Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 75: City of Fear

But the most haunting thing about the corpses arraying themselves before me were their eyes. They glowed a deep, calling violet. Those pupils seemed to flare in time with the weight in the air, all attention focusing on me.

I barely had time to react as twin blades of wind scythed toward me. I flipped sideways, allowing each blade to narrowly pass by, but a sphere of sturdy stone nearly hit me. Instead, I used a telekinetic push to fling myself toward a lamp pole nearby.

I balanced precariously on the pole, just in time to notice several of the zombies point their hands toward me lethargically. My eyes widened in surprise as fireballs and shards of metal blurred in my direction.

I threw up a wall of pushing force, deflecting many of the errant metal shards. When the fireball reached me, however, I caught it in one hand, feeling the heat sear at my telekinetic barrier. I threw the fireball back down like the world's most lethal baseball, aiming for one of the closer zombies.

A wall of ice arose to block the attack, causing a slight puff of steam. I glanced to the side, seeing another corpse–this one looking barely female, with long, decaying hair and without an arm. That one had acted to protect the other.

It snarled a guttural, grating sound. Like that of nails being drawn over a chalkboard, yet somehow even worse.

Blades of cutting wind soared toward me once more, shearing through the metal pole I stood on. It toppled forward, taking me with it. Yet I let myself fall toward the cluster of living corpses, instead conjuring a handful of fireshot around my head.

Some of the zombies moved exceptionally quickly, some lingering trace of mana empowering their bodies. I focused on them as the metal pole fell.

I let my fireshot fly with a burst of telekinesis, simultaneously drawing Oath and Promise. I sent out a plume of fire as a wave of frost, wind, and earth cascaded toward me, conjured by half a dozen ragged zombies.

My fire was quickly overwhelmed by the many spells, but it allowed me to use my telekinetic pushes to vault over the approaching tide of mana.

I surveyed the damage my spells caused in that split instant, feeling a wave of disappointment. I noticed a few smoking holes in the rotting bodies where my attacks had struck, but no blood seeped from their wounds. One of my fireshot spells had punched a hole straight through a corpse's chest, a gaping void where the lungs should be. Yet it pulled itself forward, undeterred.

I landed solidly, deflecting an errant blow from a corpse swinging an axe. The hit had a surprising amount of power behind it, but the blow was sloppy. Before I could follow up, another volley of attacks carved divots in the earth as the multi-elemental barrage soared toward me from every side.

I deftly spun my saber, the cutting edge suffused with mana that enhanced its sharpness. It sheared straight through the axe-wielding zombie's neck, but I had to immediately throw a telekinetic push against the ground to avoid being overwhelmed.

The spells clashed in a whirlwind of force right where I had been a moment before, the shockwave ripping through the air. The attacks made my leap out of the way twist slightly into a tumble, making me need to reorient as I tumbled.

That made me unable to react when a stream of fire impacted me midair, blowing me off to the side. I crashed into the concrete with a thud, cracking the stone. My telekinetic shroud shuddered, but held firm. I twisted deftly to get my feet under me, lashing out with an indiscriminate wave of fire to clear the area.

The corpses around me were scorched, pushed back with snarls and clicking teeth. They tumbled over each other as the force rippled outward, bodies falling over in a pile of limbs.