Jake moved at a brisk jog through the overgrown streets, weaving between tangled vegetation and rusted car frames. It was the middle of the day, and the sounds of chaos enveloped him, gunfire echoing through the city, engines revving, and mutants howling in the distance. He was getting closer to Base Catalina and should reach his destination in just a few minutes.
As he neared the end of the block, he spotted a large four-way intersection ahead with a white SUV that sat in the center. Next to it stood three humans—two males and one female. Another male was slumped under the raised hood. They looked like regular survivors, not members of Los Demonios. The three standing survivors were firing their weapons in various directions, trying to fend off walkers rushing at them from all sides.
One of the survivors shouted at the man tinkering with the engine to hurry up. Jake noticed that the SUV was riddled with bullet holes. It seemed the group had recently encountered Los Demonios, who had opened fire on them. Although the survivors seemed to have managed to give the bandits the slip, one of the bullets must have damaged the engine. It probably worked for a bit longer but ultimately left the SUV dead and stranded in the middle of the intersection.
Jake could see that the group was having trouble keeping the mutants at bay. While the walkers were the weakest type of ex-humans, they had grown much more powerful after the city upgrade. Seeing that the four survivors were on the verge of being swarmed, he decided to help them out of their fix.
He charged forward and plunged straight into the midst of the ex-humans, knocking one of them off its feet. Morphing his right hand into a smashfist, he punched a huge hole in the chest of one of the nearest mutants, killing it instantly. One walker attempted to swipe its claws at him, but he easily dodged the attack and immediately delivered an uppercut to the mutant’s chin with such power that it snapped its neck.
Not sure what was going on, the survivors ceased firing. They bunched together at the driver’s side of the SUV, watching as the rest of the walkers rushed at Jake, lured by the commotion. He kept fighting, dodging their attacks and countering with his own. Occasionally, one of the walkers managed to catch him with its claws, but they inflicted little to no damage on his armored body.
It took him little time and effort to deal with the walkers.
Multiple enemies killed. +2,700 XP
Jake glanced around at the dead bodies of the mutants he had just slain. He killed twenty-seven walkers in total, which meant that one walker was worth 100 XP. He remembered that before the city upgrade, a walker was only worth 10 XP. This meant the experience reward had increased tenfold, at least for the weakest types of ex-humans. He suspected that tougher monsters likely offered even higher multipliers for experience.
Feral Instincts warned him of danger from behind, prompting him to immediately turn around. He saw one of the male humans lift the assault rifle he was armed with and point it at him. Jake fixed the man with the stare of his emotionless eyes and shook his head in warning. The female human standing near the man placed her hand on his weapon and pushed the barrel down.
Suddenly, from the right came the roar of an approaching vehicle. Jake and the human survivors all turned to see a black pickup truck with a red demon skull painted on the hood speeding toward them.
“It’s them again!” yelled one of the survivors Jake had just rescued from the ex-humans.
The black pickup truck screeched to a halt, coming to a stop a dozen yards behind the SUV. A powerful machine gun was mounted in the back of the vehicle. Judging by the expressions on the faces of the truck’s occupants, they didn’t expect to see Jake at all. Realizing he was a much more serious threat than the survivors they were chasing, the bandit in the back swung the muzzle of the machine gun in his direction.
Before he could fire a single shot, though, Jake morphed his left hand into a grappling hook and launched it in the gunner’s direction. The pointed end pierced the bandit’s throat, going all the way through. Since he was already dead, there was no point in engaging the smaller hooks to snag onto the bandit’s flesh. With a powerful yank, Jake pulled back his grappling hook, and the body of the now-dead man slid sideways, dangling over the edge of the truck bed.
Jake performed a mana-infused jump, landing on the hood of the pickup truck. He slammed his right smashfist through the windshield, easily shattering it into a thousand shards, which rained down on the driver who was screaming in horror. His scream didn’t last long, though, as Jake’s punch mangled his face beyond recognition, caving the skull in and instantly killing the man.
There was one more bandit in the back of the vehicle. He swung open the driver’s side door and burst out of the car. The bandit sprinted away from the pickup truck, and he must have cast a spell because his movement speed suddenly greatly increased. It didn’t help him get away, though. Jake launched his grappling hook at the fleeing man, piercing him through one shoulder. Once the smaller hooks engaged and snagged onto the bandit’s body, he pulled hard on the cord, stopping the bandit dead in his tracks and sending him crashing onto his back.
Retracting his grappling hook and morphing it back into a human-like hand, Jake leaped from the pickup truck’s hood toward the bandit’s supine form. Before the man could get up, Jake leaned over him, morphing his left hand into a drill. The bandit screamed in sheer horror as he realized what was about to occur to him. He tried to jerk his head aside, but Jake kept it in place with his right hand as he drove the spinning drill right into the middle of the man’s face, turning it into a gory mess.
A second later, Jake withdrew the drill from the now-dead bandit’s skull and straightened up. He felt fantastic. It was great to be back in the outside world, fighting bandits again. He then turned to the four survivors near their SUV, staring at him with expressions of absolute horror on their faces.
Jake noticed that their SUV looked different from the vehicles before the city upgrade. It had a futuristic appearance, looking more like a vehicle from a sci-fi movie rather than a post-apocalyptic world. He wondered if the survivors had built this SUV themselves or if all the vehicles in the city looked now.
He couldn’t help but notice a bluish glow emanating from the SUV’s engine block. This vehicle clearly didn’t run on gas. Instead, it used magical energy for fuel. A mana consumable was visibly inserted into the engine block, yet Jake felt no urge to take it.
A few minutes after emerging from the sewers, he located a mana cloud and consumed it with the Mana Absorption perk, earning a whopping 50,000 MP. Afterward, he found a few greater mana consumables and used them as well, topping off his body with mana. He was now brimming with mana and had no need for more.
The survivors stared at him apprehensively, clearly uncertain about what to expect. To put them at ease, Jake morphed his weapons back into human-like hands and waved. One of the survivors, still in shock, slowly lifted his hand to wave back. Jake flashed a V-sign before spinning around and sprinting away.
When he reached the end of the street, he glanced back. The three survivors were looting the dead bandits, while the fourth sat behind the pickup truck’s steering wheel, carefully maneuvering the vehicle around their nonfunctional SUV. Since Los Demonios were much better equipped than regular survivors, the team knew that taking their gear and vehicle would greatly benefit them.
It didn’t take Jake long to reach Base Catalina. Before launching an attack, he decided to check the compound for any changes since his last visit. With his Cloak active, he crawled up three stories along the front wall of the building overlooking the base. From his vantage point, he noticed that the gate had already been fixed, and HQ had been upgraded to Level 7.
The base had four watchtowers, one at each corner. Each watchtower was equipped with an automatic machine gun turret. Jake was pleased to see that three of them were still in the process of upgrading to Level 7. Only one had been upgraded to that level and was operational. Dealing with it shouldn’t pose much difficulty for him, given how much stronger he had become after venturing into the dungeon.
Jake detached from the wall and dropped to the ground. Then, he immediately burst into a run toward the watchtower topped with the operational turret. Although his Cloak was up, the visible air distortions from his fast movements alerted the turret to his presence almost immediately. It swung its barrel toward him and opened fire.