When the Stalkers began their attack, everyone in the square was scattered. Adam, luckily, was near the center, away from most of the Stalkers that had appeared, still, the panic unleashed was proving to be more problematic.
Adam was barely able to grab his special pack when he was run over by a crowd wanting to get away from the Stalkers. He scrambled away, all the while trying his best not to fall to the ground, where he might end up trampled to death. Finally, he managed to reach the wall that bordered one of the gardens.
As he opened the box and tried to pull out the short sword inside, Adam tried to understand what was going on. He knew the monstrosity must have done something to him. He didn't think he had returned to the past, but there had to be a way back to reality. Though from the fate all the Windwalkers had suffered, it seemed this was complicated.
Adam held his sword tightly as he tried to calm himself and think of a clear answer, but found it impossible. He was terrified and partially panicked, luckily, he already had some experience in these situations, so he didn't freeze when a Stalker finally caught up with him.
The Stalker was chasing a woman who was screaming heartbreakingly as she ran. This caused a chain reaction that caused the relatively quiet place, which Adam had managed to get, to end in chaos. He held his position and tried not to fall with the bumping and shoving of people nearby.
When the Stalker was close, Adam raised his sword and before he could worry about how to use it, his new class reflexes took over and decapitated the zombie.
Adam lowered his weapon, relieved. He was glad he could put up a fight, but the problem was that he couldn't see its state. Normally, he just had to think about visualizing it or its abilities and a mental image would soon appear in his head, as clear as if he were seeing the state written on a piece of paper or something similar. But now the result was an annoying headache.
Adam continued to fight other Stalkers, which made him gain confidence. But then he realized that there was a serious problem. On the other side of the square, in the tree where the monstrosity should be, someone was casting spells against zombies and humans without discrimination.
Adam felt a shudder as he observed the effects of the little red ball. Both humans and zombies ended up with grotesque body deformities. However, at that moment, Adam didn't pay much attention to it and kept fighting, moving away from that area altogether.
He would later realize that his talent wasn't the only thing that was gone, but also his [Ingenuity] skill, so it took him much longer than usual to realize the apparent connection between that creepy magic and the flesh monstrosity.
By the time he realized it, Adam ran into another problem. The territory around the tree was surrounded by deformed corpses and, in addition, there was a group of people and zombies fighting each other. Worse, Adam got a little closer and discovered that what he had previously thought was some people fighting near the tree was actually a three-way fight: the zombies, the humans and humanoid beings with deformed limbs.
The latter seemed much weaker than everyone else, so they were dropping like flies, but Adam couldn't help but feel a chill and turn his gaze to the tree. There he saw a man smiling as he looked at the chaos he had caused.
Adam felt a shudder, but he was willing to approach. He was almost certain he was witnessing the birth of the flesh monstrosity. He didn't need abilities to realize that the solution to the problem he was in might be related to it.
He approached carefully. The wizard had stopped casting spells, but Adam knew he was just waiting to see which side needed help. As he approached, he saw him finish off one person and two zombies, aiming to keep the fight alive.
Adam approached him from behind the tree, out of sight. The path was trickier than he expected, as the Stalkers were beginning to outnumber the few people who still put up a serious fight.
He made it just under the tree trunk, but unfortunately, the man noticed his presence and cast a spell on him. Adam jumped to the side and managed to dodge it. He stared and realized something he had overlooked until that moment. The man's eyes were not alive. The difference was subtle and Adam couldn't explain it, but that was not the look of someone alive.
The man simply cast another spell again and Adam decided to walk away quickly. When he was far enough away, the wizard simply went back to doing what he was doing without changing his attitude. It was then that Adam realized that everyone fighting around him had that same vacant stare.
Adam suppressed a shudder as he tried to think of how to reach that wizard. But then, the situation abruptly changed. The sound of battle was so intense that it attracted a large number of Stalkers from other parts of the suburb. The few survivors found themselves fighting for their lives.
Adam felt exhausted. His body was back to that of a normal human and the fight against the Stalkers was tiring him. He wanted to run, but there were too many zombies around him for it to be feasible.
He paused for a moment and tried to catch his breath in that brief period of rest, but then a red ball impacted his arm and it deformed grotesquely. Adam screamed and fell to the ground on his knees. His skin turned red and swelled to nearly three times its size. His fingers coalesced into a homogeneous mass of flesh. The pain wasn't as bad as he would have expected, but it didn't give him time to think anything else, as his arm began to move of its own accord and he tried to punch whatever was nearby.
This, luckily, helped him with a nearby Stalker, but Adam lost his balance as he moved away. Another Stalker approached him and managed to bite his arm, causing him to drop his sword.
Adam knew that if he didn't do something he was dead, but he couldn't think clearly. At that moment, the situation changed. A large amount of distorted corpses accumulated under the tree. This, combined with the energy of the strange magic the magician mastered, gave birth to new life. The flesh monstrosity emitted a horrible shriek as it was born and a hideous mass of flesh expanded and formed a horrible cocoon, like the one Adam remembered seeing in the square a day earlier, but smaller. The howl was not very loud in volume, but it still paralyzed everyone nearby, both human and zombie, who stared intently at the monstrosity.
The mage also watched his creation with curiosity, but this time he stood up and, before Adam could wonder what he was doing, jumped out of the tree and landed near the nearest store, where he disappeared inside after fighting some nearby Stalkers.
Everyone reacted at that moment and Adam felt horrible pain as the Stalker that attacked him sank its teeth into his skin. Both he and the zombie fell to the ground and struggled. Luckily, the Stalker bit him in an area very close to his distorted arm, so the pain felt far away.
Adam tried to push the Stalker away, but was thwarted by his other arm, which tried to crawl towards the monstrosity. Adam managed to grab the sword he had dropped and managed to kill the Stalker. He then tried to get up and away from the monstrosity, but his arm resisted with great strength.
Adam continued to struggle, completely in panic, but everything got worse when two more Stalkers attacked him.
At last, Adam realized what he had to do and letting himself be carried away by the despair and helplessness he felt, he let himself be dragged by his arm towards the monstrosity, while simultaneously killing the Stalkers.
Slowly he was dragged towards the mass of flesh. Adam suppressed his panic as best he could and set out to kill the thing when it was close enough. When his arm reached the monstrosity, it did something Adam didn't expect, it merged into it. That seemed to make the monstrosity wake up, as a hole opened up in the flesh and began to drag him inside. Adam grabbed his sword clumsily and began to thrust it with all his might into the mass of flesh, but this quickly proved futile.