Dan’s heart rate had shot up since his unwanted encounter with the creepy voice in his head. Climbing up more stairs, he gripped his Aero SMG tightly in his hands. He had no clue what the hell that entity was or what means it used to communicate with him. And somehow, it was powerful enough to influence his well being by allocating stat points into his supernatural category.
He had no idea if it was necessary for him to go see a shrink or a priest after this heist was over. But until then, he had a job to do. His unexpected nap must have thrown the mission off course for his teammates and Li had gone ahead without him. But with his new powers, he could turn the tide and make up for lost time.
Dan made it up to a floor and heard a string of angry swearing coming from the hall nearby. Or at least it sounded like swearing since Dan didn’t hear any English. He stopped in his tracks and slowly approached the doorway and peered down the hall. Dan spotted one burly-looking Kodak agent slam one of the doors on his way out into the hall. Further down, two dead Kodak agent laid along the carpet flooring. One of Dan’s teammates had to have passed by. The agent carried a heavy rifle that he couldn’t immediately identify. It as unlike any conventional assault rifle he had ever seen.
The entire world around him slowed to a crawl and the colors on the walls and carpet flooring drained into a mix of blacks and greys.
“Oh what the hell is this,” Dan muttered.
You have come across a difficult opponent, the demonic voice said. Ordinarily, the best course of action would be to retreat. But now, you have the gifts to overcome this challenge across the hall.
“Get the fuck out of my head,” he shouted.
Dan froze up when he heard another string of swearing down the hall. Except, the speech was slowed down with a hint of reverb as if someone went ballistic in a recording studio. Did that Kodak agent hear him while he was shouting at this entity?
The voice cackled at Dan’s fuck up. Well, at least you cannot blame me. This will be another good test of how well you wield my gifts. A word of warning, your supernatural stat is still too low for you to wield corrosia energy. The gifts you possess will draw directly from your body’s energy reserves. Beware of how much you use my gifts.
Color returned back into Dan’s world and his perception of time returned. If this voice kept popping up in his mind randomly, it would get Dan killed one day. He wondered what the hell did the voice mean by corrosia energy.
Down the hall, Dan saw the same Kodak agent pointing at him and shouting something in a language he didn’t understand. Luckily, his HUD immediately displayed subtitles in English that remained at the bottom of his vision, just in view enough for him to see without taking his focus away from the threat in front of him. The language was revealed to be Russian.
The Kodak agent raised his strange bulky rifle at him and Dan dropped to his stomach before the agent got a shot off.
And he was thankful he did.
The rounds the exited the barrel of the Kodak agent’s rifle cut through the air and penetrated the wall between the hall and stair case. Dan watched as the walls splintered and bits and debris flew in various directions as the round left giant holes into the walls.
What type of gun is that? Dan asked himself.
Dan had only a split second to see the stats that popped up for the enemy ahead.
Agent: Vladimir Vulture
Age: 25 M
Shard: Kodak-Cresh
Rank: Tier 2 | Level 28
Strength: 44
Agility: 36
Endurance: 40
Intelligence: 26
Healing Factor: n/a
The first though that came to Dan’s mind was that he was screwed. Taking on a Kodak agent at this tier and one wielding a gun that could puncture the walls as if they were paper was a death sentence. The Kodak agent walked and a brisk pace toward him, keeping his rifle trained on him. The translation subtitles in Dan’s HUD spat out at the bottom of his vision.
“Your life is mine to take anytime I wish, bitch,” the agent taunted. “I had more difficulty catching fish.”
The underestimation of his abilities and shit talking ignited a rage inside of him. Not since the Amethyst raid had he felt this level of anger at his enemies.
“You wanna bet, punk?” Dan said in a low voice.
By the time he got back to his feet, the agent stood a few meters away from him while Dan remained in front of the opened doorway between the stair case and hallway. Up close, Dan saw the man tower over him, probably the same height as Allen Draco. Even without the bulky and obnoxiously spiked Kodak armor, the agent in front of him would probably look more bear than human in build. He looked down at Dan with blood red sclera and sulferic orange eyes.
“I’ll skin you alive, Alpha trash,” the agent said.
Dan gritted his teeth and the sudden surge of energy and adrenaline shot through his entire body. Red static shot out of him and the Kodak agent in front of him stared at him with a combination of confusion and awe.
Berserk activated.
“So you’re a freak. This will be fun,” the agent said with a slasher smile. “Your skull would make a good trophy.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Dan raised his Aero SMG while Vladimir squeezed the trigger of his rifle. In a battle of quick draws, Dan proved too slow. He fired a few rounds before he saw the muzzle flash of Vladimir’s barrel.
Whether through luck or the rounds from his Aero throwing off Vladimir’s aim, the strange rounds that punched holes into the wall beside him flew past his head and shoulders. Unfortunately, one of them got through.
The round was like a sharpened stake that rammed itself into Dan’s shoulder, penetrating his coat and armor and burrowed itself into his flesh. Dan dropped his SMG from the brief flash of excruciating pain. His left arm was immobilized as the limb fell limp by his side. The pain transitioned from blinding to just about tolerable with a few seconds.
Injury diagnostic began filling his peripheral vision but Dan ignored all of that. He grabbed his silenced pistol on his thigh mount and fired wildly at Vladimir. The agent merely took two steps back and raised his rifle over his face. Half the rounds missed and hit the walls behind Vladimir and the other half smashed harmlessly into the agent’s armor, sparking off the plating like confetti.
Before Vladimir could finish the job, Dan had one more trick up his arsenal. He stared the the Kodak agent pouring as much anger and hate into his eyes.
Glare activated. 50% effectiveness.
Hot blood ran down his cheeks and Dan could see the redness clouding his peripheral vision. But his glare ability hit its mark.
Vladimir dropped his rifle and back away while being engulfed in flames. The fire spread to his exposed head and began burning away his skin.
Dan mustered the effort to raise his other arm and aim his silenced pistol at the agent. He squeexed the trigger and popped off a few more shots, one of them burrowing into the burning agent’s forehead. Without a helmet, mere flesh and bone could not survive against a ten millimeter tungsten round to the head.
The agent flopped backward and fell to the ground. The flames mysteriously seized instead of burning and possibly spreading along the carpet. What was left was a smouldering remains of Vladimir, a charred corpse that laid dead on the floor.
He placed his pistol back on his thigh mount and wiped the blood out of his eyes with his gloved hand, partially getting rid of the red from his peripheral vision. Dan slowly looked down to address a more immediate problem.
The round sticking out of his arm.
The red electricity that his body produced as a byproduct of the berserk mode was the most wild and unstable around his wound. Dan pulled up the injury reports in his HUD. Before the stats loaded up in front of him, he already knew it was serious just from his inability to move his left arm.
Warning. Serious injuries sustained.
Left clavicle broken.
Left scapula broken.
Seek immediate medical attention.
If there is no medic nearby, carefully remove the projectile and inject a healing stim as a temporary measure.
Since he was on his own, he had no choice but to follow the advice from his HUD. Dan assumed that his berserk mode was compensating for the pain he felt with this projectile lodged in his shoulder. So for now, he kepot the form active even if it was draining his energy.
He clenched his teeth as he grabbed the giant stake sticking out of his bloodied shoulder and and gripped it tightly.
“Like ripping off a bandaid,” Dan muttered.
In one effort, Dan ripped out the projectile out of his shoulder. Doing it slowly would only prolong the pain. A trail of blood leaked out from the projectile and he tossed it aside. He reached into his coat and grabbed a healing stim and jammed it into the exposed wound. Powering down from his berserk mode, the surging adrenaline was replaced with an icy sensation pooling in his shoulder that spread across his entire body.
Dan could not have been any more thankful for his enhancements as he was in this particular moment. He imagined that any non-enhanced person would have gone into shock and died from blood loss taking the hit he just did. Looking down at his wound, Dan could see the blood flow significantly slowing and the extreme pain gradually waning. His suit was actively working to seal the hole the projectile had created. It felt as if he was applying a pack of ice the wound and the effects were sped up.
He glanced to the side where he threw the projectile he just ripped out of his shoulder. His eyes widened at the strange ammo used by the Kodak agent.
Inside his shoulder, the projectile was a giant stake with what felt like a sharpened tip to emphasize its pentration power. Dan walked over and bent over to pick up the projectile. It was heavier than expected. He wondered how such a thin object could weight so much. Up close, it looked like an oversized threading needle. His left arm became usable again and her stretched out his fingers and was unnerved to see the projectile’s length matched the span of his stretched hand from his thumb to pinky finger.
Dan took a few steps toward the strange rifle Vladimir wielded against him. His HUD got to work scanning the weapon and within a few seconds, his eyes were fed its info.
Name: CM “Deathsheer” Nailgun
Manufacturer: Cresh Manufacturing (Kodak-Cresh Subsidiary)
26-round magazine
“Aftershock” armor-piercing bolts
Extremely effective against all agents, including energy shields
Description: An archaic assault rifle reserved for only higher-ranked Kodak agents. Extreme stopping power and penetration exceeds conventional ballistics and will stop any agent in their tracks, even with energy shields. The ideal choice for Kodak agents for killing high tier rival agents.
Dan crouched down and grabbed the rifle off the ground. He wasn’t ready for the heft of the weapon. Slowly standing back up, the rifle was bulky in its dimensions. The length and thickness of the gun made it feel more like a light machine gun with a magazine size in the hundreds.
Similar to the ZK-77, the deathsheer had dual bayonets sticking out the front and extended past the barrel. The pristine duo of blades sported serrated edges, both were larger and longer than the blades on the seventy-seven. Dan had no doubt of which blades would be the deadlier between the two rifles.
The most striking feature of such an oversized rifle was the weight. His HUD spat out the deathsheer’s weight measurement.
Deathsheer weight: 14.6 kilograms.
The magazine of the deathsheer was placed in front of the trigger guard. It was a box magazine similar to a light machine gun. He wondered why such a huge magazine for only twenty-six rounds. Then he remembered the giant nail he had just ripped out of his shoulder. He separated the magazine from the rifle and was shocked at the weight of the nails themselves. No wonder why the rifle was so heavy.
Dan looked into the magazine and saw the “aftershock” armor-piercing bolts lined up inside the box. He winced at the thought of how fatal such projectiles would be had he not been wearing his armor. Even then, his armor proved not enough to completely stop the bolt from penetrating him and shattering bones in his shoulder. His HUD spat out another message in front of his eyes.
You have fought and survived a battle against a higher-ranked agent!
Bonus experience rewarded.
Congratulations!
You have reached Tier 1 | Level 18.
You have earned 5 stat points. You have a total of 10 stat points to spend.
While it felt good to see such messages highlight his accomplishments, Dan didn’t feel too hot. His use of the berserk mode to power through the pain of taking a bolt to the shoulder had taken a lot out of him. He was breathing heavy and the extreme pain and aches throughout his body were only beginning to wane thanks to the healing stim.
He tested out his left arm by doing basic stretches and flexes. While it was a miracle his arm was back in working condition, he wasn’t at a hundred percent. Dan dropped the deathsheer and walked back to the stair case and scooped up his Aero SMG off the floor. While he was curious about the strange Kodak rifle and was tempted to take it with him, he couldn’t afford to carry the extra weight. He needed to keep his loadout lean for the sake of the mission.
Dan ran down the hall, ready to take on more challenges Kodak would throw his way.