Reborn- Apocalypse 2

by L. M. Kerr

  In short order, Sophia found herself with Shin, waiting quietly in a disorganized bedroom as the minutes slipped by, first one, then two, then five, and then ten.

  This particular bedroom looked as if it had been occupied, though the inhabitants were nowhere to be seen right now. There were a few stray sets of clothes lying on the ground, next to some discarded, broken weapons.

  Shin lay on the bed, relaxed languidly. Sophia, conversely, kept looking out the window, craning her head to look off to the north. The room she was in faced the east, meaning she could just barely see to the north if she tried.

  She occasionally opened up her phone, checking to see if she had received any new alerts or messages. While the signal here in the Nightrunners’ territory was very poor, it was still possible to check any posts she'd saved to look for new comments.

  “Sophia, relax. I’m sure our backup is already in position, just waiting for our signal.” Shin didn’t specify exactly who they were talking about, but instead smiled reassuringly.

  Sophia nodded back after a moment as she rubbed her forehead. She felt like she understood all the stress Micheal must go through, trying to keep a plan on its path. There were so many variables that Micheal brought up, it was a wonder things were already going as smoothly as they were right now.

  Just as she was about to respond, after around 11 minutes of waiting had passed, Executive Riana’s loud voice echoed in the hallway, sliding into their bedroom from behind.

  “Everyone, ready up! We attack in 30 seconds!”

  .. .. .. .. .. ..

  Meanwhile…

  .. .. .. .. .. ..

  Head Cameron knelt down on the skyscraper’s ground floor, resting his hand on the chest of a badly marred corpse. It was the body of a man, covered in dozens of bloody wounds. The man’s skin had a blue tint to it, visible even through the state of his mangled body.

  “This is Number 5’s corpse.” His statement was calm, belying the extreme nature of the revelation.

  Number 5 had been a Supreme A Ranker, renowned for his potent ability to regenerate from injuries and his complete control of the elements of ice and water. He was an incredibly fierce warrior that held power that could not be underestimated.

  And right now… he was clearly dead.

  And he hadn’t been killed by the Godfather Organization.

  Around Cameron, a scene of slaughter spread out. Dead Nightrunner guards littered the floor, alongside a veritable mountain of Morenkai corpses. Several elite members of the Godfather Organization could be seen, sifting through the corpses

  “Head.” Executive Andrew’s voice rang out as he jogged up to Head Cameron. Behind him, a large, man-sized glowing lizard followed, so large it looked more like a dinosaur than anything else. A couple of other officials accompanied Andrew, waiting to hear Cameron’s orders.

  “We’ve cleared the area. There’s no one remaining among the living. Everyone here is dead, with the last killed around fifteen minutes ago.”

  Cameron turned to look at him, his eyes cold.

  “The Nest?”

  Andrew shook his head.

  “No signs of it. Someone else already broke it and obtained its boost.”

  The Godfather paused for only a couple of seconds, his thoughts unknown to everyone as he looked back at Number 5’s corpse. Right after that, however, a commanding presence burst free from him as he turned away from the dead body.

  “Pass my order forward, all forces are to move to Nest B immediately.” His eyes blazed as he stood up and began to walk towards the exit. The officials that had arrived with Andrew immediately set off shouting and spreading his orders to everyone present.

  Outside of the skyscraper, several elite Godfather Sub-Executives and officials had formed a small ring, killing a large throng of Morenkai that were trying to invade the bottom floor. Andrew quickly followed the Godfather out, his gaze slightly confused.

  “Head, I’m not sure I understand.” Andrew wasn’t exactly a strategist and was better suited to direct confrontation.

  Cameron crouched down, preparing to leap up into the air.

  Before he did anything else, however, he paused as his smartphone vibrated, indicating someone important had sent him a message using his private, and rather costly, long-range line. The sender's ID reflected off the back of his hand as he glanced at the phone, spelling out 'Seer.'

  He opened the message up, but delayed reading it for a few moments as he turned his focus back to Andrew.

  “Riana is about to attack Nest B. There appears to be some sort of infighting happening in the Nightrunners, beyond our expectations. If everyone, powerful elites and all, in Nest A just died, that can only mean one thing.” His gaze was calm as prepared to launch himself up, finally glancing down at the message he had just received,

  “The same thing is about to happen to Nest B.”

  .

  Chapter 73

  Micheal wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead as he examined the gouge on his armor with a hint of displeasure.

  He was currently standing in the basement of a skyscraper at the border of the territory between the Godfather Organization and The Towers. Around him, a slew of Morenkai bodies littered the ground, several pools of acidic black blood simmering quietly.

  He had just successfully finished hunting down the last of the Temporary Nests he needed to find and destroy.

  The information he'd received from the Godfather Organization had been mostly accurate. Five of the first six Temporary Nests he'd hunted down were in their designated location.

  The sixth Temporary Nest's location that he visited, however, had been empty. Temporary Nests, as their names implied, were temporary. Eventually, they would dissipate and vanish after a period of time.

  Thankfully, he had prepared a slew of backup locations and managed to find the last Temporary Nest he needed at one of those. He made excellent time, blasting through the Main Cluster at an extremely fast speed.

  Only the last Nest, and the one he had just destroyed, had proven surprising.

  His initial assault had started like all the others. He silently snuck into the bottom floor and began to wipe out the Morenkai mercilessly. Around a dozen regular Morenkai had rushed him, while two Abnormals had rushed him from the side.

  Dispatching them had been easy.

  However, right before he was about to attack the Nest and finish the first step to his plans, he had been hit by a surprise attack.

  A Pseudo-Monster Class Abnormal had appeared out of nowhere, dropping down from the roof above to attack him. The creature had been layered by some type of invisibility power, keeping it from Micheal's senses. Its body shape was much like that of a normal Morenkai, except shorter. It had two long spikes situated on each of its arms, ones that glowed with a pale yellow light.

  Micheal's response had been perfect. He'd ducked down while whipping his Ashari Blade forward into a perfect, aerial guard.

  However, his low stats had prevented him from moving as fast as he needed to. As a result, the lightning-fast strike of the Pseudo-Monster Class Morenkai managed to slightly break past his guard.

  The creature's attack had missed any vital part of his body, and only managed to score a cut to his armor. A split second later, Micheal had decapitated it, causing it to instantly perish.

  After he killed it, he promptly regained his focus and destroyed the Temporary Nest, obtaining the last point he needed to raise his Soul stat to 29.

  However, he couldn't help but feel a mite of displeasure at the damage to his gear.

  He had yet to use the Bracken Enhancement Fluid and was depending on his base stats to handle his current journey, at least for now. The strongest A Rankers typically had multiple stats in the 200s. Pseudo-Monster Class Morenkai, if judged in terms of human 'stats' had a Strength stat of anywhere from 160 to 300, depending on the specific type of Abnormal.

  His highest stat, his Strength, was only 80 right now. Thus, when it came to high-level
Morenkai, he was more dependent on strategy and skill to strike them down. This left him slightly vulnerable to surprise attacks, especially given that his senses weren't, by any stretch of the imagination, overwhelmingly keen.

  'Still, if it's just this, it's fine.' After checking that the damage wasn't anything notable, he bent down and picked up the final, cracked Nest Core he'd destroyed. He then booked it for the exit, not even taking the time to catch his breath.

  Once outside, he shot up into the air, using his Life Orbs to fly. He reached the rooftop in a matter of seconds, jumping off his Orbs as he landed down softly on it.

  As he landed, he blinked slightly.

  In front of him, a team of women were currently lassoing a trio of Morenkai. There were six women in total, three of which were using swords as they hacked at the Morenkai, while the other three used glowing red lassos that wrapped around the Morenkai, limiting their movements.

  'Ohh, not bad.' The all-female team showed quite a bit of skill as they successfully made short work of one of the three Morenkai. A couple of them noticed Micheal's presence and turned to look at him with guarded expressions, but otherwise ignored him as they focused on the two remaining Morenkai.

  'They're probably getting ready to head to The Towers and find one of the Subways to the Second Layer.' He mused after a second. Huge numbers of people were currently doing the same thing, regardless of whether or not they were truly strong enough to safely travel.

  This world was a hellish nightmare to most folk, and many felt if they could just make it out of here, and make it to whatever the next world was, they would find themselves a safe haven.

  After all, anything should be better than this, right? His own thinking, so long ago, had fallen along a similar track.

  As he watched the battle, he brought out a sleek, silver smartphone from his Spatial Ring. Unlike his normal, Mid-Tier Spatial Ring, this one was a much cheaper Low-Tier one he had replaced ahead of time, in preparation for the upcoming battle. Spatial Rings were very hard to destroy, but it wasn't entirely uncommon to see it happen in some scenarios.

  He turned the phone on and scrolled through its options till he accessed the internet, his fingers tapping on it swiftly.

  He then checked a specific, private board on the Godfather Organization's closed network. After finding a certain thread, he carefully read a message that had been posted to it. After a moment, he typed in a reply. He then checked the time and closed his eyes, as if calculating something in his head.

  This whole process took less than 30 seconds in total. In that time, the female team began to struggle as three more Morenkai took to the rooftop. These Morenkai weren't like regular Morenkai.

  Instead of clambering over the roof slowly and looking around, they threw themselves over the roof and ambushed the women, launching into rapid sprints. The women responded by whipping out two more lassos to slow the creatures, while the sword users switched to defending.

  Micheal's eyes narrowed when he saw this.

  'Erratic Morenkai already, huh?' It was a bad sign. If the Godfather Organization's territory was already starting to be affected, the Angels Arcadia's territory was probably a mess by now.

  He jumped up on his Life Orbs as his head flicked to look at the huge, Towers off to his left. Just before he shot into the air and began to fly towards them, however, his right hand flickered.

  An instant later, all five attacking Morenkai, Erratic or normal, all collapsed on to the roof of the skyscraper in mid-attack. The defending women all stared at the creatures in shock, clueless expressions appearing on their face.

  After a split second, however, the women leaped forward and stabbed blades into the chest, head, or neck of each Morenkai. They received a multitude of Points notifications, instantly learning that the Morenkai had been downed but not truly killed.

  After they examined the corpses, they noticed small holes cut precisely into the lower neck of each Morenkai, exactly where the spinal tissues of the creatures were most concentrated. The resulting gap in said tissue had paralyzed all of the Morenkai, turning them from dangerous threats into defenseless lambs.

  "We were… rescued..?" The leader of the small team, an Asian woman dressed in military fatigues, looked down at the body in confusion. After a moment, however, she spun around, remembering the strange man that had appeared on the skyscraper rooftop.

  When she looked back to where he had been standing, however, she found no one at all. She looked off to the left and right, seeing no signs of their savior. It was as if he had vanished into thin air.

  After a second, she motioned at the rest of her team, calling on them to retreat back inside. She scanned the rooftop once more, looking for any sign of the man that had rescued them.

  After one final moment with no result, she turned and ran back inside, burying this moment of gratefulness in her heart and promising to one day pass it on to someone else that needed help.

  .. .. .. .. .. ..

  "Well, that wasn't too bad." Micheal muttered quietly to himself as he crept along the side of one particular Tower, his gaze calm. A few spots of black blood now stained his Ivory Skin Leather Armor.

  On his way to the Monster Class Nest, an Abnormal that had been in the middle of climbing up one Tower had spotted him. The creature had ambushed Micheal from up above, intent on smashing into him mercilessly.

  Micheal had spotted the aerial attack ahead of time, this time around, and killed it using a few simple throwing knives imbued with Advanced Tier Sword Energy. The knives were unable to contain the fierce energy for more than a few seconds and dissipated into scrap metal after impact, but they were more than potent enough to rip the Abnormal into shreds.

  Unfortunately, a few drops of its acidic blood managed to soil his armor, but not enough to do any real damage.

  Apart from that, he hadn't run into any other notable incidents in his journey to the Monster Class Nest. He glanced at the familiar building, eyeing it with a small smile.

  There were only two ways into this building. From the roof and from the bottom floor.

  The Monster Class Nest was, of course, located in the center of the building, in an enormous auditorium that spanned multiple floors.

  Normally, if one wanted to chance even a glance at the Monster Class Nest, they would have to scale through dozens of dangerous, Morenkai infested floors. Multiple Monster Class Morenkai lived in this building, making it a deathtrap of the highest level.

  Of course, that was for most people. Micheal was not most people.

  He carefully looked up and down the skyscraper, taking account of every Morenkai in sight. Currently, he was hiding in a small, inset window area, keeping his body as close to flat with the building as possible. He was about halfway up his Tower, roughly parallel to where the Monster Class Nest would be.

  Morenkai shambled about in regular motions down below and up above. He could see hundreds of the creatures, walking up and down the streets, and around a dozen climbing up some of the nearby Towers, including his own.

  There weren't any Erratic Morenkai that he could see. In fact, there weren't any Erratic Morenkai, period, as far as he could tell, in the territory of The Towers.

  Finally, after observing for a solid minute, Micheal took action.

  He leapt out from his window outcropping and began to zoom forward, racing towards the edge of his skyscraper. Right before he reached the edge, he ducked down and tucked himself into a ball.

  An instant later, a small, black blur shot across from his skyscraper all the way to the neighboring one, out in open space for just a scant couple of seconds.

  The moment he reached the wall, Micheal stood back up and leaned against it, blinking furiously as he looked up and down the skyscraper.

  After a few seconds of frenzied observation, he heaved a sigh of relief.

  He hadn't been spotted.

  He continued to lean flat against the skyscraper as he looked up and down it, ascertaining his exact position. H
e flew over to one of the windows that dotted this level, peering into it.

  In it, he saw a small, empty office room devoid of any Morenkai or humans.

  With just a few quick motions, he brought his Ashari Blade out and cut into the window. His Advanced Tier Sword Energy glowed dimly around his sword as he slowly slashed a large enough hole for him to slide through.

  Once he finished cutting it, he pushed the glass forward, catching it before it could hit the ground. He then snuck forward through the hole and hopped off his Life Orbs, landing on the floor of the office room.

  He glanced around to the left and right, confirming it was empty. He took the glass he'd cut and slowly replaced it back on the window. He then used some glue to seal the window back up.

  As he closed it, he carefully glanced at the window throughout the process, ensuring it fit snugly. This type of glue was something new he'd gotten from the Godfather Organization, something bought from Earth, a type of clear, sealant glue that only cost 42 Points. It worked a bit better than what he had used before, and was a great deal cheaper.

  As he finished putting it into place, he took one last examination of the hole. It was sealed perfectly, and pretty much impossible to tell it had been cut into at all.

  He raised his hand and pressed, ever so slightly, on the window, causing it to shift.

  Faintly, several long scratches became visible on the window. These scratches lined the long, circular cut he'd made, and outlined the entire hole. They were difficult to see and could be easily missed if one wasn't careful.

  After he finished that up, he walked over to the entrance of the office room and put his ear down to the ground, listening for movement outside.

  He heard nothing.

  After a few seconds, he slowly opened the door and stealthily looked to the right and left.

  An open hallway appeared in front of him, dotted with neon lights. Several doors spread out along the outside of the hall, whereas the inner part was bereft of any rooms at all. Instead, a pair of large doors could be seen, down all the way on the right.