"Mm?" Hearing her request, Luke looked into her eyes and seriously asked, "Can you kill?"
Lori took a deep breath and nodded with determination. "I can."
She at least wanted to carry her own weight and not be a burden to him or anyone else. If she had killed the zombies in the start and become an evolver, she wouldn't have to wait until now to ask him to save her daughter. She could've gone by herself. That's why, she wanted to become an evolver like him.
Luke silently looked at her for a moment and then said. "Let's go. If there is an opportunity, I'll help you evolve." Saying this, he walked out of the house with Lori closely following behind him.
On the way, he was constantly on his guard and looking around to see if there was any zombie in vicinity. But strangely, they didn't spot even a single one.
"That's strange." He murmured.
"What's the matter?" Lori asked, in concern.
"Although the roads connecting this area to other residential blocks are blocked and outside zombies can't easily enter. There should be some people or zombies here since many people are always working here to complete the construction but we haven't seen anyone ever since he arrived here." Luke said, his expression turning grave.
"That's true." Lori nodded, realising the anomaly.
"Let's go. We shouldn't stay here any longer." Saying this, Luke grabbed her hand and ran towards the exit, which led to Lori's block.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Grawr!
However, just before they reached the exit, they heard the sounds of heavy footsteps and a rough snarl from their right.
Bang!
Before they could react, Luke was hit on his right shoulder and was sent flying.
"Luke!" Lori shouted anxiously and ran toward him.
Whoosh!
However, she had taken only a few steps when suddenly the attacker appeared beside her.
Lori's face turned pale, and her breathing stagnated in horror when she saw the attacker. It was a zombie, but it gave her a more dangerous feeling than the ordinary ones. As soon as it appeared in front of her, she knew she was going to die.
The zombie looked at her indifferently and slapped toward her head.
Lori stood rooted to ground and closed her eyes, ready to die.
Whoosh!
Slash!
However, before the zombie's hand could hit her head, she heard a whooshing sound, followed by a sharp weapon cutting through flesh and bones.
When she opened her eyes to see what happened, she saw the zombie's hand was cut in half, which then fell to the ground.
Grawr!
The zombie growled in anger and fixed its gaze to her side.
She also followed its gaze and looked to side and saw Luke standing there, his sword dripping with the zombie's greenish blood.
Rawrrrrr!
Before she could even say thank you, the zombie growled and moved toward Luke. Its speed was many times faster than the ordinary zombies.
Whoosh!
Seeing how fast it was, Lori's eyes were filled with dread.
'It's a high-level zombie.' She thought before shouting in warning. "Watch out!"
However, she hadn't even completed her first word when Luke had already slashed out with his sword. The slash was so fast that she didn't even see the sword move.
Whisss!
When the word 'out' left her mouth, half of the zombie's head was flying in the air.
Step! Step! Step!
Thud!
Because of its previous momentum, the zombie took a few steps forward, even after losing its head. Then it slumped down on the ground, dead.
A bigger than a normal ball of white light shot out of its corpse and vanished into Luke's body.
[You gain level 8 zombie's soul power. Agility +3, Mana +2]
[You have reached level 5. You gain 2 status and 2 skill points to distribute freely.]
"It was a level 8 zombie. No wonder it was much faster and stronger than the others." Luke muttered lowly.
When the zombie ambushed him and sent him flying without giving him a chance to react, Luke immediately knew the enemy wasn't normal this time. Therefore, before he even landed on the ground, he had already activated his [Berserk] skill.
Although the level 8 zombie was faster and stronger than him, with the 10 points boost to his strength and agility, Luke easily overpowered it.
From the moment he activated his skill to the moment he killed the zombie, only less than three seconds had passed.
"What? How can it be a level 8? Only a little over six hours have passed before everything became like this." Lori asked in surprise. She knew most of the zombies they encounter were still level 1. So, it was really surprising and dreadful to see a level 8 zombie appear.
"I believe it killed and consumed all the workers to evolve." Luke said. He then kicked the corpse away to reveal a red treasure box. Seeing the box, he couldn't help but be a little disappointed.
Still, he picked it up and thought. 'Let's see what will I get from this.' Then, he injected a unit of his mana into it.
Flash!
Light flashed, and a silver vest replaced the box.
[Protection vest (Level 10): This vest can protect the user from any magic and physical attack at level 10 or below. Durability: 30/30]
Reading the information, Luke nodded in satisfaction. Taking off his level 3 vest, he equipped the level 10 one and immediately felt a little safer, although it was only his imagination.
"Here, you wear it." Saying this, he threw the level 3 vest to Lori and then opened his status window.
[Luke Greyson
Level: 5
Race: Human
Class: None
Title: None
Strength: 15 (12 +3) / Agility: 21 (19+2) / Health: 11 / Stamina: 9 (16) / Mana: 20 (33) / INT: 100
Available status points: 2
Available skill points: 2
External active skills: Berserk Level 5 (First order skill)
Passive skills: Rapid steps level 3 (First order skill)]
Seeing his status screen, a smile appeared on his face. 'I've finally become a level 5 evolver and won't need to fear getting scratched by the zombies while fighting. Moreover, I've also received 2 skill points.'
Skill points are very important because they can be used to upgrade the level and order of the active and passive skills.
After adding the two status points into stamina, he checked how many points were needed to level up his [Berserk] skill to Second Order Level 1.
[Berserk Level 5 (First order)]
[Evolution requirements: Requires 10 skill points, 10 Second Order mana cores, Stamina 30+]
Tsk!
He clicked his tongue when he saw the requirements.
'I can only forget about evolving it for now.' He thought. He then checked his passive skill's evolution requirements even though he wasn't going to level it up yet.
[Rapid Steps Level 3 (First order)}
[Evolution requirements: 3 skill points, Strength 10+]
Seeing this, he knitted his brows and thought. 'From the looks of things, I won't be able to upgrade my skills by only relying on the skill points I get at every 5 levels.'
Just as he was thinking this, he heard Lori call out to him. "Hey, Luke."
He glanced at her and asked, "Yeah. What is it?" He also noticed that she had already put on the vest.
"There shouldn't be only this one zombie because I don't think it's likely that only one person among all the workers here became a zombie." She said, warily looking around.
"Mm?" Luke's brows shot up when he heard this and urgently said. "We need to leave right now."
Saying this, he grabbed her hand and started sprinting toward the exit. But a moment later, his expression turned ugly, and he cursed, "Fuck!"