Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night
Chapter 170: Taking Ground

Maya began to behave herself, staying behind in the bunker with Angelica while Zane and the others traversed into the ruins of Old Reno to harvest the blood crystals and crafting materials from the undead who dwelled within the remains of the city.

This was not exactly a job that Angelica appreciated. After all, she was highly uncomfortable around the group's recently adopted daughter. But someone needed to take care of Maya and keep an eye on her. And who was better than the one who was naturally suspicious of the young girl?

And thus while Angelica and Maya maintained an awkward silence while resting within the bunker complex. Zane and the others had marched off to Old Reno to battle it out with Bartholomew's undead hordes.

Over the course of the past week, Zane and the others had gathered enough materials that Zane could not only outfit Lily with her own set of equipment. But he could also begin equipping his undead horde.

By now there were two dozen Undead Spearmen, who formed a solid shield wall at the front of the formation. They were led by Madison, who was granted some degree of authority over them, as if she was their sergeant.

As for Elena, she herself led a group of Undead Swordsman. Like her, they wielded a sword with both hands; theirs being of the European longsword variety. And their job was to essentially maintain a distance at the battlefield, and flank the Undead, who the shield wall came across. Effectively enveloping the uncoordinated walkers in a classic pincer maneuver.

Lily had taken a unique archetype, with her plant based abilities she could perform as a control wizard. But at the same time, she favored the bow, taking a liking to it immediately upon being given one to practice with.

Because of this, she was almost like a druid/ranger hybrid. Leading her own group of undead archers who stayed behind the front lines which were commanded by Madison, and in doing so coordinating volleys upon the unsuspecting and uncoordinated walkers.

Finally, Olivia was on her own, at least for the time being. She would stay in the rear and call thunder and lightning from the skies to vaporize large numbers of undead every chance she was given. With this overall formation, Zane and the girls were able to deal with thousands of Walkers at a time with very little difficulty.

But what was Zane doing in these instances? Zane's role was very specific, to hide in the shadows and only reveal himself when a higher tier of undead appeared. Howlers, leapers, abominations, and stalkers were his forte of dealing with.

And with such massive casualties among Bartholomew's forces, it was only natural that these high-ranking undead revealed themselves. Which is exactly what Zane was waiting for. With his dangers in both hands, Zane shifted through the air, leaping across street lights and telephone poles with such incredible speed that one could only see his after image.

Before the Stalker even realized it his head was cut off, granting him his second death. He had not even come close to his goal of attacking Elena, who was currently leading the undead Swordsman, freezing time itself for the enemy, allowing them to rapidly cut down the immobile walkers by the hundreds.

Meanwhile, abominations launched themselves at the shield wall formed by the Undead spearmen, barreling at them like a boulder rolling down a mountain as they tried to break the ranks which Madison held together.

Yet Madison did not falter, instead issuing a command to the troops Zane had granted her temporary control over, one that would hopefully allow them to withstand the charge of the grotesquely obese undead monstrosity.

"Brace for impact!"

The shield wall immediately stood their ground, preparing themselves with their shields raised forward for the inevitable impact of the three abominations that rushed at them. The abominations crashed against the shield wall, but they did not actually touch the shields themselves.

Instead, Madison raised her force fields just in the nick of time, surrounding her unit, allowing the Abominations to crash into that instead. Of course, as someone who was only a few levels higher than the abominations. Madison found it difficult to maintain the force fields under their repeated assaults.

Small cracks began to form along the walls of the translucent pink force fields. Like spider webs, they appeared on every surface until a loud cracking sound resounded. Knowing that their first line of defense was gone, Madison issued the order to attack the Abominations, who had been thrown off balance.

"Now!"

Madison thrust her flaming sword forward into the protruding belly of the abomination in front of her. While at the same time, the undead spearmen by her side thrust their weapons forward in a similar motion. Skewering the three abominations as if they were pincushions, and holding them in place.

Though the abominations had become immobile from the amount of spears within their bodies, they were not dead just yet. After all, they were tier three undead, meaning they had some degree of vitality and strength, something that two dozen tier one undead couldn't easily overcome.

However, just when it would appear that the Abominations were going to break free, a bolt of lightning landed on the one directly in front of Madison. The lightning began to have a chain effect, spreading to one of the other two abominations, and then the other.

From there, it began to spread even further. Walker after walker was zapped by the lightning, each undead turning into a pile of ash, but not before it could spread the lightning to another of its kind. With a single attack more than three hundred undead had been near instantly turned into nothing.

The loud thunder which accompanied the lightning strike caused Madison to look over at Olivia, who herself was flustered at just how powerful her newly improved electric discharge was. This was after all the largest gathering of undead they had fought since she first upgraded it to Tier IV. And she did not expect the lightning to spread so far and so rapidly.

In fact, with this attack, the entirety of the street was cleared. Leaving nothing behind but the ashes of the dead which took to the air with the wind, as well as the corpses of the undead who had suffered their second death via other means.

Either way, the battle for this street had come to a swift and sudden end after only a minute or two of fighting. When Zane saw how effective his party had become, bolstered by his own ability to command the undead hordes.

He realized that his party might very well have the best chance of liberating the surviving population of Reno from the hundreds of thousands of undead which now haunted their lives.

But it would be a long while before Zane could do such a thing, and thus he decided to take this war with one battle at a time. Zane approached the girls who had worked so hard, even if it was only for a couple of minutes, and congratulated them on their increase in strength as a party.

"I'm not going to lie… I thought it would take us all significantly longer to clear this street… It's a pity that the moment we leave it will just become overwhelmed with undead again…"

The girls all nodded their heads in agreement with Zane's words. Lily, however, seemed a bit depressed because she really hadn't done as much as she wanted. But that was understandable, considering she was a much lower level than everyone else.

However, she still felt the need to apologize, which she was quick to muster the courage to do so.

"I… I'm so-"

However, before she could finish her sentence, a loud roar erupted from not too far away, as a nearby building collapsed on itself, revealing the large and monstrous form of the Juggernaut. Evidently, it remembered Zane from their last meeting, and instantly charged at him in an attempt to avenge its previous failures.

However, Zane was now a level above the Juggernaut, and because of this, he could swiftly dodge the attack. After missing Zane, the juggernaut's fist slammed into the ground, causing a massive crater in the street as it did so.

Madison and the others began to clearly panic when they saw the Juggernaut, that they themselves were nowhere near high enough of a level to compete with. But before they could break ranks and flee, Zane issued a command to them.

With a confident tone in his voice, he acted as their leader, rallying his troops to stand firm in the face of adversity. Despite the fact that they were fighting against a literal monster.

"Stand your ground! We can beat this thing if we work together!"

Though Madison doubted Zane's words, she put her trust in him, and rallied the shield wall to advance forward, her courage in itself rallying the others to do the same.

"Forward march!"

Elena saw the fire in Madison's eyes and decided not to be bested as she to decided to use her troops to surround the undead monstrosity in front of her and attack it with all her strength.

"Let's go!"

Seeing as how the others were so adamant about this, Olivia and Lily had no choice but to join in as they all charged towards the Juggernaut which Zane was adeptly skirting around, almost as if he were a spirit and not a man.