Chương 144: Mad Lin and the Volcano

The three small tendrils whipped around in a panic, altering their trajectory to stab at the massive metal container that had just materialized out of thin air! Vince, meanwhile, spun upward, landing squarely on the shaft of his spear. The heavy steel bent into a terrifying, tension-filled arc beneath his feet. The exact instant the kinetic energy peaked, Vince kicked off the spear! Blue light flared beneath his boots as he engaged his Armor Crystal.

Like a human cannonball, he didn't retreat—he launched himself violently forward, directly into the path of the incoming colossal trunk! His fingertips brushed against the spear shaft just as he passed, recalling it back into his inventory! Successfully retrieving the weapon was a massive, unexpected bonus. In Vince's original plan, losing the spear was an acceptable casualty. The fact that he actually managed to hook it filled him with giddy relief.

He almost wondered if he chose the wrong profession; maybe he should've been an Olympic gymnast. But he knew perfectly well that his current reaction speed and physical limits were entirely propped up by the four potions surging through his veins. Even a 2, 000-HP mutant couldn't match his current state, let alone his baseline stats. Aside from the inability to fly and the lack of a cape, Vince felt like a literal god.

The sonic boom generated by the incoming colossal trunk, the dust particles hanging in the air, even the blank expressions of the zombies swarming the distant ground—every single microscopic detail was burned into his brain with absolute clarity. Every joint, every muscle fiber responded to his will with unprecedented, terrifying precision. Originally, Vince was prepared to sacrifice an arm... But since he recovered the spear, things just got a whole lot easier!

He summoned the spear mid-air, channeling every ounce of his raw power into a devastating horizontal sweep aimed right at the colossal trunk! Using the impact against the colossal trunk as a pivot point, he violently twisted his body, slipping past the massive vine in a hair-raising near-miss! Even as a grazing blow, the abrasive, hostile energy radiating from the trunk clashed violently with the defensive veil of his Armor Crystal, throwing off showers of brilliant blue sparks.

With a casual flick of his wrist, he used the heavily warped, blunted spear to completely obliterate the skull of a [500] HP zombie beneath him. He spun and touched down on the concrete, kicking up a cloud of dust. He stashed the spear back into his inventory. The Durability had plummeted by 40 points, but there was no time to repair it. Frowning, he drew the heavy handgun from his waist and aimed it directly at the root of the colossal trunk, dozens of meters away.

The tip of the colossal trunk he had just dodged was still carrying massive forward momentum, bending down from the sky like a titanic, inverted 'U'. Meanwhile, the tip of the other colossal trunk was ripping straight toward him from the opposite side of the crater! His thumb brushed against the cold, steel grip of the gun, feeling the sticky residue of dried blood still clinging to it.

"We did it, old man! Guide my hand!" Mimicking the firing stances he'd seen in movies, he dropped into a wide stance. One hand gripped the handle, the other supported the base. Right now, Vince was a human vise, clamping the handgun with absolute, unyielding stability. He held his breath, pushing his hyper-focused senses to their absolute zenith! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! Four bursts of muzzle flash illuminated the dark.

Dozens of meters away, at the base of the oil-drum-thick trunk, three pathetic, minuscule dents appeared, followed by a tiny, insignificant yellow spark... It was like a solitary, destined star in the night sky, finally meeting the rapidly expanding, volatile cloud of gasoline vapor. For a fraction of a second, the entire world went absolutely silent. A blinding, ethereal door of incandescent white light flickered between heaven and earth, instantly vanishing back into the dark...

And in the next microsecond, the world erupted into daylight. The moment Vince fired the last shot, he had already turned on his heel, pumping his arms and sprinting out of the park with everything he had! The world around him turned a blinding, scorching white. Less than a second later, a wave of apocalyptic heat hit his back, feeling as if it were trying to incinerate his very soul! BOOOOOOM—!!! The concussive roar and the shockwave arrived simultaneously!

A solid wall of superheated air acted like the hand of an angry god, violently sweeping away everything in its path! Whether they were [300] HP grunts or [500] HP elites, the zombies were tossed like weightless dust motes, utterly defenseless before this majestic display of destruction. [Acquired Material: Scrap Metal 15] [Acquired Material: Rare Metal 11] [Acquired Material: Duct Tape 26] [Acquired Material: Razor Edge 17] [Acquired Material: Scrap Metal * 25] This story has been stolen from Royal Road.

If you read it on Amazon, please report it [Acquired Material: Steel Wire 9] [Acquired Material: Rare Metal 24] [Acquired Material: Razor Edge 12] [Acquired Material: Duct Tape 18] [Acquired Material: Steel Wire 12] [Acquired Material: Rubber 7] [Acquired: …] [Acquired: Assorted Foodstuffs (Canned Meat, Cooking Oil, Fresh Meat, Rice, Flour, Veggie Packs...) - Total: Large 4, Medium 32, Small * 281]... The sheer concussive force of the blast wave instantly atomized the surrounding zombies.

Because his action triggered the explosion, the system credited him with the kills. But he didn't dare relax for a second! Because he knew the worst was yet to come! The thermal shockwave physically lifted him off his feet, launching him forward. The blue halo of his Armor Crystal flared violently, flashing sporadically as its Energy pool plummeted at a terrifying rate! But suddenly, the forward propulsion stopped. A bizarre sensation of weightlessness washed over him...

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a small pebble suspended in mid-air right beside him. It wasn't falling. It was just hovering. In that split second, every alarm bell in Vince's brain screamed in absolute terror! With a thought, the warped spear materialized in his hand. He didn't care about repairing it. He swapped to the Sharpness Crystal and ruthlessly drove the blade deep into the concrete beneath him! [-31]!

He had only been exposed without his Armor Crystal for a fraction of a second, but even though he held his breath, his exposed skin instantly flushed blistering red, sending a wave of agonizing, needle-like pain through his body! He ignored the burns completely. He wrapped his arms and legs around the embedded spear shaft, locking himself in place, and squeezed his eyes shut. A tsunami of loot notifications threatened to drown his vision, but the searing pain on his skin constantly reminded him—it wasn't over.

The dust, debris, and torn leaves that had just been blown away by the shockwave suddenly hit 'rewind.' They violently reversed direction, accelerating to a terrifying speed, flying right back toward the crater! A titanic vacuum effect kicked in. It sounded like a hurricane passing through, screaming with the force of a leviathan inhaling the ocean! Zombie corpses, snapped tree trunks, massive steel billboards... everything lost its weight and form, reduced to black silhouettes hurtling backward.

Everything the blast wave had pushed away was now being violently sucked right back into the blinding, all-consuming sea of white light behind him......

[Acquired Material: Plastic 32] [Acquired Material: Rare Metal 41] [Acquired Material: Synthetic Fiber 38] [Acquired Material: Leather 22] [Acquired Material: Rare Metal 17] [Acquired: Purified Water (Small) 266] [Acquired: Purified Water (Medium) 45] [Acquired: Purified Water (Large) 2] [Acquired Material: Plastic 26] [Acquired: Gasoline (Small) 96] [Acquired: Gasoline (Medium) 62] [Acquired: Gasoline (Large) 4] [Acquired Material: Synthetic Fiber 31] [Acquired: Diesel (Small) 126] [Acquired: Diesel (Medium) 44] [Acquired: Diesel (Large) 3] [Acquired: Strength Potion (Small) 7] [Acquired: Strength Potion (Medium) 2] [Acquired: Swiftness Potion (Small) 9] [Acquired: Swiftness Potion (Medium) 3] [Acquired: Hardening Potion (Small) 6] [Acquired: Hardening Potion (Medium) 2] [Acquired: Wild Potion (Small) 8] [Acquired: Wild Potion (Medium) 4] [Acquired: Stealth Potion (Small) 11] [Acquired: Stealth Potion (Medium) 4] [Acquired: Interface Module (Small) 6] [Acquired: Interface Module (Medium) 2] [Acquired: …] [Acquired: Assorted Foodstuffs (Canned Meat, Cooking Oil, Fresh Meat, Rice, Flour, Veggie Packs...) - Total: Large 16, Medium 112, Small * 694]...

"Quick! Recall the drone!" The monitor had suddenly flared with a blinding, absolute white before instantly cutting to static black. Evelyn tore her eyes away from the dead screen, her voice cold and commanding. Joseph was dead. The APC was lost. This drone was the convoy's only remaining eye in the sky. Even if the camera optics were fried, they had to recover the main chassis at all costs. She turned to look at the southern sky, her trembling pupils betraying the turmoil beneath her icy exterior.

That was the direction they had just come from. And right now, that entire section of the sky was illuminated by a terrifying flash. The world fell dead silent. Every survivor in the convoy stopped what they were doing, staring in pure, unfiltered horror at the distant horizon. Behind the black silhouettes of the city skyline, a deformed, orange-red "sun" was slowly rising from the earth, burning the low-hanging clouds into an ominous, apocalyptic crimson. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

It was paralyzingly terrifying. Sitting on a flimsy folding chair nearby, Raven frowned, the electrode patches on her forehead shifting slightly with her brow.

"Don't yell... it's not lost. The camera feed just cut..." she muttered, her lips barely moving. Even though she could feel her sister's anxiety bleeding through, she maintained absolute focus. Transmitting electrical signals through her telekinesis, she carefully monitored the telemetry of each rotor, slowly and steadily guiding the drone back down to ensure the fragile fiber-optic tether didn't snap.

Every civilian and soldier in the convoy had stopped working, their heads uniformly turned south, staring at the fiery sky that looked like the wrath of God himself. Twenty or thirty seconds later, a deep, resonant rumble rolled over them like distant thunder, as if the earth itself was roaring in pain.

"What happened!?" Raven kept her eyes squeezed shut, hyper-focused on the telemetry, but the muffled thunder and the faint tremor beneath her boots told her it wasn't a storm. She called out, alarmed.

"What's going on?"

"Keep your focus. Massive explosion to the south. Might have been APC One..." Evelyn replied quietly. She then turned and barked at a soldier nearby who was staring dumbly at the sky.

"Captain Chester, get your men in line! Start the generators! Get the fuel pumping now!"

"Generator's busted! We're fixing it! I... I'll go check on it!" Chester tore his eyes away from the fiery glow and jogged toward the warehouse behind the gas station. The warehouse was choked with rotting flesh and coagulated blood. The generators inside were heavily rusted and had refused to start. Luckily, one of his men knew his way around an engine. They had scavenged some parts from abandoned cars and were currently trying to rig it.

"Boss... what the hell was that?" a man with a rag tied over his face asked, holding a heavy wrench. He had been elbow-deep in the generator block.

"Hell if I know... That bitch said it was the APC blowing up... Bullshit. Did they pack a nuke in that thing?" Chester sneered, covering his nose to block out the overwhelming stench of the warehouse.

"Boss... Zhou is dead. The APC is gone. They barely have any real muscle left..." The mechanic stopped working. He pulled down his mask, his eyes gleaming with cold, calculating ambition as he looked at Chester. He lowered his voice.

"Our squad's got the most men and the most guns now. By all rights... they should be taking orders from us..."

"Shut up and work..." Chester casually swatted the man on the back of the head. But as he stood up and looked back at the apocalyptic glow on the horizon, his expression turned complex. He subconsciously rested a hand on his holstered sidearm. Chester walked to the edge of the warehouse, narrowing his eyes. He looked past the two women, focusing on the remaining, battered APC parked by the pumps, and the few heavily armed, but utterly exhausted soldiers guarding it. They had better gear.

But they were running on fumes. His Adam's apple bobbed slightly.... Minutes later, a low hum echoed from the dark sky. A black quadcopter slowly descended, trailing an ultra-thin, almost invisible fiber-optic line behind it. Raven opened her eyes, her pupils glowing with a faint blue light as she tracked the drone, bringing it in for a smooth landing. The night wind was biting, yet her forehead was slick with sweat.

As the blue glow faded from her eyes, she finally noticed the unnatural, apocalyptic glow lighting up the southern sky. Her eyes widened in shock, and she turned to Evelyn.

"What... what is that? Is it Uncle Zhou? Did they survive?"