After spending a few seconds on the ground to catch his breath, Dilan forced himself to get up.
He was still breathing heavily, and the debuff from 20% of his Stats felt far worse than expected.
It was a suffocating feeling and made him feel as if all the breath was knocked out of his lungs but he simply endured it.
There was nothing else he could do, either way.
Dilan had just begun to adjust to the weakness when he was hit with another bout of weakness. Even the effect of the Vial of Strength wore off. Dilan was pretty sure that 30 seconds had yet to pass, but when he looked around, he noticed that the others had gathered around him.
Kathrine was breathing heavily, and both her palms had been scorched severely.
It looked like she used some force in order to control the bolts of lightning, which allowed her to shoot with near-perfect aim.
Dilan was thankful for her assistance, which was why he nodded his head faintly.
Afterward, he loosened his backpack before taking out another Vial.
A liquid with a deep red tone could be seen within the transparent vial.
Handing it over to Kathrine, Dilan gave her a faint smile before suggesting,
“You should use it, otherwise, you might not be able to be ready for the fourth floor.”
Dilan was not sure what exactly Kathrine was searching for on the fourth floor but that was not important as he made a prediction according to her actions since they met each other.
Furthermore, he owed her one for having been saved once.-.
Thus, he didn’t bother too much about her reasoning to be desperate enough to reach the 4th floor.
With that in mind, it was always better to be in a peak condition when facing unknown, and possibly dangerous situations.
Thus, he gave her the <Potion of Revitalization>
It was one of the Trash+ treasures they had procured, and also the item which would be used as a last resort to treat a severe injury in the fight against the Zombie Centaur.
However, as nobody except Kathrine was gravely injured, she could simply use it.
“Let’s not use it…I will only need a few minutes before I am ready to go upstairs!” She suddenly announced, refusing to consume the potion, and instead, simply took a few heavy breaths.
Dilan was not sure how high Kathrine’s Mana stat was, but considering that Mana was the rarest stat one could procure by absorbing Essence crystals, Dilan was pretty sure that activating her ability three times in a row was too much.
“Take it!” He insisted while holding the potion in front of her again with a bit more emphasis, his expression clearly showing that he didn’t allow her to reject his ‘offer’.
Feeling too exhausted to even start arguing with Dilan, Kathrine accepted the Potion of Revitalization before gulping down the red liquid in one go.
It was extremely sweet and to the extent that she felt as if all the sugar in the world had been shoved down her throat.
However, Kathrine gulped it down at once with her eyes closed tightly.
When she opened her eyes once again, Dilan had already averted his attention.
Oliver picked up the Bronze Essence crystal of the Zombie Centaur, and simply handed it over to Dilan.
“All of us fought against the Zombie Centaur, so how do you guys want to continue?”
He asked his group so as to avoid conflict of interest. But, both Ailee and Oliver shook their heads immediately.
“I had only one job…and messed it up…” Ailee murmured, feeling bad about the arrow she shot. Even if her aim had not been a mile away from her target, she had missed it by a centimeter or two.
As such, her contribution to the battle was insignificant.
Dilan didn’t feel so because Ailee had warned them about the second Zombie brain.
But he didn’t say anything and allowed Oliver to sort it out.
“Well, I was just your shield. To be honest, I was the most useless today. I will do better next time. Just take the Bronze Essence crystal for yourself!”
Kathrine didn’t feel like she deserved the Bronze Essence crystal either as her only task had been tearing off two of the Zombie Centaur’s four arms!
Looking at the others’ generosity, Dilan couldn’t help but shake his head.
It was not as if he was against absorbing the Essence crystal, but if the three would continue to behave like this, they would never get greedy for power.
And that way, they wouldn’t even try to become the most powerful.
The only positive fact was that it was great for his team members to be able to assess their individual contribution decently.
However, he didn’t like the fact that all of them held back from demanding some things.
A certain degree of greed was necessary to become powerful, which was something Dilan understood quite well.
That was also why he found it useless to debate. Right now he was exhausted and would readily accept all the rewards that had no takers.
Hence, he simply absorbed the Essence out of the crystal.
In an instant, his being was flooded with tremendous amounts of energy that invigorated him at once.
[<Bronze> Essence of a Tierless Level 5 Chimera Zombie Centaur has been absorbed→ +1.4 Strength, +0.9 Health +1.2 Stamina, +1.3 Agility, +0.4 Mana] 5 Status points
[Essence pool has been filled. Host reached level 10! +0.5 Status points can be allocated!]
The Chimera Zombie Centaur, which was its correct name, provided him with far more status points and Essence than he had expected.
Other than leveling up and reaching level 10, he felt as if his Essence pool was overflowing with Essence once again!
This astonished him a little bit, and he couldn’t help but look at the other notifications that were unveiled to him.
[Level capacity for Tierless entity has been reached! Ancient Paths of Advancement have been unveiled!]
Dilan had been expecting something similar, which was why he was not further shocked.
It was similar to quite a few games, where one gained an Occupation after reaching Level 10.
Thus, he wanted to take a look at all available occupations.
However, even before he could take a proper look, Kathrine chose to make her way toward the fourth-floor.
She was sure that some Zombies on the third floor would soon reach their location.
That was if there were some zombies left on the third floor to begin with.
But even if there were none, she didn’t want to waste more of her precious time.
Seeing that Kathrine was already on the move, Dilan averted his attention as well.
‘I can just take a look at it later. It’s not as if I’m in a hurry right now!’
Without hesitation, he followed Kathrine up the stairs.
It was quite odd but Dilan didn’t think that they would encounter any kind of overly powerful monster on the fourth floor.
Somehow, the Chimera Zombie Centaur was likely to have been the strongest of the monsters they had fought.
That was why he didn’t mind following Kathrine despite having a very low amount of mana and feeling beyond exhausted.
On the way, he picked up the Captain’s Sword, pulling it out of the corpse of the Chimera Zombie Centaur.
Meanwhile, Oliver and Ailee decided to follow Kathrine and Dilan as well.
They didn’t have something better to do either way, and their help might be needed, even if they were not sure about that.
The group of four people ended up forming a team once again and they reached the fourth-floor not long after.
While Kathrine looked in all directions trying to recall which path was the correct one, Dilan didn’t take long to notice something.
‘Corpses…’
The corpses of quite a few zombies were littered on the ground.
This was not a new sight for any of them.
However, according to the wounds all corpses had, they had been inflicted by something thin and sharp!
‘Is there a Survivor with a sword?’ Dilan wondered.
But before he could think further, Kathrine rushed off in one of the three hallways, forcing Dilan and the others to follow her.
Though they followed her, Dilan couldn’t help but think that something was off.
And this weird feeling was proven correct when they reached a large intermediate hall.
There were more than 20 Survivors lying on the ground. They all looked haggard, with bloodstained clothes and injuries all over their bodies, making them look similar to a zombie.
“What the actual fuck…happened here?!” Oliver blurted out the moment he saw the Survivors, who he had literally assumed to be zombies!
“Mankind at its best, I guess…”