In a backroom on the 2nd floor of a rundown hospital, sounds of grunting and skin colliding against skin emanated out into a connecting hallway. A man's moan sounded out soon enough, along with the gasps of pleasure of a woman, and an impatient voice said, "Alright, it is my turn. Move and let me have a go!"
Soon enough, another round of grunting and slapping noises echoed out. A young woman and an older man were seated further down the hallway. The young woman was pretty, despite the dirt and dust on her uncomfortable looking face.
"Come on Janice, what is wrong with getting pleasured before we all die? Kate seems to be enjoying it. It doesn't seem like anyone is coming to save us!" said the older man, while he stared lecherously at Janice's chest.
Janice resolutely shook her head. Their group had long run out of ration pills and only a few water pills were left. They had sent out a distress signal 5 days ago and no one had come yet.
Eric, the older man, was regretting his decision to try to woo Janice. He should have joined in with the other two men with Kate. Just as Eric was debating whether he should force himself on Janice, he realized that no sounds were coming from the backroom.
Curious, Eric was going to ask Janice to wait there, but when he turned to her, he found a despairing look on her face. Then, he slowly saw a line of red appear on her neck before her head fell off and hit the ground.
Eric yelled out in panic and was about to run back to the others in the backroom. However, he froze when he saw a shadow morph into that of a blond man with an arrogant look on his face.
"Don't worry about your friends in the backroom. I already visited them before I came out here. Seems like they at least had some fun before dying, unlike this young woman. You were the one with the irradiated core in the distress message. Give it to me and tell me where you found it. I may let you live, depending on your answer." the blond man said.
"Yes, yes… here it is. We discovered it from a man who burst out of the ground while we were fleeing into the city. He was wounded mortally and died at our feet. After searching his body, we discovered it in the pocket dimension of his ring. There was nothing else in the ring. Here is the ring, please confirm for yourself." said Eric while his teeth chattered.
Eric pulled out the ring with the pocket dimension from his pocket and passed it to the blond man. After the blond man confirmed the empty contents of the ring, he waved his hand and a line of shadows flowed through Eric's neck, decapitating him.
"Seems like you no longer have any use then." said the blond man.
Gerris smiled as he promptly swallowed the irradiated core, as green light shone out from his eyes. The shadows around the hallways shook and clones of Gerris appeared one after the other from the shadows. All the clones burst out into a fit of laughter.
One of the clones pointed to the two corpses in the hallway, and shadows submerged them before disappearing into the ground, leaving no traces of their existence.
Now that I have taken what is rightfully mine, I feel that no one is equal to my power. I will be the first to exceed Genji tier! Now, I must check around the city to see if I can locate the entrance into the earth of that dying man, and see if there was more than one!
The many shadow clones fell down into pools of shadow, which then flowed outside the hospital building and merged into the night.
---
As the three of them were approaching the city gates, Barton and Desmond both congratulated Kain for awakening his power. Although, Kain did tell only half the truth, which was that he can only drain and extract the strength, speed, and agility. He didn't dare expose that he can also simultaneously absorb the powers.
It wasn't that Kain didn't trust them, but he didn't want them to be put in danger for knowing something they shouldn't. Especially Barton…he would probably leak the secret with every other sentence that came out of his mouth.
Kain dared not use any of his other powers in front of them and only exhibited his increased strength, agility, and speed. All three were off the charts at this point, as he felt that he was solidly in the Chevalier tier based on such metrics alone.
The three of them had already encountered groups of non-evolved zombies, with a few special zombies sprinkled in. Kain found that he could now fully absorb non-evolved zombies, even with melee attacks with his dagger. The slightest touch of his dagger and they would shrivel immediately and fall to the ground.
The special zombies were a different story. He could only absorb 20% with his dagger, so he opted to punch them to fully absorb them. Strangely, when Kain looked at the shriveled corpses of the special zombies, he would salivate and feel an intense desire to…eat them.
He almost vomited at such thoughts, but part of him felt like eating them would be beneficial to him.
When they came across a few zombified meta-humans, Kain didn't hesitate to bum rush them and place a hand somewhere on their bodies. He quickly gained fire control, metal control, concealment, and ability to phase through solid objects.
Observing Kain's incredible increase in strength, Barton was quite shocked.
"Kain, how do you go from being a no-show to being stronger than me? This shit is so not fair." cried Barton.
The entire time they were battling through the groups of zombies and monsters, Barton did his best to show off in front of Kain. He never failed to call out his "special" moves while battling, however, he quickly noticed that Kain was dispatching his opponents faster and more efficiently.
Desmond didn't care about the "friendly" competition between the two. He just nonchalantly waved his hands to weigh down all the opponents they were facing.
The three of them finally reached the city gates and proceeded into the city. Kain used his radiation detection ability and saw a few sporadic green lights within their vicinity. He looked towards where the hospital was with his senses and saw a large green light speeding towards another part of the city.
Somehow, he felt that the green light was dangerous and was glad it was moving toward the north. How come he didn't sense any other green lights in the hospital? Was the team that sent out the distress signal wiped out?
Kain kept his concerns to himself as the three of them headed to the military supply depot on the way to the hospital. They barely met any resistance on the way.
"What happened to the rest of your group? I thought you guys came with Gerris?" Kain asked.
"Don't even mention that sorry excuse of a leader. More than half of our original group was wiped out even before we reached the city. He disregarded the concerns of several people and continued on into the city. The two of us decided to separate at the city gate and wait it out." said Barton.
"A day later, a large group of zombified metahumans came rushing out of the city gate, along with a few special zombies. We fled into the forest where we eventually ran into a group of jackals. Then, we met up with you." continued Barton, as he conveniently left out the squealer as if it never existed.
Kain felt incredibly relieved that he was in Sylvia's group and not Gerris' group. Little did he realize, that Sylvia had specifically picked him into her group even before the cracked crystal orb incident.
The three of them were making great progress and finally reached the supply depot. They saw several corpses littering the entrance, with all of them devoid of any flesh. They were practically skeletons.
They were about to enter the building, when all of a sudden, a shadow formed into the figure of a blond man blocking their way.
"Gerris!!!" the three of them called out in shock.
"My, my, look who it is. I was hoping you would be brave enough to come here. It was not wrong of me to dispatch clones in all directions. Hahaha!" said a laughing Gerris, as he stared at Kain.
All three of them backed away carefully from Gerris, not knowing his intentions.
"I noticed none of you have accorded the respect I am due by not calling me Lord. I have already decided to wipe the floor with you three, but I shall make it extra painful for that slight. You three seem to be the last few still alive in Naren City. I have taken care of practically everyone else." said Gerris as he stepped towards them.
"Why are you doing this? You shit faced horse's ass! You are supposed to lead us and complete the mission!" yelled out Barton.
Gerris slapped out at Barton and a shadow flew out of his hand, knocking him flying through a building. Desmond and Kain immediately dropped into defensive stances while calling out to Barton to see if he was ok.
Barton yelled out he was fine, as he walked through the hole he created in the wall. He was already in his transformed state and a trickle of blood was running down the side of his mouth.
"Do you think I really care for your lives? I could care less if I lose my military rank, because I only came to get the irradiated core for myself. Absolute power is all that counts in Bastion, and I am one step closer to achieving it!" shouted Gerris.
As he finished speaking, multiple shadow clones appeared and surrounded the three. Kain activated his increased mass ability, as cracks spread out from the ground around his feet. Desmond waved his hand and a field spread out 30 feet around him, and the ground within the field shattered and depressed further into the earth. Barton roared and charged at the nearest Gerris clone.
The battle began.