Chapter 10: Putrid Monstrosity
A few minutes earlier, several bodies were already lying on the misty, cold floor of the wagon.
Yet the zombies kept pouring in, like an unstoppable, tireless black tide. But Ken and Kim moved as if they were one being: every gesture anticipated, every movement perfectly complementary, the result of years of relentless duels.
When the Demon King swept away an arm or shattered a jaw, the hero would immediately slide in to fill the space left open, striking with surgical precision where Ken could not reach. And when Kim stepped back to dodge, Ken took over with a disconcerting fluidity. A silent choreography, born from a mutual understanding sculpted by time, where each movement instinctively complemented the other.
Little by little, a breath of hope arose amidst this carnage.
Thanks to their perfect synchronization, Ken and Kim managed to repel the undead, buying precious minutes in this hell, delaying their grim fate.
Trapped, they had no more room to retreat. In front of them, the Corpse King and his cursed horde, tireless and ruthless, surged from the lower wagons. Every second, it thickened, swelling like a black tide ready to engulf everything.
And behind them, the only exit was locked by a mysterious force, a bluish translucent barrier that repelled anyone trying to cross it. The trap was set and was closing in on them, trapping them like rats.
Ken clenched his fists tightly to steel himself.
Falling into despair was not an option. He had to hold on, find a flaw, a plan… anything. And even if the end seemed inevitable, he would fight to the last. Failing survival, he would take at least two thousand of these creatures down with him.
Ken cast a furtive glance at Kim. He was fighting with almost inhuman ferocity and grace, wielding his iron bar like a master wielding a sword.
Even though his pride clearly prevented him from admitting it, Ken knew. Deep down, he knew that without Kim, they would have already been swept away, swallowed by the tide of the dead. None of this would have been possible without him.
It was then, at that precise moment, that Hanna's words echoed in his mind:
"No matter how strong you think you are… one day or another, you'll need others. No one is invincible."
"So… that's what you meant, huh?" he murmured, a sarcastic smile on his lips.
He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then opened them again, his gaze fixed straight ahead. His fingers gripped his makeshift weapon even tighter. This was no time to succumb to doubt. The nightmare was not over; on the contrary, it was only beginning.
A piercing scream suddenly erupted, tearing through the air like a black lightning bolt. The Corpse King's roar vibrated through the wagon, resonating into their bones, shaking the metallic walls and making the floor tremble beneath their feet. The pain spread through skulls like a sharp blade, eliciting muffled groans from several students. Ken himself staggered for a moment, jaw clenched, as if the sound sought to crush his brain from the inside.
His eyes filled with visceral fear, his face contorting.
'What… does this mean?'
'Is he… going to attack… now? …If he does, it's over.'
'I… I can't beat him in this state… Did I even have a single chance to defeat him from the start?'
'The level is absurd.'
The scream barely ended before a violent headache hit him like a hammer, making Ken shudder in pain, staggering under the pressure, pressing his hands against his skull, shaking his head in every direction, but without uttering a single sound.
He was not the only one infected by this mysterious pain: Kim, beside him, also seemed to undergo the same inner torture.
An invisible pressure struck his mind, distorting his perceptions. Screaming, tortured voices echoed in an incomprehensible and suffocating mixture, as if the souls devoured by the abomination were screaming their despair, their pain, their torment inside his mind.
Each groan, each sound pierced Ken's skull like burning needles, making his consciousness wobble, dragging him into an oppressive fog.
Feeling himself falter in this mental haze, losing his footing, Ken bit his tongue violently. The metallic taste of blood snapped him back to reality.
He pulled his bloodied tongue into a deranged grimace, his brows furrowed, eyes squinting from the pain. Blood slowly trickled from his nose into his mouth, but despite the pain, he revealed nothing.
"It would take more than that to get me, asshole!" he whispered internally, staring at the abomination, his red eyes filled with defiance, mocking it as they locked onto its gaze.
Suddenly, Kim staggered and collapsed violently onto all fours, vomiting blood. Ken immediately turned, crouching beside him to help.
"Hey, aspiring hero, you holding on?!" he shouted, his voice trembling.
"Y-yes… I'm not dying over this… I'm tough, you know me!" he replied, a forced smile on his lips, voice broken and heavy.
But his body betrayed him. Blood streamed from his eyes, nose, and ears, running down his face and staining the floor. His forced smile only emphasized the exhaustion that etched his features, the mental and physical fatigue crushing him.
Then, abruptly, Kim's expression froze in visceral fear. His eyes widened, filled with raw incomprehension.
A chill ran down Ken's spine as he saw his face. He slowly turned his head to understand what could plunge Kim into such a state.
The sight before him made his chest tighten, skipping a heartbeat. All the corpses they had killed from the beginning were rising as if nothing had happened.
But they were no longer simple undead: black mist exploded inside their lifeless bodies, violently spreading through their limbs, making their flesh wobble and tearing their bones in sinister cracks. Their eyes turned blood-red, and their bodies deformed, merging with one another.
Their limbs twisted and tore apart, their viscera intertwined and rearranged in a grotesque symphony of creaking flesh and breaking bones.
Little by little, the mass contracted and transformed into a shapeless blob of flesh, moldable like clay.
Then, slowly, this shapeless mass began to shape itself into a nauseating spectacle. Before the terrified eyes of the two young men, frozen in the front row of this nightmarish scene.
Ken felt his heart skip a beat. A cold shiver ran down his spine. Feeling himself weaken, he clenched his teeth to try to brace himself. Panic was not an option. Not now.
"Damn… really… really nothing good will ever come from this damn mist."
The mass twisted, tore itself apart, then reformed with a crash of crushed flesh and shattered bones, until it took the shape of a monstrous, gigantic, deformed humanoid. Its grotesque silhouette remained huddled on itself for a moment, motionless, like a broken puppet abandoned on the floor.
Then, suddenly, the dark mist violently burst from its body, like a foul breath of life.
The abomination unfolded in a sharp, brutal movement. Its arms spread violently, and a guttural roar tore from its throat, shredding the air and making every wall of the wagon vibrate.
Ken could not believe his eyes. Just when he thought the situation was already unbearable, it tipped into even more nightmarish chaos.
Before them stood the incarnation of filth itself: a putrid, shapeless monstrosity, with swollen and lacerated skin, a face deformed like burned flesh, staring at them with bloodshot, scarlet eyes consumed by uncontrollable rage.
Without warning, the creature swung its deformed arm in a swift motion. The air split under the impact, and the bony tip cut through the space like a lightning bolt, aiming straight for Ken's face.
The attack was so fast that Ken didn't even have time to react. Death was coming for him, relentless, slicing.
"KEN!!! WATCH OUT!!!"
Hero appeared instantly, like a shadow. His body interposed between Ken and the threat, the iron bar gripped in his hands like an improvised shield. His fingers whitened under the pressure as he used all his body's strength against the monster's assault.
The impact exploded with a deafening crash. The shock made the air vibrate like thunder, twisting the metal. The blond's face contorted in pain, teeth gritting under the infernal pressure of the creature's attack, his arms trembling dangerously.
Then, in one brutal motion, their bodies were ripped off the ground like disjointed puppets. Thrown backward, they bounced several times against the metallic floor before crashing heavily, stunned and battered, breath stolen by the violence of the impact.
As the abomination approached dangerously, each of its heavy, measured steps echoed through the wagon, making the floor tremble under its crushing weight. Its bloodshot eyes, filled with murderous rage, fixed them with a chilling intensity.