I'm sure they'll be fine. They have Dan with them, and he's the strongest person we have ever met."
"You're right. Let's try to stay positive."
"Mhmm."
As they walked past the door and climbed the stairs, they noticed that lots of rubble had fallen onto the steps, causing them to have difficulty walking. Near the end of the staircase, they noticed that many large boulders were blocking the way ahead of them.
With no other option available, Kio and Miyu had to remove the boulders one by one to open up a path. After spending more than an hour clearing the debris, they finally saw a small gap a dozen meters in front of them that connected to the outside.
"Kio, we did it-"
"Shhh."
Kio immediately covered her mouth as he heard something outside.
"Die!!!"
*ROAR*
*Splatter*
The sound of something getting whacked echoed through the passage, causing their bodies to shiver.
"Miyu, let's quietly go back for now. It looks like it's night time outside, so we'll leave this place in the morning after using an invisibility leaf."
"Kay..."
They retraced their steps as they were glad that they didn't completely remove all the obstacles right away, so there were still about 10 meters worth of debris blocking the exit.
After eating a larger dinner than usual due to their heavy lifting, they decided to take turns resting as they knew one person needed to stay awake to keep watch.
"Miyu, I'll stay up first, so you should quickly go to sleep."
"But you should be more tired than me, since you were the one doing most of the heavy lifting earlier."
"I'm still fine for now. Just go to sleep first, otherwise we're just going to waste more time."
"Fine… But can you let me sleep on your lap?"
"Sure."
Miyu took less than a minute to enter dreamland as Kio gently stroked her head. Although they originally planned to sleep for about 5 hours each, Kio decided to let her sleep for an extra hour as he couldn't bear to see her be sleep-deprived.
***
*Yawn*
After they woke up and ate a light breakfast, the first thing they did was to quietly walk towards the gap from yesterday.
After each of them consumed an Invisibility Leaf, Kio then held onto Miyu as he used [Shadow Step] twice. The first usage of [Shadow Step] brought him right next to the gap, while the second usage allowed him to go outside.
"!!!"
They were both shocked by the scene outside as they exited the shadows. There were easily over 30 bodies outside of the collapsed building, not including all the decapitated body parts lying around everywhere. Most of these bodies were even equipped with a full set of body armor and helmet.
However, all of their armor was now crushed into multiple pieces, as many of the iron scraps even penetrated into their flesh.
"How did this happen…?"
"I'm not sure, but I think a group of soldiers must've battled something terrifying here."
Kio's guess was correct as an intense battle took place here a few hours before they arrived. The Omni Empire had dispatched hundreds of soldiers to try to contain the threat in the city. However, the horde of zombies inside proved to be too much for them to handle, as the soldiers were outnumbered.
Even though the soldiers were able to kill some of the zombies, whenever one of them got injured, that soldier would also turn into a zombie after the infection consumed his life.
One particular unit of 50 soldiers managed to reach this area after forcing their way inside. Although they were on a rescue mission to save as many civilians as possible, it turns out that they were the ones that needed to be saved, as the mutated Ray had decimated the whole unit.
Just by looking at the aftermath, Kio and Miyu could easily infer a one-sided massacre had occurred.
As they brought their attention back to the collapsed building around them, they saw the bodies of 4 males and 2 females. Their corpses had been crushed under the weight of the ceiling, causing them to be unrecognizable if not for their equipment.
However, even though their equipment looked sturdy, it was already smashed into many pieces, so Kio gave up on looting it.
"Kio, look what I found."
"Wow, is that an Item Box? Nice find, Miyu."
"Mhmm. I saw it near one of the bodies just now. I haven't checked what's inside it yet."
Before they even had a chance to inspect the loot, the mutated Ray appeared in their sight and released a loud growl. Ray's menacing appearance, with a jet black sword in one hand and an armblade for its other hand, caused them to momentarily tremble in fear.
*ROAR*
Both of them immediately backed off as Kio was prepared to dive into the shadows with Miyu at a moment's notice. However, even though Ray glanced over at their direction for a second, he soon looked away.
"Did it not notice us because we're invisible?"
"I think so. Miyu, can you hide in that alley over there while I try something?"
"But… Okay, please be careful though."
"Don't worry. I'll run if my idea doesn't work."
Kio had a plan in mind after he noticed the mutated Ray wasn't able to see either of them.
'Let's see if we can get some levels off of this mutated zombie.'
Even though he knew it was strong since it probably killed all the soldiers here, he was confident that he could escape if things didn't work out.
Although Kio's strongest weapon right now was his S&W M37 handgun, he opted to use his throwing knives. A gunshot would be too loud, as he was worried that Ray would react the moment he shoots.
After he coated the knives in his newly created poison, he threw two of them at Ray.
*Woosh*
The moment he threw the knives, Ray turned towards his direction and dashed with insane speed.
*ROARRR*
Before Kio could even figure out how Ray reacted so quickly, he sank backwards into the shadow. A second after he disappeared from the spot, Ray's armblade landed on the ground.
*BOOOOM*
The shockwave of the attack traveled through the ground and even managed to reach Kio while he was inside the shadows.
*Cough*
Kio coughed out a mouthful of blood due to the shockwave that damaged his organs.
"Fuck. Did my invisibility get canceled after I threw knives!?!."
While he was still inside the shadow, he could see his knives that were lodged a few centimeters into Ray's chest. However, it looked like there was no effect as Ray was still thrashing about violently.
"Shit. I'll only try one more attack since there's only 3 charges left."
Before Kio exited the shadows, he consumed another invisibility leaf. He finally figured out a solution to his skill's weakness, which was to use an Invisibility leaf before leaving the shadows.
Although he didn't have an unlimited amount of them, this was good enough as a temporary fix.
As he left the shadows, Kio quickly observed his surroundings to think of a way to kill it. He wasn't about to rely on his pistol as he remembered that it wasn't able to kill the mutated Eldun.
His eyes shifted across the area, glancing at the piles of broken weapon and armor, the craters caused by Ray, as well as the buildings around them.
"Shit… What can I use to kill this thing?!"
When Kio looked over towards the alley and saw Miyu's worried expression, he was about to give up on killing it. However, a sudden flash of inspiration appeared in his mind as he remembered there was something he didn't check yet.
"I hope there's something useful in there…"