The Eternal Winter - Book 1 - Chapter 28 - Tiers (Patreon)

                                                                                       Alexander North

The first wendigo to make it through the doorway – despite its head injury – manages to drag its claws across my chest, pushing me backwards with a grunt as they cut through it and into my chest with a searing pain. But I ignore the pain and slam my foot on the ground, regaining my balance before grabbing the wendigo by the throat with both of my hands and ripping it apart with my claws.

I then toss its corpse into the two wendigos behind it, sending them to the ground where I take advantage of one of them by grabbing a sword I managed to find in one of the metal weapon storage rooms and piercing straight through its brain. This kills it in an instant before the other one on the ground tries to get up. And at the same time, the three wendigos who were still in the hallway begin rushing into the room behind them.

My eyes glance between the four still surviving wendigos before I tighten my grip on my sword slightly.

Too many.

I reach behind me to grab at a knife I had gotten from the weapons storage and toss it straight at the wendigo still pushing the dead one off of itself and struggling to its feet. The knife pierces straight into its skull, but unfortunately doesn’t go far enough to kill it and instead just kind of sticks in place partially impaled into its forehead as it lets out a piercing screech and falls back on the ground again on its back.

Seriously?

Stupid frozen brains.

Just seconds later though, the three wendigos trample over the one that had just gotten a knife to the forehead. And one of them – the same one that I punched at the very start of this fight – even steps on the knife before tripping, driving it further into the brain and killing the thing.

Oh. Okay. That works.

I ignore the one that had tripped to block the strikes of the other two almost instinctively with my arms. Fortunately these creatures, ignoring their superhuman strength and habit of freezing what they touch, are rather predictable in combat, and have absolutely no form. Kind of like zombies from a monster movie.

I continue to block hit after hit after hit, occasionally getting clawed at in return, until I manage to draw the last knife from my back before stabbing it into the side of one of the wendigo’s heads. The creature then falls to the ground, bringing my eyes to the wendigo that had tripped on and finished off the other one as it’s surprisingly dragging itself across the ground towards me instead of getting back to its feet.

Before I can even question why it’s doing so, my eyes are attracted to the trail of pale blue blood it’s making along with it.

Did the tumble it took damage the bones in its chest even more or something?

I don’t get long to think though as my attention is taken again by the last remaining wendigo still standing on its feet when I see it swinging a clawed hand at my shoulder. Without any hesitation, I reach back to grab the arm before stepping back and circling the creature, pulling the arm around its back and snapping it at the shoulder, breaking the bone and leaving the limb to go limp at its side. I then reach forwards to stab straight through its skull, killing it in an instant and leaving it to fall limp onto the ground.

The creature falls to the ground unmoving as I turn my attention to the one still crawling towards me.

I glance around at the other dead wendigos, just for my gaze to pause on one of them that I thought was dead but is still alive considering the movements of its head.

Huh. That’s the one I tore apart the throat of.

Oh. Right. I have to destroy the brain. So destroying the throat, and the spinal cord in it, will just paralyze it until it heals itself. Which for some reason it hasn’t done.

Could that be because I used my claws to do it?

And the same for the one I punched. The past wendigos I fought healed that type of injury relatively quickly. Certainly faster than the amount of time it’s been like that without healing.

I turn back to the one crawling towards me before stepping up and piercing my sword straight through its skull before it can reach me with its grasping claws. After that, I just walk up to the one with the shredded throat and pierce it as well.

That should be all of them.

And one more glance around the room and the outside hallway confirms that. So I quickly go around absorbing their energy.

Once I finish that, I take a single glance at the updated statistics while enjoying the feeling of growing stronger.

/ Notice \

The following user statistics have updated:

Speed: 1.95 -> 2.00
Reflexes: 1.78 -> 1.83
Senses: 1.90 -> 1.94
Energy: 1.70 -> 1.77

\End of Notice/

I can’t help but grin at the sight of my speed reaching 2. Since that means I’m now about twice as fast as the average human being.

Which is really neat, and not something I’d have expected to happen for an incredibly long time. Since that’s past the domain of a Tier 1 symbiont host. Although not quite as strong as a Tier 2.

Tier 1 hosts generally have an average of 1.5 in each stat, while Tier 2s have twice that. Although… what were the others again?

“Terminal, list the average stats for each Symbiont Tier,” I state out loud, deciding to just have my terminal remember for me as I retrieve my knives from the wendigo corpses.

/ Notice \

Answer to User’s Query – Tier 1 Symbiont Hosts have an average of 1.5 in every stat. Tier 2 Symbiont Hosts have an average of 3 in every stat. Tier 3 Symbiont Hosts have an average of 10 in each stat. Tier 4 Symbiont Hosts have an average of 30 in each stat.
Tier 5 Symbiont Hosts do not have an average stat as the limiter on the symbiont is removed with the advancement to Tier 5, making the user no longer needing to go through a breakthrough to grow in strength.

\End of Notice/

Oh, right. I doubt I’ll reach the level of a Tier 3 for a while. But it is nice knowing that I have the same benefit that a Tier 5 does.

The ability to just grow stronger as time passes without having all of my growth locked in one place waiting for some stupid breakthrough to increase it despite the symbiont’s growth. Not to mention that my growth is a lot faster. Assuming there’s energy around to absorb that is.

I begin heading down the short distance down the hall before entering the stairwell.

Growth aside, it’s time to go to BF1.