Chapter 161 161: Welcome To The 4th Floor

Cole ducked to the side trying his hardest to get out of the way of what he was now calling the momentum meta zombie. Trademark pending of course. But ducking out of the way was not enough as he was still thrown halfway across the store and straight into a couple of waiting tables. Once again the impact from being thrown across the room was extremely dull, but his body was still suffering damage from the momentum/kinetic ability of the zombie.

This was when the first zombie made itself known as it rushed across the ground like some sort of gr0otesque spider zombie thing. Cole responded quickly as he rushed towards its then turned sharply to the right, swiveling his hips so hard he heard it pop. He slashed down with black Malakai, shifting the size of the blade until it was a massive great sword. He slashed down, and while his cut was not a symmetrical as he wanted it to be, he was able to slash through the Zombie's skull and half of its torso, letting both halves of its body fall to the ground with a wet squelch.

[Gravity]

The momentum Zombie had once again tried to push its advantage as it had rushed towards Cole, who had turned and met it with a force of his own. Pouring a significant amount of his available energy and finesse into the skill. Unlike the previous times that Cole had used this skill, it was now a lot more powerful now that he was in the silver rank, enough that that as he used it, there was an obvious displacement in the air.

And it was more powerful than Cole had expected as he had blasted the zombie backwards, hard enough that its body had smashed into the wall of the shop and remained stuck there as it snarled and shuddered and tried to pull itself free, at least for the first twenty seconds anyways. Eventually its struggles became a little bit weaker and then eventually all that was left was a prism. Cole crashed to the ground trying to catch his breath as it seemed as if his injuries were catching up to him.

There were loud bangs being heard in the background as the zombies outside were trying to force their way into the store. Cole shook his head as he closed his eyes and felt for the energy in his body. there was a lot of technicalities to it but, so far Cole had been relying on his instincts to use his skill, and through that he has discovered quite a few things in the process.

For example, [Energy Manipulation] gave him an awareness of his body that went down to the molecular level. It wasn't just based on visual observation. If there was something wrong with him Cole would be able to see it with a thought or just a little bit more observation than necessary. He could see within his body that a sort of green Miasma was floating around every which way.

It was as if it had a mind of its own and it was actively trying to devour his energy, or rather it would be best to say that it was converting. The more it devoured the larger it became and the more its influence within his body spread. It had not been able to affect most of his skills, but those that were passives and were heavily reliant on his stats were suffering.

For example, he also noticed that his perception was so bad right now that he could not even utilize his [Domain] properly. But all of that paled in comparison to the fact that he was not healing the way he wanted…. And then that was when Cole noticed the bombshell. He was hearing two heartbeats, and all from within his body. finding the second heart growing on the right side of his body.

It was shocking really, and it was vastly different from what could be considered normal as it was in the shape of a heart, smaller, but was completely black while the veins on it were differing shades of purples, reds, whites and blue. This was the heart of a demon…. Or perhaps it was the heart of something more he couldn't tell, and right now its discovery was not important as Cole was trying to figure out a way to survive.

Funneling energy into his [Demonic Constitution] skill was what he has been doing so far, and this was in the hopes that the healing factor attached to the skill would help his injuries heal, but it was not the injuries themselves that was the problem. But that green Miasma in his body, whatever the fuck it was, it really was what was causing problems in his body and not letting him heal the way he wanted to.

Cole went after it, and it was so easy that it absolutely shocked him as he grabbed a hold of the energy within his body. he attempted to push it out, there wasn't enough time left to be admiring his new found control over the energy as with each second that passed there was successive bangs coming from the blinds and the entrance of the pastry store as more and more zombies tried their best to gain access to it, or rather to him.

There was suddenly a suction force from deep within his body, for a second his body locked up as an intense wave of pain seemed to go through his body. the green energy was quickly funneled to his new black heart. As soon as every last bit of it had been absorbed by the heart, the heart seemed to pulse with energy as it beat once twice a lot faster than normal then settled back down to its normal state, with beats that were a lot slower than his normal heart.

[Sin Eater Used! +30 to Negative Energy]

This was a welcome surprise; Cole so far has not had a chance to use his full abilities because tangling with zombies for too long would be a bad idea. Their bites or scratches completely messed up his equilibrium, using his [Sin Eating] and [Sin Reaping] skills would have been somewhat suicidal. But perhaps for them too, the Silver Rank had a bit more in store for them.

Cole's wounds closed up rapidly in the blink of an eye as he got back up to his feet with a smile, but smile or no smile Cole still had a dilemma on his hands. The zombies were not like the darklings, they had numbers but the darklings were weak and could only relay on their numbers by pilling on top of a person. However, the zombies here on the other hand were strong, fast, and many of them had abilities could be absolutely debilitating and devastating once they use it.

this was like the first floor all over again, Cole knew he was strong, but compared to his enemies he was still some little ways from being able to take on an army of their kind. But Cole knew it was only a matter of time, a little more practice and of course a little bit more level ups and everything should be fine. Plus, he could also try to now upgrade the skills, since his stats were now silver ranked, he could use silver prisms to level some of them up, they would require differing amounts of prisms based on their earlier rarity.

But in the end his problems were still how he could find a way to escape from the horde of super powered zombies waiting outside to pulverize him.  He turned to see if the store had a back entrance; it did. But as Cole made his way towards the entrance there was a massive explosion if golden light outside of the store, it was powerful enough to release a concussive blast that blew in the blinds and whatever was left of the store's windows.

He was picked up and thrown for the umpteenth time in just how many minutes…. Cole was not even sure it had been up to to an hour by now. Never the less he now had a concussion as it was hard enough to leave his head an ears ringing. Cole could feel a massive gash on his head healing, but behind that was also the feeling of lethargy and weakness in his limbs.

He could move and with how messed up he felt he did not think he would remain conscious for long, there has just been too many impacts recently and his body needed time to properly and fully heal, demon level constitution or not. It was as he was struggling to get back up to his feet that he heard the pounding of feet as the same people he has been trying to get away from made their way into the store, and just like the first time they saw him, one of them raised his gun and fired, and all Cole could remember afterwards…. Was darkness.

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