BANG!
The explosion was deafening, a thunderclap out of nowhere.
The 810 m/s blast wave ripped through the air, creating a sonic boom. The force of it threw the van backward. The windows rattled, chunks of bulletproof glass shattering outward, scattering like shrapnel.
The expanding air created a vacuum. Pressure spiked, then plummeted. Water vapor condensed into a house-sized cone of mist, propelled forward by the blast.
As the van recoiled, the force of the air cannon tore through the surrounding landscape. Prefab houses collapsed, roofs ripped away. A tree as thick as a man's thigh snapped in half, its leaves vanishing in an instant.
And that was just the aftermath of the blast. The main force had gone straight into the boar's open mouth.
The ten-ton monster was launched into the air. The compressed air expanded violently within its body.
It swelled, grotesquely, like a balloon.
And then…
The ten MPa of pressure found another exit.
BANG!
A geyser of blood, gore, and shredded organs erupted from the boar's rear, spraying dozens of meters into the air, a gruesome crimson fountain.
It slammed into a prefab house, crushing it.
The power was terrifying.
Zephyr watched, heart hammering.
The van, still in autopilot, having regained traction after the impact, rolled forward. He quickly disengaged the autopilot and slammed on the brakes.
The tires screeched. They were badly damaged, the rear tires especially, smoking and reeking of burnt rubber.
They were reinforced, with internal air pockets that could withstand bullets, but this ordeal had taken its toll.
He pushed open the door, feeling drained. He hadn't been in the direct line of fire, but the encounter had left him exhausted.
He stared at the carnage, the air cannon's handiwork. 810 meters per second. He hadn't realized the sheer destructive power.
But it was still just air. Even highly compressed, against the boar's armored hide, much of the force would have dissipated. If he hadn't gotten a direct shot into its mouth…
He retrieved a dropped wrench and stumbled toward the boar. The ground was slick with blood and gore, the boar's carcass…violated.
It had been blown out from the inside.
He stopped ten meters away, wary of any final, desperate thrashing.
He also didn't want to stray too far from the van. Zombies could appear at any moment.
"Serena!" he called.
Silence.
His stomach tightened. He hurried back to the van.
Serena was strapped to the couch, eyes closed, blood on her forehead.
He checked her breathing. She was alive, unconscious.
He examined the wound. Bad luck. Probably hit by flying debris.
She'd been safe during the initial impact, strapped in, but the flying pots and pans…
Another hit or two, and she could have been killed.
"Close call," he muttered. Losing Serena after all this…
He went to the storage box for some gauze to bandage her head.
Base vehicle damage assessment: Level 3.5. Repairs require 200 kilograms of steel, 100 kilograms of copper, 30 kilograms of high-polymer organic plastic, 1200 liters of gasoline, and 200 kilowatt-hours of electricity. Estimated repair time: 24 hours.
He froze, then sighed. Self-repairing, but the resource requirements…daunting.
Steel, copper, plastic…and the fuel, the electricity…impossible to find in any significant quantity.
1200 liters of gasoline. A gas guzzler.
And his current reserves…
He checked the gauge. Less than 20 liters. Maybe 100 kilometers. Not nearly enough.
If they ran into a horde…
He was still worrying when another Etherscope prompt startled him.
Level one mutant beast terminated. Level one mutant crystal core detected, located in the heart of the mutant beast. Extraction will initiate base vehicle evolution sequence.
Mutant beast biomass detected. Can be consumed to enhance physical fitness or utilized in the biological laboratory to initiate biological evolution functions.
He blinked. Mutant crystal core? Biological laboratory?
The boar was the level one mutant. The crystal core was inside it?
But the biological laboratory…he'd never seen anything like that in the van.
A click. He turned.
A small compartment, the size of a ping-pong ball, had popped open on the dashboard. Made of some unknown, precision-crafted alloy. He'd never seen it before.
The crystal core…in the heart…
He grabbed his dagger, jumped out of the van, and approached the boar.
It lay on its side, chest exposed.
He plunged the dagger in.