Chapter 29: The Tower of Death, Claire Severely Injured
Jeremy frowned as more Skyrakers filled the sky.
Although he wasn't afraid of these monsters, he didn't want to waste time on them.
After a moment of thought, he pulled out an M67 grenade from his storage space.
Scanning for a dense cluster of Skyrakers, he pulled the pin, wound up his arm, and hurled the grenade.
In an instant, the grenade flew like a shell.
"Boom!!!"
A massive explosion echoed through the night, a bright flare lighting up the darkness like dazzling fireworks.
The grenade exploded instantly, sending out shrapnel that pierced through a group of Skyrakers before they could react, turning them into a hive of bullet holes.
Scores of Skyrakers fell from the sky like snowflakes.
[You have killed a level 13 Skyraker(Normal), gaining 1423 experience points!]
[You have killed a level 12 Skyraker(Normal), gaining 1198 experience points!]
[You have killed a level 15 Skyraker(Elite), gaining 4807 experience points!]
...
As the kill notifications popped up, a golden light shone on Jeremy.
[You have leveled up to 12, gaining 20 free attribute points!]
"Roar Roar Roar!!!"
The commotion awakened many monsters in the darkness, and the Skyrakers in the sky let out angry roars.
But by the time they thought to retaliate, Jeremy's figure had already vanished into the night.
Under the shroud of night, with the silver moon hanging high.
Jeremy, dressed in black, leaped and darted across rooftops.
His movements were swift and agile, reminiscent of a spry monkey, easily covering several meters in a single leap at incredible speeds.
Some onlookers, their eyes wide with disbelief, thought they were witnessing an illusion.
A little girl holding a doll pointed at Jeremy leaping across the rooftops and said crisply, "Mommy, Spider-Man!"
Her mother turned to look out the window but only saw a wandering monster. "Child, that's a monster, not Spider-Man." She said, weariness in her tone as she stroked her child's hair, mistaking the child's inability to differentiate between monsters and humans, while pondering on how to survive.
As Jeremy delved deeper into Moonlight City, the number of monsters increased exponentially, visible everywhere at a glance.
The entire city had become a playground for monsters.
Only a few flickering lights and occasional screams and pleas for help indicated the presence of humans in the city.
...
Two hours later.
Jeremy finally reached the commercial district at the city center.
The sky was a dull gray, nearly dawn.
The number of monsters around multiplied, with tens of thousands of them crammed together on the commercial plaza, forming a sea of monsters—an horrific scene that could suffocate anyone.
The monsters at Moonlight Secondary School were aplenty, but they were nothing compared to this.
With skyscrapers everywhere in the commercial district, rooftop travel was no longer an option.
Jeremy ducked into a coffee shop by the roadside, surveying the monsters outside through the glass window.
He noticed that few of the monsters were below level 10, and the variety was bizarre.
Spider-like deformed zombies, snake people with four pairs of eyes, and earthworms as large as pythons, among others.
Moreover, in the center of the mall plaza, Jeremy saw a gigantic meatball, twenty meters tall.
This massive meatball was covered in countless human heads and tentacles. The long tentacles continuously grabbed living beings and other monsters, feeding them into its dark, bottomless maw as if it were an insatiable abyss.
This scene made even Jeremy's scalp tingle.
This monster was even devouring its own kind!
[Devouring Tyrant (BOSS)]
[Level]: lv21
[Attack]: 5121-5230
[Defense]: 1693
[Skills]: Devour, Flying Skull, Frenzy...
[Hint]: Extremely dangerous. Slaying it will definitely yield a high-level skill book.
Faced with the stats of the Devouring Tyrant, Jeremy's expression grew solemn.
This was the first BOSS he had encountered, and its level had reached 21.
He hadn't expected that just before the third day of the apocalypse, the Moonlight City would already have such a high-level monster.
Although killing it would grant a high-level skill book, Jeremy wasn't particularly interested in taking it on.
His priority was to rescue Claire safely.
Jeremy looked toward the commercial skyscraper, his brows deeply furrowed.
He was less than a kilometer away from the skyscraper where Claire's psychology clinic was located on the 42nd floor, which he could see just by lifting his eyes.
However, the skyscraper was surrounded by dense throngs of monsters, numbering in the tens of thousands, not to mention the ones inside.
Jeremy thought for a moment and realized that perhaps only by using a cloaking mask could he sneak past them.
But if he used the cloaking mask, how would Claire get out?
After all, the cloaking mask could only be used by one person and had a 24-hour cooldown period.
After much deliberation, Jeremy finally set his sights on the skyscraper's glass windows.
"Seems like, I'll have to climb up from the outside." Jeremy said, lighting a cigarette, his eyes flickering with determination.
If anyone knew of Jeremy's plan, they would surely think him mad.
The commercial skyscraper was over 500 meters tall, with an exterior as smooth as glass. Climbing it without any safety measures would be as difficult as reaching the heavens... If he were to accidentally fall from a hundred meters up, even with Jeremy's extraordinary constitution as a player, there would be no chance of survival.
Yet, Jeremy was not worried about this.
Danger was relative to ordinary people; for him, climbing a hundred-meter building was not as difficult as it seemed.
In his past life as a mercenary, he had successfully climbed to the top of a hundred-meter building to plant a bomb, albeit with complete equipment.
However, his physical condition now was different from his previous life, and Jeremy was confident he could make the climb.
The biggest problem now was how to draw the monsters away so he could approach the skyscraper.
It was a pity that Lisa had already died. Otherwise, he could have thrown her out to attract the monsters.
Exhaling smoke, Jeremy's eyes revealed a resolute determination.
In that case, he would have to do it himself.
No matter what, he had to rescue Claire!
...
42nd floor of the commercial skyscraper, Claire's psychology clinic.
"Clang Clang Clang!!!" The intense sound of something pounding on the door, like a death knell, kept ringing, and the stainless steel door of the psychotherapy room trembled continuously. The grating sound of metal scratching assaulted the eardrums.
Claire sat on the couch of the psychotherapy room, with a fruit knife and a medical kit by her side.
Her stunningly beautiful face was somewhat pale, with beads of sweat continuously appearing on her forehead.
There was a terrifying wound on Claire's abdomen, and her white coat was already stained red with blood. Despite being bandaged, fresh blood still seeped out from the wound.
Even though she was enduring intense pain, Claire's eyes remained unusually calm.
If Ritchie and others were here, they would find that her gaze was sometimes identical to Jeremy's, as if devoid of any emotion.
Claire found an anesthetic painkiller in the medical kit and swallowed it. Then, she propped up her head and legs on the couch to lie down, trying to alleviate the injury to her abdomen as much as possible.
Even this simple action made her complexion even paler.
The power of that white wolf was truly terrifying. Just one strike had almost gutted her. She owed her survival to her abilities.
However, Claire could feel her body getting weaker and weaker, and the door to the psychotherapy room wouldn't hold much longer.
Unless something unexpected happened, she was likely going to die today.
Facing death, Claire felt unusually calm, perhaps due to her strong psychological resilience or perhaps because she didn't have much to cling to in life.
At this thought, an image of a person suddenly appeared in her mind.
"Jeremy..." A complicated look flashed through her calm eyes.
Claire had already been seriously injured when she spoke to Jeremy on the phone. She didn't mention her condition, fearing it would upset Jeremy.
Besides, talking about it was pointless. The monsters below the commercial skyscraper had already sentenced everyone still inside to death.
Claire had awakened an S-class ability not long after the apocalypse began. She had tried to escape the skyscraper, and the wound on her abdomen was the price she paid for it.
"It's over..." Everything in front of her began to blur, and the sound of banging on the door became indistinct. The medication started to take effect, and Claire closed her eyes wearily.
...
In the coffee shop, having made up his mind, Jeremy no longer hesitated.
He allocated all his free attribute points to agility, bringing his agility attribute to 538 points. Afterwards, Jeremy used 21 second-tier energy crystals to upgrade the skill level of Shadow Step to lv10, the maximum level.
The maximum level of Shadow Step increased the amplification effect to 100%, and its duration reached an astonishing 8 minutes!