The fight had been brutal!
If Lex was honest with himself, he had come close to dying. Far too close!
The blue zombie's sudden burst of speed had nearly caught him off guard, and if his timing had been even slightly slower, his throat would have been torn out.
Thankfully, Lex was still alive, and that alone felt like a victory worth acknowledging to him.
'I will be more alert from now on,' Lex thought firmly, making sure the lesson stayed with him.
Carelessness was deadly in a world like this, and he had no intention of becoming another mindless corpse roaming the halls.
With that settled, Lex turned his head and looked toward Victoria. "They cannot see you, right?" he asked, keeping his voice steady.
"Ding dong!" Victoria said brightly, clapping her hands together. "You get a hundred points for the correct answer! Only you can see me. As for why… maybe I will tell you if you bless me with a child."
Lex's expression turned pink for a split second as he heard those words...
Then he turned away without saying a word and started walking toward the exit of the room, deciding that silence was the safest response.
Behind him, Victoria laughed, clearly enjoying herself.
The noise from the battle had been significant. Bone had cracked, bodies had slammed into the floor, and heavy objects had struck with enough force to echo through the corridor. There was no chance that kind of disturbance had gone unnoticed.
More zombies would definitely be on their way, according to Lex. So he stepped out of the room and carefully scanned the hallway.
He was on the tenth floor of New York Hospital, once considered one of the best medical centers in the world. The place was enormous, spread across multiple buildings and surrounded by acres of land, with long corridors branching endlessly in every direction.
Calling it a hospital almost felt inaccurate. It was more like a small city.
The hallway ahead of Lex was not empty.
Several zombies wandered between overturned carts and flickering lights, their movements slow and uneven. Most of them were wearing torn nurse uniforms or stained patient gowns, their faces slack and lifeless, yet driven by the same relentless hunger.
Lex observed them carefully and counted in his head.
Ten.
"That is manageable," he muttered quietly, though he did not let his guard down.
He bent down and picked up a jagged shard of broken glass from the floor without any hesitation.
Victoria watched him closely, curiosity evident in her eyes.
Lex drew the shard across his palm in a controlled motion, making a long, clean cut. Blood immediately welled up and began to drip from his hand, warm and vivid against his skin.
'This is the best moment to test my abilities,' he thought calmly, ignoring the pain.
If blood manipulation was going to be useful, it was better to learn its limits now rather than when he was cornered with no way out. With more stats, he had confidence, which he was lacking earlier.
Victoria hovered nearby, observing silently. She did not interfere or offer advice. She simply watched, like a bored god observing an ant struggle through an interesting experiment.
Lex focused his mind and willed the blood dripping from his palm to change shape, recalling the short description he had read in his status earlier.
The blood trembled as if responding to his thoughts, then slowly began to move, as it tried to form into a thin needle.
But it did not go well!
The shape that formed was warped and uneven, nothing like the clean, sharp needle Lex had imagined. It wobbled in place, unstable and barely holding together.
Maintaining even that distorted form felt like trying to balance a heavy weight on the tip of a finger to Lex.
"Damn, this is hard," he muttered quietly.
The truth became clear almost immediately. Lex's control over blood manipulation was extremely fragile. Making something small required precision far beyond what he could manage right now, and even attempting it caused a dull ache to spread behind his eyes.
The longer Lex forced the shape to remain, the worse the pain became, until it was obvious that pushing further would only end with him collapsing from mental strain.
Lex let the blood lose its shape and drip back down.
If fine control was impossible, then he would simply stop trying to be precise.
Without wasting any more time, Lex dragged the shard of glass across his left arm again and again, carving deep, deliberate cuts into his own flesh.
SLASH!
SLASH!
Thick streams of blood poured freely from Lex's arm, soaking through his sleeve and dripping onto the floor below. This time, Lex did not try to shape the blood into anything small. Instead, he willed it to gather and harden around his forearm, forcing it to take on a large and brutal form.
The response was immediate.
The blood obeyed Lex with disturbing ease, flowing smoothly and solidifying into a heavy spearhead that wrapped around his arm. The weapon looked crude, but it radiated a dangerous pressure.
Lex could feel its weight clearly, as if it were an extension of his own body.
But, there was a problem! It consumed a massive amount of blood.
Thankfully, though, Lex's blood was far denser than normal, with a single drop carrying the equivalent of ten whole drops!
Even so, Lex knew that recklessness would still kill him. No matter how strong his ability was, blood loss was blood loss.
'What kind of twisted joke is this? I spent my whole life stuck in a hospital because I never had enough blood, and now even my ability demands more of it. Blood. Blood. Blood.'
The irony almost made Lex laugh.
Almost.
He then leaned forward and burst into motion, charging straight toward the zombies. With eleven points in Agility and fifteen in Strength, Lex was not fully superhuman yet, but the difference from before was obvious.
His body moved smoothly and decisively, every step powerful as the distance between him and the nearest zombie disappeared in seconds.
Lex drove the blood spear straight into the first zombie's stomach, piercing through rotted flesh and bone as if there were no resistance at all. Before the body could even hit the floor, Lex twisted away and rushed toward the next target without slowing down.
The zombies finally reacted, drawn by the noise and movement, and began turning toward Lex in a clumsy rush. Their attacks came late and uncoordinated, their bodies too slow to keep up.
It did not matter.
Against a level three opponent with a dangerous ability, they were nothing more than sitting ducks. Lex swung his arm again and again, and the blood spear sliced through decayed bodies effortlessly, cutting them apart as if they were made of soft clay.
The edge was terrifyingly sharp!
Even Lex had not expected it to be this sharp!
With every strike, Lex adapted faster, his movements growing more efficient and confident. It felt disturbingly natural, as if Lex had done this many times before, even though he knew that could not be true.
As the last body collapsed, Lex heard the crying of a child.
"Someone! Please save me."