Anin approached the zombie carefully, not taking his eyes off the huge sword. The zombie attacked when he got close enough, but Anin's reflexes helped him move out of the way with ease. The sword hit the ground hard and even left a deep mark.
Even more carefully, Anin approached and tried to attack, but the monster seemed to know combat techniques, as it dodged and positioned itself in such a way that it always kept its distance from Anin.
However, without warning, after Anin dodged another attack, the zombie charged forward and rammed him with a shoulder. Anin let the impact push him backwards, but used that momentum to do an acrobatic backflip and land on his feet again. Never in his life would he have thought himself capable of such a thing, but his class was, above all, agile.
The relief was short-lived, for almost immediately he had to dodge another attack from the zombie, who swung his sword in a wide horizontal slash.
"I'm going to need some help here, this thing is really strong!"
Marlen listened to Anin and seeing the zombie fight she got excited, so she decided to give it a try. Just by seeing the way the zombie was attacking, she knew that this thing knew how to fight and she felt that she could learn a lot if she paid attention to it.
Without further hesitation, she tightened his grip on her ax and leapt into the fray. Anin stepped back and decided to wait for the right moment to strike. Marlen attacked directly and the zombie blocked using the body of its huge sword. Hitting that thing felt like hitting a wall.
Marlen took a few steps back with a sore arm and prepared for an attack. The zombie swung its sword in a quick, lightning-fast strike, forcing Marlen to block with her weapon. Which wasn't very appropriate.
She stepped back awkwardly, and the zombie lunged at her, ramming her with a shoulder and knocking her to the ground. Then it swung its sword in a killing blow. However, Anin intervened at that instant and swung one of his daggers, which slammed into the zombie's chest.
Luckily, the monster was not as tough as a Berserker, so the attack hurt. It backed up a couple of steps and then ripped the weapon from its chest and threw it under the bridge.
Marlen managed to stop at that point and the battle continued. She tried as hard as she could to imitate the zombie's fighting style, but she wasn't having much success. Besides, she and Anin were soon going to be in trouble, as the Berserker had just exited the trap and was approaching them, along with a new group of Stalkers.
Zack decided it was time to act. The last time he had faced a Berserker he had been knocked unconscious with practically a single blow, which still embarrassed him. So he decided that things were going to be different this time. Although to be honest, he suspected it would be very difficult to do so, as he was exhausted, hungry and barely had any strength left, but if he didn't want the whole situation to get worse, he would have to make it somehow.
Nearby, his group was still fighting the last of the Stalkers. While there weren't many of them left, there were too many to kill before the Berserker arrived, and besides, they had to make sure the Stalkers didn't get close to Anin and Marlen.
Zack approached the bridge, but soon ran into another problem: the fight between the Zombie Warrior, Anin and Marlen didn't leave much room to pass. The fact that he hadn't noticed it before was worrying, as it indicated that he was too tired to notice such important details.
Luckily, just then Krieg and Rony joined the fight. Krieg had one arm covered in shards of glass, as he had been too close to a window when they tried to hide from the tornado. Rony had also had some problems, but Terry was in the house, so he was able to repair it quickly. However, this caused the two of them to take a long time to engage in combat.
They both started shooting at the Stalkers and any zombies in sight. Krieg, especially, noticed the fight between Marlen, Anin and the Zombie Warrior. This zombie really caught his attention and he knew right away that he was the biggest danger, so he stopped shooting at the Stalkers and concentrated on finding the right moment.
Rony, meanwhile, under Terry's orders, continued to concentrate on the Stalkers. Zack watched with relief at the change in the situation, but came to his mind when the Berserker charged the bridge, not caring who was in its path.
The zombie Warrior jumped high and was about to dodge the Berserker, but Krieg seized the moment and fired. The shot hit the zombie in the head and hurt him badly and knocked him off balance. The zombie fell onto the bridge where it was hit by the Berserker, which threw it against the railing.
Marlen backed up to catch up with Zack, while Anin stood behind them.
"We have to stop him!" she shouted. Zack was about to reply that it was impossible, but he didn't have time, the Berserker was already upon them.
Marlen calmed down and remembered the first Berserker she had killed. She activated [Precise Cut] and aimed for the Berserker's leg. Zack, meanwhile, activated his [Steel Body] ability, which increased his defenses by an absurd amount. The monster rushed at them at that moment.
Marlen dodged a blow and then attacked. Her ax, unfortunately, did not fully penetrate his enemy's leg. The Berserker's skin was largely intact, so the attack failed to break through the defenses.
Zack tried to copy Marlen's move, but was even less successful. The Berserker's blow grazed his forehead and caused him great pain. However, this served to remove some of his fatigue and encourage him to counterattack. His sword struck the monster's chest and only dug a few inches into it.
The Berserker roared in anger and decided to strike again. But Anin jumped, propelled himself over the railing of the bridge and managed to stand on the Berserker's shoulders, from where he drove his dagger into one of the zombie's eyes.
Anin made sure to stick his weapon as deep as he could and hit the brain, but as always with this zombies, the Berserker managed to survive.
The zombie was completely blinded by its rage and the first thing it did was try to reach Anin, who jumped, but the Berserker grabbed him by the leg and he was thrown against the building. It hit the third floor railing and bounced off until it hit the wall, where it stopped moving, unconscious. The zombie didn't even try to pull the dagger out, but continued to strike with renewed force.
Marlen and Zack stepped back, but at that moment the situation took a turn for the worse. The Zombie Warrior was back in the fight. Unnoticed, the Zombie jumped over the railing onto the slope below, walked under the bridge, then jumped and grabbed the railing to climb up the opposite side, right next to the two fighters.
Zack barely managed to drop to the ground, in time to avoid the horizontal slash with the mandole. Marlen was not so lucky, but managed to block at the last moment with her ax and was sent flying into the railing.
It would have been the right time for Krieg to help them again, but the situation for him and Terry had also worsened, as there was a zombie who decided to enter the fight at that moment. It was the Siamese, who had been watching the fight from the car park. However, no one had noticed them, as they had turned invisible.
The Siamese were two zombies joined at the head. One of them had his eyes closed and used his magic to turn himself and two ambushers invisible. His counterpart had used magic to control the simple minds of the Ambushers. The Siamese had watched the fight in silence, but decided to send the two zombies after Krieg and Terry.
Both zombies remained invisible and approached the fourth floor, from which Krieg and Rony were firing. However, although the Siamese might be one of the most intelligent zombies in existence, it was still very young and lacked experience. Krieg sensed danger almost immediately.
"Something's coming, watch out."
"Which way? I can use Rony's sensors to detect it."
To our right.
Rony scanned the area and detected the invisible presences.
"There they are, they seem to be invisible. According to Rony's sensors, there's an 80% chance they're Ambushers. I'll attack them when they enter the corridor, for now they seem to be climbing up here."
Krieg nodded and avoided looking in the direction Rony had indicated. He and Terry knew, thanks to Noah, that the Ambushers could dodge gunfire, but only if they saw them pull the trigger. So the trick to survival was to attack suddenly. Krieg felt young again, like he was back serving in his police days, chasing the street gangs that used to plague the Capital City.
Maybe Miguel was right, maybe this world would give him a new lease on life, but this was not the time to think about such things, for his possible death was drawing ever closer. Krieg fired at a pair of Stalkers, but his pace slowed to conserve bullets.