Chapter 136
Jake managed to collect enough XP in the evening to level up to 52. He gained five skill points, but he decided to hold off allocating them for now. During the night, he hunted for mana and collected over 10,000 MP. The following morning, he used the ten thousand mana points to purchase an Increased XP booster and spent the next several hours in the sewers, killing mutated rats and devourers. He managed to level up two more times. His current level was now 54, and he had fifteen skill points at his disposal. Since he was working toward acquiring the Cloak ability—whose requirements were Body 45, Mind 55, and Magick 60—he allocated all fifteen skill points to his attributes.
Body: 46 → 46
Mind: 50 → 55
Magick: 50 → 60
So he could now acquire the Cloak ability. However, it was quite expensive, priced at a whopping 25,000 MP. Since he had a little over 30,000 MP, purchasing it would leave him with only about 5,000 MP, which wasn’t much at all. When he was much weaker, below Level 10, his body consumed just a little over 1,000 MP in a day in an active state. But now he needed much more than that. At his current level, his powerful body could burn through 5,000 MP in just a few hours to a day, depending on how active he was. So, he decided to wait until he collected more mana before acquiring the Cloak ability.
Finally, he emerged from the sewers. As soon as he returned to street level, he heard the rumble of a powerful engine nearby. Jake looked around and spotted a vehicle behind him. The huge pickup truck, with a machine gun mounted in its bed, was driving in his direction, quickly approaching his position. The hood of the large vehicle had a red demon skull painted on it. The person manning the machine gun and the driver both stared directly at him, determination etched on their faces. It was clear they hadn’t stumbled upon him by accident. Instead, they had been purposely hunting him down.
The intersection where Jake stood was crisscrossed with huge chasms, spanning the entire street. He knew the two Demons in the technical wouldn’t be able to follow him there, so instead of wasting time fighting them, he decided to slip away. He burst into a sprint, easily leaping over the massive cracks in the asphalt. Just as he expected, he heard the screech of tires behind him when the driver suddenly hit the brakes upon realizing he couldn’t follow Jake. The driver would have to backtrack and search for the nearest side street, but by the time he maneuvered around the intersection marred by cracks, Jake would already be long gone.
However, if they were on a mission to track and kill him, like the previous Demons he had slain the other day, they would likely be equipped with a scanner to help them locate him. Still, even with the scanner, following him wouldn’t be easy. Jake continued to run as heavy-caliber rounds zipped past him. But he was already too far from the truck, so none of the bullets hit him. At the next intersection, he took a random turn, and the gunfire ceased.
Instead of returning to the rooftops, Jake chose to stay on the streets for a while. He needed to level up as quickly as possible. The gangsters from Los Demonios were high-leveled and armed with powerful weapons. He still remembered his encounter with a couple of them when they had attacked him from their truck while he was climbing a building wall. The machine gun in the truck’s bed and the revolver the driver wielded were surprisingly powerful because both weapons were high-leveled and enchanted to boot. The machine gun dealt explosive damage, while the revolver had not one but two enchantments: the first making the initial round deal cryo damage, and the second causing the next two shots to inflict explosive damage.
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Jake had to level up as fast as he could to be able to combat the Demons effectively. They were everywhere, making it nearly impossible to avoid confrontations with them. Therefore, he had to become strong enough to fight back. The bandits from Los Demonios utilized special spells to level up more quickly. While Jake didn’t have access to such spells, he could occasionally purchase an Increased XP booster when he could afford to spend 10,000 MP. Another effective method for gaining substantial amounts of XP was through quests and challenges. While anomalies could sometimes be found on rooftops, the majority were located in the streets, along with most quests. For this reason, Jake chose to remain at street level for a little while.
He ran through the streets choked with overgrown vegetation for some time. So far, he hadn’t encountered any anomalies or quests, which was disappointing. The longer he lingered at street level, the greater the odds of running into another group of Los Demonios. His hearing picked up the sounds of gunfire, the roar of powerful engines, and human screams echoing from various corners of the devastated megalopolis. It felt as though the entire city was at war with itself. It definitely hadn’t been like this before Los Demonios showed up. Almost every building he ran past had a red demon skull painted on it. The Demons were marking what they now considered their own territory. The gang was quickly taking over the whole city, and the other survivors were seemingly completely powerless to stop them.
It wasn’t long before Jake ran into another Demon vehicle. This time, it was an SUV with a machine gun mounted on its roof. One person operated the gun while another occupied the passenger seat. There could be even more bandits in the back of the vehicle. The looks on the Demons’ faces made it clear they weren’t just driving around aimlessly. No, they were specifically looking for him too.
Jake knew that one of the leaders of the gang, known as Skullface, had a mission to kill him. Rather than taking it upon themselves, Skullface preferred to hand this mission over to their subordinates. After Jake had eliminated the first two Demons who came after him, Skullface must have passed the mission on to someone else. As long as Skullface was alive, the hunt would continue. However, even if Jake managed to eliminate Skullface, it might not put an end to his troubles, because the System could assign the same mission to another survivor. Yet, whoever was next in line to receive the mission might not possess the same level of power as Skullface, have fewer resources, and probably wouldn’t have an army of subordinates at their disposal to chase Jake down.
Jake heard the rumble of another engine on his left. He glanced that way and saw yet another huge vehicle approaching his position—it was the technical he had encountered right after emerging from the sewers. It appeared that various groups of Los Demonios were now working together to hunt him down. That was troubling. He quickly surveyed his surroundings. The SUV was coming in from the front, the technical from the left. On his right, at the corner of the intersection, stood the remains of what used to be a coffee shop. Without wasting another moment, Jake dashed toward it.
The moment Jake burst into the building, he was met with the sight of replication pods dangling from the ceiling. About a dozen ex-humans wandered aimlessly around the interior, and some of them hissed and snarled upon spotting him. Without hesitation, Jake sprinted across the room toward a door on the opposite side that led deeper into the building, easily evading clawed hands that reached out for him.
Just as Jake reached the far side of the room, a tremendous crash echoed behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see the technical smashing its way into the coffee shop, crashing through debris, mutants, and replication pods. The vehicle came to a halt in the center of the room, and the Demon in the truck bed swung a machine gun toward Jake, unleashing a barrage of gunfire.