Chapter 51 The Bloody Battle Continues!

The moment Magnus Vane said those words, the entire stairwell erupted. Blood Moon Berserkers surged upward in a tangled mass, slamming into the walls and each other as they fought for space on the narrow staircase, completely indifferent to broken bones or torn flesh. The staggered Wooden Spike Traps stopped the first few, driving sharpened stakes through backs, stomachs, and legs, but the dead kept coming anyway. Berserkers impaled against the traps still clawed toward Magnus through the opening in his barricade, while those behind them climbed over their bodies until sheer numbers overwhelmed the first defensive line.

Magnus waited until the leading corpses were almost against the wooden wall before raising the modified Stone Sledgehammer. With Strength Lv8, Skull Crusher Lv4, Heavy Weapon Handling Lv1, and the Barbed Wire Mod all working together, the weapon no longer felt remotely as heavy as it looked. He brought it down through the opening like a man splitting firewood, except the target beneath the hammer was a Berserker’s skull. Blood splashed across the floor beneath the crimson light leaking through the church windows, leaving Magnus standing in the middle of it with eyes just as red as the moon outside.

More Berserkers immediately crowded into the dead one’s place. Magnus reached through the opening, caught whichever corpse happened to come within reach, and violently dragged it through the gap before it could brace itself against the barricade. The Berserker hit the floor and tried to rise, but Magnus drove the Stone Sledgehammer down once, twice, then a third time until its head was completely destroyed. He barely had time to pull the weapon free before a loud crack ran through the wooden barricade.

Crack!

Magnus’s head snapped toward the damaged section just as one board split apart. A Berserker forced its upper body through the new opening, snarling wildly as if it had finally escaped a cage. Magnus’s expression twisted into a vicious grin. “You want me that badly?”

He swung hard.

The Berserker flew backward into the creatures behind it, and several of them lost their footing together. Bodies tumbled down the stairs, limbs and torsos crashing directly onto the remaining Wooden Spike Traps and pinning several walkers in place. Magnus knew the opening would only grow wider if he kept waiting, so instead of trying to repair it, he shoved the Stone Sledgehammer through the damaged section and swept it sideways with both hands.

The blow struck the front rank hard enough to send more than a dozen Berserkers stumbling backward into one another. Magnus used the brief opening immediately, reached into his system inventory, and pulled out one of the rifles taken from the raider compound east of Hershel’s farm.

He seated an extended magazine, shouldered the weapon behind the barricade, and opened fire through the broken section. At this distance, careful precision mattered far less than keeping the muzzle centered on the mass of heads filling the staircase.

Gunfire thundered through the church.

The first magazine vanished in seconds.

Magnus replaced it with another.

The Berserkers kept charging into the line of fire without hesitation, practically forcing their heads toward the rifle barrel as they tried to reach him. Most required several rounds through the skull before finally collapsing, but at this distance Magnus had enough ammunition and enough targets packed together that misses barely mattered. By the time he emptied the sixth magazine, more than twenty Berserkers had gone down in the stairwell.

Magnus lowered the rifle and returned it to his inventory.

He still had ammunition.

That wasn’t why he stopped.

The wooden barricade was failing.

Magnus stepped backward and rolled his shoulders while the remaining Berserkers hammered against the cracking structure. Blood had coated his hands, making the Stone Sledgehammer dangerously slick, so he tore a short-sleeved shirt from an old wardrobe in the priest’s quarters and wrapped the fabric tightly around his right hand and the hammer handle. He secured them together as best he could, ensuring the weapon wouldn’t slip from his grip when the barricade finally collapsed.

Crack!

Another board split.

Crack—crack!

Then the entire center gave way.

The remaining Berserkers burst through at once.

Magnus stepped into them instead of retreating.

The Stone Sledgehammer swept across the front rank and knocked several bodies sideways before he immediately changed direction and brought the weapon down from above. One skull collapsed beneath the barbed hammerhead, and Magnus twisted his hips into the recovery, driving the next strike toward another weak point before the first body had even finished falling. The hallway became nothing but snarling corpses, flying blood, shattered bone, and the brutal rhythm of Magnus refusing to surrender even a single step.

The smell of fresh blood hit him at point-blank range.

His heart began hammering violently.

The Blood Moon mechanism responded almost immediately, driving overheated blood through his body faster and faster until his muscles felt swollen with pressure. A Berserker crashed directly into Magnus’s chest and sank its teeth against his combat uniform and flesh, forcing him backward two steps before he regained his footing. Before he could counterattack, several more slammed into him together.

Magnus’s back struck the wall.

The Stone Sledgehammer and his right hand were trapped between his body, the weapon handle, and the crushing weight of the Berserkers pressing against him. Rotten hands clawed over his shoulders and arms while several heads snapped desperately toward any exposed flesh they could reach. Pain exploded across his body as bites, scratches, impacts, and the pressure against his trapped hand began stacking together.

“Damn it!”

Magnus gritted his teeth.

The remaining Berserkers swarmed him.

A dozen or more bodies crowded the narrow space, crawling over one another in an attempt to reach his neck and face. Magnus could barely move the hammer, and pain shot through his right wrist and forearm every time the creatures shifted their weight. His vision deepened from red to almost crimson.

Then something inside him broke loose.

“AAAH!”

Magnus roared.

His body visibly expanded.

Muscles swelled until his frame looked nearly one and a half times its normal size, while veins rose across his arms, chest, and neck like thick cords beneath the skin. His boots dug into the floor, and with a violent surge of Strength, Magnus drove both arms forward and forced the mass of Berserkers away from him. Several were thrown bodily across the room and slammed headfirst into the opposite wall.

Crunch!

Skulls cracked against stone.

Magnus could barely feel his right hand anymore.

He didn’t care.

Using whatever sensation remained, he clenched the Stone Sledgehammer and put everything he had into one enormous horizontal swing. The barbed hammerhead cut across the cluster in front of him with a heavy whoosh, and for one strange second afterward, the entire group simply remained standing. Their mutilated bodies swayed in place as if they had forgotten what they were supposed to do next.

Then the first headless Berserker fell.

Thud.

Another followed.

Then another.

Within seconds, the remaining Blood Moon Berserkers collapsed across the second floor, finally motionless.

Magnus stood among them, breathing hard enough that every inhale hurt.

Outside the church window, the enormous Blood Moon began fading.

Its crimson light weakened little by little until the unnatural red finally disappeared from the sky, and with it went the violent bloodlust that had been burning through Magnus since evening. His enlarged body slowly returned to normal, muscles shrinking back into their usual shape as the system-driven frenzy released him.

Then the pain arrived.

All at once.

Magnus’s knees nearly buckled.

Weakness flooded through him as if someone had suddenly drained every ounce of energy from his body, while dozens of injuries began screaming for attention now that the Blood Moon rage was gone. He leaned back against the wall, jaw clenched, intending to slide down and rest for even a few seconds.

A growl came from behind him.

Magnus froze.

Another followed.

Then another.

His pale face slowly turned toward the stairs.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

The stairwell was packed with ordinary walkers.

Somewhere during the Blood Moon battle, the rifle fire, church bell, collapsing barricade, and endless fighting had attracted every wandering corpse within hearing distance. Walkers already filled the stairs, while even more shuffled through the main sanctuary below and pushed toward the second floor. Magnus stared at them for a moment, blood running down from somewhere along his scalp.

“I forgot about the regular ones.”

There was no time to understand exactly where so many had come from.

Magnus ripped away the ruined shirt binding his right hand to the Stone Sledgehammer and immediately regretted the movement. Pain shot through the limb so sharply that his vision flashed, and the way the hand hung afterward told him the injury was worse than simple bruising. His right hand was likely fractured.

So Magnus transferred the Stone Sledgehammer to his left.

The first ordinary walker reached the landing.

Magnus swung.

The fight started again.

He no longer had the Blood Moon frenzy feeding his body, and every movement felt slower than it had minutes earlier. Still, Strength Lv8 remained Strength Lv8, and even with his weaker hand he could crush an ordinary walker if he landed cleanly. Magnus backed across the blood-soaked floor, using the corpses already piled around him to slow the newcomers while the Stone Sledgehammer rose and fell over and over again.

One walker dropped.

Then another.

Another took its place.

Magnus stopped counting.

His right arm hung uselessly at his side while the left continued swinging until every muscle from his shoulder to his fingertips burned. Blood covered almost every visible part of his body, mixing his own wounds with the filth from the dead, while the church’s upper floor slowly became buried beneath bodies. The scene looked less like a battlefield and more like something dragged straight out of hell.

Magnus kept fighting.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Eventually, one last walker collapsed beneath the Stone Sledgehammer.

Silence returned.

Magnus stared at the corpse for several seconds before the strength left his legs.

He dropped to the floor.

His left hand wasn’t broken, but it had gone almost completely numb from exhaustion. His right hand throbbed with every heartbeat, his body was covered in scratches and bites, and his vision had begun blurring around the edges. The Stone Sledgehammer lay beside his feet, close enough to touch but suddenly feeling impossibly far away.

Then he heard another growl.

Magnus slowly lifted his head.

One walker remained.

It staggered up the stairs alone, stepping over the bodies of the others as it approached him.

Magnus stared at it in disbelief.

“Didn’t I… kill the last one?”

He reached toward the Stone Sledgehammer.

His fingers barely moved.

“No strength…”

The walker kept coming.

Magnus tried again.

Nothing.

A weapon that had felt lighter than a thick wooden stick after reaching Strength Lv8 now might as well have been bolted to the floor. Magnus’s heart began pounding harder as the walker drew closer and closer, knowing that under normal conditions he could destroy it with a single casual swing. Now he couldn’t even lift the hammer.

“If I just had some strength left…”

Magnus’s eyes suddenly widened.

“Strength…”

Wait.

Strength.

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