Chương 199: Is This Thunder Divine Punishment? Or a Blessing?

Or a Blessing?

Time ticked by, second by second. No matter how desperately Marcus prayed for it to slow down, the five minutes passed in the blink of an eye. Whatever had been ignited by his grenade inside the storefront had now flared into a raging inferno. Looking through the rearview mirror, Marcus saw over a dozen zombies, drawn by the crackling flames, wandering around the spot where he had previously parked. Among them were two or three exceptionally hulking silhouettes. Just thirty more seconds...

Marcus counted silently in his heart. A minute later, the military assault vehicle's taillights flared, and it suddenly accelerated away. The zombies noticed the commotion and gave chase. But they ultimately couldn't outrun the vehicle. They could only furiously chase the taillights, helplessly watching their prey speed further and further away without looking back... Meanwhile, Vince sprinted south along the street-facing storefronts.

To his bewilderment, he had already bypassed the vanguard of the zombie horde, yet he still hadn't found a single trace of Raven. The night-vision effect provided by the [Stealth Potion] was about to wear off. Left with no other choice, Vince pulled out a [Gasoline (Minor)] and a [Diesel (Minor)] from his spatial inventory. They were two 10-liter metal jerrycans. Vince tossed them onto the roof and punctured them with his spear. The liquids gurgled out, spreading toward the lower sections of the roof.

He retreated to the edge of the building and aggressively scraped his spear against the concrete. The resulting sparks instantly ignited the gasoline. Orange-yellow flames violently erupted upward, followed shortly by the diesel catching fire, billowing thick black smoke into the air. The flames flowed down the drainage pipes, igniting the walls of the entire building. The three-story commercial structure instantly transformed into a massive torch.

The meter-high flames illuminated a radius of several hundred meters. Vince leapt away, landing on the half-ruined section of an adjacent building. The advancing zombie army, drawn either by the blinding light or the sudden roar of combustion, surged toward the building. However, the blistering heat forced them back. Only the few dozen zombies at the very front were pushed directly into the cascading waterfall of flames by the crush of bodies behind them.

Splattered with burning diesel, they turned into human torches, shoving their way back into the horde and igniting other zombies. But ultimately, fuel was limited, and not a single zombie actually burned to death. Vince wasn't trying to burn the zombies to death anyway. Without the right terrain, even a full ton of gasoline might not kill many; it was just a waste of resources. His time was simply limited. He couldn't keep pushing forward endlessly to search for Raven.

He just hoped she would notice the blaze and give him some sort of signal in return... He raised his arm and checked his watch. He had previously calculated that he needed to turn back five minutes after passing the horde's vanguard. Without his night vision, navigating the rooftops would be impossible; he'd have to travel on the ground, weaving through buildings and the zombie horde, which would drastically reduce his speed. He needed to leave himself ample time.

Three minutes had already passed since he left Marcus. A little over a minute had passed since he crossed the vanguard...

"Three minutes left..." But since he was already here, Vince frowned. Gripping his spear, he forced his way through the scattered horde on the outskirts. He pushed another kilometer diagonally forward and to the left, leaping across the street and landing on the third-floor balcony of a residential building, shaking off the mutated zombies pursuing him.

This residential building hadn't collapsed from the "earthquake," but many of its windows were shattered—whether from the tremors or from mutated zombies bursting out of their nests, he didn't know. The vanguard of the horde had already pushed far past this point. The zombies lagging behind here were mostly stragglers trickling onto the main road from adjacent residential complexes, or massive, lumbering variants of mutated zombies.

The sheer number of Health Bars had thinned out significantly, but their average quality had spiked... Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. With a thought, a massive barrel appeared at Vince's feet. A [Gasoline (Medium)]. One hundred liters. With the experience of his previous fire, Vince knew he didn't need to bother with diesel in a residential building. He unscrewed the cap and kicked the barrel over.

Gasoline gurgled out, rapidly spreading across the balcony, pouring over the shattered edge of the floor-to-ceiling windows, and cascading down the exterior wall. Vince leaped downward. In mid-air, he struck his spear backhandedly against a remaining metal window frame, throwing a shower of sparks. A tongue of flame violently raced down the trail of gasoline, igniting the second floor, then the first floor, before roaring back upwards. The blue light of the [Armor Crystal] flashed briefly.

The moment Vince landed, he was spotted by two mutated zombies loitering below the building, but he had no time to kill them. Using his landing momentum, he instantly launched himself high into the air again. Activating the [Sharpness Crystal], he drove his spear straight into the solid side of the building, leaving himself hanging suspended between the fourth and fifth floors. He half-squinted his eyes, fixating his gaze across the street. Holden had said all three of them were on the west side of the road.

Marcus definitely was, which meant Raven should be too. After all, she wouldn't have stubbornly tried to cross the main road to the east side while a massive horde was surging through it. If she was falling back, her only path would be across the rooftops of the western storefronts or through the residential streets behind them... Fueled by the highly combustible gasoline, the entire building began burning fiercely from the bottom up. Every window spewed roaring tongues of flame.

In less than half a minute, it had transformed into a towering inferno. Vince firmly believed that given how suddenly and violently the fire had erupted, a smart kid like Raven would immediately realize it was man-made. And considering she and her team had spent last night analyzing his battle with the Giant Tree, she would definitely deduce it was him who set it! Two minutes remaining. Hanging from the side of the building, Vince calmly observed everything across the street, searching for the slightest clue.

Drip... Drip. The sky had been somewhat overcast in the afternoon, but Vince hadn't thought it would actually rain. Yet, unexpectedly, it began to pour. Raindrops fell on his hands, his head, his face. They ran into his eyes and dripped from the corners. With the constitution of [1830] HP, he could completely suppress all basic human reflexes if he wanted to, including blinking. Vince hung motionless on the exterior of the building, like a gargoyle. His raptor-like gaze swept over everything in the darkness...

A grenade, a flashbang, or even a smoke grenade would do. The crack of a gunshot, a flare of light, or even a tiny flicker of flame... He guaranteed himself that not a single anomaly would escape his eyes. The rain grew heavier. Drenched by the downpour, the building's flames began to shrink, sending thick plumes of black smoke billowing straight up into the sky. Vince's heart sank lower and lower. Time was almost up. The rumbling of muffled thunder echoed from the distance.

He could confirm this was actual thunder. Over the past two days, he had grown accustomed to the roar of explosions and the crash of collapsing buildings; hearing natural thunder now almost felt somewhat comforting. Maybe Raven already made it back? The thought flashed through his mind. He knew he was wavering. His subconscious was trying to convince him to leave. But he still had forty-two seconds left. He recalled her silhouette. She wasn't tall. She wore an oversized, filthy combat uniform.

She exuded a unique, conflicting aura—a constant friction and blending of two entirely different temperaments: a young teenage girl and a hardened, ruthless soldier. Awkward, indirect, cunning, yet surprisingly delicate. Like a stray cat. It made him not want to let go. Ten seconds left. Suddenly, Vince felt an indescribable, tingling numbness and a sharp prickling sensation wash over him.

A bizarre, metallic taste flooded his mouth, and the spear in his hand began vibrating violently with a strange, high-pitched hum. Disturbed by this abnormal sensation, he turned his head for the first time in minutes, looking at the residential building beside him. In the dimming firelight, a massive column of thick black smoke and heat was billowing straight into the sky. He vaguely remembered reading somewhere that smoke columns provided a conductive path for lightning...

"Oh, fuck...!!!" With a frantic thought, Vince instantly unsummoned his spear! Purely on instinct, he equipped the [Armor Crystal] and tensed every muscle in his body, preparing to tank the incoming strike! In that split second, with his body still suspended in mid-air by inertia, an indescribably blinding flash violently erupted! A ribbon of pure light, connecting the heavens to the earth, materialized right before Vince's eyes! But then, at speeds entirely beyond his reaction time, it abruptly shifted direction!

It jagged at a sharp angle, connecting instead with the top of a ruined, low-rise building directly across the street, exploding in an apocalyptic shower of sparks. In that instant, a blindingly bright zigzag was burned permanently into his retinas. It was as if the jagged line of light had always been there. BOOOOOOM!!! An earth-shattering clap of thunder exploded in his ears, vibrating into his very bones as Vince dropped to the ground in a daze.

The moment his feet touched down, his mind was consumed entirely by the heaven-illuminating flash and two singular thoughts... First: I am never, ever setting a fire from a high vantage point again. I'll get struck by lightning. Second: If that was fucking Raven's signal... that is way too absurd!!!