But despite all of that, Lex reacted immediately for his survival!
He bent down and lifted Samuel into his arms, moving with deliberate slowness despite the weakness spreading through his body.
As Samuel instinctively tried to speak, Lex covered the boy's mouth with his hand and shook his head slightly, his eyes conveying a clear warning. Samuel stiffened as he understood that Lex was telling him to stay quiet before nodding faintly.
Lex stayed silent. From what he had observed earlier, these zombies relied entirely on sound.
They did not track movement well, nor did they seem capable of proper visual recognition. Noise was their only trigger. If he and Samuel remained completely silent for long enough, there was a real chance the monster would lose interest.
Lex retreated step by step toward the far corner of the room, keeping his movements slow and controlled.
Once there, he positioned himself and Samuel behind a cabinet that hardly had enough space for two. Lex's back pressed against the cold wall as he forced his breathing to remain calm, even as his heart threatened to pound out of his chest.
The mutated zombie entered the room fully now!
Each of its heavy steps crushed broken corpses beneath its feet, producing wet, nauseating sounds that echoed throughout the room. The creature moved toward the area where Lex had been fighting earlier, drawn by the lingering noise.
Lex watched without blinking. He wondered if he could take the zombie on if he poured his extra stats, which he had gained for levels up, into mana.
If Lex had to guess, the mutated zombie in front of him had at least fifty points in strength! It was built for destruction only. In comparison, Lex called up his status screen to check his stats.
[Lex Wintoff]
[Status Points: 15 | Level: 7 | Race: Ghoul | Job: None | Title: None]
[Strength: 32 | Agility: 31 | Health: 5(6) | Endurance: 6 | Mana: 1 (27)]
Lex had gained five levels from the two battles he had fought earlier, but instead of feeling satisfied, a quiet sense of concern settled in his mind.
He had noticed that the experience gain had dropped drastically. Killing level one zombies now barely gave him anything, whether in stats or growth, and they felt increasingly insignificant.
If he invested all his remaining status points into Strength, he could at best barely contend with the mutated zombie head-on.
However, brute force was not his greatest problem at the moment. Mana was. With only a single point remaining, even staying conscious was becoming difficult. For now, Lex forced himself to stay still and observe, knowing that impatience would get him killed faster than any monster.
The mutated zombie reached the blood-soaked center of the room and came to a stop, its massive frame looming over the carnage.
It remained there for a full minute, completely unmoving, as its head slowly tilted from side to side. The four arms hanging from its torso twitched occasionally while its chest rose and fell with deep, rumbling breaths, as though it were struggling to understand where its prey had disappeared.
It resembled a predator that had suddenly lost its trail.
Samuel trembled in Lex's arms, but he did not make a sound. Lex kept his hand firmly over the boy's mouth while his own muscles burned from strain, dizziness creeping closer as his mana hovered dangerously low.
Then the situation took a sudden turn!
The zombie stopped relying on sound and inhaled deeply, releasing a distorted, exaggerated sniff that echoed through the room. Its nose twitched violently as it processed the air, and within seconds, its head snapped toward Lex's hiding place. It had caught their scent.
Unlike other zombies who couldn't smell, it was different!
Before Lex could react, the creature charged forward.
The cabinet concealing them was ripped from the ground and flung aside with terrifying ease, exposing both of them completely. Lex barely had time to mutter a weak curse before the mutated zombie lunged at him.
It grabbed Lex with its upper pair of arms and smashed him into the floor repeatedly, using overwhelming force as if he were nothing more than a broken doll. It dangerously reminded of the scene of a green guy beating the god of mischief!
Each impact twisted Lex's body unnaturally, pain exploding through him as blood sprayed from his whole body, and his vision blurred violently.
After battering him for several agonizing seconds, the zombie finally threw Lex aside, leaving him barely conscious and soaked in his own blood.
The next sound Lex registered was crying.
Samuel's sobs echoed through the room as he stared at Lex's broken body, terror and helplessness completely overwhelming him. For a ten-year-old, Samuel had shown incredible courage by remaining silent for so long, but witnessing Lex being beaten so brutally was more than he could endure.
With shaking hands and tear-filled eyes, Samuel picked up a small steel pipe from the floor and rushed toward the zombie. His legs trembled with fear, yet he still swung the pipe again and again, striking the monster with everything he had.
Despite the pain tearing through his body, Lex managed a faint smile.
"Stupid kid, thank you," he muttered quietly.
In that instant, Lex poured all fifteen of his remaining status points into Mana, forcing it to surge from one to sixteen in a single moment. The crushing headache vanished almost immediately, clarity flooding back into his mind as strength returned to his limbs.
At the same time, the zombie grabbed Samuel and lifted him into the air, seemingly irritated by the boy's pointless resistance.
That was the opening Lex had been waiting for.
He gathered every drop of blood the zombie had spilled of him earlier, forcing it to obey his will as it surged toward his hand and condensed rapidly. This time, the process was far more demanding than before, consuming a large amount of blood as the weapon took shape.
What formed was not a crude construct, but a fully refined blood spear.
As soon as the spear solidified, Lex pushed himself to his feet and hurled it forward with everything he had.
"Samuel, spread your legs!" he shouted.
The spear pierced straight through the zombie's back and burst out through its chest, narrowly missing Samuel's nuts as dark green blood sprayed across the room.
Lex did not stop there…
He formed four additional spears in midair before launching them one after another. Each spear struck true, tearing through each one of the zombie's arms with brutal precision.
With all four limbs severed, the mutated zombie finally released Samuel as its massive body collapsed heavily onto the floor.
This time, it did not rise again.