Surviving the apocalypse with a wife and a system! [GL]

Chapter 219: Zombies.

Her feet were learning how to stop and move at the right time. Her arms were learning how to keep the sword close to her body instead of wasting strength in wide, useless swings. And most importantly, her mind was learning to stay calm even when several dead things were trying to tear at her from different directions.

One of the remaining zombies came in low and awkwardly, arms reaching with the jerky force of something that no longer understood balance. Bai Li ducked just enough to slip under its grasp, then turned her shoulder and shoved it off line with the side of her body. She used the same motion to rotate her blade upward in a hard vertical cut. The sword went straight through the zombie’s jaw and into the top of its head. It went down without a sound that mattered. Another creature was already lunging after that one, and Bai Li had barely enough time to pull her sword free before she had to meet that next attack.

She did not try to overthink it. That was the real key now. If she paused to count too carefully, she would lose the rhythm. So she let her instincts and her training work together. She stepped forward instead of back, because stepping back would let the zombies keep the pressure on her. She struck first, slashing across the front of the next zombie’s neck, then twisting the blade out so it would not stick. The body stumbled, still not fully fallen, and Bai Li drove her knee into its chest to shove it away. The force made it stumble backward, and at the same time she turned to meet the last two zombies in the group.

One of them had come in from the right, its mouth opening wide in a gross, wet motion. Bai Li shifted her stance, caught the attack with the flat of her sword, and used the zombie’s own momentum to push it aside. In the same beat, she kicked the other one directly in the belly, hard enough to break its approach and send it staggering in the wrong direction. Then her sword came down again. The blade cut through the first zombie’s neck, and as soon as the body went slack, she spun her wrist and finished the second one with a fast side slash that took the head cleanly off.

The whole little group was down in less than a minute, and Bai Li was already breathing a little harder. Not because she was losing control, but because she had pushed her body to work at speed without pause. Sweat was starting to gather at her hairline, and her grip on the sword was getting warm. That was good. She welcomed it. This was exactly what she needed. The world would not get easier for her, so her body had better get stronger.

Once the area where she had been fighting was cleared of moving threats, Bai Li did not stand still and admire her work. She immediately rushed toward another scattered group nearby. There were more zombies wandering around the courtyard, each one moving in its own stupid direction, each one easy enough to kill if she approached correctly. She slipped into the next fight just as quickly as the first, moving in with speed and confidence. A zombie that had been turning away from her got its neck cut before it even fully faced her. Another one came at her from the side and got knocked off balance by a sharp kick. She kept up the flow, moving from target to target without wasting any motion, almost like she was dancing through a nightmare she had long since stopped fearing.

There was a rough kind of beauty in how efficiently she fought. Bai Li was not graceful in the soft, pretty sense. She was sharp, direct, and practical. Every movement had purpose. Every step was there to either create room, close distance, or stop an enemy from getting the better of her. If her sword went out, it was because it needed to. If her foot moved, it was because the angle demanded it. She never wasted strength on showing off, but that did not mean her fighting looked dull. On the contrary, the speed and accuracy made it look like she had been doing this for years, even though this whole nightmare had only truly begun not long ago.

The zombies in the courtyard were not organized. They did not work together in any smart way. That was the only reason Bai Li could keep going like this. She knew very well that if she allowed too many of them to circle around her at once, then the whole balance of the fight would shift. A group of fifteen or twenty was a completely different story. That was too much. Her current body was stronger than before, but it was still a body. It still had limits. She was not stupid enough to think she could just stand in the middle of a huge horde and cut her way out without risk. So she was careful about the size of each group she engaged. Small groups were fine. Medium ones were fine if the space was open enough. A giant cluster? No. That was a good way to get surrounded, pinned, and bitten. Bai Li knew when to fight and when to back off. That self-awareness was one of the reasons she was alive right now.

Still, within her comfort range, she was moving with absolute confidence. She would rush in, strike first, and use the collapse of one zombie to set up the next kill. If one lunged too close, she would use her shoulder, elbow, or boot to break its line. If one came from behind, she would feel the movement through the air and the noise of its steps before it fully reached her. The courtyard echoed with the sounds of cutting, kicking, falling bodies, and the wet drag of dead limbs hitting the ground.

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to be continued,