Dean was leisurely walking up top the buildings. He would create a foothold with his portal if the gap was too big, but with his strengthened body it was seldom needed. Dean had a couple ideas in mind now that he didn't need to babysit others.
He was first planning to observe and understand the zombies that are further mutated. The stone giant and the huge corpses of bodies he left in the street were going to be the first specimens.
'If I can learn and see the mutations that occur first hand, I could possibly imitate it on my own body…even if it doesn't give me results I should be able to assess the danger level more accurately, I don't want to be like Sang Woo and not know the proper strength of my enemies'
It took Dean less than an hour to find the stone giant. His senses and maneuverability allowed him to find it quickly. He also didn't need to stop that much as with the group, him being able to move in the air allowed him to avoid the hordes of zombies in the streets and let him have a better view on any airborne enemies such as the cockroaches.
'It's gotten bigger'
The stone giant had grown roughly 1.25 times the last time he saw it. It's hulking body was more metallic now. It's hands were big enough to fit a human head in its palm and it's humanoid body was covered with different metals.
Dean watched as the giant's huge mouth almost devoured half a car at once. The street was nearly empty, the buildings closest to the giant were nearly completely destroyed and it was easy to trace back the direction it came from by following the path of destruction. The giant finished the car in the next bite and moved down the street devouring anything in its path. Lamp posts, signs, traffic lights and other cars were quickly devoured by the insatiable giant.
Dean frowned as he watched the giant up top a building. A desire within him was burning to fight the giant. It was the same desire that made him want to fight Sang Woo before. It wanted to step over the giant's body and show that he was the superior being. This time however, Dean could feel the hidden will inside of him now that he had adapted to being an evolver. Dean frowned.
'It's making me want to fight…It's like a hidden connection that wants me to step over strong foes…'
Dean quickly assessed the power of the giant and came to a conclusion quickly.
'I can't face that right now, my current weapons aren't enough and my portals won't be able to redirect it's attacks'
Dean's portals were roughly 15cm in size and were only enough for a human fist to go through.
'There's no method that will let me defeat that…I need to leave before my body does something I don't want it to'
Dean quickly left the giant that was approaching towards him. The giant felt an instinctual impulse to this building. It felt like something delicious was near that would let it mutate and grow even stronger. Before, it used to carelessly devour anything that was in its path, it's body grew rapidly but it felt that it was missing something. It's body was only huge in size and was made of materials that could easily make it crumble from a strong attack. It had then learnt that some things were more delicious and were more beneficial to itself than just size. It stopped eating random things in its way and focused on those things.
"RoOoAaar"
It let out an ear piercing roar noticing that the delicious thing was escaping. It was too slow being made of mostly metal, it's huge size could let it move in great strides but it was slow compared to Dean.
Dean noticed that the giant was trying to chase him. He made more haste while suppressing the desire to fight.
"Fuu"
Dean exhaled deeply. He wasn't tired from running at a ridiculous speed jumping from building tops. He was mentality drained from controlling himself not to fight. His inner otaku made him think that pain equals gain, and challenging strong opponents would make him stronger faster.
"Why does it feel like it's always my brain that is more tired than my body"
Dean's body was enhanced and it was hard for him to grow physically tired, but it was always his mind that was exhausted.
"Hopefully my mind is enhanced further in the level of mutation…it's tiring to feel so mentality drained…my senses and portals are all mental abilities"
Dean left the building tops and started moving in the streets. He needed to rest his mind and although he would need to fight zombies it wouldn't be taxing for his body. It was also good practice for him to use the guns.
He grabbed the rifle from the bag, aimed at a zombie and fired. He missed the head, hitting the shoulder instead.
"It's similar to games…It's fun to see the improvements"
It made Dean feel like he was playing a game for the first time. The joy of being bad and the fast improvements, learning the skills and physics of a game. Dean smiled and felt fun for being able to see himself become strong in something. His portals and awakened skills were great but it just suddenly occurred and he adapted to the change with time. Dean felt like he was grinding and pushing his shooting skill higher.
Dean practiced his aiming with the rifle and was soon able to hit 7/10 shots in about half an hour's time.
'My senses are more amazing than I thought'
With his great sense of surroundings Dean was easily able to hit where he wanted. His eyes keenly pinpointed the location he was aiming for and gave him various information. The miniscule influence of the Wind, trajectory and path the bullet would take from his aim, and other outside influence like if the zombie suddenly stopped or a random obstacle appeared where he was aiming.
In another half an hour, Dean rarely missed a shot. He was able to move steadily and shoot all the heads that appeared in his path. He even started to challenge himself by aiming further in the distance or not aiming down the scope at all.
Dean stopped practicing with the gun now that he was more than satisfied with his skills. He didn't have that much ammo in the first place but it let him blow off steam which eased his mental state.
Dean stopped walking and looked at the sight in front of him. Strong and dense webbing covered the street and reached high into the sky using the buildings in the area in front of him. The webs were strong and would feel like cutting steel with a butter knife. Dean didn't try cutting it as it would most definitely alert the one who made the web.
'A spider nest'
The webs held numerous corpses trapped inside, they were zombies and other mutant creatures that had walked into the webs and gotten themselves trapped. Even with their strengthened bodies it was impossible for them to escape. He could see the flies and mutant cockroaches that he remembered clearly.
"Sigh…should I turn around?...This is the quickest way to the supermarket though"
Dean felt troubled. Mutations were occurring more often and he was uncertain what the details were. He had learnt that mutations were influenced by the surroundings of the mutatee and would influence the way that something would mutate. The now metal giant was evidence for this claim. However strength, time taken to mutate and other factors were still unknown to him.
"Haha, I don't want to run again…What's the point of gaining strength if I'm scared to face the unknown"
Dean thought back to moments ago where he ran away from the metal giant and decided to press on. He didn't want to always run away from danger. His power was strong and he had no reason to take the safe approach if he wanted power quickly. He wanted to grow strong so that others couldn't trample over him, him running away now would never allow him to achieve his goal.
Although his footholds were limited and wouldn't allow him to reach over the webs. He decided to go through the nest with his weapons ready.
Dean continued to walk through the nest and encountered nothing with his senses. He carefully moved through the webs not touching them in the slightest. It was eerily quiet and as he walked deeper the webs grew denser. Soon he reached the area in the nest which was blocked entirely by a web wall. Numerous bodies were hanged in the ceiling area wrapped in webs.
'This should be the spiders resting area'
Dean slyly smiled and decided to make a trap within his enemies trap.
Dean took some time and finished setting everything up. He grabbed a corpse that was hung up in webs and shook it, alerting the one who had made the web. Spider's were lazy creatures and would rarely leave their webs. Their webs were their home as well as trap for food. The hanging of the corpses so close to where they rested was because they had made sure that they were either dead or incapable of moving. This disturbance so close to it immediately alerted it.
A huge spider of 2 meters slowly creeped out of its resting area to check what was disturbing its web. Its long black legs tapped swiftly and silently as it moved, its huge body had an iconic red pattern and its mouth oozed an acidic gas. It's 8 black beady eyes darted around the area and found Dean almost immediately.
Instead of rushing at Dean the spider stood still and watched Dean at a distance.
'A black widow'
Dean didn't act just yet and waited for the spider to make the first move. He wasn't in a rush and didn't need to reveal his trap just yet.
The spider patiently watched Dean with it's almost human-like eyes. Dean felt slightly disturbed and couldn't help but feel it was pleading to him. The spider hadn't moved at all which made Dean grow impatient.
He accurately shot a few rounds with the rifle aiming for the spider's head. The spider still didn't move and let itself be shot.
'Has it given up?...why isn't it attacking'
Dean grew confused as more and more shots hit the unmoving spider. Blue blood spilled around it and slightly corroded the area causing slight smoke to drift about. Dean didn't feel relieved at killing it, it was too weird that it hadn't attacked.
Soon though, Dean found the reason. Another, larger black widow crept out of the hole. It's body was vastly different and was nearly 5 meters in size. The new widow stabbed it's long black leg into the corpse of the other spider and had a slight snicker looking at the corpse. It ignored Dean and quickly ate the corpse.
Now that Dean thought back, he noticed that the first spider was missing a limb and had cuts on its body.
Female black widows were larger and more deadly than males. They would also eat the bodies of the males when they finished mating.
Dean frowned and found the answers to his question.
'So it wanted to die and decided not to attack me…She must be the reason'
Dean decided to quickly kill it. He created a portal and threw a grenade inside.
BOOM!
Explosions occurred in the surroundings.
He had set up multiple grenades in the area.
The widow screeched at her home being destroyed, the explosions injured her slightly and her carapace was slightly charred. She faced Dean and sprayed a liquid out of her mouth. The liquid smelt familiar to Dean but he couldn't focus on the smell since he needed to dodge. He first created a portal in its path and made another in front of the widow. He then jumped into the air landing on a corpse.
The webs were slightly destroyed from the explosion and would let Dean have some space to fight. He just wanted to see the attack that the widow sprayed and it's effects. He was still trying to learn as many things as possible even in a battle.
The liquid melted through the ground Dean was previously. Smoke rose and carried the same acidity, melting the webs in its way. It repeated the process, the webs turned into smoke and then the smoke melted the webs. Dean charged at the widow, who was screeching from being covered in her own attack, aiming the shotgun at her.
He fired, cleanly taking out one of her legs. The widow retaliated by slamming down it's sharp legs at Dean, however instead of stabbing Dean it had stabbed itself.
It wallowed in pain and wanted to tear Dean apart that was when Dean fired another shot and took another leg. He wanted to make one fatal strike but knew it would be hard to hit an area that wasn't it's hard carapace. The widow would move itself whenever it saw Dean pointing at it, it was highly sensitive to Dean and would dodge whenever he was about to pull the trigger.
He had 3 more rounds in the shotgun before he needed to reload. He kept the pressure on and continued to fire at the widow. The widow could only unwillingly let itself be hit by the bullets. It's huge body was only a huge target in this fight. It swung and jabbed it's sharp legs everywhere at Dean but he was to quick at dodging and moving in such an erratic manner.
Dean was slowly learning how to battle with his best assets and was learning from the widow. Her attacks were fast and erratic from having so many limbs, she was a perfect opponent to learn how to be just as formless. His portals would block any legs that he couldn't narrowly dodge and would then let him fire a shot as retaliation.
He now had 1 more round and thought of something.
He charged at the now blue covered widow. She only had 5 legs left and was heavily injured on her body. Her once pitch black body and bright red hourglass pattern was now smothered with thick blue blood. She was panting at being the only one suffering damage.
She charged at Dean and intended to slam against him with her massive body. She just needed one hit to make the human die. Dean hadn't given her the chance to use her acid breath again, as it was too dangerous and would melt him in an instant.
Dean jumped into the air now that the widow was close to him, he made a foothold and sprang his body to the other side of her so that she couldn't see what he was doing. She was smart and would mostly dodge if she saw his plan. The foothold shattered like glass and let him make another portal. He made another portal in front of his shotgun and one under the widow, he fired the last remaining round.
SPLAT
The widow froze in pain and screeched louder than ever. Dean had shot the hourglass that was below her abdomen.
She collapsed and her hulking body grew lifeless.