The heavy concrete encrusted blade of the Earth Sword connected with Higgins' mutated ribcage. It made the sickening undeniable sound of a butcher cleaver hitting a rack of ribs.
THWACK!
Sebastian did not just swing the weapon. He drove his hips into the motion to utilize the newly synchronized muscle density that was rapidly hardening beneath his skin. The kinetic force of the blow was devastating!
The blade did not slice cleanly through the Infected neighbor. Instead the sheer blunt trauma of the slag iron edge shattered Higgins' sternum and collapsed the front of his chest cavity entirely.
The bloated monster was thrown backward by the impact. His heavy boots left skid marks on the cheap floor.
BAM!
Higgins crashed violently against the hallway wall outside the apartment and the drywall buckled under his massive mutating weight.
He did not scream in pain. The Void corruption had already severed whatever human nervous system remained.
Higgins merely let out a wet gargling hiss. Thick black blood bubbled up over his lips as he desperately tried to push himself back up.
Sebastian stepped through the shattered doorway of his apartment. The heavy Earth Sword rested comfortably in a one handed grip at his side. He stared down at the struggling creature.
Suddenly a translucent blue interface window forcefully rendered itself directly over Sebastian's physical field of vision. It was not projected from a VR helmet. It was burned straight into his optic nerves!
[Ding!]
[Combat Engaged. Real World Integration Active.]
[Target: Infected Human (Level 3)]
"Level 3?" Sebastian muttered dryly. "You've been grinding while I was asleep, Higgins. I'm almost proud of you, you bastard."
Another chime echoed in his skull.
[Real World Kill Confirmed. Synchronization: 5 Percent. EXP Gained.]
Sebastian narrowed his eyes at the prompt. The math was incredibly stingy. In the Ethereal Plane killing a Level 3 mob would yield a decent chunk of experience for a beginner.
Here in the physical world the conversion rate was drastically reduced. The system was forcing him to earn his progression all over again by taxing his real world actions.
But 5 percent synchronization meant 5 percent of his digital stats were now his biological reality. He was already stronger and faster and infinitely more durable than any elite human athlete!
Higgins finally managed to push himself onto his hands and knees. The creature's jaw snapped wildly. It was completely unhinged on the left side. A string of foul smelling yellow saliva swung from its teeth.
The monster lunged and blindly snapped its jaws right at Sebastian's ankle.
Sebastian did not even blink. He smoothly raised the heavy Earth Sword and brought it down in a brutal vertical execution strike.
The jagged concrete fused tip of the broadsword drove directly into the center of Higgins' balding skull.
CRUNCH!
The sound was nauseatingly wet and loud. The blade split the bone effortlessly and drove deep into the brain pan. It pinned the Infected firmly to the hallway floor.
Sebastian did not stop there. The game logic dictated that an Infected was not truly dead until the corrupted neural center was entirely pulverized. He grabbed the hilt with both hands and viciously twisted the blade.
Bone splinters sharp as shrapnel exploded outward. A thick grey slurry of rotting brain matter and coagulated black blood sloughed out of the massive wound. It spilled over the blade and pooled onto the hallway carpet.
The monster's body went entirely rigid. A violent electrical spasm seized its limbs for a fraction of a second. Then the biological functions completely ceased.
With a horrendous, wet tearing sound, the corpse voided its bowels. SQUELCH.
Instantly the narrow apartment corridor was filled with a suffocating eye watering stench. It was a putrid combination of rotting meat and copper heavy blood and the raw biological filth of voided feces.
"Ah, That's absolutely disgusting," Sebastian coughed, waving a hand in front of his face.
He pressed his boot firmly against Higgins' shoulder and wrenched the Earth Sword free with a wet noise.
He did not gag. He did not vomit. The smell of the apocalypse was something you never truly forgot no matter how many times you died. It was the scent of humanity failing.
He stood in the flickering fluorescent light of the hallway and let the heavy blade rest against his shoulder. He took stock of his surroundings.
His apartment complex was a massive concrete block housing hundreds of people. Right now it was descending into absolute slaughter!
From the floors above and below him a horrific sound of panic was echoing through the stairwells. He heard the muffled frantic screams of a woman begging for her life. The screams were abruptly cut short by the sickening sound of wet tearing and a guttural animalistic roar.
He heard doors being battered down. Glass shattering. Bang! Bang! Bang! The unmistakable frantic gunfire of someone emptying a civilian-issue handgun into a target that simply refused to die.
The First Wave was here!
The system was not just dropping Level 30 World Bosses. It was subtly mutating the weak and the sick and the compromised into Tier 0 monsters to cull the population. It was a stress test for the server and the server was Earth.
Sebastian did not feel the urge to run upstairs and save his neighbors. He knew the statistics. Ninety percent of them were already dead. They just had not stopped breathing yet.
He turned back and stepped into his ruined apartment. He needed to prepare.
The Earth Sword was a fantastic manifestation but keeping it anchored in reality was slowly sipping away at his limited real world mana pool. With his Nexus Glitch his Ethereal Plane mana was practically infinite thanks to his alchemy exploit.
But here his physical body was the battery. If he drained his mana to zero in reality he would experience a catastrophic cellular burnout!
He needed a mundane weapon to conserve his energy.
He walked over to his cluttered closet and kicked the door open. He dug past a pile of dirty laundry and empty ration boxes. His hand closed around the grip of an old heavy duty aluminum baseball bat he kept for home defense.
He pulled it out and tested the weight in his hands. It lacked the conceptual lethality of his God Slayer Edge passive. But with his 5 percent synced physical strength a metal pipe was more than enough to crush a Tier 0 skull.
He walked back to the desk and grabbed a roll of duct tape. With practiced efficient movements he tightly wrapped the grip of the bat to create a non slip surface. Blood made everything incredibly slippery and losing his weapon mid swing was a rookie mistake he was not going to repeat.
He slipped the roll of tape into his pocket and grabbed a small flashlight. He attached a simple clip to his belt and secured the bat against his hip.
He looked around the miserable cramped room one last time. The neon sign outside was still buzzing with a green light that contrasted horribly with the blood red sky.
"Well, I'm not gonna miss the damn rent payments," Sebastian murmured.
He stepped back out into the hallway and left the twitching defecating corpse of Higgins behind.
He needed to get to the warehouse district. He needed to plant the City Core and establish the Sanctuary. But more importantly he needed a crafter. He needed supplies. He needed a massive influx of capital to build the turrets before the Phase Spiders realized there was a new player on the board.
The stairwell door at the end of the hall was violently dented inward. It looked as if something the size of a car had repeatedly rammed against it.
Sebastian pulled the aluminum bat from his belt and let the heavy metal rest lightly in his right hand. He walked toward the stairwell as his silver tinged eyes scanned the shadows.