Buke pulled out what looked like a fairly large pipe from his back. It was a solid piece of metal he had picked from one of the cars. Buke had noticed many such things lying on the ground beside corpses on his way to the supermarket. Clearly, the people had brought them for protection, but unfortunately, they couldn’t survive. Among the various weapons, he found a pipe. It was similar to the bat he previously had, but this one felt lighter in his hands for some reason.

“So this is what you’ve decided? You’ve decided to kill your friends?!” Zain shouted back.

“Friends? Both of my friends are dead. There is a new world out there, and I must protect myself and make sure you two can rest.” Buke retorted as he ran forward.

Thinking quickly, Zain needed to know what to do, he had knives, and with only a pair of short weapons on him, he was at a disadvantage.

‘First, I need to get Skittle out of here. I vowed I would protect him.’

Using the system, Zain set Skittle to attack one of the dead bodies. Skittle moved out of the way and walked towards one of the cars. After, he quickly gave the stay command, making him stay put. At that moment, Buke had already reached Zain and swung the pipe down.

Zain lifted his forearm to block the attack, and when the metal pipe hit him, it bent around his arm. An attack like this before would have broken his arm, but his evolved body and the increased resistance seemed to have done the trick._.

“I see you’ve gotten stronger. You must have also realised it, but you’re not the only one!” Zain dropped his knives onto the ground and kicked the large teen in the stomach. It caused Buke to lean forward slightly, and seeing this opportunity, Zain threw his arm underneath, delivering an uppercut right to his chin.

Buke stumbled back, but he quickly got up from the ground. The blow rattled his head a bit, but he recovered fast.

“Can’t you see I don’t want to hurt you? Why do you think I dropped my weapons?” Zain asked.

Immediately, Buke got up from the floor and charged forward, going for a tackle. In a battle of strength, even though Zain had a lot of it, he wasn’t sure who would win, so at the last second, he spun to the side and avoided the incoming attack like one would avoid a bull.

The momentum of his body had carried him forward, and with his upper body weight moving forward, Buke stumbled once again and crashed into one of the car doors, leaving a deep dent. Seeing this made Zain thankful that he hadn’t taken that head-on.

“Are you not even listening to me anymore?” Zain asked.

Buke stood up while shaking his head. And then looked towards the door, found its side, and began to pull.

“Everything I’m seeing right now is proving more and more that you’re a monster!” Buke shouted, pulling the broken car door off its hinge and ready to throw it at his old friend.

‘He thinks I’m the monster? Does he not even see what he’s doing right now? I’m afraid that…Buke might be too far lost, but I don’t want to lose another friend.’

Zain began to run forward and saw that Buke had lifted the car door above his head. And without hesitation, he hurled it towards Zain.

There was no time to dodge, so Zain moved his body so the door would collide against his shoulder. The door bashed against Zain, pushing him off his feet, and after a long while, the familiar system prompt appeared in front of him again.

[Your shoulder is broken]

[Would you like to use your energy to heal your wounds?]

‘I have to. I can’t take it easy in this fight. In some ways, this is more difficult than the stage 2 Zombie because I don’t want to kill him!’

[40/100 Energy]

‘After all this fighting, I lost a lot of energy. The wounds from before, then during this fight, and now this, I…I need to this fight right now!’

Zain pushed on the door, lifted it, and threw it to the side. His strength was still there, but his body wasn’t responding as fast as he would have liked.

[Body functionality: 74/100]

Once again, Zain ran forward, and as he did, he leaned down, picking something up off the ground.

Buke decided to stay next to the car, waiting for the right moment to tackle the former. When he threw out a fist, Zain threw something out of his hand, and a knife passed right through the palm of Buke’s hand.

“There’s a big difference between you and me; I don’t feel pain anymore!” Zain noticed that Buke had flinched.

He charged forward and punched Buke in the chest, shoving his back against the car. Zain then stepped on his knee and jumped up, gaining additional momentum. When he was in the air, he punched Buke right across the face, sending his head spinning to the side with a mouth full of blood. He laid on the ground and breathed heavily.

Zain looked at him for a while, and it didn’t look like he was going to get up. He was far too hurt.

“I already lost a friend today. I don’t want to lose another…but you forced me to do this. Whatever happens to you from now is up to you.” Zain said as he walked away, and Skittle followed.

In a blurry vision, Buke saw his two friends exit the car parking in the distance.

“I already lost all my friends…and it was because of these damn Zombies like you…I will make sure to get rid of every single Zombie in the world no matter what I have to do!”

It had been a while, but both Zain and Skittle had long gone out of Buke’s view, and suddenly the sound of growls resonated throughout the car parking lot, which could only mean one thing, that zombies were coming towards him.

“I…I can’t die like this. I won’t die like this!” Buke said to himself, and something strange started to occur, a complete change in Buke’s body. It felt like bugs were crawling all over him, and looking at his arm, something strange was happening.

“It’s happened a bit sooner than I thought, but it looks like someone was a success.” A male voice was heard, and Buke could see the shoes of a man. “It looks like the other one is doing better than I thought as well. We will see who was right in the end.”

*****

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