Dreamland: Freedom (Terror Infinity, Ultimate Evolution)

Author's Note: Alright, 111 on the monthly power ranking is just sad, this story needs some love, so I'll set a goal for you. If you manage to get this story in the top 20 by the end of the week (when the ranking resets), you'll get 10 bonus chapters. Sounds reasonable, no? Anyway, here's a bonus chapter for free.

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Eden's speed was massively impacted by all the debuffs he was suffering from, and he collided with the walls of the tunnel several times before managing to reach the surface.

Looking around, Eden spotted a small red grange not far away, and dragged himself towards it. It was less than hundred meters away, which would have only taken him a dozen seconds or so to reach if he was in top condition, but he was not.

He was only able to cross the first twenty meters when Jason walked out of the house, coming for him.

Although Jason was weaker, and thus slower, with his new resurrection, he was still faster than the cursed Eden, so the latter had no choice but to use all the bullets in all the mags of his 1911 he had left to even reach the barn. Even his unnatural perfect aim could no longer be trusted, the numerous debuffs turning his hands shaky, and his mind hazy, forcing him to aim at Jason's center of mass.

Although it was not as efficient as aiming for the knees, Jason's weakness from his resurrection had pushed the stagger time from 0,5 to a full second, allowing Eden to reach the grange in time. Jason also seemed to have lost his teleportation ability.

Having reached the unfamiliar grange, Eden took a quick look around, looking for anything that might help him in fighting Jason. The one thing that stood out to him was the large wood chipper in the middle. He rushed to it and activated it.

The machine made an extremely loud sound the moment it was activated, covering all other noises, so Eden quickly changed his plans and stumbled into a dark corner of the grange, hiding behind an old pile of tires as he waited for Jason.

The large undead followed a couple of seconds later, and stopped at the entrance, scanning around for Eden. Upon not finding him, the unintelligent undead approached the only source of noise it could detect, the wood chipper.

Waiting for Jason to stand in front of it, Eden stealthily walked out of his hiding place, several of his debuffs disappearing as they reached their time limits.

Making sure to be as silent as possible, Eden grabbed a nearby long metal chain that had been hanging from a beam. He certainly made some noise dragging it over, but it was covered by the wood chipper.

Taking a deep breath, Eden skilfully threw one end of the chain right into the wood chipper, his accuracy having somewhat recovered, causing the unmoving Jason to turn around, his dead eyes staring straight at Eden.

As for the chain, although the wood chipper was not strong enough to destroy the metal links of the chain, it still slowly but strongly pulled on it.

Jason reached out for Eden, in an effort to crush him to death, and this time, Eden did not dodge. Instead, he jumped right into Jason's outstretched arms, and tied his end of the chain onto Jason's neck.

The massive undead did not care about the chain, and started squeezing his arms together instead, making Eden feel like he was being hugged by a bear as his bones cracked.

Fortunately, before Jason could crush him to death, the chain around his neck received a sudden pull, throwing Jason back and forcing him to drop Eden.

Eden landed on the ground with a stumble, his chest bones and his rib cage hurting like hell. But Jason, who was still reaching out for Eden, was being slowly but inexorably pulled toward the wood chipper.

If Eden did not do anything, then Jason would eventually get pulled into the wood chipper, and get lacerated to death. Well, as close to death as he could get.

But that was not what Eden wanted to happen. Instead, he walked around the wood chipper, where Jason could not reach him, and stopped it. That did not free Jason, and although he only had to untie the chain around his neck to free himself, Jason kept trying to reach for Eden like a mindless beast.

Killing Jason had already proved to only result in his resurrection, so Eden decided to go at it differently this time, by trapping him instead.

After leaving himself a moment to catch his breath, and for the last debuffs he got from the book to disappear, Eden got right outside of Jason's range and slashed his machete down on Jason's hand.

Using the same method as before, Eden severed each of Jason's limbs as the giant zombie kept trying to reach out for him, eventually leaving him with only his head and his torso, neither touching the ground as he was hung by the chain.

This was done as a form of precaution, in case Jason somehow had a eureka moment, or more likely, received a direct instruction from his mother to unravel the chain. Now, even if he received any such orders, Jason would be unable to free himself.

Walking out of the grange, Eden carried Jason's limbs with him, carrying them under one arm.

Eden was no expert in necromancy, but he was able to make simple observations. Jason had received a massive nerf with his second resurrection. Although he had been weakened after his first, it was to a much greater degree with his second, which Eden believed had to do with his severed head.

Following simple physics, if a part of Jason's body was missing, then his resurrection would have less energy to be reborn with, meaning less strength.

Hell, maybe it would straight up prevent it.

Another reason he believed this to be the case was that he had distinctly felt Jason's head be attracted to his remains for his second resurrection, only discarding the head when Eden approached the room with the book.

At first, Eden thought it had returned to Jason, but now, he thought that maybe he had been forced to sacrifice a part of his power to be returned without it.

If this theory held true, then forcing Jason to once again resurrect with missing body parts would result in him being weakened even more critically.

With his insurance secured, Eden walked back to the decrepit house, and as he jumped down into the tunnel, he threw a glance at his status.

[Name: Eden Fraser]

[Title: STD Free]

[Talent: Soul Overlord (Locked)]

[HP: 28/70]

[MP: 0/0]

[Strength: 5 (8)]

[Agility: 6 (7)]

[Physique: 7]

[Intelligence: Locked]

[Wisdom: Locked]

[Skills: N/A]

[Currency: 2000 Dream Points]

Seeing his HP had fallen all the way to 28, Eden could not help but grimace. Since he had lost 10 HP from when he touched the book, then Jason's attack had dealt 32 damage. Even if he swung his machete with all his strength, Eden would barely be able to deal as much damage.

Had Jason managed to catch Eden back when he was in his first, strongest form, would he have been able to crush him to death with a single attack?

What was a little more interesting however was Eden's Strength attribute, which had increased by one point, bringing his pure Strength to that of an average man. With the bonuses from his attributes, it even reached 8, thus putting him comfortably above most men. If they did not have access to Dreamland, that is.

But all these changes were only secondary in comparison to his Talent, which had finally started revealing itself. It was still locked, just like his Intelligence and Wisdom, but he now had a name. Soul Overlord sounded quite domineering, making Eden believe it had to be a strong talent.

Unfortunately, even as he focused on it, the system did not give him any further information on it.

Still, even without the system giving him any information, Eden guessed his talent had something to do with his perception of time changing when he was in danger, his danger perception as well as his unnatural precision.

Closing his status, Eden walked deeper into the tunnels, and soon, found himself back in front of the altar. Pamela's head had been placed back on it, and the book looked as ominous as before.

At the same time, Eden felt Jason's limbs tremble a little as there was a familiar pull on it, subtly growing stronger. Throwing the limbs to the other side of the room, Eden approached the altar, and raised his machete.

As he was about to swing it down at the book however, an eerie dark light appeared in Pamela's hollow eyes, and the world suddenly turned black.