THE ZOMBIE SYSTEM-Chapter 49 - 48: The Scar’s Secret

Leon braces against shattered marble, blood coating his teeth like paint. His legs shake—not from fear but from nerve damage, fire having eaten through muscle and sinew faster than his enhanced healing can repair. The training field stretches around them as a monument to destruction: stone melted to glass, gardens reduced to ash, air itself warping with heat that makes breathing feel like swallowing blades.

Tobias moves through the devastation like its architect. Flames weave across his shoulders in perfect spirals, each step leaving molten footprints that glow white hot against blackened stone. His posture speaks of absolute control, a predator who hasn’t even begun to exert himself.

Leon raises one trembling arm. His Elite Mage and Assassin zombies materialize on either flank, their forms wavering like mirages in the superheated air. The undead position themselves with tactical precision despite the heat distortion warping their spectral frames.

The Elite Mage draws back skeletal hands, purple energy condensing between finger bones. Ice magic builds to devastating intensity—enough concentrated winter to freeze a lake solid. The spell launches with precision that defies the chaos around them.

Tobias doesn’t dodge. Doesn’t raise a guard. His flame aura simply expands.

The collision creates an explosion that rumbles the entire district. Smoke billows outward in choking clouds, carrying the stench of vaporized stone and something worse, burned flesh.

When the steam clears, Leon’s stomach clenches. A D-rank Association hunter lies as scattered ash where he’d tried to shield fleeing civilians. Three other bodies sprawl nearby, their clothes still smoldering. Tobias hadn’t even noticed them, stepping over the remains like discarded newspapers.

Leon studies Tobias through blood-hazed vision, his analytical mind still functioning despite trauma that should have shut down conscious thought. Something changes in the S-rank’s breathing after the massive flame burst—deeper, more controlled, as if managing internal pressure.

For just a heartbeat, barely perceptible through the flame aura’s brilliance, the fire around Tobias flickers dimmer.

His father’s voice echoes from childhood memories of the Manna War Archives: "Power always has a price, son. The body keeps score, even when the mind forgets."

Tobias explodes into motion without warning. His hand closes around Leon’s ankle mid-step, using him like a human flail. Leon’s body impacts marble with force that sends fracture lines racing through stone tiles. His ribs, already broken, now feel like glass shards grinding against internal organs.

Vision whites out. Pain becomes the only reality, pure sensation that overwhelms every other input. But Leon forces himself to remain still, feigning unconsciousness while his mind races behind closed eyelids.

His zombies intercept Tobias’s follow-up strike, buying precious seconds of observation time.

Through slitted eyes, Leon watches for the tells. Each major flame technique causes subtle changes, red-hot veins pulse along Tobias’s arms like stress fractures in overheated metal. More importantly, burn scars along his right side become visible through the flame aura’s gaps. Old wounds, deep and permanent, that even S-rank healing couldn’t fully repair.

Hunter medical texts surface from memory: "Flame Berserkers scale their power through controlled combustion, but the human body has limits. Internal burning can cause permanent damage that compounds with each use."

Leon signals his zombies through mental commands. New strategy, we go for endurance. Force maximum exertion. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com

The Assassin zombie triggers Duplicate strike, creating multiple targets that attack from impossible angles. The Elite Mage switches to sustained bombardment, launching spell after spell with mechanical precision. Ice. Fire. Lightning. Kinetic force. An endless barrage designed to force continuous defense.

Each counter-attack costs Tobias energy. Leon watches the tells multiply—slight hesitation before major techniques, careful positioning to guard his right side, breathing that grows more labored despite his maintained composure.

After a particularly explosive counter—a fiery uppercut that creates seismic shockwaves, Tobias winces and grips his ribs. The gesture lasts barely a second, but Leon catches it.

The weakness is real. And it’s affecting him now.

Leon pushes his zombies harder, making them more aggressive, more reckless. The Mage zombie unleashes everything in rapid succession, never allowing rest or recovery. The Assassin becomes a blur of motion, striking and retreating in patterns that force constant retaliation.

Tobias’s footwork becomes less precise. His breathing grows heavier. The perfect S-rank composure develops hairline cracks.

Then Tobias stops mid-attack, molten eyes narrowing with realization.

"Clever little rat." Understanding dawns in his voice. "You’re not trying to win. You’re trying to outlast me."

Leon’s blood turns to ice water. His strategy has been discovered.

Tobias’s expression cycles through impressed to furious in heartbeats. "You think you can outlast an S-rank? Let me show you what real power costs."

He erupts in a vortex of flame that shifts from orange to blue. Both zombies are blown back like leaves in a hurricane, their spectral forms destabilizing from sheer thermal violence.

The very air ignites. Fire spreads outward in all directions, turning the training field into a preview of hell itself.

Leon tries to run but Tobias is already there, moving through his own inferno unharmed. Massive hands close around Leon’s throat, lifting him effortlessly.

"Let me show you the cost of defying me."

Tobias slams Leon into the stone tower with enough force to crack the foundation. The impact drives all air from Leon’s lungs, his spine compressing against unyielding stone with sounds like breaking branches.

Tobias’s flames shift to blue-white, hotter than magma. They punch through Leon’s spectral armor like tissue paper, finding flesh beneath enhanced defenses.

Leon’s scream tears from his throat—raw, primal, the sound of every nerve ending set ablaze. Pain beyond description floods his system. Every cell cries out. Consciousness flees like smoke in wind.

He wakes cradled in spectral arms.

His Elite Mage zombie had leaped between him and Tobias’s finishing strike, absorbing damage that would have killed Leon instantly. The undead’s form flickers in and out of existence, its connection to Leon’s mana severely damaged. Half its skull has melted away, purple energy leaking like blood from spectral wounds.

But it held. It bought him seconds of life.

Across the devastated training field, Tobias stands panting. For the first time in the fight, the S-rank looks winded. His perfect flame aura fluctuates like a candle in wind.

Leon watches through blood-crusted eyes as Tobias unconsciously favors his right side. The old burn scar along his ribs has darkened—stress fractures in flesh that even S-rank healing can’t fully repair.

Leon coughs blood but manages a faint smile. Not victory, but understanding. He has found the crack in the mountain.

He forces himself to his knees, every movement agony that threatens to drag him back into unconsciousness. His remaining zombies position themselves defensively, their forms translucent, barely holding together through sheer force of will.

Tobias notices Leon’s smile and his eyes blaze brighter with rage. "What are you grinning about, dead man?"

Leon spits blood onto scorched stone, looking up at the S-rank who should have killed him by now.

"I know your secret now," he whispers.

The flames around Tobias flicker, not from power, but from something that might be concern.

Leon’s system interface suddenly blazes with new message, something he’s never seen before:

[CRITICAL WEAKNESS DETECTED]

[ENEMY VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS COMPLETE]

[TACTICAL RECOMMENDATION AVAILABLE]

His finger hovers over the notification while Tobias begins gathering flames for what he intends to be the final attack.

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