Return of the last survivor

Chapter 70: Impending Battle

With this incident out of the way, Merlin began to recover his mana as he left the conference room.

He had already been informed of all the past events, which now gave him time to think about the future.

'The mana burst will happen in about an hour. And within a few minutes after that, most zombies will evolve to Tier 1 or Tier 2, and will likely create hordes of zombies with Class 2 threat levels.'

Just as these thoughts raced in Merin's mind, he announced throughout the now much larger Sanctum through Phillip,

"There will be hordes of Tier 1 and Tier 2 zombies incoming within an hour. Class 2threat levels. I want 80% of Peak Tier 1s to assemble at the outer walls, while the rest should remain inside the inner walls for managing, and neutralising possible threats."

"Kill every zombie and human that may be a threat. The rest of the Tier 1s assemble at the outer walls, and the others move to the inner wall. There will not be enough space for you all, but you will have to make do. Once we overcome this wave, most zombies should revert back to Class 1 threats, and only reach Class 2 threats once they form hordes of Tier 2 again."

With that said, Merlin telepathically called out to Foveros and Mecha, while still soaking up the mana from the air.

Currently, he was in no rush to replenish his mana, and so did not bother wasting mana stones for now.

Mana stones could be used to quickly replenish one's mana, but it would not work for everyone. This was because the mana in mana stones had many impurities which would cause one's mana to slowly degenerate. The only way to safely use a mana stone is to filter out the impurities from the mana while absorbing it and throw it back into the mana stone.

However, one needed incredibly high intelligence, Sense, and soul stats, which only a handful people had up till now.

Once they evolved to Tier 2, many more would be able to absorb mana stones, and Merlin would gladly inform them of the method of filtration. This way, they were more likely to survive in harsher conditions.

At this moment, the Foveros clad in the black Mecha, arrived in the air through a spacial crack.

'How much mana do you waste in bending the space to travel everywhere?'

'Not much to begin with Merlin. Also, for some reason the space here has become incredibly weak, reducing the cost even more.'

'Ah! So the weakened space is to blame'

'Yes'

'Anyway, I wanted to tell you both that the mana will drastically increase, allowing both of you to Tier up. Be prepared-'

Just as Merlin was thinking, he stopped and asked in his mind,

'Mecha, you can consume elemental candies right?'

'Yes Master!'

Nodding slightly, he let his soul enter the library once more, and found the book rather quickly, since he had already skimmed through it earlier while finding the [Mana Spur].

This was [Elemental Compression]. Although he might have known any spells in his previous life, none of them compared to the treasures in the library.

A spell used along with a few runes, which can use abundant elemental energy and compress it into elemental orbs.

Currently, Mecha had consumed the water orb right after its birth, one of Merlin's 4 elemental orbs, and had gained a large amount of water affinity thanks to that. Therefore, Merlin had decided to feed the rest of his orbs which gave Mecha a boost in his Water, Fire, Earth, and Air Elements. It was all peaceful until the Mecha Nation attacked

Merlin had also named this 'The Mecha State', which caused no one to laugh, since he was alone in the room when he named it.

Using [Elemental Compression], Merlin reached out his hands and began drawing multiple runes in the air using mana.

It took him nearly 10 minutes to complete this, but taking longer helped by reducing the amount of mana used. Merlin knew he would have to face an incredibly difficult battle in 50 minutes and so decided to conserve as much mana as possible.

But what he was doing was to increase the overall strength of the Sanctum.

Once he completed the rune circles, he let the mana within the air be frantically absorbed, along with the laws present.

Most predominant of all was the law of void, which existed in the void between dimensions, and also the place to where Foveros went while tearing through space.

Due to the weakened structure of the space in earth's dimension, Merlin could access the elemental energy of the void, and compress it into a single elemental orb. He looked over at Mecha, who had detached from Foveros and was floating in the air.

'Eat this before you evolve.'

With that, he threw the black bead sized orb, containing seemingly endless darkness and emptiness, over to Mecha.

He did not waste more mana to create more, and instead focused on recovering his spent mana for the battle to come.

With that, he looked over at both Foveros and Mecha and said,

'Take care of the sanctum.'

With those words, he flew away to strengthen some people and artefacts to increase the survivability of the Sanctum.

What he remembered from his previous life was that every mana surge led to a drastic increase in the activity of zombies for a short while. Sort of like a temporary buff, which causes them to target large settlements of humans, and more or less ignore smaller groups and individuals as long as they are running away from the zombies horde.

This was bad for Merlin, since his Sanctum was like the largest lighthouse to all zombies for miles in every direction.

However, if he could survive, the benefits would far exceed his expectations, because all Tier 2 creatures possessed cores!