As Merlin's group was clearing the dungeon, some things were going terribly wrong back at the base. Without Max and Jack, the only people left at base were only normal officers, leaving it open to enemy attacks, especially from other players. Although only 1% of the total population was given the privilege of being a player, the total number of players to normal surviving humans was 2 : 25. This was because most of the normal humans turned into zombies, while most of the players were able to survive thanks to the system. The initially large number of normal humans reduced greatly from almost 8 billion to around 1 billion, from which 80 million are players.
Although 80 million is not a lot when covering the whole planet, these 80 million players did not have access to the whole world. Most of the planet was covered in zombies, leaving only a few area for human residence. This greatly increased the risk of coming into contact with a player within these few selected places of human civilisation.
However, Merlin was unaware of how the officers were about to come into contact with players. He was currently fighting with a particularly difficult opponent. It was a swarm of enormous rats, the size of German shepherds. Although they weren't Tier 1 beings, each of them individually was around level 4, and together, they brought the strength of a mid-level Tier 1 being, which was quite a tough opponent for Merlin.
And the worst part was that they would not give him any points, since none of them were in the Tier 1 evolution.
Merlin had already given up on strategy, and was simply spamming [Earth spikes] and [Wind blades]. These two were the most efficient in terms of mana cost and time to cast, since both earth and air were plentiful within the dungeon. Using fire magic would require him to burn his mana, which would be highly mana inefficient, and the moisture in the air was too low within the dungeon to use water magic.
With a shriek, another rat was cut in two by the [Wind blade], while the one next to it was turned into swiss cheese by 2 [Earth spikes].
Merlin was running around, swinging his elemental staff like a skilled conductor directing his faithful orchestra of spells to slaughter the enemies.
Both Jack and Max were only on the defence. Neither of them could even kill a single rat, since neither of them had reached the peak of level 4 yet.
After almost an hour of constant battling, Merlin had finally killed off the last rat. He collapsed onto the blood soaked floor, panting heavily for breath. Not only was he spamming spells like a machine gun, but he was also dodging all the attacks launched by the rats. Many sneak attacks had also been mounted on him from behind. Thankfully he had the elemental armour, which deflected most of those attacks. The problem now was that not only was his stamina completely drained, but so was his mana.
Although he was a Tier being, he didn't have enough mana to continuously spam Tier 1 spells like what he had just done. During the battle, he also had to use his both his spell scrolls to kill off a Tier 1 being within the swarm of rats.
This battle was extremely taxing on his mana and stamina, along with both of his scrolls. And what did he get for it? A single Tier 1 monster.
But Merlin was not put off by this, since the reason he had come here was not to grind levels, but to clear the dungeon and get the skill [Runes]. The reason his expression was grin even after recovering his stamina and some mana, was due to the existence of the Tier 1 monster rat.
Currently, the strongest being on the planet was Merlin, or so he had assumed due to the title he had received. But looking closer, it said [Strongest human] and not strongest being. This meant that there could be creatures stronger than himself in races other than humans.
There were many secret races, living in the shadows, whose existences had been forgotten by time itself, who slowly emerged during the Apocalypse. Some of them were friendly with humans, like the werewolf tribe in the European region, and the Merfolk in the Indian Ocean. However, there were some who were extremely antagonistic to humans, like the immortal vampires from North Asian region and the necromancers form the South American region.
The rat Merlin had faced was a lot faster and stronger than himself. If he did not have those instant cast scrolls, launching powerful Tier 1 fire spells into the rat's mouth, Merlin and the others could have died right there.
Therefore, after making some space on the ground, the three decided and recover their mana for 2 hours before moving once more.