Our little band of survivors was quite close to the intersection where the main entrance and the road where I took down a thousand deadheads last time, and it allowed me to catch some footage from the big screen.
It showed that one bloater on the other side of the ring had broken through their formation—though it was now on its stomach—but it now had fresh meat from the menu.
The person it was feasting on was crushed under its sheer weight and no one from their own circle could save him because the deadheads had already poured over them and caused some sort of stampede.
From our side, we could see the number of deadheads moving onto their side because it had a leak but there were still more coming from the road toward the stage. Almost all of them didn't know where to go because they hit a dead-end, and since our group was much, much closer, they opted to attack us instead.
I would've preferred to help the group in trouble but right now, our hands were also tied.
Furthermore, there was something not quite right about this wave we were about to take on so I stopped going on the extreme offensive. At this point, I sheathed my wakizashi but the look on everyone's face when I turned tail and ran after killing a dozen or so deadheads was fucking priceless.
Quinn was the first one to react, "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING—"
"KNIFE!"
"WHAT—"
"NOT YOU, MAR— THE FUCK WAS YOUR NAME?! FUCK IT, KNIFE BOY! LEMME BORROW TWO! AH! MARTIN, RIGHT?! QUICK!
JUST THROW IT OVERHEAD!"
"O-Okay!"
I was still running at a moderate speed when Martin threw a couple of his knives over my head and I couldn't help but smile when he threw the first one at the exact spot while he threw the other a little forward to time my movement. I caught both of them like a fucking runningback—truth be told, my nose got a little pointier doing this—but I didn't expect Martin to throw another one.
"HERE'S ONE MORE!"
"Wha—"
Not only did it serve as satiation for its hunger, but it also served as another layer of defense.
Right now, it was more dangerous than facing a wild boar head-on because it had more "tusks" to pin us down, and we'll be the freshest kebab right after.
With that said, one of the unspoken rules to survive in the apocalypse was that it was always okay to run when in danger or when faced with an unknown, but gathering as much information while trying to stay alive was also a must.
Despite that, we all know that every deadhead's weakness—except for the hollowed ones—was its head, but the problem right now was how to get access to it.
I easily used the earlier bloaters' size against them but this one was a little complicated.
It was like its body wasn't weighing it down at all and it was agile enough to do a complete turn and smack down anything that tried to slip past it.
At this point, the other participants ran past me as they tried to get away but I was still watching this deadhead's movements.
It was moving like a bull where someone was riding its back and that "someone" was a human cactus or a human torch that was continuously giving it grief. It was thrashing all around the play area and it seemed that it had no target in mind. However, it only took a second before it saw me and tried to go for a slam.
'Heh, let's try it then...'
Much to everyone's surprise, I didn't meet it with the edge of my blade but I just jumped to the side and continued to cut in tight directions as I was watching it move.
I still had my weapon drawn for the remnants that would try to interfere but it was easy enough to cut them down and dodge this huge slab of meat that wanted to take a bite out of me.
In a sense, I was like a matador playing with a bull while flailing a red piece of cloth but that piece of cloth was my flesh and bones.
As I kept ducking, diving, dipping, and dodging its body with a huge allowance, I noticed that it had begun to slow down by a considerable amount, and I wasn't exerting myself as much as I was earlier.
Despite that, the fucker still looked terrifying as fuck but I was starting to face more and more interruptions that came from the other side of the circle. I even drew my wakizashi to use as some sort of stick to push them away before I dealt the killing blow because even if I could do it as easily as snapping my fingers, my focus still needed to be on this special bloater/sprinter.
Well, I still needed to do both at the same time so I just ran around killing some dregs before continuing to watch how it would fare in the long run, but long story short, all I could say was that its 'mind' was still willing but its flesh was weak.