Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

“How in all hells…” Mathew muttered.

His eyes followed the centipede’s head that Leila cleanly cut off with a single slash.

The bloody chunk of meat moved through a wide arc, spraying blood all over the place.

‘Huh?’ Mathew thought. He could feel his legs weakening.

‘Was this supposed to be that easy?’ he thought, his hands trembling.

The severed head drew its arc and fell to the ground. It then tumbled across the rubble.

The sound of the centipede’s head appeared in complete silence as if no other sound dared to make itself known.

‘Wait, what?’ Mathew forced his eyes away from the bloodied chunk, turning it back on the scene of action.

For but a second, the world appeared to freeze. All the zombies stood in place.

In that single instant, they seemingly all lost interest in the events from before.

‘Huh?’ Mathew thought.

And then everything snapped right back to reality.

The zombies started to move again. While they clearly lost their goal as an entire horde, the nearest few of them instantly looked toward Mathew and the girls.

And the centipede that Leila beheaded started to move again as well.

Its razor-sharp legs swung forward, threatening to cut the girl in two.

All before Mathew’s eyes. All in a strange, slowed-down pace, as if the world only turned one frame at a time.

‘I won’t make it,’ Mathew thought. He didn’t even think when his muscles tightened, making his body constrain a tiny little bit.

And then, following nothing but his wits, Mathew leaped ahead.

‘Come on!’

There were only a few meters apart. A distance as great as several football fields for a geeky nerd.

‘Just a little bit more!’ Mathew’s soul screamed out.

His hand reached out, strangely drifting through the changed, denser fabric of the space.

The centipede’s legs nearly reached Leila’s exposed sides. Even with her shirt on, it offered close to no protection.

And right when those razor-sharp bones brushed against the girl’s sides, Mathew’s hand landed on her shoulder.

‘GET BACK!’

Mathew didn’t waste his time or breath on shouting. Instead, he channeled all his willpower, strength, and agility into a single task.

He jerked his hand to the back.

As if he was on the last stroke before a piece of paper in his other hand would cover with an army of his white, would-be descendants.

And somehow, before Leila’s body would be cut at her slim waist, Mathew pulled her out.

“Wha…” the girl didn’t manage to utter a single, full word of surprise when her back crashed into the rubble behind.

The centipede didn’t wait.

Once its legs cut at the air, it had to realize that its prey had somehow escaped.

And as if it wasn’t just deprived of its head, it slashed its legs at Mathew.

“Get,” Mathew shouted, kicking at the long, thurd-like pile of flesh that made up the centipede, “lost!”

Before the monster’s legs could injure Mathew, the entire thing flew several meters away. And even if that alone wasn’t a feat, that single kick forced the entire thing from underneath several tons of rubble!

‘What the hell?’ Mathew thought, only to dodge a step when the centipede raised up.

Now that it was fully erected, it stood at an astonishing five meters up.

“Tsk,” Mathew clicked his tongue, staring at five meters of flesh sprouting razor-like claws on both of its sides.

The blood continued to sprout from its severed neck.

‘Aren’t I…’ Mathew thought, gulping down his saliva. ‘A little strong?’ he thought, taking but a faintest of moments to look down at his hands.

It was then that he noticed the simple yet disastrous fact.

He no longer held his weapon in his hands.

‘There is no time to think about it,’ Mathew thought, desperately raising his eyes.

He then shifted his hips to the side, avoiding a rock thrown by a jerk of the monster’s legs.

‘Wait, I need to calm down,’ Mathew thought, jumping to another pile of rubble. Seconds later, the entire upper part of the centipede smashed into it, crushing the cement slabs into fine dust.

‘It’s far stronger than a bunch of meat like it should be,’ Mathew thought.

He then squinted his eyes and tightened his fists.

‘But I seem to be stronger as well,’ he thought, heavily stomping his feet on the ground.

Mathew then launched himself forward.

The strength of his kick before proved just how insane his own development was.

‘This system didn’t help any bit to let me realize that,’ Mathew complained in his thoughts, dishing out a fat kick to the monster’s side.

‘Since we are both too strong for our physical limitations,’ Mathew thought, ‘then its power has to come from somewhere!’

This was the one belief Mathew refused to give up on.

A belief that everything had to abide by some fundamental rules.

All zombies and monsters had a core somewhere inside their bodies. Merchants would exchange those cores for various items. Spending cores at merchants would affect the progress of the apocalypse.

Those three were just the first few things that Mathew learned about this new world of his. Yet, just like the physic that he knew before the apocalypse came, those appeared to be strict rules.

And two different systems of rules couldn’t exist side by side. In other words, while in a way that Mathew couldn’t yet understand, this world still had to follow the physical rules Mathew knew about!

‘And in this case…’ the young man thought, kicking away at the ground to retreat, ‘it has to have a core somewhere inside!’

This was the one notion, one idea that Mathew was lacking.

The one element missing in the choreography of the fight that played out in his mind.

“BLURP!”

Blood shot from the severed body of the monster like a hose.

‘Did it try to roar?’ Mathew asked himself, retreating another leap only to fall down to his knees and reach out with his hands towards the ground.

The centipede then pushed its center of weight forward, falling on its bony-legs and rushing forward.

Mathew pulled his fingers down, grasping his right hand over the handle of his ax.

All of his retreats brought him right back to the place where he jumped from to save Leila. An event that occurred only a few seconds prior yet felt as distant as yesterday’s fight.

“This time,” Mathew muttered under his nose, raising his right knee.

The centipede’s body was just too massive. And the young man had no idea where its core could be. What’s more, the zombies were now all starting to converge on him due to all the noises caused by his fight.

‘I guess I have no other choice,’ Mathew thought, swallowing down his saliva as he tensed his muscles for this one last effort.

The easiest way to find the centipede’s core was to simply split its entire body in half.

A deed that Mathew doubted he was capable of.

But a deed he had to accomplish to fulfill his one mission.

Mathew jumped…

Or he didn’t. His mental projection of himself got ahead of his physical self. For but a split of a second, those two elements of Mathew’s perception, his idea of himself and his natural senses, failed to synchronize.

And right at this moment, something bloody flashed right past Mathew’s eyes, only to drill right through the centipede’s body!

Tap, tap, tap.

Blood slowly trickled down a girl’s hand as a massive stone she held with her fingers pulsated with a gentle light.

“I’ve finally found you!”