Chương 177: bringer

[156/300] [69/300] [9/500] [225/300] [455/500] [12/300] [189/300] [356/500]... These bright red Health Bars forcibly injected the only bizarre splashes of color into this dead, black-and-white portrait of a ruined world. But this color existed only in Vince's eyes—a sight he was utterly unable to share with anyone else. Countless zombies wandered aimlessly within the blast radius. Almost none of them had full health.

Furthermore, these zombies no longer exhibited the health-based stratification Vince had observed last night. The 500-HP and 300-HP zombies were completely mixed together, shambling about without any clear purpose. However, they all actively avoided the immediate hundred-meter radius surrounding the deep crater. Looking closely, faint wisps of pale smoke were still rising from the cracks in the ash-covered ground.

It seemed the earth there was still scorching hot, and even the zombies knew better than to scorch their own feet.

"You can't cross that. The temperature in the center is obviously extremely high. Even the zombies hate that kind of heat," Vince said, pointing at the deep crater. But Evelyn ignored his warning. Her eyes were practically glowing as she stared at the two "long snakes" buried in the ash on the highway.

"Are those two... the tentacles of the 'Tree'?" Vince had never seen such a greedy gleam in her eyes. She looked like a child pressing her face against a toy store window, staring at the toy of her dreams.

"You want them?" Vince asked, testing the waters. She was a researcher, after all. Seeing a completely novel specimen naturally triggered the urge to collect it. He could understand that.

"Could I?" Evelyn suddenly looked twenty years younger, staring at Vince with wide, eager eyes. With that many zombies swarming below, there was no way she could go down and grab a sample herself.

"Uh... how big of a piece do you need?" Vince figured it wasn't a big deal. Grabbing a sample for her to study might actually yield some useful discoveries.

"About this big... Or if it's convenient, this big works too... Actually, the bigger the better." Evelyn held out a hand, extending her thumb and index finger to indicate a three-centimeter chunk. She paused, reconsidered, and stretched her fingers as wide as they could go. Even her muffled voice through the gas mask squeaked slightly out of tune.

"Then wait here for me," Vince said as he used a Minor [Stealth Potion], before equipping the Stealth Crystal. In an instant, Evelyn suddenly felt as though the Vince standing in front of her had grown colder. It was as if a veil had been draped over him, creating an indescribable sensation. But she didn't pay it much mind. Her attention was entirely fixated on the samples that were now within reach. Hearing Vince promise to retrieve them for her, she nodded vigorously.

"Wait, retrieve them? Are you going down there?!" She suddenly realized what Vince had just said and looked at him in confusion.

"Didn't you just say the temperature is too high to cross?"

"I said you can't cross it. I never said I couldn't... What else do you want? I'll bring it back for you." Vince was suddenly a bit speechless. How did a perfectly rational, brilliant woman instantly turn into Zoe the second she saw some tentacle remains?

"Any remains of the 'Tree'. Aside from the tentacles, grab me any other parts or unique shapes you can find. The bits closest to the blast center are probably incinerated, but just try your best to look," Evelyn requested, looking at him intently.

"Oh, right. I might disappear in a second. Just stay right here and wait for me. If things go south, I'll run in the opposite direction and warn you over the walkie-talkie. If that happens, call Zoe and the others to come pick you up." This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Vince suddenly remembered the near-disaster caused by miscommunication with Bruno.

He didn't want Evelyn blindly shouting into the radio the second he vanished, inadvertently summoning Zoe and the rest into a meat grinder.

"Disappear? What kind of disappear?" Evelyn asked, puzzled.

"The same kind of disappear that kid Seth showed you guys earlier."

"You can do that too? Is your ability... can a person possess multiple abilities, or is it different applications of a single ability?" Hearing that Vince could also vanish, Evelyn immediately sought confirmation.

"I don't know. But it should count as different applications of a single ability," Vince thought for a moment before answering.

"Understood." Receiving her answer, and associating it with the versatile ways Raven used her own power, Evelyn readily accepted the explanation. She took two steps back to avoid interfering with Vince. But with just those two steps back, she could already feel Vince's presence fading rapidly. Vince finished his preparations. He stepped up to the edge of the roof, crouched low, and pushed off the eaves with both feet. He launched himself outward like an arrow loosed from a bow!

The immense explosive force pulverized the concrete ledge, which had been baked brittle by the fire, kicking up a massive plume of dust and debris. Watching Vince shatter the roof and vanish into thin air like a fired artillery shell, Evelyn's heart rate spiked. Her pupils trembled slightly. Even though she had theoretically understood Vince's strength and had just experienced it firsthand, the raw, visceral impact of this explosive power wasn't something she could grow immune to after just a few rooftop jumps.

Seeing Vince vanish in mid-air, she assumed he was going to clear the entire distance and land directly by the crater. She quickly pulled up her binoculars and aimed them across the street. However, Vince's trajectory fell far short of what Evelyn imagined. The brittle eaves hadn't provided enough solid footing. After covering only forty or fifty meters, he began to plummet. The moment his feet touched the ground, he summoned his spear and unleashed a full-powered sweeping strike!

The necks of several zombies within a two-meter frontal arc instantly snapped. Heads flew into the air, and their headless bodies crashed to the pavement like toppled statues. The commotion immediately drew the attention of the surrounding horde. The nearby zombies, vaguely sensing Vince's presence, lunged at him. The zombies further out couldn't quite sense their prey, but they still began shambling slowly toward the source of the disturbance.

Looks like the Minor Stealth Potion really isn't as effective as the Medium one... After all, when he combined a Medium potion with the Stealth Crystal, he could practically walk shoulder-to-shoulder with the zombies without being noticed. But Vince hadn't planned on using a Medium potion anyway. The drop rate for higher-tier potions wasn't great. He currently had fewer than ten Medium potions of any type in his inventory, while he still had plenty of Minor ones. Better to use them sparingly.

Initially, Vince had planned to use a Medium potion if the zombies were swarming everywhere, then figure out a way to lure them away from the epicenter. But since the zombies had already graciously cleared out a perimeter around the crater, a Minor potion was more than enough. His spear effortlessly shattered the skulls of any zombies blocking his path. Whether they had 300 HP or 500 HP made absolutely no difference to him. He charged straight toward the blast crater.

More and more zombies trailed behind him, but as Vince picked up speed, the undead were left further and further in the dust until they lost their target completely and ground to a halt. Without losing momentum, Vince charged straight into the zombie-free zone. After running a few more meters, he cleanly dispatched the last few stragglers with a crisp backhand thrust. In the distance, the horde returned to its aimless, confused milling.

They could vaguely sense that the high-temperature 'no-go zone' was shrinking, likely because the ground was slowly cooling off. Vince wasted no time and pushed deeper into the crater. With every step, the grey ash was kicked up, exposing the scorched, pitch-black earth underneath. His shoe soles began to melt. The pungent smell of burning rubber wafted up from beneath his feet. Looking down, he saw his soles drawing sticky, viscous strings of melted rubber against the scalding earth.

The sheer heat distorted the air, making it look as though a rippling layer of water separated him from the ground.

"Equip the Armor Crystal..." Vince swapped out his Stealth Crystal for the Armor Crystal. After all, he had used it to withstand extreme heat before, though he wasn't entirely sure if it would work in this specific scenario. Two faint currents of blue light flared up from beneath his feet, successfully protecting his rapidly deteriorating shoes. Thank god that worked. If his soles had burned completely through and he was forced to walk barefoot across these literal hot coals, he'd be putting on a tap-dancing show.

Evelyn hadn't been able to spot Vince through her binoculars. Standing on the roof, she initially only noticed the zombies on the periphery stumbling and falling over, as if chasing an invisible phantom. But as waves of zombie heads flew into the air and exploded, the number of pursuing undead actually dwindled. It wasn't until the final batch of zombies dropped dead near the edge of the empty perimeter that Vince finally reappeared in the clearing.

Only then did she realize that Vince hadn't jumped the entire distance. He had landed right in the middle of the horde. And yet, he had only alarmed a tiny fraction of the zombies, slipping right through a dragnet of thousands of undead to reach his destination.

"Such a mysterious power..." She slowly raised her hands, gently touching her cheeks through the gas mask. Her eyes shimmered with intoxicating excitement.