The monsters were in the city after Gohan failed to defeat them, making sport of the populous. It was the end of the world party that became a prime target.
I shot through the opening my hammer made and smashed the wall again as I charged through the building. My boots heated from the friction from my speed with each step as dust and shrapnel tore through the building.
Gohan shot behind me through the building, and I watched as 18 flew through after him. Her beautiful blue eyes turned to me, and her lips twitched slightly before she continued her game.
I reached the 20th floor near the break and busted through the wall beneath me. The lights chose that moment to cut out, leaving me in darkness. I felt a sudden pressure as my ears popped and dove into the darkness.
Above me, the building exploded, blasting bits of steel and concrete all over the city. I used the short flash of light to get my bearings and continued my descent. I found an elevator shaft and threw open the doors. The emergency brakes had stopped the elevator overhead, and the hole beneath was mostly debris-free. I put away my hammer and jumped in.
As I descended the floors, my gantlets tore into the metal wall to slow my fall. A piece of rock tore through the building and hit me in the chest knocking the air out of my lungs and dropping me the rest of the way.
I fell into a bowl of rotten flesh with fat pooled to the knees. The smell was worse on my 30x-human sense of smell, but I needed to get out. My armor was all rare quality and would self-clean, given enough time. I climbed my way up, sinking my fingers into the soft metal of the elevator shaft, and forced open the doors on the 3rd basement level.
I thoughts of using Accel Burst for the light effect, but I held back. A little light wasn't worth it. I relied on my other senses to cope with the darkness of the 3rd basement floor. I managed to train my other senses with a member of my party in the job world of Menagerie, and I didn't like what they told me. There were rats the size of dogs around me, waiting for the perfect time to ambush me.
Some had dove into the elevator shaft and started swimming in the pool of human fat. I didn't like my chances against a swarm of hundreds, even with my armor and strength. All they had to do was knock me over in the dark, and I might never get back up. My body was slick with human fat forcing me to move carefully. It might be hours before my armor's self-cleaning finished removing the rotten fat coating my body.
I felt a rat fall on my back, and my options shrank. "Accel Burst," The words left my mouth, and my movement speed doubled. The underground parking garage illuminated as my mana transformed into light. The room lit up, and I moved as the swarm attacked as one. My fists moved, dealing death with every blow; those few rats only scraped by my attacks burned moments later from my spell.
As my magic worked, I counted down the time limit. I had roughly three minutes before my spell needed 45s to cool down. My fists moved faster than I expected, the rats were slow, and I ripped through their swarm. Even the slightest glancing blow was enough to kill them as I worked.
I realized 20% through the swarm that I had made an error in my calculations. These rats, while big and dangerous looking, weren't dungeon beasts. That distinction was incredibly important. They didn't have DEF or CON stats to take bites out of my damage. A final punch ended the swarm leaving me with nearly 2 minutes of accel burst. My passive didn't activate, and my initial punches were enough to kill.
My gantlets were rare items with a damage rating that scaled with my strength. While they weren't legendary, they were lvl5 rare-grade armor. That must sound meaningless.
To my descendants, the Golden Fiber skill tree you inherited and enjoy using the incredible skills within was a bitch to upgrade in the beginning. It was only with later generations that the process was streamlined. Level 5 is the completed first-tier skill of the Golden Fiber Skill Tree. 11,111 dungeon beasts were required to bring my level from 0 to 5.
While natural dungeons could compensate for things like levels and deliver some truly great equipment, most had no desire to outfit the adventurers invading their territory with anything truly unbalanced. Acquiring the gear, I had taken the effort of an illegal 5-man party, dungeon surges, and a ridiculous number of my own captured undead mobs. Upon my first entry into the dragon world, I didn't have excess to a dungeon. There would be no meaningful upgrades to my gear for quite some time.
The last rat exploded into pulp, and their blood and guts sizzled under the burning light of my spell. I deactivated it early, cutting my cooldown time to a 3rd. I climbed the ramp and busted out of the garage to a disaster.
Looters ran rampant in the short minutes before the town was destroyed. Some stole TVs like they would get to sell or enjoy them. Rapes were common. I kicked the skull in of a man raping a child in the back alley. The sorry-looking child was dead when I checked for a pulse. Blood seeped from her crotch, and I wish she was an unusual sight. At the end of the world, men could be monsters.
I ran for it picking up speed and heading for the shortest path out of town. 18 had noticed me, and I would be damned if I caught her attention again. Even if she, for some reason, liked me, 17 was the kind of guy who would kill me without a second thought.
There was little difference between myself and the other people fleeing. I hate if that's a disappointment. The androids weren't a colony of rats in a garage; they were powerful machines of destruction, and I couldn't hope to win as I was. I had to survive to move forward and build a path to fixing the world before the omni-king wiped the world or any other world-destroying events.
The pavement cracked under my boots as I shot through the town while blasts randomly exploded sections of the city. Whole sections of the town exploded randomly; unlike in the anime, I couldn't see the attacks coming. One moment I was running; the next, buildings, people, and blocks were gone. Luck saved me more often than my senses or speed.
Shrapnel took men down but failed to pierce my armor. My plate mail was stacked on chainmail, and a gambeson coat gave me an unfair advantage. I equipped my rare gear with the armor abilities adaptation and regeneration. Over time my gear would get better if I lived that long. Dust blasted my unarmored face ripping my skin like road rash. I could feel the rocks that pierced my armor stop on chainmail while I left the city limits.
There were no other survivors. If the blasts or other survivors didn't kill, the dust storms or shrapnel did. I continued running until I hit the woods and kept moving. I didn't know if they had a means of tracking me or not. They weren't supposed to sense energy, but how reliable was my anime and manga information. I saw things in the city that didn't belong in a shonen.
Ki wasn't the answer; it was the question. I remembered Gohan teaching Videl how to access Ki. How could I train myself to reach heights beyond super saiyan? When Gohan died, he was around the power level 17 always used, and before 17 killed the hero, he claimed he only ever used half his power. I needed twice the power Gohan sure he could kill Android 17 had.
I continued moving until I found a tunnel leading to an underground cave with a natural spring running through it. A ration bar was my dinner as I slowly felt for my ki and let Gohan's teaching wash over me. The only hint to get ahold of my ki was the episodes of Gohan teaching Videl. Stats increased my intelligence and decision-making ability. Unfortunately, humans were emotional animals, almost predisposed to making dumb decisions.
My body hummed with new life as I touched the well of power hidden within me. I had expected a pitiful little flickering light but found a vast orb instead. Touching it made me feel energized like I could do anything. I was on a caffeine high, stronger than I had ever felt. My strength increased by leaps and bounds as the new energy flowed through me. Touching it had caused a massive change.
Feeling the energy extended my senses beyond their already superhuman heights. I could feel Gohan and knew I didn't come close. I was embarrassingly weak. Later I found a scouter, and I could determine my power levels in the galactic standard system through hindsight. I maxed out at a PL of 120. In other words, I was fodder. My stats helped out; a PL of 120 was nothing to scoff at for a normal human, but I didn't equal a 3-year-old Gohan.