"Oh no" Valeria said as she raised her hand to block the attack that was coming her way, the courage in her eyes never fading.
"I like that" she suddenly heard as a hand covered in some kind of black mass appeared in front of her, connecting with the fist that was previously coming her way. Right in front of her, the hand of the null burst into a cloud of blood as it was pushed back.
She turned her head to see Zayden standing beside her. "Told you I'll protect you when you're about to die" Zayden said with a slight smile.
He looked at her level and was slightly surprised. She had already reached level seven, levelling up twice in one battle. That alone shows her talent. He stretched out his hand and a sword appeared in his hand. It was the Grandmaster's sword, a rare sword.
His body shivered as electric current started entering his body. But he refused to let go as this was the moment he needed to act cool.
"I noticed your sword broke so you can have this" Zayden said as he held the sword in front of her.
Valeria was at first surprised when the sword appeared from nowhere, but hearing that he wanted to give it to her, the surprise turned into doubt.
"Are you sure that I can take it?" Valeria asked in doubt
'take it already' Zayden shouted in his mind, but of course he didn't say it out loud
"Yes" he said "I cant use it anyway" he added, his smile already faltering
"Thanks" Valeria said as she took the sword in her hand looking at the stats of the sword. She already planned to return it to Zayden thinking that he made a mistake, but Zayden had already turned around walking a distance away to keep watching over them.
Since she could do nothing at the moment, an excited smile appeared on her face as her attention turned back to the two nulls she was previously fighting.
"Bring it on" Valeria said as she charged at the nulls.
****
A few minutes later, all the nulls were dealt with and they could continue. From this battle alone, most of them managed to level up at least once, with Valeria gaining the most, being one of the two girls to level up twice, the second being Amara.
She was now among the two strongest in the group, ignoring Zayden and his team.
They picked up the spoils from the battle and shared it among themselves according to battle achievement.
"Due to the fact that the levels of the nulls have gone pretty high, the low levelled members of the team wont have a chance to level up if they follow the plan I had in mind previously so some changes will be made" Zayden said
"So the plan now is that we will level up this team of seven to level ten. They wont evolve yet, but we will divide the rest of the group into five teams and have two people power level them to level ten if possible" Zayden said.
Everyone nodded thinking that it was a great idea.
"You guys will reach level ten on the way to the canteen then try to level up the rest of the group as we head back" Zayden said in finality.
With that, everyone continued on their way to the canteen once again.
As they were going, Valeria walked up to Zayden in front of the group holding the sword back to him.
"I think you made a mistake" she said "the sword you gave me is a rare sword and at this point in the apocalypse it is very useful so you should take it back"
"no need to worry, I didn't make a mistake" Zayden said as he smiled slightly
"I really cant use that sword and instead of leaving it to rot away in my ring, it is better I give it to someone that can actually use it" he said
"Thank you so much" Valeria said holding the sword to her chest "I'll definitely pay you back" she added
"no need to think about that right now, just get stronger" Zayden chuckled
****
Fifty minutes of walking later, the group arrived at the college canteen. The canteen was like a big eatery that could be found in a shopping mall.
The group of twenty one were standing a few meters away from the entrance of the canteen, due to the fact that about five chickens, human sized chickens were standing in front of the canteen and looked to be patrolling.
Anyways, just as Zayden thought, five out of the seven people managed to make it to level ten. What was surprising was that Valeria was the first person to make it to that level.
Thanks to the sword that was given to her by Zayden, she got more courage and started actively fighting off stronger nulls overtaking both Aiden and Amara to reach level ten first. Apart from her, the three leaders of the students council managed to reach level ten pretty quickly.
The only dark horse was Soren. He was a bulky African American man with tanned skin, black dreadlocks and brown eyes.
To the surprise of everyone, using martial arts, he managed to defeat a whole lot of nulls becoming the last person to reach level ten among the group of seven.
As for Lucas, due to his tendency to avoid trouble, he got stuck at level seven. No body really cared about him as they were thinking of how to get stronger.
Now back to the present.
"Myself, Darian, Tyrel and Dare will take on the mutant beast in front of the canteen" Zayden said "they are all level thirteen and due to the fact that you guys have not evolved, the exp will be used to give you guys rewards if you managed to mistakenly kill one of the mutant beasts. So we'll take it from here"
"The level tens should protect the rest of the team until we get back" Zayden said
"Ok" they replied.
The team of four broke off the rest of the group and headed toward the mutant chickens. These chickens were human sized with a red glowing horn on their head.
[Mutant Fire Breathing Horned Chicks]
[Level 13]
Checking the information of one of the chickens, Tyrel couldn't help but exclaim
"Fire breathing chicken" he said
Without a need for confirmation, he shot a bullet at one of the chicken, bringing their attention to them.
"Come get us you nuggets" Tyrel taunted
As if understanding what Tyrel said, the five chicken charged at the group of four, their eyes ablaze with fury. But Zayden and his team weren't just going to sit down and wait to be killed by this group of chicken nuggets, so they attacked back.
Darian equipped his two battle axes, a red aura covering them, Dare turned his nanobots into a submachine gun just like Tyrel's shooting out volleys of bullets at the chicken.
Both Zayden and Darian charged at the chicken with Tyrel and Dare staying back. And so started a battle between humans and their food.
Without wasting any time, Zayden threw a punch at one of the chicken sending it flying into the air. He didn't even give it time to catch its breath as he jumped to high into the air that it was humanly impossible.
Just like before, he punched the chicken into the ground forming a small crater. The chicken quickly stood up and opened up its mouth, the horn on its head glowing a fierce red color.
It opened up its beak as if preparing for a special attack. One could see a slight orange color in its beak threatening to come out.
"BKAAW"
From its beak, a red beam of fire came out heading towards Zayden at a fast speed. With a slight smirk, Zayden channeled his oblivion flux into his hand, activating his flux coat at thirty percent capacity.
Without batting an eye, Zayden punched the beam of fire. The impact of the beam pushed him back kicking up some dirt behind him but he ultimately managed to block the attack. Without even pausing he deactivated his flux coat and charged at the chicken.
Once close enough, he swung a punch at the chicken. It was strong enough for it to feel the pain but not hard enough to send it flying.
Zayden kept up punching the chicken until its head was a bloody pulp and a system notification appeared in front of him.
[+50% EXP]
Zayden finally stopped punching it and removed a smooth red shard from the head of the chicken.
[Mutant Fire Breathing Horned Chick Power Shard]
A power shard was the source of power of a mutant beast. It only forms in the head of beast that are level ten or above. Since the beast is unable to contract constellations, it was the universe's way of evening things out. By the time it reach level fifty, the power shard would have formed a power crystal.
Zayden put the shard in his ring and went after the rest of the chicken