Chương 80: EVs Don't Explode With a Bang

A truck. If one absolutely had to describe the feeling of reaching [600] Max HP. It would probably be the feeling of being run over by a truck on a concrete road, getting stuck between the dual tires, and being dragged for 500 meters... It wasn't just physical agony; mixed within it was that familiar, searing heat—a sensation like a high-voltage electrical current! It erupted from the very depths of his bone marrow, violently washing over every limb and bone, rendering him completely unable to control his own body!

But even so, as long as Vince had a single finger that could move, he was not someone a crippled, low-HP zombie could mess with. Equipping the [Sharpness Crystal], he thrust out a finger wreathed in razor-sharp energy, instantly executing the zombie. This was the desperate self-rescue method Vince had come up with in the heat of the moment. He couldn't care less about what kind of earth-shattering shock this scene would bring to the people behind him...

Seeing the zombie's Health Bar hit zero and the immediate crisis resolved, he willed the system to swap out the [Sharpness Crystal] for the [Revitalization Crystal]. As the Revitalization effect kicked in, the physical agony gradually subsided. That wildly surging, searing electrical current seemed to find a guide, drilling upwards along his spine. It was as if it crossed some sort of invisible barrier, vanishing into his body in an instant.

A few breaths later, the pain that had swept through his entire body also quietly disappeared without a trace...

"Haa... Haa..." The ringing in his ears simultaneously weakened. Only then did Vince hear the shouting coming from behind him. Immediately after, Ben's face appeared in his field of vision.

"Vince!... What happened to you?! Are you okay..." He anxiously pressed both hands on Vince's shoulders, trying to see exactly what was wrong, before being distracted by something and whipping his head back around, his eyes filled with sheer terror.

"I'm fine..." Vince had not expected upgrading to [600] Max HP to have such a violent side effect. It definitely hadn't happened at [300]... If he had known earlier, he would have absolutely found a safe place to trigger the upgrade. Fortunately, it was a false alarm. The agonizing pain and burning sensation only lasted for a few seconds before disappearing without a trace, returning him to normal. Vince extended a hand, gently pushed Ben aside, picked up his heavy spear to use as a crutch, and stood up.

Looking closely, he finally noticed that the blue energy bar beneath his Health Bar had changed to [199/200]... An increase of a hundred energy points! Did it grow alongside the Max HP milestone, or was it related to that searing electrical current that just vanished...? These two hypotheses flashed through Vince's mind, but immediately after, a heavy, deafening impact shattered his train of thought! BOOM! The half-wall of the first-floor balcony was smashed to pieces by a terrifying force.

Countless shattered bricks flew out, raining down on the cars parked along the street. Instantly, car alarms blared, creating a deafening cacophony. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The entire section of the street was enveloped in a thick cloud of dust and debris. Vince could only tell from the heavy, thudding footsteps that a massive monster had charged out. [1940/2000]! A 2, 000 HP Mutated Zombie! Not just 2, 000 HP!

Beneath its Health Bar was a blue energy bar exactly identical to Vince's! The numerical value was extremely low, currently sitting at just [4/10], but it was recovering incredibly fast. It was basically recovering one point every second! The charging monster slammed directly into one of the cars with a blaring alarm, producing another massive crash! Taking advantage of the fact that the monster hadn't noticed them yet, Vince hurriedly instructed Ben:"You guys are useless here. Fall back!

Block any regular zombies drawn by the noise from the west! Go, now!" With that, he shoved Ben toward his squad, gripping his heavy long spear and walking slowly toward the monster. The agonizing pain from earlier hadn't just brought him a hundred extra energy points. As the pain faded, it felt as though every muscle in his body had been re-woven. Every single fiber possessed an astonishing degree of toughness and vitality. Vince looked down at his arms.

Although there was no visible change on the outside, using the heavy spear in his hands as a comparative weight, his current raw strength should be enough to single-handedly flip a sedan! CRASH! SMASH! The monster in the dust cloud, attracted by the car alarm, was blindly charging and frantically smashing the noisy vehicle to pieces. Hssss— Before Vince could get close, a bizarre sound—like highly pressurized gas leaking—hissed from the dust cloud.

Immediately following it, a blinding white light flared, illuminating the monster's towering silhouette. Then, a continuous series of sharp pop! pop! pop! sounds erupted. Every mini-explosion was accompanied by a geyser of flames shooting several meters high—sometimes blue, sometimes orange. Billowing black smoke began pouring out of the dust cloud. Enraged by the flames, the monster began to physically brawl with the fiery "beast" in front of it.

Every time the jet of fire sprayed it, the surface of its body was scorched into a layer of charred carbon... Seeing that the monster was literally fist-fighting an electric vehicle experiencing thermal runaway, Vince silently took two steps back. The toxic smoke produced by burning lithium batteries was lethal. Even with his superhuman constitution, he had zero desire to inhale that secondhand smoke... 9, 10, 0! He watched as the monster's blue energy bar finally hit full, only to instantly plummet to zero!

A furious, guttural roar erupted from the black smoke, followed immediately by a deafening BOOM! A massive, blindingly white fireball—several times brighter than the previous flames—ignited within the dust cloud like a miniature sun, completely engulfing the monster's silhouette! At the exact same moment, countless fist-sized, glowing red fragments blasted outward like shrapnel meteors! They shattered the windows of the adjacent residential buildings, embedding themselves into the apartments.

Before long, plumes of smoke and flickering flames began to appear!

"Fuck... fire!" Vince swung his spear, parrying a glowing chunk of metal flying toward his face. Seeing smoke billowing from several units in the buildings on both sides, he hastily backed away. Noticing that Ben and his men had ducked into a nearby storefront to avoid the "shrapnel," he shouted over to him:"Are there people in these buildings on either side?!"

"No... everyone was consolidated and moved to those two buildings over there..." Ben pointed toward the two buildings closer to Vince's apartment. Vince followed his finger and, sure enough, saw scattered groups of silhouettes standing behind the balcony windows, watching the spectacle. This included Claire and the others.

"At least you guys aren't stupid!" Vince couldn't help but marvel at how fast Ben had acted. With so few survivors left, consolidating them into a couple of units made perfect logistical sense. Since they were empty, let them burn. These old buildings were all brick-and-concrete structures anyway; they wouldn't collapse from a localized fire. Vince immediately shifted his attention back to the thick black smoke.

The concrete dust kicked up by the monster's initial charge had mostly settled; what now blanketed the street was the toxic, billowing smoke from the burning EV. The monster's silhouette was entirely obscured by the black smoke, making it impossible to see clearly. [926/2000]... It only has 900-something HP left?! So that's how it is. This must be the punch Ben was talking about—the one that 'shattered' Wang.

It's just incredibly unfortunate for the monster that it used its mana-dumping ultimate punch on a lithium battery experiencing explosive thermal runaway... That devastating strike, capable of shattering a human body, had completely annihilated the structural integrity of the battery pack. All the electrolyte fluid had instantly detonated, burning the monster down to just 900-odd HP...

Or rather, this monster's hide is genuinely thick enough that the thousand-degree temperatures of an incandescent fireball and the hypervelocity metallic jets and shrapnel didn't instantly kill it...