Along with the growls, small footsteps were heard from inside the cave. Rick raised his guard for a moment, but when he saw what was approaching, he could barely contain himself and started laughing.
A miniature version of the gray wolf approached him, keeping its guard up and showing its fangs, almost as if it wanted to intimidate him and tell him that it wasn’t afraid. It was at most the size of a medium-sized dog. But unlike the other mutants, it didn’t have red eyes or black saliva... Its eyes were yellow, and a black spot, shaped like a lightning bolt, covered its right eye.
Rick approached it and grabbed its scruff until it was at face level. When it was face to face with Rick, the pup stopped growling and couldn’t look him in the eye. After Rick also confirmed that it was a male, he lowered it to the ground, then took a piece of meat from his inventory, along with a level 1 crystal to feed it. While eating, Rick stroked its gray fur...
"Good boy... What should your name be?"
This young wolf was part of a new, very rare group of mammals that were born from other infected mammals... In the apocalypse, whenever one of these was found, it meant good quality food and no infection, since this little fellow was completely immune to the virus.
One of the surviving biologists called this adaptation and evolution of animals. The most fascinating thing of all was that the animal’s father or mother protected it for a long time, before finally noticing their cub as prey. It was something instinctive, dating back to the time when they were still normal animals.
The reason why mammals were the rarest of this new species was that if they couldn’t escape their parents by preying on them, they would end up becoming food while still young. That’s why they were rarer among reptiles, amphibians, birds, and fish. Most of which managed to escape before their parents devoured them.
But life wasn’t easy for any of them. As a new species immune to the ZY virus, they were also targets of all the abominations of the apocalypse. But they could also hunt them to become stronger by devouring their bodies and crystals. That’s why later, many survivors began to domesticate some of these animals in the hope of having strong and loyal companions. But due to predation by humans and mutants, they were rarely seen...
Looking again at the gray wolf that had a black spot similar to a lightning bolt in its right eye, Rick decided to call him Fulmen.
"Come on, Fulmen, I want to get back before nightfall..." As he ran through the forest, he observed whether the little wolf could keep up with him at his pace and speed...
After a while, he picked him up and decided to carry him... After all, he was still very young and slow compared to a level 3 human.
"Speaking of level 3 humans, who should I give this crystal to? Maya, Joel, or Ethan?" Rick thought as he moved like a blur through the forest...
In the skies of the Capital of Jyera, a man floated in the middle of the clouds, observing everything as if he were a God judging everyone in that overpopulated city.
With blond hair, blue eyes, and elegant clothes that resembled a luxurious suit, Vice Admiral Thulliver floated using a powerful Universal Force of the wind.
From time to time, a powerful yellow pulse left his body and expanded like a radio wave in all directions, sweeping several kilometers away and passing through several physical objects, including the ground. After each pulse, Thulliver remained observing for a few seconds before his body flew at high speed, reaching a new location and releasing another similar pulse.
This process repeated itself for several days, while he tirelessly searched for clues as to the cause of the temporal anomaly. But since the Capital of Jyera was too big, he had not yet been able to check the entire place. But today, he finally made a discovery. On the outskirts of the city center, he found a building that had been completely distorted into a very unique shape...
Slowly landing on the spot, he realized that it was as if a giant creature had bitten off an entire chunk of the building. There was a round hole that even surgically cut the walls, furniture, and appliances in half. Confirming that this was the location of the anomaly he was looking for, he activated several strange measuring instruments and finally completed his mission by confirming that the person responsible for such a massive event had indeed perished.
This was a relief to him, despite his high position, he was not considered a fighter among those of his level... Avoiding fighting with some Apex or sub-Apex from another superior race was a good conclusion...
Sending a message about the death of the person responsible back to the Empire, less than 1 minute later, he received the coordinates and time for his extraction. Verifying that there was still 1 hour until everything was ready, he continued flying through the skies of the capital at a slower pace, he also continued using his yellow pulse ability to check if there was anything else unusual on this planet...
Suddenly, something caught his attention. A group of several survivors is fighting in the middle of an open street. Most of them wore police uniforms and had tactical riot shields and batons, as they slaughtered and contained a massive horde of zombies on the street without firing a single firearm.
They all displayed superhuman strength and fought in an extremely coordinated manner. They were led by a woman who wore a full police combat suit. Both her shield and baton glowed with a strange energy similar to Jyera’s previous energy shields. Something that should no longer exist in this world...
As she observed the woman and frowned, she also looked up, after lifting the visor of her tactical helmet. She had black eyes and tanned skin. She stared at the man with shock, but also with fearlessness.
Vice Admiral Thulliver was perplexed; he was too high for human eyes to see him as just a black dot in the sky, and he had a feeling that the woman would be troublesome if she wasn’t eliminated, so he raised his hand and launched a powerful blade made of wind in her direction. Such power would be enough to cut through even the strongest shields of some civilian aircraft from his mother planet.
But when such power got close to the woman, the energy couldn’t cut her as he predicted. Instead, it was completely absorbed by her shield, and then after 2 seconds, the attack was completely returned to the Vice Admiral, catching him completely off guard.
At this point, with nothing else to do, he reinforced his Universal Force shield to withstand the attack, which had been strengthened by the latina police officer in the counterattack.
After his shield was broken, Thulliver was furious at having almost been injured. He raised both hands and was about to launch a gigantic attack, devastating everyone in the street and its surroundings, when suddenly, something hit him in the head with an extremely powerful force.
It was only as he flew in freefall from the sky that his ears finally caught the familiar "BANG" that came from firearms, proving that what hit him was probably a high-caliber rifle.
His freefalling body hit the window of a building, breaking several objects and walls before finally losing speed. Still dizzy from the blow, the Vice Admiral stood up and ran his hand over his head, seeing traces of bluish blood.
Furious, he took flight again screaming, but his control of the Universal Force was unstable due to the strong blow to his head. When he finally reached the place where the police were, they had all already disappeared.
Still angry, he circled the sky a few more times, and tried to use his ability to track the fugitives, but all he got from trying to use the injured yellow wrist was an extreme migraine.
Frustrated, and with no more time to search for the culprits, he shot several tornadoes of wind towards the streets and buildings, causing several damages and collapsing buildings, finally leaving for the extraction site.
As for his subordinates who still remained in Jyera? He only sent a small warning to them and the Observer...