Novel Full 173 Fighting blind
“Wha…”
Mathew blinked his eyes a few times while stepping to the back. Yet, he was forced to quickly stop his retreat when pulling on the handle of his saber proved not to do anything.
‘I can’t pull it out?’ the young man thought. Blinded by the light that exploded from the zombie’s eyes, he couldn’t even see the reason why his saber was stuck.
Yet, in this tense moment, Mathew had no other choice but to swallow his pride and let go of his weapon, taking several steps to the back before the zombie could do one better over him.
“Mathew!” Nadia shouted from the side. From the few sounds that remained in the area after Mathew’s group cleaned most of the zombies out, the young man could tell that she was sprinting… But where?
‘Can she even see me?’ he thought, taking yet another step to the back. “Stay away!” Mathew then shouted, unwilling to let the girl risk her health in a haphazard attempt of helping him.
‘If she’s blinded as well, I can’t let them get any closer,’ he thought, gritting his teeth as he lowered his eyelids. Mathew could only hope that keeping his eyes closed would let them regenerate faster. Yet, what he didn’t expect, was that by closing his eyes, all his other senses suddenly became more sensitive, allowing him to somehow make out what was going on around him.
A fleeting feeling of the wind brushing against Mathew’s face caused him to juke to the side. Yet, Mathew wasn’t used to using his other senses in place for his eyes. And an extremely sharp, hot feeling that then blossomed on his cheek was the perfect proof of that.
‘Die,’ the young man thought, turning the palms of his hands in the direction he sensed the attack coming from.
Yet, right as the young man was about to unleash the barrage of mana bolts in the direction he believed the zombie to be in… He stopped.
‘I can’t see. Meaning, I don’t know if the girls aren’t too close,’ he thought, gritting his teeth as he fully fell to the ground and rolled away.
Mathew blinked his eyes again. And thankfully, they were recovering quickly, allowing him to recognize the general shapes of stuff before him. The images were blurry and merged with each other, but at the current rate, it would take less than half a minute for the young man’s eyes to fully regenerate.
It was just a period of thirty seconds. Yet, this short moment that Mathew wouldn’t pay any attention to in other situations now turned out to be pretty long.
After all, it was one thing to just waste away half a minute doing nothing and survive thirty seconds in an intense fight while being unable to properly see!
“Dodge, right!” A voice reached Mahtew’s ears from his left. Mathew didn’t bother to try to figure out who shouted those words, opting to follow the advice right away.
This time, not only did Mathew feel the surge of wind on his cheek, but he could also see a blurry object roughly the size of a human shifting from side to side before him.
This time, however, no pain followed Mathew’s dodge, proving that his juke was quite effective.
“Get back!” another voice reached Mathew’s ears before he could even get himself up from the bloodied ground. And while his hands slipped on the wet stones of the courtyard, two blurry objects passed right by him, clashing with the blurry object that attacked him before.
“Give me fifteen seconds!” Mathew shouted, obediently crawling back, as far away from the fight as he could on all fours.
Mathew closed his eyes again, counting each passing second.
He could hear the noises of the fight coming from right ahead. He could hear the shouts that the girls would utter whenever unleashing a heavy attack just like he could hear their muffled moans of pain when they would receive an attack themselves.
‘I need to get back to the fight,’ Mathew thought, right as his count reached ten. He opened his eyes again, hoping and praying that they would already recover…
Yet, the reality wasn’t as favorable as the young man would wish for. Sure, the blindness caused by the sudden flash of light that nearly burned through his eyeballs continued to subside, its effects weakening with each passing second… But Mathew’s eyes still needed more time to work properly.
‘I can see everything, but quick movements do elude my eyes,’ he realized, gritting his teeth as he turned around on his back before rolling himself forward and resting on his knees on the ground.
Mathew pushed his upper body forward, once again ending up on all fours.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen…
Mathew continued to count the seconds. And with each second that passed, his dynamic vision continued to revert back to how great it used to be.
‘Fourteen…’ Mathew counted, digging his fingers into a patch of grass fully covered in blood. The earth snuck underneath his fingernails, sending a surge of pain right towards the young man’s brain.
“FIFTEEN!” Mathew shouted the last element of his count, using his strange position to leap forward. He pushed himself off the ground with his legs, only to do the same with his hands. And while his feet slipped on the bloodied stones, his hands gripped the earth well enough to send him flying forward.
Mathew had no weapon in his hand. He couldn’t even tell what happened to his saber or where did it end up at. Yet, that didn’t mean he was out of options.
‘Create the intent just like back then,’ he thought, focusing on the task as he rushed forward, quickly closing the distance that separated him from the target.
Sixteen.
A single second passed from the moment Mathew leaped forward to when he reached the direct proximity of the zombie’s leader. Right now, he could see all the details of the zombie’s rotting face along with all the small injuries the girls inflicted on it.
And then, Mathew swung his hand, with nothing but the blade-reinforcing aura protruding from his hand.
This spell was supposed to just improve the effectiveness of his saber. And yet, even without the weapon in his hand, Mathew still managed to establish an intent capable of creating the very same aura as before!
And with this aura in his hand, he struck right at the exact same spot that he nearly managed to cut with his physical blade before.
“STOP!” One of the girls shouted. Yet, Mathew already invested too much into this one attack. His position, his momentum, the angle of approach… All the minute details that an expert could see in his attack made it impossible for the young man to stop without third-party interference.
“Got…” another girl shouted, grabbing Mathew’s collar. “You!” she finished her sentence, pulling the young man back, right as his aura blade was about to slash the zombie’s neck.
‘What the hell?!’ Mathew protested in his thoughts but opted to keep his dissatisfaction to himself.
Mathew didn’t know the reasons why at least two different girls were against him executing what appeared to be the final attack. Yet, he had enough trust in them to accept the situation and the fact that he didn’t know everything that was going on.
One of the girls grabbed Mathew’s collar and pulled him to the back. Yet, even this act of desperation wasn’t enough, as before the girl could throw the young man to the back, Mathew felt a stinging pain suddenly exploding right below the bone of his left arm.
‘The hell is this?’ the young man only managed to formulate this single thought, when Leila finally managed to pull him away far from the foreign object to force it out of Mathew’s flesh.
“You can’t see them, but it uses extremely long claws!” Leila shouted, using her right hand to fend off the next three attacks.
Leila’s fingers then relaxed their grip over Mathew’s collar, only for the girl to bring her weaker hand back to the fray just in time to block the attack she couldn’t take on her saber.
“I will take the left,” Nadia shouted from somewhere in the courtyard, only to then appeared by the zombie’s side, her arm outstretched as far as her joints allowed.
Yet, even this wasn’t enough to bring the blade of her weapon down on the zombie’s neck.
“It’s mine!” Daria then joined the fray.
Contrary to the others, she didn’t bother with avoiding the zombie’s attack. Instead, her shadowy form wiggled around as she approached the zombie leader directly, allowing its extremely thin yet long claws to freely cut through her body.
‘That mad lass…’ Mathew thought, gritting his teeth.
He could see the blood flowers blossoming on the girl’s back, despite Daria being in her shadowy form.
Yet, what appeared like a stupid, suicidal attack actually turned out to be pretty effective. And at the cost of having her body penetrated by several fang-needles, Daria’s shadowy form managed to reach the zombie only to deprive the zombie of its head with a single swipe of her clawed hand.