With a slight gesture, the door exploded outward, the shattered wood impaling several unfortunate zombies that had been crowding the entrance.
"Alright guys, you know the drill. Try to stay alive and don't cost me another awakened zombie," David said as they burst into motion.
David lunged forward, standing beside Arthur.
"Tamsin, Caleb, Noah, you guys take the rear. Mary and Blessed, you take the left flank. Mark and Eli, right flank. Jonah and Simon, I don't care what your abilities are, but you are at the center," Arthur instructed.
"David and I will hold the frontline and command. At the command of switch, everyone is to swap positions with the opposite or corresponding position. All except the rear and the frontline."
His voice carried across the group.
Holding the zombies back with his force manipulation, everyone immediately moved into position. Amidst the increasing groans of the undead outside the door, David spoke quietly to Arthur.
"Here's a dagger, in case they get too close."
A sleek twenty-five-centimeter dagger appeared in David's hand, and he handed it over.
Arthur took it silently.
'I can't hold this any longer,' he thought.
Using force manipulation instead of a proper force barrier meant the zombies could push through eventually.
The formation was set and everyone was armed, although Arthur's squad lacked proper weapons or armor. Most of what they held were makeshift tools scavenged from the ruined school.
"Everyone ready?" Arthur announced, attracting his rifle and pistol from the corner where he had left them earlier.
David glanced across the group before giving a short nod.
Arthur released the force that had been holding the zombies back.
Immediately they poured through the shattered doorway, some of them even tripping over the bodies of those that had already fallen.
Arthur placed his hands against the ground.
A thin sheet of ice spread outward across the floor.
The zombies that had stumbled inside were frozen mid-motion as they attempted to rise again.
Then the group began their march, walking past the frozen undead like statues carved from decay.
David and Arthur felt no fear.
However, the same could not be said for the rest of their group.
Some hurried past the frozen corpses, refusing to look at them. Others hesitated, visibly disturbed by the sight of motionless zombies trapped within the ice.
A few even froze themselves in place, overwhelmed by the proximity of the creatures, and had to be pulled forward by the others.
"Do we move left or right?" David asked as he watched zombies beginning to close in on them from both sides of the balcony corridor.
"Right," Arthur replied instantly, wasting no time as if he had already planned everything beforehand.
"Rear holders, face backward and take down any threat approaching from behind," Arthur ordered while moving forward with steady precision.
"Fuck that. How do we know where we're stepping if we're facing backward?" Noah protested.
It was then that Arthur noticed the problem.
Several of them were nearly tripping over each other due to uneven walking patterns.
"Everyone take three steps forward," Arthur instructed calmly. "Rear holders take three steps backward. Pause briefly after every set."
The formation adjusted almost immediately.
By the time his instructions were finished, a group of more than fifteen zombies had begun charging toward them.
David smirked and cracked his knuckles.
Arthur shot him a warning glance.
"Don't break the formation."
David simply nodded, his fist glowing with a bright yellow light.
"Although we might be dead after this, come hither undead and feel the wrath of stars," David declared with theatrical enthusiasm.
Then they crashed into the horde.
Arthur was not trained with a weapon like a dagger. It was an unfamiliar tool in his hand, and his movements lacked finesse.
But efficiency replaced elegance.
He stabbed and slashed the level one zombies with ruthless practicality.
The blade's sharpness surprised him. It sliced through rotten flesh and brittle bone like a warm knife through butter.
A few times he used the dagger defensively when a zombie managed to get too close to him.
The group's forward movement slowed significantly as the battle intensified.
Arthur shoved one zombie against the balcony railing and drove the dagger into its chest repeatedly, even though he knew it would not kill the creature.
Grabbing the body, he hurled it into another approaching zombie.
In the same motion he turned and sliced the second zombie's head off before it could reach him.
Stepping aside, he caught another zombie by the neck and twisted its body violently.
What followed was gruesome.
Arthur drove the dagger repeatedly into the back of the zombie's skull, carving deep slashes into the decaying flesh.
Then he slammed the corpse against the railing.
Its head hung there awkwardly as Arthur continued stabbing with relentless force.
While David's attacks were devastating and explosive, Arthur's were brutal and methodical.
It was as if he had temporarily dropped his calm and efficient façade in order to prove something to those around him.
Because he was not using mana during most of his attacks, his fatigue rose at a slower pace.
Eventually the last zombie in the group collapsed.
The immediate area fell silent.
Everyone stood there breathing heavily.
Each of them was covered in a thick sludge of zombie blood.
Fortunately, those holding the frontline had prevented any undead from breaking through to the rear.
The rear holders had also managed to deal with the zombies approaching from behind.
Thirteen of them.
All by themselves.
Considering they only had makeshift weapons and no armor, the feat was impressive.
'Ethan really selected the most capable,' Arthur thought.
"Rest easy. Gather your strength for thirty seconds, then we move again," Arthur announced.
He walked over to Tamsin, who was already rummaging through the corpses.
Standing quietly behind her, he startled her when he spoke.
"Did you find anything when you searched the first time?"
Tamsin jumped slightly before calming herself.
"Well… I barely searched before, so I didn't find anything."
"How do you find these drops?" Arthur asked.
"Because of my ability," she explained. "I keep noticing prompts appearing above the dead bodies. But generally, if someone looks carefully, they'll notice a glowing orb slightly beneath the corpses."
Arthur's lips curved into a dark smirk.
"The remark was taken. Your information was useful."
He crouched beside her and flipped one of the bodies over.
"Arthur! You just found a drop! Check what it is!" Blessed exclaimed excitedly, like a child who had just been given a bright new dress.
Beneath the corpse rested a glowing yellow orb.
Arthur picked it up and studied it for a moment before crushing it in his palm.
The orb shattered into sparks of light.
"What did you get?" Blessed asked eagerly before the system prompt even appeared.
[ You have received your first item: Tool ]
[ Grey Sight ]
[ Check your inventory to equip ]
"Nothing major," Arthur replied casually.
He rose slowly, the distant groans of zombies reminding him of their current situation.
"I'm not sure there are any more drops other than the one I just found," he told Tamsin.
Clapping his hands once, he walked back toward David.
"Everyone back into position. Our survival depends on your compliance."
The group quickly reformed their formation.
They resumed moving beneath the pale moonlight that spilled across the balcony.
'At least this one doesn't freeze people,' Arthur thought briefly.
His mind drifted momentarily to the lethal sunlight they had experienced earlier.
In silence the group moved across the four overlapping balconies on the third floor.
Their goal was simple.
Find the stairs leading down.
"You guys have been here for three days," Arthur said irritably. "Explain why you still haven't located the stairs to the second floor."
The group slowed their march.
David rubbed his face in frustration.
"We can't find the obvious stairs. Great. Things can't go as planned for once."
He paused before continuing.
"The only reasonable path is to take the third floor hallway. And trust me, it's as deadly as it sounds."
"Yep," Simon added for the first time. "That's the same reason the ground floor has that narrow corridor with no lockers. If it did, God knows what part of hell we'd be exploring right now."
David shot him a dangerous look.
"I told you to—"
Before he could finish speaking, Arthur muttered a quiet curse.
In one swift motion he hurled the dagger in his hand.
The blade shot across the balcony and struck a stalking zombie.
The corpse slammed into the far wall with a sickening crack.
'Weapon augmentation is the way,' Arthur thought with a faint smile.
With a simple gesture, the dagger flew back into his hand.
Arthur tossed it back toward David.
David caught the blood-covered blade.
"Your mumbling has attracted them," Arthur said coldly. "Now lead the way before we turn into zombie fodder."