Chương 141: The Sucker Punch

Equip Stealth Crystal. With a single thought from Vince, the energy veil materialized once again. This time, there was no invisible interference. The cloaking field closed seamlessly, fully enveloping him in its distortion.

"Looks like that monster's tracking debuff has a time limit..." Vince smiled inwardly. His chances of pulling off a successful sneak attack had just jumped by twenty percent. A full hour had passed. His minor injuries were completely healed, and his HP and Energy pools had regenerated to maximum capacity. The heavy clouds outside the window had parted slightly. Though the moonlight was still thin, it was enough to illuminate the shadows in the room.

Gripping his heavy spear, Vince navigated to the front window and carefully peeked out over the ledge... The densely packed sea of infected had dispersed somewhat. They were no longer crushed shoulder-to-shoulder like sardines in a tin. The glowing red Health bars weren't stacked directly on top of each other anymore, but from the street right below his window all the way to the distant park, they still blanketed the ground like a glowing red carpet, as if rolling out the welcome mat for some VIP.

Ten thou— Vince gave up trying to count. Judging by the sheer density of the HP readouts, there were easily several thousand zombies clustered here. If Zoe and the girls could somehow AoE wipe this entire map, imagine the max HP scaling... It was just a fleeting fantasy, of course. If he threw his squad into that meat grinder right now, they wouldn't even make a splash before being devoured. No wonder none of the zombies had wandered back to his compound after he kited them away that first day.

They were all out here having a massive flash mob. Looking closer, Vince noticed a clear stratification between the [300] HP and [500] HP infected. The [500] HP zombies were actively congregating toward the park, while the standard mobs were left to aimlessly wander the outer perimeter. He had no idea what was triggering the behavior. He couldn't make out any finer details in the dark... Vince squinted into the distance. The fires sparked by the military's explosives had completely burned out.

From this distance, even if there were embers left, he couldn't see them. The park itself was a void of absolute blackness. The massive crater had been entirely swallowed by the shadows; aside from the floating Health bars of the infected, nothing was visible. Use Stealth Potion (Medium). With a thought, that dead, sepia-toned filter flooded his vision once more, cutting through the dark. And with it, the crater re-emerged from the shadows...

The two titanic, python-like vines were no longer actively sweeping the area for him. They had retracted to hover directly above the crater, raised high into the air, completely motionless. From hundreds of meters away, the oil-drum-thick vines looked like two thin lines extending into the sky, drooping slightly outward... It looked exactly like a colossal Southern cockroach squatting at the bottom of the crater. Except this roach was terrifyingly massive.

Standing by the window, Vince held his breath, observing intently. The two "antennae" weren't entirely still. The upper halves of the vines twitched with a slow, rhythmic pulse. Occasionally, a faint, sickly bioluminescence seemed to slide from the roots all the way to the tips, pulsing with a deeply unsettling "vitality." The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Perfect timing..." Seeing the vines weren't camping his door, Vince double-checked the status of his Stealth Crystal. Confirming the cloaking veil was stable, he quietly slipped downstairs and melted back into the horde on the street. The stacked effects of the Stealth Potion and the Stealth Crystal granted him absolute aggro immunity against standard infected. Armed with his previous experience, Vince navigated the horde like a fish in water.

He kept his spear tight to his body, weaving nimbly through the gaps between the rotting corpses. In no time, he crossed the wide avenue and reached the APC. The multi-ton steel beast had been completely totaled by the vine's devastating strike. The rear hydraulic ramp was half-torn off its hinges, hanging precariously at a warped angle. Vince peered inside through the gap. Under his sepia-toned vision, anything stained with blood appeared pitch black. As expected, the entire troop compartment was painted in it.

There were four corpses inside. Two slumped in the troop seats, one draped over the driver's console, and one lying flat on the floor with a clean bullet hole through the forehead. Next to the man on the floor lay a black handgun. Vince slipped through the gap into the steel tomb and picked up the weapon. It was heavy and ice-cold. For a civilian who had never handled a real firearm, the dense, metallic weight of it felt jarringly real.

He wasn't a military buff and didn't recognize the make or model, but he'd played around with airsoft guns enough to know the basics. He hit the release catch and the magazine dropped out. Seeing three rounds still loaded in the mag, he slammed it back in. He picked up a blood-soaked nylon belt with a tactical holster from the floor near the hatch and slipped the handgun back into it. There were two standard-issue assault rifles on the floor, but a quick check revealed both were completely dry.

After thoroughly searching for grenades or explosives and finding nothing, he stood by the hatch, staring down at the massive pool of blood. Based on where the holster had been lying, it clearly belonged to the "old man." He might not have actually been old, but he was undeniably a soldier.

"Watch my back, old man. I'm gonna go blast that motherfucker for you..." Vince rested a hand on the holstered gun, his fingers grazing the sticky, coagulated blood on the nylon. It felt as if the lingering warmth of the man's sacrifice was still trapped in the fabric. He muttered the vow quietly to himself. Then, without looking back, he slipped out of the APC and resumed his stealth run toward the park's perimeter wall. Not finding any explosives was exactly what he expected.

If there had been even a single frag grenade left in that vehicle, Vince probably never would have met that man in the first place. But scoring a loaded handgun was still a win. After all, the old man had mentioned that the final gunshot was for his "old friend." Vince had assumed the gun was empty after that, but to his surprise, there were still three rounds in the mag. Add the one he fired, and the one currently chambered—that was five rounds total. Five bullets for the five men in the APC. Including himself.

Vince's gaze swept over the stiffened corpses. In his sepia vision, he couldn't make out their final expressions. But he could easily imagine their final moments. There was no chaos. No desperate struggle. Just a cold, calculated, and merciful end. The commander had sent his brothers off first, reserving the final, agonizing suffering entirely for himself. A terrifying, deeply respectable man. Weaving past one [500] HP zombie after another, Vince vaulted over the rubble of the collapsed wall and entered the park.

This time, he observed the [500] HP variants much more closely. They definitely felt sharper than the standard mobs. Their movements carried a faint, disturbing sense of purpose. Occasionally, they would snap their heads around, their dead eyes "scanning" the environment. The first few times it happened, it nearly spooked Vince into drawing his spear. But he quickly adapted. He suppressed his breathing and pushed his heart rate down to the absolute minimum. Every footstep landed silently on the solid ground.

Like a phantom, he seamlessly blended into the dead zone. Vince knew curiosity killed the cat. But the questions burning in his mind weren't just idle curiosity; they were intrinsically tied to the mechanics of this new world. They dictated his daily survival and the strategic decisions he made for the team relying on him.

Even though he hadn't actually laid eyes on the monster's Health bar yet, he would never forget the feeling of walking past this park days ago—that sensation of a steel spike pressing directly against the base of his skull. Compared to that overwhelming aura of death, the monster felt incredibly weak right now. It was weak enough that Vince actually entertained the thought of kicking it while it was down and finishing it off! In the old strategy books, the highest form of warfare is attacking the enemy's strategy.

In gamer terms: if the boss is charging an ultimate attack, you interrupt it. This had always been Vince's core tactical philosophy. Whatever that giant roach was cooking up at the bottom of the crater, since the opportunity presented itself, he was going to take the old man's advice: Find a way to blast it to hell. Vince rested his hand on the gun at his hip, his heartbeat steadily accelerating. I'm here to fulfill your dying wish, old man. You better be watching over my RNG!