Chapter 296 - Back in the city

Traversing through the rift of the space, bending the reality to pull the target relatively close to you, diffusing your body and consciousness into the primary particles and recreating them in your destination… There were multiple ways of instantaneous travel, yet I still had no idea how Bonger was able to provide me with such an usefull spell.

Entering the dark doors that were oozing a repulsive aura didn't help in my investigation either, even going as far as planting a seed of doubt about Bonger's origins and source of power.

Stepping through those doors made the entire world turn around and vanish, replaced with an overwhelming and neverending void. I could only guess that I was able to perceive this place in a different way than before because of my far better physical and mental state, or maybe thanks to assimilating entropy? Every question that I found concerning Bonger and it means, only caused even more uncertainties to pop up.

Before long, I felt like either something was pulling on me or I was simply falling towards some sort of gravity, before the dark void, devoid of any colours suddenly saturated itself to present a wide array of tones that made up the picture of the city I was familiar with.

Because it wasn't the same place that I left.

All sorts of architectural wonders were now in shambles. Finding some basic points of reference by digging up the images from my memory, I realised that what used to be the grand arena that gave name to this place, was replaced with an enormous crater, incomparable to what I was capable of doing with my measly magic back then.

Taking the insane hole in the groud as a main point of reference, I turned around, casting an imaginary map on the desolate streets.

Screech!

As I turned around, the time that seemed to stop for a moment when I arrived here, resumed its usual flow.

Previously I thought that since those zombies were essentially the creation of Bonger's emergency means, I should be immune to their aggression, but seeing how being the only person alive in the vicinity, they still turned previously stalled attention towards me, instantly changing from a complete stop into a fully-fledged dash.

Not willing to take any chances, I used the strength and agility steeming from my statistics to dash towards the distance. I had a certain list of places I wanted to visit, placed in a semi-hierarchical order. Since I couldn't know what was the state of the city or how much time I would have upon arriving nor where I would be teleported to exactly, I had to optimise my plans by starting with the closest targets instead of going straight for the most important places.

Running through the streets devoid of any life except for the evergrowing mass of zombies trying their best to follow my steps, gave me the vibes of some of the indie games that I so loved to play back on earth. Thankfully, there was no seven days limit before some kind of great horde would appear to destroy to make me die, but I still had to be wary of some kind of experts appearing to check the commotion out.

The first location that was sadly rather low on my list of places to check out turned out to be the hotel we resided in with Eve. Speaking of the vibes I got before, when I stood before its rather well-kept entrance when compared with some other buildings in the city, I couldn't help but gulp my saliva down when I imagined the amount of loot that I could gather by just sweeping this location clear!

But I swiftly diminished those thoughts. It wasn't like back in the game, where every trashcan, desk or kitchen could hold parts vital to the construction of machine guns or fortifications!

Still worried about the passage of time and the horde constantly tailing my back, I used small shockwave to cast myself high into the air, before continuously casting flight over and over again, to move horizontally towards one of the windows on the second floor.

There was no way I could find my previous room just like this, so I had to resort of invading some random location and then making my way through the corridors. While it wasn't the best or shortest route, at least it allowed me to confuse some of the zombies, buying me a little bit of time to look around.

Lucky enough to barge in the room that was vacant when the apocalypse struck this place, I quickly destroyed the energy mechanism protecting the door with just a small strand of my entropy before getting to the main corridor of the floor.

Just like I thought, while the room was in its pristine state, the long corridor was filled with corpses, debris and zombies either roaming the place or feasting on the dead. At least, they consumed the energy leaking from the decomposing bodies, instead of gnashing on its meat and bones, saving me the awful sight that it would present.

Even with how I only wanted to skimp through the location to find some memento of Eve that would help keep my mental state in check, as I progressed through the corridor disposing more and more of the zombies with the single strand of entropy for each of them, I couldn't help but notice that the patter in which the rubble inside was lying around indicated some sort of organised defence.

While I didn't want to be discovered scavenging this place, I couldn't help but get curious. Regretfully, while I went past the room that I used to live in, it was completely destroyed to the point where if not for my great memory, I would believe I moved past it or have yet to reach it.

I guess someone couldn't help but unload their hate towards me at the only memento left…

With nothing else to do in this place, I decided to check out the thing that piqued my interest before.

Just like expected, all the stairs bore the marks of barricades and heavy fighting, yet all of them were completely broken apart. It wasn't before I the hotel's attic where I could see a great mass of zombies standing motionlessly before a huge pile of broken furniture.

Disposing of them wasn't any problem for me. I could only guess that they only had so much of the energy that allowed them to move or keep their bodies together. No matter how powerful they were before turning, it only affected the time they would remain active.

After pushing those pitiful remains aside, I broke through the barricade with a single shockwave of mine, only for guilt to tighten like a rope around my heart.