The Rise Of A Tribal Deadbeat - Chapter 82

“What is that thing?” Zok yelled out loud but there was no reply from the system, “Oh come on! Now’s not the time to hold grudges-”

[You never stop talking, do you? I don’t know what that thing was.]

The system finally replied to him, but it wasn’t anything like what Zok was expecting. His eyes had seen the black insect-like creature. However, there wasn’t much he could see once it disappeared inside the corpse of people who appeared to be a walking… corpse?

Zok had no idea how the hell something like that was even possible. But he knew that by sitting around, nothing was going to change. He had to get rid of all of them, all over again, and again and again till there was nothing left for them to resurrect.

‘If I can get rid of the corpses, nothing would be left behind to resurrect…’ Zok thought to himself but the system heard him loud and clear.

[Finally! You’re finally putting those two nearly dead brain cells of yours to some good use.]

Zok ignored that remark and went ahead to solve the problem at hand. He either needed to burn their bodies down to ashes or squash them in a paste so that none of them would get resurrected again.

The former option was a bit difficult to execute and while the latter option could be used without any problems if only he could have needed the help of his pets to do something like that. Also… it didn’t appear that his pets were going to wake up from their slumber for a long time.

‘At least I have the spear. It should be able to sear their flesh away bit by bit.’

A moment later, the headless corpses jumped on him while Naalnish kept watching and analysing their every move, hoping to find a weakness. Instead what he saw next completely left him speechless.

According to the Shamanka, the kid did not have any formal training in using weapons. But at that moment, after seeing Zok use his spear so efficiently, Naalnish realised that Zok had been training himself for a long time.

His movements might have been a bit sloppy, but there was no room for even him to take advantage of the situation. It was a weird thing to see. The kid was doing most of the things wrong and yet he was making it all work.  It was almost as if the kid had formed a new technique of wielding a spear.

‘Too bad he is someone on the Shamanka’s kill list…’ Naalnish shook his head in dismay, ‘If it hadn’t been for her explicit orders, I would have liked to train the little man myself.’

Naalnish could sense the potential oozing out of Zok’s every little movement. But sadly, it would remain as potential and nothing else. Thanks to the little buggers the Shamanka had provided him with, he had an impenetrable wall all around him.

Despite the fact that there were only 10 of them, it would take Zok hours before he would even be able to reach him. Let alone strike him down. It wasn’t a strategy that Naalnish was proud of using, but he had to do it because he acknowledged the kid’s strength.

At first, he like the others thought that the kid was dependent on his pets to fight for him. But now he realised that couldn’t have been far from the truth. Someone of Zok’s calibre did not need anyone else to fight for him. Not against them at least.

“What in Okun’s name is that bastard doing!?” Tsula blurted out, snapping Naalnish out of his thoughts.

Naalnish looked towards his ‘fallen’ comrades only to find that almost all of them were missing their limbs. Without their limbs, there wasn’t much these undead could have done.

“That’s all these people had?” Zok mumbled before stabbing his spear deep into one of the black insectoids that crawled out of one of the corpses, “Looks like I was panicking for nothing… however,”

Zok pointed his spear towards Naalnish before continuing, “You have quite some peculiar tools and I would like to have them.”

“You got some nerve talking to someone like me like that-” Naalnish began talking but was immediately interrupted by Zok.

“Someone like you?” Zok started laughing, “You bastards are not someone to preach. Your actions right at this place itself are telling of that. Defiling corpses, killing innocents… these are just a few things you shamans have been doing under the guise of being the ‘chosen ones’. So don’t even try to feed me your tulak shit.”

At this point, Naalnish couldn’t help but smile for some reason only he knew. But if someone had to guess, he was probably smiling because he realised that killing Zok was essential. He knew a little bit more than they would like anyone to know.

“I will enjoy killing you. But you know what I will enjoy more?”

“Killing me with your blabbering? How about you shut up and fight?”

Zok was itching to kill that man. But not because that man was one of the shamans, but to obtain the knowledge he had. It was clear that the man knew a lot more about the Shamanka’s plan and the goal of the shamans than Zok did. Thus by getting rid of him, Zok would be one step closer to putting an end to the shamans.

“You son of a bitch…” Naalnish gritted his teeth. There was a limit to the disrespect he could have tolerated and Zok was continuously crossing that limit.

Suddenly Naalnish’s clenched fists erupted in a blue flame. His eyes were flaming with rage. The only thing he could think about was ways to break the bastard’s bone and make him squeal like the kid he was.

The last time Zok had seen someone’s fists change was when he was fighting against the twins back at the checkpoint. Even then, their fists didn’t look half as soul-chilling as the ones in front of him. However, for some reason, he didn’t feel scared.. In fact, after seeing the flaming fists of his opponent, his will to fight had increased even more.