Respawn: The Last Crossing (Respawn LitRPG series Book 6)

by Arthur Stone

  So much for his theory of manageable waves. He would have to face all the waves at once. Many hundreds and hundreds, and packed tightly enough that a good hit with one of his bullets would wound several at once.

  Drastic times.

  Cheater calculated his odds in a split second, and hoped he was wrong. His plan seemed a terrible long shot. The only alternative was to use a Shard of Invulnerability. He wanted to save that. Its cooldown was 100 hours, and nothing could reduce that. Using one now would nuke that option for more than four days.

  Cheater ignored the battered ghouls who had survived the wave of fire and started firing on the newcomers. He aimed with his right eye and watched the others with his left, abandoning the gun once they were within three seconds of him.

  Leaping back from his seat, he raised a grenade launcher. Having shot a huge ghoul in the face, he seized his rifle and used it to drive a bullet into the eye of the closest jumper. Infecteds of that beast’s level could be killed by a hit anywhere with the mods he had on his rifle, but Cheater preferred to maximize his chances of success.

  Five more bullets took out three more infecteds, and then he ran towards the tunnel, swapping in a new magazine on the way. He felt the breath of another beast at the back of his head, and realized that a split-second later, he would also feel its fangs. Turning, he fired into the open mouth, and then took out a few more close behind.

  These infecteds were moronic. Even the more developed ones. Many had still not realized that their prey had abandoned the vehicle, and so they were wasting their time by climbing onto the machine gun platform and milling about. Once they heard the latest shots, they leaped down immediately, but it would take them some time to pick up speed.

  Cheater made maximum use of the few moments this gained him, not to reload but to retrieve one of the two remotes Nut had given him.

  Hoping desperately that he had the right one, he flicked up the safety cover, and pressed the button.

  The explosion threw him forward into the earth. What a blast! The station ceased to exist. Everything was enveloped in fire and smoke. He thought, for a moment, that the height of the flames rivaled that of the mountains.

  Cheater realized that the fuel tanks would make a good explosive, but he had never imagined such a blast might result.

  What were those trains holding, pure nitroglycerin? Or is Nut really an amazing sapper? What was in those buckets he had poured into the tanks? What was in those sacks he had hung from the vehicles and train wagons? They had not been carrying many explosives, so Nut had clearly performed some kind of wizardly chemistry.

  His focus on the impossible power of the explosion drained away. Now was not the time for pondering chemistry. The station had become a localized hell, and so reinforcements were not coming at any speed. Not all of those nearby had been blanketed by the fire, however. Only the rear rows had been fried, or had skulls and bones shattered by the shock wave. Yet even some of these would be coming for him.

  Unable to reload his rifle in time, Cheater drew his pistol. It had been modified for maximal penetration, yet still the first two rounds went to waste. Only the third, dosed with Explosive Round mana, took out incoming manmincer’s skull. Even this did not kill the beast, but it rendered its legs useless, knocking it to an arm-only crawl.

  He took out a few more with the last of his ammunition, and then groaned. Three infecteds, each at least three-quarters of a ton, jumped at him in sync, claws outstretched.

  A ghoul group hug was imminent.

  Cheater used two abilities in rapid succession: Helping Hand and Smile of Fortune. The first ability’s main property increased the duration of any positive effects cast on the player during its own timespan. The second was his most familiar ability by now.

  His cheater’s luck.

  Right now, however, it was not the main property of Smile of Fortune that he was after. Helping Hand had also gained an additional property thanks to his great victory in the Devils’ fortress.

  It had seemed a property of limited usefulness, at first.

  When activated, the character flashes with an unbearably bright light, and can also emit a powerful acoustic blast, which can blind and stun those nearby. This property can be disabled by the player (Talent Rank 30 bonus).

  It was just what he needed now. The three monsters, still mid-flight, clutched their eyes and grunted in pain and confusion. Their encounter with Cheater did not go as they had planned. In other words, their prey was not eviscerated as if by six flying meat grinders. Instead, it was knocked back, as if by a battering ram.

  Cheater was hurled onto his back, with a wide smile on his face.

  He had not received a scratch, thanks to Smile of Fortune’s bonus property. Three seconds of total immunity. Yesterday, this same ability spared Cheater during the skirmish with the Devils, as he had been lying in the ditch and getting pummeled by large-caliber machinegun volleys.

  Today, the effects were a bit different. His effective Willpower of 150 boosted the effect of Helping Hand by +900%. His base three seconds of immortality extended to half a minute.

  That was nearly as effective as a free Shard of Invulnerability.

  Rising to one knee, Cheater popped another magazine into his rifle and shot five of the beasts emerging from behind the vehicles. They had not been hit by the blinding flash, so they were the most dangerous.

  He drew Choppa. It was not the best weapon against armored targets, but it could take down smaller beasts—and exposed sporesacs. Blinded as they were, his opponents were unable to evade him and cover their weakest points.

  Mentally counting the seconds remaining, Cheater swept through the critters, mowing down the most serious. He would not be able to get them all in half a minute, so he would have to skip the weakest.

  Not too long ago, he would never have dared to call a developed trampler “weak,” but things changed.

  Some things changed a lot.

  Cheater’s timing was a second or two off. He only realized this when the manmincer paralyzed from the waist down by his rifle swiped at his leg. Pain surged up his spine, and blood gushed from the limb.

  His invulnerability was gone.

  Furiously he finished the attacker, but then regained his composure in a moment.

  Smile of Fortune no longer offered him its impenetrable defense, but his Luck was boosted to an astronomical 5705 for nearly four minutes.

  He was unable to comprehend the might of a stat so high. How did all of the beasts within two miles of him not immediately perish from some act of misfortune?

  Luck was not a sure thing. He kept up his guard. Continuing on his path, he rushed from one beast to another, slicing them into oblivion. Twice, he reloaded his rifle and dealt with more infecteds emerging from the gorge. They were neither wounded nor blinded, but they appeared only rarely, and without fellow beasts alongside them. Some were crippled. Either his Luck had caused that, or the fire had reached farther than he thought. In any case, these supplementary forces hardly bothered him, and they soon ran out.

  The infecteds blinded by his ability now began to recover. Cheater dealt with them easily with Choppa, without spending any ammunition, so clearly the recovery was only partial. At one point, he even dropped his rifle to the ground. It hindered his movement, and speed was of the essence.

  The final beasts put up a fight. Only the execution of the most dangerous ones early on saved him. One by one, they died, as Cheater dodged their fangs and claws. In comparison with Cheater, they were downright clumsy—stumbling around, running into each other, and failing to protect their sporesacs and other weak points.

  The stratospheric Luck was wonderful for him, and terrible for his opponents.

  One creature even realized it had no chance and attempted to sneak away quickly, so Cheater drew his pistol, loaded up some Explosive Rounds, and dealt with the would-be survivor.

  No victory message appeared, but Cheater saw that the field was clear of threats, for now. However, he
had needed to use two of his strongest abilities—and one of his strongest aces, blowing the rigged train station, was no longer up his sleeve. Once the reinforcing creatures there had dealt with their troubles, they would bring him his own.

  There was no point to continue holding the line. He had greatly overestimated his odds against this flock. Although his level was high, without any abilities available, he would only manage to take a few more with him.

  That was not his plan. It was March’s plan, but Cheater was not about to die, and he would not be able to delay them for much longer. Once they managed to encircle him or break through the inferno, he would be dead in minutes, at best. His victory in the city underpass had gone to his head. Without the enemy’s approaching being restricted to small waves, such tactics would not work here. These beasts were stronger, and better organized.

  No matter how high his level, a well-placed claw or fang would be his end.

  Gaining two extra minutes was not worth his life. Enough fun. Let’s move.

  Should he really go empty-handed, though?

  Cheater rushed for the vehicles. His eyes ran sadly over the boxes of ammo. They were invaluable, but there was no way he could drag them along.

  He roughly yanked the Nold weapon from its power source and tore off the mount and scope Clown had rigged up. The turret was nearly intact. It did not weigh too much for him to bring.

  As he ran back for the tunnel, he made a quick stop at the manmincer, the only beast who had managed to wound him. He hastily shredded its sporesac and dumped the contents into his bag.

  This was not out of greed, really, but curiosity. The ghoul had died under the effect of Smile of Fortune. The System would have calculated its death with consideration for its killer’s colossal Luck. He wanted to get an idea of how much this could increase monster loot. By examining the contents and the monster’s level in the System logs, he could get a rough idea.

  These seconds were for the sake of science. The curious part of his mind hinted to him that dozens of other bodies lay around with just as valuable contributions to make to his experiment. Each would only take a few seconds.

  Thankfully, his inner wise man defeated his inner scientist. Cheater rushed on. He allowed himself to consume a red pea on the run. Smile of Fortune was just about to end, and he wanted to verify March’s repeated assurances that Luck did not affect his chance of receiving extra bonuses from consumables.

  Two hundred yards into the tunnel, Cheater heard the echoing grumbling of ghouls in pursuit. He congratulated himself for suppressing his greed.

  The station explosion had not delayed them for long. The fastest ghouls were already here. No longer did the infecteds have to consider their route carefully. There was only one tunnel on this side. After clearing the first few yards, they would have to skirt around the abandoned train. This would hardly hinder them.

  Unless, of course, that train were to explode.

  Cheater patted his vest pocket. The second detonator was inside, but he made no hurry to retrieve it. That first explosion had seared itself into his memory. It had terrified him. This one would likely be just as mighty. Nut was an incorrigibly good sapper.

  Limitations and modesty were not aspects of his character in any sense.

  He recalled Nut’s first story, during his interview. Events since had reinforced these impressions.

  He had razed a five-star hotel to the ground just to get picturesque vengeance against a girl who was cheating on him. The man would not skimp on these flammable trains.

  Cheater did not know much about explosives, but he knew that when the train blew, he had to be as far as possible. Ideally, he would not be inside the tunnel. It would become a massive gas chamber. The shockwave and flames would surge mightily forward. For miles. They would take him with them.

  He had to run, and fast.

  But the grumbling grew louder, it seemed. He imagined they would be uncomfortable in this dungeon and would not catch him quickly. Cheater was a player stronger than most. He had not invested much into his Speed, as it was not a primary stat for his build. It was at level 43, though, with a multiplier of 1.32x. Few players could catch him.

  Yet the grumbling was really growing louder. And deeper. This was no raffler. It might be an elite—the kind of beast able to outrun a cheetah without getting short of breath.

  Players with boosted stats were strong, but they were no Supermen. Cheater could not fly. His running speed matched that of Olympians in the old world, but it was slower than a developed infected’s. Cheater regretted agreeing to March’s terms on experience point allocation. A few extra points of Speed could have really helped him right now. And he could have used a Needle of Great Strength under the influence of Helping Hand. That would have increased the boost’s duration up to the maximum. He would be able to push himself much harder.

  Maybe he should use that needle now. The duration would be shorter, but he needed a Speed boost immediately.

  What’s that? Cheater’s Darkvision allowed him to see well in the tunnel. He had noticed quite a few service niches along the side, and had once passed a closed metal door. Now, he saw a vertical well with a metal ladder.

  He stopped and looked up. The shaft led upward, and the hatch atop it was open, showing a circle of clear blue sky.

  Would the detonator even work if he activated it from the surface? He doubted it. It didn’t look like it had that kind of power, and Cheater was already pretty far from the charges. If he failed to bring down the entrance, all of this would have been for nothing.

  The infecteds could show up any minute, and those just behind him were clearly more powerful than rafflers and tramplers.

  Regretfully, Cheater squeezed into a niche a bit further down from the ladder, stretched his hand out into the tunnel, and pressed the button.

  Nothing.

  He felt nothing at all.

  He pressed it again. Nothing.

  Cursing Nut under his breath, he began pressing it repeatedly, with the speed of a Morse code professional and the anger of a drug cartel bouncer now confined to a nursing home. His skin grew colder and colder. His heart sank deeper and deeper. The explosives refused to respond, and the monsters were approaching. Without heavy weapons, he could not last a minute. He would be trampled and torn to death at once.

  Then, the floor of the tunnel not so much trembled as ruptured, and not as a single blast, but as a cascade of more and more powerful vibrations. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash illuminate the tunnel, and he collapsed into a ball, knees tightly pressed to his chest, eyes closed shut, and legs held with both hands.

  Shock waves travelled much more quickly through solid surfaces than through air. With such powerful precursors, he could guess at the extent of the blast wave that was coming.

  The vibration of the tunnel reached its strongest yet, and then the air smacked into his body from all directions at once, like a tribe of clubmen.

  He was instantly knocked out.

  Chapter 22

  Life Nine. The Giant’s Step

  If you were to ask Cheater how he managed to get out of that tunnel, he’d hardly manage an intelligible sentence or two. He remembered everything before the explosion perfectly well, but little after. Only a few indistinct impressions.

  The mouth of the tunnel was not the only thing the explosion sealed. Cheater was unable to accurately estimate the total destruction, but some collapses had reached several miles into the tunnel. He cut his palms to ribbons trying to clear his way through piles of debris. At one time, a protruding piece of rebar nearly impaled his stomach. It had been so violently broken that its point was as sharp as a surgical knife. Thankfully, he only pressed against it hard enough to cut his clothes and skin.

  The tunnel’s air supply was in bad shape too. The explosion had consumed miles of the oxygen. A month ago, Cheater would have suffocated. Now, though, he could recall that he had Underwater Breathing.

  Although the nearest ladder well was
blocked, the five minutes the perk gave him was enough to break through the three serious collapses that had mostly blocked the tunnel off. It was the last of these blockages that contained the rebar on which Cheater very nearly offed himself.

  Breathing past the remaining rubble was now difficult, but possible. He coughed and sneezed and forced himself to push on without resting, clearing a couple of miles without seeing or hearing a thing out of the ordinary. His ears were badly stunned, and his eyes were flooded with tears. Fortunately, all of the pursuers had either been caught by the explosion or trapped behind insurmountable tunnel collapses. Even a weaker infected could take him in his current state.