Chapter 92
The CEO Boss
Careful to stay hidden, Leo moved as close as he could to the front of the line of buses, killing two more stray Afflicted in the process. There were a lot of Afflicted bodies around the buses and far too many living ones. The four big guys, Low-Level Bosses, were rapidly approaching.
One of the Bosses picked up a living Afflicted and threw it at the leading bus hard enough to leave a dent in the bus's iron grating.
Pyro Mage 43:2: We need reinforcements! We're under attack and I'm still in cooldown!
The last time Leo had encountered Low-Level Bosses, he'd been lucky to escape with his life. Hopefully, he could do better this time around.
The Bosses moved forward, pushing through the mob of their own kind, killing the ones who didn't get out of the way quickly enough.
Leo waited. He'd have to time this perfectly.
He activated Time Freeze, putting all his remaining Demon Tears into it. Thanks to Augment, Time Freeze would already be fifteen percent more effective and would last that much longer. The Demon Tears would improve on that.
You realize that by using Demon Tears in this way, your recovery time will be many times what it would be otherwise? Imp asked.
“Yes.”
And everything around him froze. Time Freeze didn't freeze time, but it sped up his own time, seeming to slow the time around him. Guardian class had its benefits.
Before adding Demon Tears, his skill would have lasted 20 seconds in real time plus 15 percent from Augment, giving him 23 seconds. 32 Demon Tears would increase this time by 50 percent if he was lucky. So 31.5 seconds?
He ran as if his life depended on it, counting 10. 11. 12 Afflicted whose throats he slashed along the way. He wished he had his previous Agility: 8.5 plus 15 percent would give him close to a 9.8 agility. Very good for an ordinary human, but not even close to the 79 of his previous life.
A bullet whizzed by, smacking a nearby Afflicted. In Time Freeze, bullets seemed more like buzzing insects than deadly pieces of metal.
The largest Boss (a known CEO of a major charity) spotted him instantly and spun to face him. He wasn't as fast as Leo, but much faster than an ordinary human. This was what made Low-Level Bosses so dangerous. They were a lot faster than they looked. A bullet bounced off the CEO Boss's forehead. He didn't seem to notice.
This Boss held a jagged piece of iron that looked like the remains of a large signpost he'd pulled from the ground.
Instead of fighting the CEO Boss, Leo ran up behind one of the smaller Bosses and stabbed the inside of its thigh. If he severed the main leg artery, the monster would bleed to death in minutes.
He missed.
From his previous life, he knew a few weeks from now, this same Boss would be covered with a bonelike armor, making it much harder to damage. No time like the present.
Dancing back to avoid its swing, he jumped up and slashed at its neck. Blood sprayed around the cut in slow motion.
The CEO Boss, who'd noticed Leo earlier, kicked the smaller Boss out of the way and swung his weapon.
Leo ducked, backing away, drawing the CEO Boss away from the buses using the surrounding Afflicted for protection, letting the CEO Boss take out the smaller Afflicted on its rampage to kill Leo. This was not a good, long-term strategy. The Boss could rampage a lot longer than Leo could dodge. He needed to end this.
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The CEO Boss used its signpost like a spear, jabbing it through two Afflicted at once, trying to get at Leo, getting his spear caught on their bodies in the process. Leo took this opportunity to attack. Running forward, he stepped on the jagged iron spear the Boss was trying to dislodge, and used it to jump up and slash at the Boss's throat.
The CEO Boss dodged Leo's slash, dropped his weapon, and swung at Leo, but it was too late. Leo had already used the spear to jump over the CEO Boss, slashing his neck again as he went over the Boss's shoulder. Finally successful, blood sprayed from the Boss's neck.
Leo was looking for his next target when Time Freeze ran out. Sounds went up several octaves as the sound waves sped up again, and things around him began to move quickly.
A thrown stone flew by his head, missing him by millimeters. Something struck him in the back hard enough to send him flying.
A nearby Afflicted burst into flame as someone grabbed Leo and dragged him to the nearest bus.
The next thing Leo knew, he was on a crowded bus surrounded by Trent, Angie, and several others. All of whom looked pissed.
“What the fuck do you think you're doing?” shouted an older guy Leo hadn't met. Or maybe he had? A memory flashed through his mind. “You are support! Anyone with half a brain knows the support guy stays behind the other fighters. He does not go running ahead of the other fighters to get himself killed! And that's not counting the fact that you're the Leo Edwards who's supposed to be saving our asses.”
Angie and Trent glared at Leo, clearly in agreement.
“I was trying to help,” Leo said, defensive. “You guys looked like you were in a jam.”
“We were doing fine.” Angie glared at him. “We did not need your help, and we certainly weren't asking for it.”
“Osmond messaged us, saying he believed you were off doing something stupid, and what do you know, he was right.” The older guy glared at Leo. “When we get to the stadium, we are all going to have a talk.” He stood up and turned to the bus driver. “My Crowd Control skill is off cooldown. I'm going to throw my skill out there, and then I want you to floor it.”
“You got it, Frank,” the bus driver said.
Frank stepped out of the bus, an Afflicted bounced off him, no doubt thanks to his implant armor. Then things around the bus grew quiet.
Leo looked outside. The Afflicted in front of the buses were still and silent.
“Floor it!” Frank shouted, jumping back on the bus.
The driver put the old bus in gear and stepped on the gas pedal. The bus roared, surging forward, crushing countless frozen Afflicted underneath it.
“Nice skill,” Leo shouted over the bus engine.
“Yeah, it is,” Frank said. “Shuts down their cognitive processes. Assuming they aren't killed, they'll wake up in a few minutes and feel like no time has passed for them.”
“Nice,” Leo said. “Are you a knight?”
Frank laughed. “Hardly. I'm a Guardsman/Epic. Got some pretty nice skills.”
“I remember you from the previous future. We never met, but I remember you were running around taking charge of stuff,” Leo said.
“If they were putting me in charge of anything, we're in worse trouble than I thought,” Frank responded. “Trent, you're up! Give 'em hell!”
Trent stepped forward and launched six fireballs in close succession, aiming for tightly packed groups of Afflicted, causing them to burst into flames. The line of buses and armored trucks moved forward unimpeded and didn't stop until they reached the stadium.
As soon as they stopped, Trent and Frank grabbed Leo and dragged him from the bus.
Angie followed them out. “You got anything for me to kill? I want to kill something.”
“You got guard duty, Angie. Keep these people safe,” Frank said, fist-bumping her as he and Trent dragged Leo away. “Don't worry, you'll find lots of stuff to kill.”
It occurred to Leo that it had been fifty years since he'd seen the stadium and wasn't sure what to think. If anything, the stadium looked nicer than he remembered. Of course, the last time around it had taken him days of following other refugees to find the place, and he'd had to sneak inside, finding an unobservant adult and letting guards think he was their kid. If someone had suggested back then that people would be dragging him inside the stadium, he'd have thought they were insane.
They took him into an office next to a locker room and sat him down. The office was packed. Mr. Osmond, Gretchen, Howie, Shank, and at least twenty other adults stared at him in silence.
Gretchen was the first to speak. “Leo Edwards. Do you have a death wish? Are you trying to kill yourself?”