His sword moved quickly in an upward swing, while his right leg remained firmly planted on the ground between the zombie's legs.
This unexpected move prevented the zombie from reacting in time. Its body was caught between its own clumsiness and his leg, causing it to stumble backwards.
Strangely, it was this move that saved it...
Edward's sword crossed at an astonishing speed, but because the zombie had started to fall, he couldn't cut off its head again and simply cut its head in half.
'Tsk.'
Although the damage received was real, an undead beast like this would not die until you destroyed its core, destroyed its head completely, or cut it off.
Even so, the zombie was finished, and that made him smile. Edward quickly changed the movement of his sword in mid-attack and turned it into a downward thrust, aiming for the core in its mouth.
But his attack was too slow.
Suddenly, the fire caterpillar that was circling his sword seemed to smell something strange. Something triggered its senses.
Fire...
Food!
Edward's mind was stunned; his attack speed slowed dramatically to a halt when those inaudible, almost incomprehensible words, like those of a child, came to mind.
They were not spoken aloud, so there was no sound. But he could understand that something was trying to communicate with him.
Something... very connected to himself.
And suddenly, he witnessed something amazing.
The caterpillar, which he thought was useless at this stage, spun around his sword several times at an astonishing speed, leaving a trail of spirituality in the process, until it lunged at the zombie's mouth and disappeared into the fire.
For a brief moment, he didn't know how to react or what to do. His body tensed, and all his muscles trembled.
But then...
"Hey!" He dropped his sword and jumped after it, trying to grab it.
What the hell was that little thing doing? It was going to die, burned to death!
His heart leapt into his throat. If his beast died... he would be in serious trouble.
He tried to grab the zombie by the neck and hit it so it would vomit everything inside, but then the fire in its mouth began to recede.
No, it wasn't receding.
Something was swallowing it.
"What the hell?" He couldn't move, stunned.
Perhaps his beast... had fallen into a deadly trap. His heart began to ache...
But suddenly, he witnessed something absurd.
The caterpillar danced among the flames, chewing on the core with teeth that seemed nonexistent but were surely there, as the bites were real, with a mouth larger than its body.
The zombie could no longer move, as its core began to be damaged at an alarming rate.
Finally, 10 seconds later and under Edward's stunned gaze, the core disappeared, along with the fire.
[You have killed a Fire Mouth Zombie: Level 2]
[Your Fire Caterpillar has received 20 Experience Points.]
Perplexed, he stared at the system window for a full minute, until he felt something flying around him.
The caterpillar was completely happy, circling around, as if to indicate that it wanted more food.
He couldn't communicate with it, although what he had heard before... he suspected it came from this little thing; but he could understand its intentions.
It wanted more fire zombies.
Although he was in shock, he understood where he was and knew he had no time to waste. So he looked at the caterpillar and raised a finger to stroke it a little.
"You are... a little surprising," he said incredulously.
The caterpillar obviously didn't understand, but it did appreciate his caresses, making a face like a kitten asking for more.
'How curious.' He looked out at the seemingly endless forest in front of him. 'I've never heard of a caterpillar being so strong. It practically killed the undead on its own.'
This time, he couldn't help thinking about what he had seen when he awakened.
Those four pillars... those four caterpillars that emerged from them.
'I've really awakened something amazing,' he thought.
He set out to evolve as quickly as possible until he reached the stage of Beast Master Human, where he would be able to further investigate his own Inner World, where those four pillars should be.
For now, he should focus on raising his fire caterpillar to level 5 to unlock his stats window. According to the system, he would have one when he completed his first Connection Crystal.
But for now, he had something else he wanted to see.
The aforementioned experience.
He knew about it because the system told him he could level up his beasts.
Searching through his system, it didn't take him long to find the dedicated section.
[Fire Caterpillar Experience Points: 20/100.]
There were four identical windows, each with a different name and number. One for each of his caterpillars. Only his Fire Caterpillar had experience for now; the rest still had nothing.
'Would I only need to kill four more of these to level up?' He looked thoughtful. That's how it was in video games on Earth.
If he wanted to get his four caterpillars to level 2, he would have to kill 20; it didn't sound so bad if the caterpillars were as effective as he had just witnessed.
Now, there was a description below each of those windows that said: [Beasts of a different attribute will give fewer experience points]
That was understandable.
Edward suddenly had an idea...
He summoned his other caterpillars. If he could bring them all up at once, it would be much more efficient in the long run, even if three of them were at minimum capacity.
His face turned pale when he saw them emerge. They were unsettled by the environment; they didn't fly around him as the fire one did; instead, they curled up.
'It seems it can't be done.' He sighed and looked at the burning fire in the distance, above the trees.
He had to put them away.
He would have time to raise them all to the next level, and he hoped that later on in their evolution, they would not feel fear despite the different circumstances.
He walked alongside his fire caterpillar and began to enter the forest.
It didn't take him long to find rivals.
His sword sliced through the wind, crossing distances and splitting a zombie's head in half, while he used the recoil to charge at a skeleton with fiery hands.
His agility with the sword was fully revealed, while his caterpillar played a key role in finishing them off.
They made a perfect team, where, even though they were facing three, his perfect defensive parries and the right combination with the caterpillar meant that none of these undead could withstand the onslaught of the sword.
The proactive combination of the fire caterpillar and that sword simply ended up destroying them, one by one.
[Your Fire Caterpillar has received 20 Experience Points.]
[Your Fire Caterpillar has received 8 Experience Points.]
[Your Fire Caterpillar has received 8 Experience Points.]
He smiled proudly as he looked at the victims beneath his feet.