Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night
Chapter 146: Crimson Rain

Zane travelled from Gravestone to the ruins of old Reno, the journey of which took roughly an hour to navigate through the crowded streets that were largely filled with undead and abandoned vehicles alike.

But when he finally arrived at the southern border of the devastated city, he did not continue further with his truck, rather, he turned off its engine and hid it within some bushes. After all, it would be much easier to maneuver through the heavily crowded streets on foot.

Especially when once considered that Zane's current dexterity was 17 (+7) making it a grand total of 24. His speed and stamina were high, high enough that he could effortlessly stalk through the streets of New Reno and avoid detection from undead and living beings alike. Not that any awakened survivor dared to venture out at night.

After all, there were certain undead that could only be found at night, which lurked through the city's streets searching desperately for any lost soul unfortunate enough to be left undefended at such a dreaded hour.

Zane, of course, did not bother to stay hidden. Rather every undead he came across, whether something as basic as a walker, or something as powerful as an Abomination, received the same treatment.

For those lower-level undead such as Walkers, Howlers, and Leapers, Zane simply hid in the shadows and equipped his short recurve bow which appeared in his hands out of thin air. For every second that passed, Zane would lose one health. But he needed no more than a second to make a lethal strike.

In addition to the 15-28 damage that the bow dealt, it also had +15% damage due to Zane's HP being above fifty health. Not only that, but it dealt 5 vampiric damage on top of this, and as well as had another bonus in the form of stealth damage.

Considering a walker only had 10 HP, this was what one might consider to be overkill. But the moment the barbed arrow struck the skull of Zane's target, they were immediately killed off. And the health he lost from the -1 regeneration effect of the weapon was instantly replaced.

Zane only had 30 arrows in his quiver, and he used them up, silently taking out walker after walker very quickly. But what was a welcome surprise was that so long as he was within range of the corpse he had made, the auto loot feature would recollect his arrows and send them right back into his quiver without him needing to do anything additional.

Because of this, Zane technically had unlimited arrows, at least under his current circumstances. With this in mind, Zane just hid in the shadows and harvested undead after undead, with lethal and precise shots. The Undead knew they were under attack, but they did not know by what, as Zane cleared out an entire city block's worth of walkers without incident.

Of course, such substantial losses did not go unnoticed by the Sergeants, Lieutenants and, dare I say, captains among the Undead Horde's ranks. With Abominations storming into the area shortly thereafter. Abominations were more difficult for Zane to deal with, they after all, had significantly more health, with 250 HP in total.

But this was also not a problem for Zane in his current state. He could sit idly by and launch less than ten arrows from stealth at these abominations and take them out very quickly. Where, of course, his ammunition was replenished once they had suffered their second death.

Not only did Zane gain a significant bonus to damage in the form of stealth, but every time he landed a head shot, it was considered a critical strike, gaining an even bigger damage bonus to his attacks.

All in all, Zane needed at most five arrows to bring down the giant, fat, and lumbering fools who came searching for the one who had taken out their subordinates in such a rapid fashion.

Of course, after eliminating more than a few scores of abominations, their losses began to alert the Lieutenants in charge of them. Which came in the form of Tier IV Undead, the most common variety of which were stalkers.

Until now Zane had relied on the element of surprise to take out the Stalkers in Carson City, but the ones under Bart's control were on high alert as they zipped through the area. Only a flash image remained of their movements.

Yet Zane's increased dexterity and wisdom allowed him to keep up with the creatures. Thus after ensuring that his quiver was full of his arrows, Zane switched his weapons with a single thought, the two short swords appearing in his hands as he emerged from the shadows, behind one of the Stalkers who was searching for him, where he decapitated the creature on the spot.

Of course, its death sent a notice towards the others who had come to hunt Zane, and thus Zane quickly found himself surrounded by five stalkers in no more than a second. To the naked eye of a normal human being, one would not be able to perceive the battle that was taking place at superhuman speeds.

But Zane was directly engaged with his two short swords, multiple opponents. His dexterity was 4 digits higher than theirs, meaning he had a significant advantage in terms of speed and stamina. For every one strike, the five Stalkers were able to land on Zane, whose damage was vastly decreased due to Zane's new armor. Zane was able to land five on each of them.

And this is where the short swords came in handy. Every time he landed a strike, Zane would receive 3 HP, meaning that he was quickly able to make up for the attacks that landed on him, all while chopping up his opponents as if they were mere onions on a cutting board.

The battle was over at breakneck speed, if a normal person were to observe, they would see body parts fall from the air only seconds after the engagement had begun, but it had all happened so quickly that to Zane it appeared as if he had fought for some time.

In the end, though, Zane landed on the ground below the building he was previously perched upon, the blood and body parts of the Stalkers he had slain raining down upon him as he panted heavily.

No more than five seconds had passed since the battle began, and yet he was already the victor. Though his stamina had decreased by quite a bit, Zane's health was unaffected as he unequipped his short swords.

After all, he had more than made up for the HP he lost via their vampiric effects. Because of this, Zane was stunned at how powerful he had become. He was just about to admire his handiwork, as the dismembered bodies of hundreds of undead ranked from Tier I to Tier IV were surrounding him.

But unfortunately, Zane could not rejoice, because he was immediately brought back to reality by a horrific roar, followed by the sight of a building nearby being trampled over by an undead monstrosity significantly larger than himself.

A single word entered Zane's mind as he saw the giant undead creature which appeared to have been stitched together from numerous corpses.

"Juggernaut!"