Chapter 95 - World Ablaze

Chapter 95

World Ablaze

The world was in an uproar.

Whatever little global infrastructure was left was immediately corralled into the worldwide manhunt for one person–Zaya Lowlik. A name that wouldn’t inspire even a second of thought just a day prior suddenly became the most important name in the world. While everyone besides Ethan lacked the depth of knowledge as to why her betrayal was so monumental, they knew enough to understand the magnitude of it. As such, no expenses were spared.

Her photo appeared everywhere–digital and analog–and was spread about like wildfire. Discussions abound, too, on what it all meant and why would someone do it. In the troves of desperation cast by the sudden change in the world, some found grace in this new topic that appeared all but from nowhere. It also let them know that the ‘system’--or whatever it was–was not static, and that it could take unique circumstances and spin them for the entire world to behold.

In the meantime, while being hunted down by the entire world, Zaya was currently sitting inside an abandoned apartment complex, heaved up to the seventh floor, situated by the window, her gaze drifting to the streets below. She’d already been spotted quite a few times and had already engaged in a few battles, but as it was mostly with the newly Awakened who barely knew what was happening, she won easily. However, she did not let hubris develop; she knew that there was at least one person in the world capable of killing her, and that all of this was mostly just a cat-and-mouse chase between the two. That was, of course, unless somebody launched missiles at the city she was hiding in, consequences be damned.

“There shouldn’t have been a Protector here,” she mumbled to herself, her eyes turning into slits. She’d searched for nearly sixty years for a perfect world, a defenceless world, but she still failed. Nonetheless, she only had to hide for less than two months–until A’stul is freed from his world and attacks this one. By then, she would have become an afterthought in the realm of havoc. Nobody would care about her. “It’s dangerous. I have to move tonight as well.”

Travel was both a necessity and a burden–after all, she was still only Level 44. She had no long-range traversal abilities, which meant that she couldn’t simply hole up in some remote jungle and wait it out. She had to travel by foot, and even if her stamina was superhuman and she could go one-two weeks without sleep, it was not infinite. She’d have to rest eventually, and would have to time it perfectly, lest she got caught while asleep.

If there was one drawback, it was that she didn’t know who the other returnee was, while her entire self was wholly exposed–they knew her Class, though that would do little to help, her Level, and occasionally her location. They also most likely knew that the radius she could cover on foot was limited and that she’d likely be forced to stay within the confines of England for the duration of the quest. On the other hand, she was in the dark.

What soothed her thoughts was that she was confident the other party was, at best, just slightly above Level 20. She’d cleaned up all the Tunnels that rewarded either a lot of XP or straight-up Levels, which was the only reason she was able to reach Level 44 to begin with. As such, the remaining Tunnels–even if she’d missed some decent ones–would at best be able to propel a person to mid 20s .

However, she didn’t let her guard down; there was always a chance that the Protector interfered in some capacity and forcibly increased the rewards. Even if that would result in a backlash, if the Protector’s goal was to stop her and even capture her, they’d likely do it with glee. After all, even though sending Avatars into newly-constructed worlds wasn’t exactly a rare thing to do, there was a reason why new worlds weren’t swarmed with Avatars–Protectors can not only use Avatars to track them through the other worlds, but also earn bounties for hunting them down.

“Found her!!!” a shout suddenly filled her ears. “Get everyone over here! Don’t let her escape!”

“Cut off the back entrance! I’ll take Jake and go left!”

“Where the fuck’s Hugh?!”

She glanced casually outside, the rooftop opposite of her apartment, where a man had spotted her from. She was hardly in a rush–nobody was even Level 10. If she wanted to run, they wouldn’t be able to catch her. However, she was done simply running–as it was right now, even if nobody could take her down, they could constantly send updates to the one person who could. It was best if she could create a perfect deterrent so that the ‘masses’ would simply leave her alone.

Tossing away a bottle of water, she cranked open a window and pulled back into the room before sprinting forward and tossing herself forward through it–she flew forward like an eagle, arms spread, shadows cascading from the edges of her body. Within a second, she loomed over the opposite rooftop, landing squarely at the man himself. The latter couldn’t even respond to the sudden happenstance; she crashed into him and pinned him to the ground before violently ripping his arms out.

They flew, accompanied by two massive sprays of blood, as the man finally screamed in horror and pain. By then, the doors to the roof swung open and a stream of six people came flying in. She heaved the man from the ground and held him by the throat while pinching as sternly as she could–under the gazes of six horrified pairs of eyes, she squeezed the man’s neck until his head ballooned and imploded, showering the world in blood and gore and brain matter.

Before others could properly process what was happening, she flashed in front of the only woman in the crowd, quickly grabbing her by the waist and pulling back, slamming her into the ground. She died without even getting a chance to scream, the sounds of bones cracking and breaking echoing out, finally waking up the other five.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

“RUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!”

However, she wouldn’t give them the chance.

Three shadows suddenly sprung from her feet and latched onto the nearby three men, preventing them from moving an inch forward while she sprinted forth and caught the last two. It was then that she heard the buzzing of a nearby drone, glancing at it for a moment before ignoring it. It was good–this way, the scene would be relayed to all the idiots with dreams of making it big.

She slammed the two men that she was holding in each of her arms together, squeezing them into a paste of blood and gore where one whole could not be made. Organs fell and blood spritzed, and the three alive felt their spines go numb and cold.

The shadows ushered them forth toward her, and, one by one, she began gouging their eyes out, snapping their fingers, yanking their groynes, and, at the end, ripping their still-beating hearts from their chests and tossing them over the rooftop.

All lay dead within less than thirty seconds, dismembered beyond recognition. Organs, limbs, blood, and flesh decorated the silent rooftop, the only sound the buzzing of a drone that seemed frozen in time. She glanced at it one more time, her entire self covered in blood from head to toe, more a devil than a human, before morphing into a shadow and disappearing.

Within an hour, the video of the woman demolishing seven people went viral–however, unlike her predictions, the video had an adverse effect. Rather than being a deterrent, it became the wind that gave birth to fanaticism–now more so than ever before, the hunger to hunt her down grew deeper and louder. Rather than fear, the video inspired anger and hate, and a deep-seated desire for revenge.

She cursed under her breath as she continued to run, regretting not having simply ignored the man on the rooftop. She hadn’t interacted with the world all that much and, as such, couldn’t perfectly predict their reaction. Had she known it would have turned out this way, she would have simply hid; more so than just anger, she inspired unity–whereas before it was mostly individual effort to hunt her down, by now it had become a genuine manhunt of correspondence–Awakened moved in groups, with military logistics backing them up, and they never engaged with her directly. Rather, the moment they spotted her, they tagged her and retreated while the surrounding groups began moving toward her position.

Within six hours, she had run for over eighty miles in circles, but not only had she not gained any ground and created distance, she was slowly beginning to be encircled. South and southwest were already cut off, hundreds of Awakened guarding the positions. Mighty as she was, even she couldn’t contend against hundreds of them. Bit by bit, panic began to set in–not because of the hundreds of the low-levelled Awakened, but because of the one person that could threaten her. Her gut feeling was telling her that he was somewhere nearby, stalking, and waiting for the perfect opportunity. At any moment, she feared, he would stumble out of the dark and gnaw at her.

She couldn’t rest–gritting her teeth, she ignored the fatigue and pressed forward. She had to get out of the city–though she’d be an exposed duck in the open plains, at least it would be much more difficult to encircle her and attack her from stealth. By now, her only choice was to choose a direction and run that was in the straight line, hoping she would be able to outrun everyone.