Chapter 263 - 226: The Situation 2

Chapter 263: Chapter 226: The Situation 2

[-99]!

Silence fell behind the iron gate. The man crumpled to the ground, his body going still.

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

The downpour continued, washing away the blood that stained the ground. Just as Lin Fan prepared to move in and finish off the critically wounded Awakened One, a voice—part mocking, part sinisterly soft—cut through the rain from behind the factory’s iron gate.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk... Boss Hong, how did you end up in such a sorry state?"

The voice held no sympathy for his companion, only undisguised glee at his misfortune.

"I thought your Vajra Indestructible Divine Skill only ever faltered against us..."

Before he even finished speaking.

WHOOSH—!

A vicious gust of wind, smelling of damp air, descended upon Lin Fan from directly overhead without warning!

It was incredibly fast! So fast that Lin Fan’s dynamic vision barely caught a flicker of an afterimage!

’A sneak attack!’

Lin Fan’s eyes narrowed. He hoisted the giant silver axe and swung it upward. With its meter-long handle and massive head, the axe formed a veritable iron wall above him. Any ambusher would be forced to leave something behind!

CLANG—!

A clang, sharper and more piercing than the last, rang out! Sparks flew, instantly vaporizing the rain into a cloud of white mist.

The blow was blocked! A tremor shot through Lin Fan’s arms, and the sheer force of the impact sent the water pooled on the concrete at his feet blasting upward in a spray of countless droplets!

He retreated two steps to bleed off the momentum. The attacker overhead, having failed to land the blow, didn’t press the advantage. Instead, they used the recoil to flip gracefully in mid-air.

PAT.

Like an elegant cat or a weightless specter, the figure landed silently five meters away from Lin Fan.

A Life Value of [1040/1040] with a purplish-red border, and an Energy Value of [519/520], which regenerated to [520/520] in the blink of an eye.

Her Life Value was over a thousand, and surprisingly, the attacker was a woman.

The woman wore her hair in a simple ponytail. She was tall and slender, almost thin, and dressed in simple summer clothes. Her outfit was tattered, however, riddled with tears and holes that revealed fair skin beneath. For some unknown reason, a gas mask concealed her face.

’Probably ugly,’ Lin Fan mused silently.

Her hands were empty; he hadn’t seen what she’d used to block his axe. Lin Fan discreetly angled the axe head and spotted a new scratch on the blade.

’I don’t know what her ability is, but... it’s incredibly aggressive...’

"Tao He, your plan isn’t working out so well..."

The woman didn’t rush to attack after landing. Her voice, muffled by the gas mask, was directed in a complaint toward the half-open iron gate behind her.

"This is what you call a distraction?"

"Now, Sister Zheng, you can’t say that."

The same sinisterly soft voice from before spoke up again from the doorway. At the same time, a figure slowly emerged from the shadows behind the iron gate.

No wonder Lin Fan hadn’t seen a health bar. The man had been hiding behind the door for who knows how long.

"You didn’t see that iron ball he threw... It was like a cannonball. WHOOSH! It shot right past my face..."

The man, Tao He, wore a clean factory uniform that looked utterly out of place in the filthy surroundings. He spoke as he casually strolled over to the two bodies of the men Lin Fan had gunned down.

Then, one by one, he stomped on the heads of the two corpses, crushing them. Red and white matter splattered across the ground.

"We can’t let these fresh corpses go to waste. They’ll be useless once they turn into zombies... Scram. Don’t get in my way."

He then wiped his foot on the thigh of another "corpse" before kicking it hard. The "corpse" flinched in pain, clutched its leg, and scrambled through the iron gate, terrified that a moment’s delay would see its own head crushed.

Lin Fan watched coldly.

[830/830] Life Value, purplish-red border, and a full [830] Energy Value, a one-to-one ratio with his life. Generally speaking, the higher the ratio of Energy Value to Life Value, the more the person’s abilities leaned toward the "Mage" type.

But Lin Fan wasn’t about to judge his opponent’s abilities based on the ratio of their Life and Energy Values alone. After all, overconfidence could get him killed.

Looking at the two unscathed Awakened Ones before him, and the critically wounded one still twitching on the ground, unable to get up...

"Eight hundred plus a thousand plus seven hundred plus six hundred,"

Seeing that his opponents had no intention of attacking immediately, Lin Fan planted his axe in the ground to recover some energy. He counted on his fingers for a moment, then remarked with a sigh,

"That’s got to be a hundred crystals... What a haul..."

"Friend... with your level of power, I assume Li Xun is already dead."

The woman’s voice came out muffled from behind her gas mask, carrying a strange, resonant quality.

She took two steps forward, grabbed the brawny man from the ground, and tossed him behind her. He slammed into the wall.

After doing this, she straightened up and faced Lin Fan. She stared at him through the glass lenses of her mask for two seconds.

"We’ve lost plenty of people, too. I’d say that makes us even for any offense we’ve caused... How about we be friends?"

She spread her hands, adopting a more conciliatory tone. Her voice held a note of negotiation, but it didn’t lack the confidence of someone powerful.

"From your gear, you’re clearly not a soldier. We’re all just trying to survive in this apocalypse. Is it really necessary to fight to the death?"

But Lin Fan saw through it. Her move looked like she was tossing aside a piece of trash, but in reality, she had thrown the man to safety, clearing the battlefield.