The village elder finally lost his patience, his face twisting with rage:
"Since you are seeking for death, I'll grant your wish!"
Hank and another villager exchanged a glance, grabbed their hammers, and charged at Logan from both sides.
A hammer might not kill instantly, but a blow could easily break bones and cause internal injuries. In these conditions, a serious injury could be more deadly than immediate death.
Mrs. Brooks stopped struggling, a gleeful expression crossing her face as she anticipated revenge.
However, before her smile could fully bloom, the situation changed drastically.
As the two villagers moved, Logan reacted. He grabbed Hank's hammer mid-swing, yanking both the hammer and Hank toward him. With a look of shock on Hank's face, Logan slammed his hammer into the other villager's hammer.
The force was so great that the other villager's grip failed, the hammer flying out of his hands and hitting another villager square on the head, knocking him out cold.
Several women among the villagers screamed in panic.
Seeing this, the village elder quickly retreated into the crowd, shouting:
"All of you, attack at once! Put him down!"
Five villagers holding machetes surged forward, surrounding Logan.
They attacked with all their strength, aiming to cut him down.
Logan shoved Hank aside and drew the knife from his back, his gaze turning cold as he met the villagers' charge head-on.
With swift movements, Logan slipped between their attacks, his sharp blade slashing across the throat of the nearest villager.
As blood sprayed, he spun behind the remaining four, stabbing another villager in the back.
Two down in an instant.
These villagers were relying purely on brute strength and aggression, with no real skill or experience in combat. To Logan, they were no more than scarecrows.
If he had to resort to using guns or crossbows against these ordinary, untrained villagers, his eight years of survival in the apocalypse would have been wasted.
The remaining three villagers froze, staring in shock at the bodies of their fallen fellows. Their hands gripped their machetes, but none dared to swing.
This was the drawback of lacking combat experience. Fear of death was a natural instinct, and seeing their comrades die so brutally, they couldn't help but hesitate and back down.
But Logan knew all too well that in battle, no matter how grim the situation became, as long as you could move and the enemy was still alive, you couldn't afford to stop.
Fight or flee.
Hesitation meant death.
Logan quickly thrust his knife into the third villager's throat and slashed the fourth across the neck. The last remaining villager finally snapped out of his daze and ran, shouting incoherently:
"Elder, he has a knife! He's killing people!"
But before he could get far, Logan's blade pierced through his chest.
He pulled the knife out and turned his gaze toward the remaining villagers, who stood frozen in terror.
The village elder, realizing things were going wrong, shouted in a panic:
"So what if he knows how to fight? He is still outnumbered by us! He only has two fists and one knife! Everyone, attack at once!"
The villagers looked at the village elder, then at Logan and the bloodied knife in his hand. Fear began to outweigh their respect for the village elder.
"Help! He's killing us!" one villager screamed, dropping his tool and running away.
That seemed to set off a chain reaction, as the other villagers quickly followed suit, tossing their weapons and fleeing in a panic.
"Don't run!" the village elder roared.
But the terrified villagers were beyond listening. They jostled each other in their desperate attempt to escape, knocking the village elder to the ground in the process.
"Get off me! Stop pushing! I—"
Before long, the elder's body was trampled by the stampedes. By the time the villagers had all run off, his clothes were covered in footprints, and he was barely clinging to life.
Logan didn't bother chasing the fleeing crowd. His eyes remained locked on the elder.
This man had been the mastermind behind the village's lawlessness, even managing to keep the security officers at bay during peaceful times. In the apocalypse, given time, he could easily turn the villagers into a considerable force.
Logan stepped forward and plunged his knife into the village elder's heart, ending his life.
The village elder briefly opened his eyes, locking them onto Logan with a hateful gaze, before succumbing to his wounds.
Even in his final moments, he couldn't believe that he had been forsaken and trampled by the very villagers he had led.
Logan was about to toss the bodies down the mountain when he heard shouts from halfway up the slope.
"Help!"
"Stay away, stay away!"
"Ahhh!"
A massive boar, larger than a typical wild boar, had appeared out of nowhere and was now charging at the fleeing villagers.
Many villagers were knocked off the cliff, while others were slammed into the mountainside, spitting blood. Bodies littered the ground.
With only one path down the mountain, the villagers had no chance of outrunning the boar on flat ground. Every time the boar charged with its sharp tusks, it took out another victim.
After leaving a dozen bodies in its wake, the boar finally stopped its rampage, biting into one of the corpses and beginning to devour it.
The remaining villagers, too terrified to look back, kept running, unaware of the boar's unusual nature.
Ordinary wild boars rarely attacked humans unprovokedly, and they certainly didn't eat people. But this boar's eyes were blood-red, and as it chewed on the corpse, it seemed to relish the taste, its eyes narrowing in pleasure.
Logan's eyes widened as he observed this horrifying scene, his pupils contracting in shock.
Mutant beast!
In his previous life, after the extreme cold had set in, most plants had withered and died, leading to the deaths of countless herbivores. But many animals survived, enduring the cold. With a shortage of food, they emerged from the wilderness and began hunting humans.
During the first three years of the apocalypse, human survivors organized hunting parties, suffering losses but also managing to secure food. At the time, people didn't consider animals much of a threat. The authorities focused on restoring human civilization.
No one expected that the animals that once were protected by humans, would suddenly reproduce at an alarming rate. Soon, animals began attacking humans en masse.
By the fourth year of the apocalypse, the first wave of animal hordes had appeared.
As time passed, humans' stockpile of bullets and weapons dwindled. Even though efforts were made to resume the production of ammunition and firearms, demand far outpaced supply.
Human defenses grew increasingly strained.
Meanwhile, carnivorous animals began mutating, their fur growing thicker, their bodies larger, and new, strange abilities emerging.
That's when the term "mutant beasts" came into use, referring to these mutated animals.
Scientists discovered that a certain substance in these animals' blood and flesh accelerated their evolution.
By the sixth year of the apocalypse, regular bullets could no longer penetrate the thick hide and muscle of the mutant beasts.
Only then did humanity realize that if they did not adapt, they wouldn't be able to survive against these creatures.
...
Logan hadn't expected mutant beasts to appear so early in this life.
His shock slowly turned into grim determination.
Is this the result of accelerating species evolution, as the Cornucopia said?
Sensing Logan's gaze, the boar stopped eating and turned its head to stare back at him.