Suddenly, a hair-raising banging sound came from the bedroom window, as if countless tiny things outside were constantly hitting the glass. The force was so great that it felt like stones were being hurled at high speed. The pounding bangs echoed endlessly.

"Ah!! No! Don't!! Help me! Mr. Carter!! Please! Save me!! No!! Mmm... cough cough... mmm... ugh..." Grace Thompson screamed in the living room, begging, but soon her voice became garbled, as if something was stuck in her throat and she could no longer speak. Her violent struggles quickly dulled, and then everything fell completely silent.

Brian Carter's face was pale, goosebumps covered his entire body, and cold sweat had soaked his underclothes, as if he were immersed in sweat.

Runes flashed and disappeared in his mind, and a large number of mysterious symbols rapidly constructed a spell model in the void through his mental power.

"Crash!" The glass shattered. Countless black flies swarmed through the gaps in the aluminum panel, scrambling to get into the room, their bodies completely blocking out the light.

At the critical moment, Brian Carter's spell model was finally completed.

"Protective Winged Beast." This level-one spell, specifically designed to protect against all winged creatures, was finally cast at the cost of Brian Carter overdrawing his mental power.

The black mass of flies kept circling and lunging at Brian Carter, but were immediately blocked by a transparent energy membrane and then violently bounced back. Ripples of transparent energy oscillated back and forth between Brian Carter and the flies.

Brian Carter knew this level-one spell wouldn't last long; after all, it was a silent, non-verbal cast, so its power was halved. Seeing the ripples undulating in front of him, Brian Carter hurriedly grabbed the insecticide and sprayed it frantically all around.

The swarm of flies seemed endless, pressing in from all directions, the piercing buzzing numbing Brian Carter's entire body. The insecticide in his hand sprayed without pause.

He didn't know how much time had passed—a minute, two minutes, or maybe it felt like a year to Brian Carter. The insecticide in his hand was much lighter, and the rebound force of the Protective Winged Beast shield had weakened considerably.

Suddenly, as if receiving some signal, the swarms of flies scattered in all directions without hesitation. Brian Carter felt as if daylight had suddenly returned. Where he had been nearly submerged by the black mass of flies, he now watched tens of thousands of flies quickly squeeze back out through the gaps in the aluminum panel, not a single one remaining, the buzzing fading away as the swarm left. All that was left was a thick layer of insect corpses all over the room. The sheer number of dead flies almost completely buried everything in the bedroom—bed, desk, floor. Even the stored medicine, rice, and flour were completely covered by fly corpses. Every surface had turned black.

Only after confirming that the swarm had completely left did Brian Carter maintain the shield for a while longer, until the twenty-minute limit was up. Only then did he let out a long breath and carefully stand up.

"Black Panther." He called softly. Instantly, a black shadow silently slipped out from under the bed. Its pale yellow, amber-like eyes calmly watched its master, Brian Carter. As a planar projection, it was not made of flesh and blood, so to the flies it was no different from the books or wooden table nearby—completely uninteresting.

Brian Carter dropped the now-empty insecticide and opened the bedroom door. The first thing he saw was Grace Thompson's skeleton, with only clothes and hair left; all the flesh had been devoured by the flies, not a trace remaining. The white skull's mouth was open as if still trying to scream, the right hand bone clutched tightly at the neck, and the legs twisted into an S-shape, showing how violently Grace Thompson had struggled before death.

The thought that he had almost ended up like Grace Thompson sent a chill down Brian Carter's spine.

"I'm still too weak. Not just against the swarm of flies—even those three men I just met, if they suddenly pointed their guns at me, I wouldn't have a good way to defend myself. Looks like I need to plan how to ensure my own safety." Ever since his memories returned, Brian Carter had felt as if he had become the nearly omnipotent lich of his previous life again, and had developed an almost dismissive attitude toward this perilous world. But this brush with death had completely knocked him down from his lofty mindset.

"I'm still too weak." Brian Carter wiped his forehead, only to find his hand covered in sweat.

"Attribute appraisal."

A semi-transparent screen with a dark border instantly appeared in Brian Carter's field of vision.

Brian Carter: 25-year-old male human (1 is the standard value for an adult male)

Strength 3

Speed 2

Endurance 2

Mental Power 6 (one level-zero spell consumes 1)

Cell Vitality 2 (determines physical resistance and recovery)

"Mental power six? Earlier, Black Panther killed four zombies, which should have added four points, then I forcibly calculated the level-one spell Protective Winged Beast at the cost of overdrawing double mental power, causing permanent damage equivalent to the consumption of three points for a level-one spell cast twice. That means I still have one point more than before."