by Chen Ran
As he slowly savored the amber liquid, a young soldier pushed open the door of the tavern and hurried toward him. Sniper Specialist's keen perception immediately discovered that something was amiss. Lan Qi's hand had already lightly landed on the Desert Eagle by his waist. He did not bring his sniper rifle, Falcon III, with him, but the automatic pistol of the old dynasty was enough for Lanqi to deal with any situation.
"Mr. Lange..." The soldier came to the counter, panting while shouting out the White-headed Eagle's name.
Lan Qi lazily replied, "My intelligence reports have been sold out. If you want any more information, go and report it to the other intelligence merchants."
"What did you say?" Mr. Lan Qi, I am here on behalf of Master Soren. "
When the soldier stood up, Lan Qi saw the Parkland's valve's badge on his tactical suit. The White-headed Eagle's heart skipped a beat for no reason. He put down his wine heart and asked in a deep voice: "What happened?"
Soren would definitely not send someone to Elk Town to find a retired Sniper Specialist for no reason at all. Other than his son Kabu, Lan Qi could not find a reasonable reason.
"Mr. Lange, I'm sorry to have to tell you a bad news. Sir Soren's Tracing Specialist, who is also your son Mr. Kabu, died in a mission two months ago! "
"What?"
The White-headed Eagle roared, looking at the usually quiet adventurer, everyone suddenly became excited, all of them had strange looks on their faces.
"What task is it?" How did Kabu die? Killed by a monster? "
To Lan Qi, Kabu was the continuation and hope of his life. Even though Lan Qi knew clearly that there was no such thing as safety in the wilderness, and Kabu could possibly die at any moment in some ruins, Lan Qi had spent all his effort to earn money in order to raise his son's strength to ensure his life. But the White-headed Eagle never thought that Kabu would leave so early.
"Mr. Kabu was killed by a special ability user called Zero. There is a video here that you can watch." The soldier took out the tactical plate and called out a footage from it.
This video was a recording of the Enraged Zero. The Blood Cavalry would record the quest when they sent out the quest. In order to prevent himself from dying in battle, he had to provide the necessary information to the successor. The video of Kabu being killed by zero was also recorded by the intelligence brain that Soren carried around with him. Right now, the scene that Lan Qi saw was precisely one that was edited out from the intelligence brain's records.
In the scene, Zero was like a humanoid beast. Even with the intelligence brain's speed of 5,000 frames per second, it could only barely catch his movement trajectory. The instant he saw the intermittent afterimage break through Soren's defensive position in the blink of an eye and then approach Kabu … His son was thrown like a doll, and when he landed, his head was twisted 180 degrees, no matter how one looked at it, his neck would not be able to survive.
From the moment Kabu was killed to the time he went berserk, the entire process took less than five seconds. This caused Lan Qi, besides being enraged, to calm down as well.
There was no doubt that the zero in the image was very powerful. Lan Qi estimated from his experience that Zero had at least the strength of the sixth step, as well as the ability to increase agility. If Lan Qi allowed Zero to approach him, he would have been killed without any suspense. However, in Lan Qi's mind, Zero wasn't strong enough to be an absolute monster. This meant that both the trap and sniping would be able to kill the opponent who was slightly stronger than him.
"Give me his information! "Everything!"
Lan Qi's killing intent could be seen in his simple words.
Tens of kilometers away, on the wilderness outside the Angry Reef City, Zero suddenly felt a chill. It was like being aimed at by a sniper rifle, causing him to instantly lower his body. A moment later, after confirming that there were no more snipers within two thousand meters, he stood up.
Zero looked in the direction where the chill came from. Lightning flashed from time to time in the thick radiation cloud in the southwest sky.
The storm was approaching!
Chapter 79 - The eve of departure
In the darkness, a golden pupil suddenly appeared. Around his pupils, there were countless silver lines. These silver lines that were as thin as hair were slightly trembling, and then were quickly twisted by an unknown force, gathering towards the center. In an instant, all the silver lines gathered into a thin dot, and then they suddenly expanded, forming a vertical pupil like Long Qing.
Zero raised his head and spat out a mouthful of hot air. The ten fingers on his hands opened wide, and the tactical suit s on his arms were torn and minced by an invisible force, revealing skin that was similar to a white master. A stream of blood-red energy poured into the white surface of his body. The pores on his body expanded, and a stream of hot Qi flowed out from the pores one after another. The high temperature caused Zero's figure to distort slightly. With a loud roar, white air currents sprayed out in all directions, and the glass surrounding the ruins shattered at the same time, producing a series of crisp sounds.
Squatting at the zero limit, he pushed off with all his strength and shot into the sky like a rocket, leaping a hundred meters into the air.
He howled loudly, and the only sound that could be heard was that of zero echoing in the world. The thick, radiating clouds in the sky seemed to sense something and ripples began to appear.
As he was in the air, he launched himself into the air. The air became as thick as mud, and the space under his feet began to distort. Following that, a huge kinetic energy caused him to change his direction, hurling him towards a twelve-story building at the bottom left.
He moved so fast that he left a faint, broken shadow in the air. One after another, waves of white air sprayed out in the air, as if they were white lotuses, and in the blink of an eye, they had already arrived in the vicinity of the building.
He raised his fist and punched forward. It passed through the air and brought up a raging inferno. This fist, wrapped in raging flames, smashed into the outer wall of the building. The outer wall immediately caved in, creating a three-meter diameter circle. Then, six beams of fire shot across the wall with a fist as the center, slicing across the surface of the building in the blink of an eye and converging into a single point in the other direction of the fist.
In an instant, a large fireball large enough to engulf the entire building appeared. Waves of fire swirled and churned, destroying and burning all the organisms in the building from their internal molecular structure. In the blink of an eye, the building was reduced to scorched earth, which scattered along with the remnants of the dust.
He landed heavily on the ground, lowering his body the moment his toes touched the ground, pushing the force that had fallen from the sky down to the ground. As a result, cracks began to appear on the surface of the ground, before sinking into a five meter wide and two meter deep hole. In the crater, Zero once again used its power, causing a white smoke dragon to fly up.
As he passed another building, Zero stuck his hand into the wall, lifted up a ten-meter-wide wall, and threw it up.
With another step, waves of air burst out and Zero's figure disappeared into the air. When it reappeared, it was already in the flying orbit of the outer wall. A large part of the outer wall was rushing over with strong wind. He did not dodge nor evade at all, and his arms and legs contracted to the limit as he arched his body into the shape of a prawn, maintaining an overall defensive posture.
The outer wall immediately smashed onto his body, causing crushed rocks to fly everywhere. Zero abruptly stretched out his body. Through the spread of his limbs, he was able to draw out the force of the impact while being completely unharmed.
The corner of his mouth curled up into a smile, but when that smile appeared, his expression changed. A mouthful of blood sprayed out. Zero, as if he suddenly lost control of his body, fell to the ground. It was only when he was about to hit the ground that
he regained his balance. He used the continuous rolling to reduce the force of the fall. He flipped over a few dozen meters away before he finally came to a stop.
Lying on the ground in the ruins, he gasped for breath.
Within the golden right eye, the vertical pupil like silver lines had already disappeared, returning to the usual state that was the edges of the pupils.
[Rampage], in the form which he had just used. This was a new ability that was formed after the genetic shock. Its effect was to increase the power by zero in an instant. The increment rate was basically one fold. However, this value was relatively speaking. The higher the grade of the ability, the smaller the increment.
It had already been two months since the battle with Soren, and during this period of time, Su Yun had stayed in the Angry Reef City. Under Victor's observation, the genes he used to undergo the concussion on had already stabilized and there were no signs of collapse.
After experiencing the genetic shock, all the abilities automatically rose by one rank. The current him, under normal circumstances, had Level 1 Fire Elemental Su proficiency, Level 2 Strength and Defense Strengthening, Level 2 Bullet Time, and Level 3 Agility Strengthening. As for the brand-new ability 'Rampage' that was formed due to the gene shock, this ability was not in the current knowledge system of the Five Great Regions. Therefore, Zero did not know what rank of ability it belonged to.
He only knew that [Rampage] could amplify all kinds of abilities, but its value was relatively higher. For example, when Zero put the rest of his points into the ability, he would directly upgrade his Agility to Level 5. Even if he used [Rampage], it would only increase his power up to around the seventh step, and not twice as fast as the tenth step.
Therefore, Zero came to the conclusion that the maximum increment rate for [Rampage] was around the Second to Third Order. The increase in abilities above the fourth step was greatly reduced, but the higher the rank, the more limited the increase. It could be predicted that when other abilities were upgraded, the effect would be miniscule. However, to the current Zero, this ability is still extremely important. It can even help him to experience the realm of a powerhouse of the seventh step in a limited amount of time.
However, the stronger the ability, the greater the limitations. This could affect any level of truth. Even though [Rampage] was powerful, it could only be used for a duration of 10 seconds. After this time was over, at 12 seconds, the gene would vibrate and at 15 seconds, the gene would crumble. Once an unnatural gene shock or immediate genetic collapse occurred, it was impossible to save zero with the current known medical techniques.
Therefore, [Rampage] was a double-edged sword. If you don't use it well, you'll kill zero.
But no matter what, a huge increase in strength of zero was an indisputable fact. Especially with its agility enhancement at the fifth stage, it was similar to the wind pressure cutter that Su's cold weapon had proficient at at at the fifth stage.
Phantom Shadow, a doppelganger created from the speed of a Level 0 – 5 Agility. Remnants have the ability to disrupt vision and attack power, and when zero uses Rampage, the number of images can be increased to as many as two.
This could be said to be the last resort, and also the strongest killing weapon. As for this killing move, it naturally had to be kept a secret. As a result, recently, when he was practicing and familiarizing himself with his new ability, he chose to go to the ruins in the wilderness.
In a blink of an eye, two months had passed, and Su Yun was already familiar with the new abilities she had mastered, which included the usage of the first stage Fire Essence Su. He was not a born Element Domain Capable, so even Zero could not understand why such a power would exist. She could only guess that it was related to Soren's battle.
In fact, zero, in the face of a variety of powerful enemies, will either have more or a certain ability. Just like how the butcher let Zero show signs of strength and enhanced defense, but Hans's battle had made Zero's healing speed much faster. But the current Fire Elemental Su was proficient in was formed after fighting with Soren.
It was just that for Zero, Su was very familiar with Level 1 Fire Element Su. Other than lighting up her cigarette, she really could not think of any other possible solution. Unless one could raise Su's Fire Essence level to Level 2 while in berserk mode, she would be able to use a fist made out of fire that would burn the entire building.
After two months of trying, he finally found a slightly feasible method. That was to inject the energy produced by the Level 1 Fire Essence Su into the sniper rifle, which would cause the sniper rifle to produce a flame explosion when it hit the target. This could also be considered the disguised usage of Fire Elemental Su. As for this technique of being used as an explosive bomb with a zero life, with the strength of his mental strength, he could only inject Fire Elemental Su into five bullets a day.
Zero stared at the changing clouds. It was more than two years since he had awakened, and now he could finally experience the terror of Adepts. Adepts were only a step away from the First or Second Order when it came to power levels. However, when their abilities reached the fifth step, the gap between Adepts and ordinary people became too wide.
However, in the vast world of Adepts, fifth-ranked Adepts weren't all that powerful. Only by standing at the peak of his strength would he be able to truly do something. For example, let Lea be reborn, or let a child like Moni not have to live a life of exile.
During the turbulent times, power determined everything!
However, Zero also knew that Fatty did not eat them in one bite. On the path of power, he still had a long way to go. During this journey, the Parkland would definitely take a stop. Zero was already fully familiar with his new ability. Now, it was time for him to move on to the next step.
He stood up and looked towards the distant north. That was where his next stop was, and the Parkland's valve's base was in the Northland!
Chapter 80 - Delegates
In the evening, the radiating clouds were reflected by the fiery light of the sky as if they were fire clouds. They stretched out for a thousand miles, causing the world on the ground to be shrouded in a layer of red light. The ground was still warm from the day's heat, and every stone gave off an astonishing heat. At night, however, they become colder than polar ice.
This was the world of the new era. The temperature differed greatly between day and night, testing the living beings' ability to survive at all times.
He had used bandages to wrap the tactical suit's arms, which had been strangled by the energy. He did not want anyone to see those two arms, which were like white jade. This made him seem a little too abnormal in this era where mutations were everywhere. He brought the wild flowers from the wilderness and arrived at the Angry Reef City's cemetery.
Although it was just a common wild flower, even after these things left the soil, the roots were still slowly wiggling. They tried to extend their young roots, to prick into the zero body, to absorb blood for nourishment. However, every time they came into contact with the watch, the roots would shrink back as if they had been electrocuted. Not long after that, they continued with their previous actions.
It was a mutated creature that was as deep as the sea and a mutated plant that was as small as the wilderness. In this world, all species, including humans, were desperately evolving in order to gain the right to live. Whenever he saw such tenacious wildflowers in the wilderness, Zero always felt an inexplicable fear. In turbulent times, would humans still be the long term for all living things?
That's not necessarily true, is it?
The cemetery was as silent as a ghost, with dozens or more of tombstones lining the gray landscape. Although it was called a tombstone, it was actually just a piece of wooden board half a meter tall and as wide as a palm. The boards were simply carved with the names of the dead, like the luxurious tombstones of the old days with photographs still hung on them. Only the great aristocrats could enjoy them.
As for the commoners,
in an era where resources were so scarce, using a wooden board was already extravagant.
Lea's body had already been cremated, and her ashes were buried in the Angry Reef City's cemetery. However, there was no name on Lea's tombstone. It was only the capital letter "L" with Lea's name carved on it symbolically. If she was unable to be reborn after three years, her full name would only appear on this tombstone.
The wild flowers were placed in front of the grave. This was the second woman who had laid flowers in front of the grave. Su Ling thought of Rita, the woman who made Su Ming feel that she was so powerless when facing her fate for the first time. Su Ling didn't want to repeat Lea's tragedy again. Victor gave him a glimmer of hope. Even though that hope was extremely slim, it was still better than despair, right?
"Are you ready to leave?"
Victor's voice came from behind him. The doctor had brought out two crosses from nowhere. One was placed in front of Lea's grave, while the other belonged to his wife, Kaelyn. The doctor smiled at Zero. "God will bless them."
"Thank you." Zero said sincerely. He then said, "I will leave tomorrow. Thank you for taking care of me during this time."
For the past two months, had been staying at Victor's house to eat and drink. In addition, Victor would check his body every day to make sure that his genes were stable. He remembered this favor in his heart.
Victor waved his hand: "There's no need to be so courteous, you've also helped me quite a bit."
He looked at Kaelyn's tombstone in silence. Su Yun quietly retreated, not disturbing Victor and his wife.
Zero came to the tavern in Angry Reef City and started his journey. He asked Masters to get a batch of ammunition for him. This includes the M500's customized warheads, and tonight is the time to pick up the cargo. The tavern was as lively as ever, the area near the dance floor still having the most people. However, having been in the Angry Reef City for the past two months, most of the people who went in and out of the tavern had already recognised zero.