Jake spent the rest of the day and the entire night searching for mana consumables, gathering as much mana as possible. He focused solely on this task, refusing to let himself get distracted by anything else, and by morning, he had amassed a substantial amount of MP. He collected so much mana he even wondered if there was a limit to how much of this precious energy his body could hold. There should probably be so limit, but so far, he had never reached it, likely because he was always very active, causing his body to consu this magical energy at a high rate. Additionally, he occasionally used MP to purchase new skills and abilities.
He had now enough mana to buy new skills, but he decided to wait until later in the day. For the mont, he wanted to stick to his daily routine, so he made his way down to the sewers, where he spent the next several hours. He gained so XP, but not enough to level up yet. Afterward, he erged back to street level and continued slaying mutants for XP. Once he leveled up, he planned to allocate skill points and use the MP he had gathered overnight to acquire new skills and abilities.
For the next two hours, he cleared one building of mutants after another. However, he noticed it was becoming more challenging to level up. The mutants he ca across were those he had already encountered, yielding the sa amount of XP, while his requirents grew with each level. This resulted in a noticeably slower leveling pace. To level up more quickly, he needed to venture to a new location or hunt down different types of mutants, but he wasn’t sure where to look.
At that point, it seed he had explored the entire city, and there were no areas he hadn’t visited by that point. The only exception was the dungeon known as the Maze of Tornt, located in the sewers. Unfortunately, he couldn’t access it without a Skeleton Key. Even if he managed to find one, he doubted that entering the dungeon would be beneficial, as it was designed for survivors between levels 15 and 20. At level 63, he was far too strong for that dungeon now and likely wouldn’t gain anything valuable there.
On the first floor of one of the high-rise buildings, he encountered a rare type of ex-human—a bloater. At one point, it ejected a torrent of acid toward him. Jake managed to dodge, but a few drops still splashed onto his shoulder. He felt no pain, but his flesh sizzled and smoked for a few seconds as the acid dealt so damage to his skin. This reminded him of the urgent need to enhance his resistance to various types of elental damage.
He initially planned to deal with the weaker ex-humans before focusing on the bloater. However, his plans changed when sothing unexpected occurred. With a screech of tires, a vehicle rolled to a stop in front of the building. Upon hearing the noise, he glanced over his shoulder. The front of the building was lined with tall windows—none of which had glass at this point—and through them, he saw a pickup truck adorned with red demon skulls painted on its doors and hood, and a machine gun mounted in the bed. The large weapon, manned by a bandit, was pointed at the building.
The deafening roar of the machine gun drowned out the screams of the ex-humans. Instead of targeting Jake, the gunner directed his fire at the bloater. Its huge belly glowed increasingly brighter as bullets tore at it with squelching sounds. Jake understood that the gunner wanted to make it explode to shower him with acid. However, while he wasn’t far from the bloater when it exploded, he dashed fast enough to avoid getting splashed with acid.
When the bloater exploded, waves of acid and pulpy pieces of flesh went flying in every direction. So of the nearby mutants got drenched in the acid, being reduced to little more than re skeletons in seconds. Many of the ex-humans lost interest in Jake and sprinted toward the vehicle. However, none of them was able to make it out of the building, dropping like flies under the heavy gunfire.
The gangster in the back of the car thrust the barrel of an assault rifle out the window and opened fire on Jake. While he could easily escape by getting to the upper floors, he didn’t even consider fleeing. If the Demons were so keen on getting killed by him, he wasn’t going to disappoint them. When he dashed out of the building and sprinted toward the vehicle, the gunner yelled “fuck” just as the pickup truck bolted forward. But not before Jake perford a mana-infused jump, landing in the bed. He lashed out at the gunner, his claws aid at the bandit’s exposed throat. The guy stumbled back, clutching his bloodied throat, lost his balance, and fell over the edge to the ground rushing beneath him.
The gangster in the back of the cab opened fire through the rear window at Jake. The bullets exploded on impact with his chest. The man also used a Push spell on him, causing Jake to fly back over the tailgate of the vehicle and drop to the ground. However, he was quick enough to sprout a tentacle and lash out at one of the rear wheels, shredding the tire. The car went into a chaotic swerve, pivoting ninety degrees before rolling over several tis until it finally ca to a rest on its roof.
One of the occupants of the vehicle was dead, but the other managed to survive by employing a magical shield. The gangster crawled out of the wreckage and got to his feet. When he noticed that Jake was still alive, he glanced around for his weapon, but it must have been left sowhere inside the vehicle. Rather than searching for it, the bandit decided to flee. Turning around, he darted around the upturned pickup truck and sprinted down the road. He must have cast yet another spell to increase his speed because he was running far too fast for a human. But he was still no faster than Jake. He leaped to his feet and gave chase.
It wasn’t long before he closed the gap between him and his prey. With a powerful leap, he collided with the fleeing gangster, sending him crashing to the ground in the middle of a four-way intersection. Jake planted his foot firmly on the bandit’s back, pinning him down. The human was struggling to rise, but he couldn’t do anything to shake off Jake’s foot pressing down on his back with incredible strength. His victim thrashed his arms and legs wildly, resembling an oversized insect in distress. He didn’t use any more magical spells, likely having run out of them by that point.
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Jake was monts away from finishing off the gangster when he caught a flicker of movent out of the corner of his eye. He lifted his gaze from the pinned human and turned in the direction of the disturbance. At one of the corners of the intersection stood what used to be a diner. Peering through its shattered windows, Jake noticed sothing unsettling. Inside the diner, there were subtle rhythmic movents. Although he couldn’t see the full scene from where he stood, he could see several naked bodies suspended from the ceiling, swaying gently in the draft inside the small building.
The man beneath Jake continued to writhe in futile attempts to escape. In response, Jake montarily lifted his foot, repositioned it slightly, and then brought it down with overwhelming force onto the back of the man’s head. The impact echoed through the empty intersection, and the bandit’s struggles ceased, his skull bursting apart like an overripe lon. Jake quickly scanned his surroundings to make sure there were no enemies lurking nearby and then jogged toward the diner. Upon reaching the entrance, he halted in the opening, taking in the atrocious scene inside the main room.
The interior was in utter disarray: overturned tables and broken chairs lay strewn across the floor, while shards of glass glinted nacingly under the dim light. However, it was the bodies that dominated the space—suspended from the ceiling and swaying slightly. The horrid sll assaulted his enhanced senses, the air thick with the acrid scent of blood mixed with rust and decay as well as sothing stale and forgotten.
There were several bodies that were suspended from the ceiling. The bodies were completely naked and heavily mutilated. Whoever those people were, they had been brutally tortured to death. Their bodies had nurous burn marks, various cuts and bruises. They were also missing various body parts. So of them had so parts of their skin flayed, while others had their faces removed.
Behind the suspended bodies, on the wall opposite the front entrance, a chilling ssage caught Jake’s eye. It was written in red paint—or worse, the victims’ blood: “DON’T FUCK WITH US.” Next to the nacing phrase was a picture of a demon skull splattered in the sa blood-red hue.
Even though Jake was as cold as stone, he found himself disturbed by the horrid scene before him. The lifeless forms swaying gently in their grisly suspension tugged at sothing deep within him, a flicker of humanity that was usually kept buried beneath layers of indifference and detachnt.
For a few minutes, Jake remained motionless, watching. So far, Los Demonios had been nothing more than a mildly annoying nuisance. They attacked him on sight, driven by their notorious reputation and the territory they claid, but most of the ti, their aggression didn’t weigh heavily on him. Occasionally, he would simply give them the slip while other tis, he dealt with his attackers without much difficulty.
While Los Demonios had been nothing more than a nuisance to him, they had beco a relentless nace to regular survivors, terrorizing anyone they set their eyes on. Jake had consciously steered clear of getting involved, telling himself it wasn’t his fight. However, the horror in front of him peeled back layers of indifference. With each violent encounter he witnessed, each desperate plea for help he turned away from, a simring anger rose within him—one he had chosen to ignore. But this brutal scene, with its grotesque display and chilling ssage, stirred that anger into a furious blaze. Jake welcod the unexpected feeling of rage. He thought he had long forgotten any human emotions, but the horrifying scene before him had awakened so of them.
The oppressive weight of guilt mixed with rage twisted inside him. Fueled by a newfound purpose, he decided it was ti to act. The brutality of the scene demonstrated the depths of cruelty that Los Demonios were capable of. As much as he tried to stay out of survivors’ business, the unsettling sight made him rethink his previous more dismissive attitude toward the gang. At that mont, Jake made a silent vow to himself: he would no longer be a bystander. He had to take matters into his own hands, otherwise Los Demonios would continue their reign of terror unchallenged. They walked the streets with a sense of invincibility, convinced that their strength granted them the right to terrorize others without consequence. But they were wrong. Dead wrong.
It was settled. He was going to confront Los Demonios, tearing their gang apart, piece by piece. They must have a base sowhere, so he was going to find it and burn it to the ground. If they had multiple bases, he would find and destroy all of them. He was going to find Skullface and whoever else besides that person was in charge of the gang. Once he found them, he’d kill them all.
He was going to leave nothing of Los Demonios but a wet patch on the ground. He would pursue the gang until nothing remained of it as if it had never existed. He understood that those who decided to join the gang had to commit cruel acts to demonstrate their loyalty. Those who declined were assigned nial labor for the gang. So, everyone who wore sothing red, signifying they were officially accepted into the gang, would beco his legitimate target. His ultimate aim was to eliminate all the leaders of the gang and destroy their bases. He didn’t intend to bother with hunting down every single soldier, but any that stood in his way would be killed as well.
Jake kept his gaze fixed on the brutal scene before him for a while, thinking about Los Demonios and what he was going to do with Skullface and whoever else was in charge of the gang. They referred to themselves as the Demons. It was high ti to show them what a true demon looked like and what he was capable of. Los Demonios were on the brink of facing their worst nightmare—one from which they would never awaken.
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