Chapter 129: Lightsaber

Max cut off the friendly banter the second the pneumatic doors folded in.

His expression shifted into cold, lethal focus as his calloused hand closed around a heavy steel pipe scavenged from the warehouse.

A grotesque, rotting face lunged into the opening, yellow teeth snapping blindly at empty air.

Before the corpse could cross the threshold, Max drove the sharpened end of the pipe forward with brutal momentum. The improvised spear collided with the center of its forehead with a dull, wet crack. Bone splintered, but the skull offered surprisingly stiff resistance before the metal punched through into the brain cavity.

Max’s brow furrowed.

That was only a Tier 1 zombie. The nocturnal buff had significantly hardened their skeletal density, turning what should have been brittle rot into dense gristle.

Yet he didn’t waver for a fraction of a second. Planting his rear foot, Max drove a heavy combat boot against the protruding end of the pipe with all his might.

The concussive kick drove the pipe completely through the skull and propelled the corpse backward like a battering ram. The kinetic force sent three more zombies tumbling down the asphalt in a messy domino effect, clearing the concrete landing pad in front of the vehicle.

Naturally, more silhouettes immediately surged forward to choke the breach.

"Now that you’re not touching the bus..." Max muttered, a vicious grin breaking across his scarred features.

Crackling azure arcs of raw electricity began dancing violently across his knuckles. With a feral roar, he launched his massive frame down the folding steps, landing squarely on the blood-slicked tarmac.

His arms swept outward. A wide, crackling arc of high-voltage lightning tore out from his fingertips, fanning across the driveway in a brilliant semicircular sweep.

Max was careful to keep the entire discharge directed forward into the open street, ensuring not a single stray ember arced backward toward the metallic hull of the bus.

The immediate front line staggered violently under the searing current. Thick smoke rose from charred collars and blistered flesh... But that was it.

Momentary paralyzation from the shock.

Deprived of living nervous systems, the zombies felt no agonizing pain from the burns; once the initial muscular spasms faded, the night-buffed monsters pushed forward once more.

Back in the doorway, Jacob stared down at the snarling mass, an icy dread creeping up his spine.

’Should I just stay inside...?’ Jacob thought frantically, his fingers twitching against his empty belt. ’I don’t have a single offensive skill yet, and I don’t even have a loaded gun...’

Before he could orchestrate an excuse to slink into the back row, a firm hand clamped down on his neon jacket, dragging him out into the night air.

"You wanna level up, right, Jacob? Best of luck, bud!" Ash called out with cocky enthusiasm.

The teenager had taken a genuine liking to Jacob over the course of the drive.

While the older survivors treated Ash like an annoying, reckless kid, Jacob had played the humble, supportive older brother to perfection, stroking the boy’s fragile ego with polite nods and deferential words.

Until now, Ash’s Awakened trait had remained a closely guarded secret. That mystery dissolved in a burst of blinding brilliance.

Before the astonished eyes of the onlookers, a beam of intensely concentrated, humming white light erupted from Ash’s clenched fist.

It solidified into a straight, razor-thin rod stretching roughly two and a half meters in length.

To anyone raised on twentieth-century cinema, the kid was practically holding a lightsaber!!!

Ash lunged forward, stabbing the tip of the light beam into the skull of an approaching ghoul.

Instead of cleaving the head in two like a plasma blade, the luminous beam jammed at the forehead, penetrating only slightly.

Ash froze in place, keeping both hands locked onto the projection for two excruciating seconds while the zombie flailed its arms, desperately clawing to reach the teenager’s throat.

Gradually, the thrashing movements turned sluggish. In two more seconds, a thin trail of black smoke billowed from the wound, and the zombie collapsed forward onto the pavement like a puppet with cut strings.

Ash let out a cocky scoff.

He then kicked off another approaching zombie, slashing to her skull and keeping it there for another 5 seconds!

It wasn’t a solid blade at all. It was an ultra-tight, coherent pillar of focused light mana.

It operated precisely like an optical lens converging midday sunlight onto a single black dot on parchment; given enough continuous exposure, the thermal concentration would eventually bore a hole straight through dense bone.

Pulling the beam away, the corpse revealed a perfectly charred, quarter-inch crater burned clean into its brainpan.

Jacob’s eyes flashed with naked hunger. In the hands of someone with massive mana reserves, that beam could be supercharged to vaporize targets on contact like a genuine sci-fi saber.

The sheer versatility made his parasitic fingers itch with anticipation.

Inside the safety of the vehicle, Fredrinn stood calmly near an open window, watching the skirmish unfold with an analytical gaze.

"That’s not that bad of a skill, it seems like a light element skill," Fredrinn commented calmly, resting his forearm against the cracked pane.

Because he couldn’t gain any exp from the zombies, joining the eager awakeners underneath wasn’t in his interest.

Especially when they were eager to farm the exp.

Why bother getting his hands dirty?

Beside him, Andrea leaned against the partition, observing the glowing beam with wide, curious blue eyes.

"Are you not interested in going down and fighting? You can gain exp and it doesn’t look that dangerous that you might get harmed," Andrea asked curiously, glancing up at his chiseled profile.

A slow, predatory smirk touched Fredrinn’s lips. He turned his gaze toward the petite, busty beauty, drinking in the flushed curves of her cheeks.

"Why would I do that when..."

He leaned in close, his lips brushing against the sensitive shell of her ear. His warm, intoxicating breath washed over her neck, carrying the magnetic pull of his Incubus trait that sent an electric shiver cascading straight down her spine.

"...I can fuck you and gain exp that way?"

Andrea’s breath caught sharply in her throat. A fiery crimson blush exploded across her face, radiating down to the tips of her breasts as her ears twitched involuntarily.