The conflict ignited like a powdered keg, a rain of bullets targeted each of their vital points.

Jules and Roya as the main combatants immediately attacked like wind and lightning drawing the bullets towards them.

‘As expected’, O’Brien looked placid after observing Rose who only summoned four of her bloody thorns and didn't use her blood control ability.

This was bound to end badly.

It would be a different case if they hadn't been Tier Zero Card Apprentices but with their limited reserves of card essence, and also having no defensive capabilities.

Soon, they would…

Cough!

Spit!

Things immediately took a turn for the worse as Jules was shot and her speed slowed down. The same was true for most of the team as the hail of bullets swarmed them in the narrow corridor.

It was bound to be a one-sided battle, not only were Jules and the others outnumbered but also they were outgunned.

“Hmph, you were warned.” One of the opposing squad members said with disdain.

“Should we finish them off captain?” At this point their team had met with a few different survival groups and taking the hard stance proved to always be the right move.

As the leader was about to reply, he noticed a tall muscular grey figure covered in transparent scales. The slitted amber pupils stared them down with indifference.

O’Brien examined his current transformed state that had somewhat stabilized, he felt the lingering tendrils of light grey ash card essence feed his muscles like the refreshing gush of a spring.

A sense of power flooded his senses as if he could collapse a thick wall of concrete with his fists, this was no illusion and he could indeed do so.

‘It's been a while since I actually fought humans, well getting shot a few times is a given but they shouldn't penetrate too far.’

With that thought, O’Brien took a step forward and lowered his stance and rushed towards the enemy team. He had avoided the previous bullets but with him as the sole target getting hit was unavoidable.

“Fire!”

The scent of smoke and gunpowder accompanied the flashes of light from their rifles and pistols. They continued firing rounds for a good 30 seconds before stopping.

“Was he an idiot? He saw us immobilize his team and he still—”

As they were about to mock O’Brien for his stupidity they saw his smoke-covered body reveal itself with his translucent scales, but the most shocking matter was that he was completely unharmed.

Not to mention them but O’Brien himself was surprised.

‘I can be injured by the current mandibles of evolved sickle beetles and the strikes of green worms so I imagined bullets would be no different, I guess I was wrong.’

O’Brien had a few close shaves since he began to test out his new powers, as it was hard to find the perfect amount of enemies to fight against, more often than not, he was outnumbered and had to fight an uphill battle. Fortunately, with his great recovery capabilities, he could manage prolonged battles when tanking some injuries.

O’Brien shifted his centre of gravity and once again pounced on his foes, he gathered all his strength in a fist and punched out like a tunneling bullet.

Poof!

Once again, he paused for breath seeing the man punched into a cloud of bloody mist leaving only his feet, then he continued.

Poof!

Poof!

Poof!

In quick succession, the clouds of bloody mist thickened.

“What the hell is he?!! Fire! Fire!” The leader immediately ordered as he took a deep breath and held both of his palms outwards.

Recognizing the familiar movements, O’Brien was about to pounce but stopped for some reason.

“Fireball!” A large sphere of orange flames enveloped his solitary figure.

The leader couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief seeing his attack land and then looked towards the side feeling as if he was doused in icy waters watching his teammates reduced to bloody vapour from their enemy’s assault.

Cold sweat still soaked his brows, this was the closest to death they had been for a while. They lost more than half their members in almost an instant.

“Man, that's really crispy. Even my hair was burnt together.” A low cough echoed from a few steps away causing his pupils to widen in shock.

‘No way. He's still alive!’

His head swiveled around to find the white-haired youth holding some clumps of his burnt hair that stuck together like melted fabric wearing an expression of distaste.

He wondered what kind of monster they had provoked, if they had known from the start they would have just cut their losses instead of starting a conflict.

Maybe it wasn't too late,

“Say, we, got off on the wrong foot. Why don't we start over, we come from a base with over ten thousand people huddled together. There are ten other transcendents apart from me. We also have a lot of guns, food and ammunition. Surely there are ways we can help each other right?” The leader couldn't help but gulp seeing his most powerful attack fail and even bullets didn't work on their new enemy.

If only there was a medicine for regret. Even his peers who had awakened similar physical type abilities weren't this exaggerated.

“I don't think so.” O’Brien wore a grin as clenched his fist once more and punched out reducing the man to a cloud of blood vapor. Then he did the same to the rest in a swift fashion ignoring the bullets landing on him like they were pesky flies.

He looked at the remaining four people, two men and two women who had lost their balance and fallen to the floor shaking uncomfortably thereby escaping his assault, they looked as if a great terror had befallen them. Of their starting team that counted fourteen, only they remained.

O'Brien punched out again intending to grant them a swift death but a thick spongy wall of thorns blocked him, cushioning the blow.

He let out an annoyed breath, “You didn't use your full power when they attacked us but you use it now when I attack them. Say, Rose, are you confused right now?”

He turned to the crimson-haired beauty who was staring at him with a solemn gaze.

“They've already learned their lesson, there's no need to kill them all. They've already suffered enough.”

Rose looked back at Roya and Jules who were being healed by Lea after she had pried out the bullets from their wounds and couldn't bring herself to say anything about the dead men but she also didn't think they had to wipe out their entire team.

She couldn’t fault their actions.

They were simply doing what they had to do to survive.

“It seems you're confused about something Rose, I owe you a debt but that doesn’t mean I won’t lay a finger on you, get in my way again, and I won’t be so polite.” O’Brien looked her up and down with an ice-cold stare.

Rose’s expression faltered slightly but she clenched her palms.

“No. I won’t allow it. What happened to you O'Brien? Before you were so bright and full of life, you smiled often and laughed with your friends, now you’ve turned into—” Mary Rose’s voice broke a bit as she let loose some of her pent-up emotions yet O’Brien’s expression remained unchanged.

“Please. Don’t kill me. I have a family, we met with a few groups who tried to rob us before, that’s why. We really didn’t mean it, please let us go.” One of the remaining members of the enemy team, a youth with a fresh X-shaped scar on his cheek, knelt down and pleaded.

O’Brien’s malevolent gaze lingered on Mary Rose for a few seconds ignoring the pleading behind him, he shifted to Lea, Jules, and Roya who were about healed and on their feet with blood still soaking their clothes.

“Pathetic, especially you.” He looked at Roya. “You’ve let your consideration for their feelings dull your fangs, I barely know you but I can tell you shot with your hands tied, aiming for joints and limbs.”

“Four ability users, four Card Masters. Yet you managed to lose in a fight against a single one of your peers who didn’t use his power and some ordinary armed opponents.”

“If you would have attacked with the intent to kill you wouldn’t be unscathed but you would've won, no questions asked. You’ve trained to fight monsters yet hold your punches when facing humans? How laughable, look at them!” He looked over at the cowering remnants of their enemy attackers.

“They knew how to attack, they did so with the intent to kill. Hah, despite everything you’re worse than the likes of these nimrods. Did last time’s incident teach you nothing?”

O’Brien felt a wave of flaming anger and frustration heat up within his chest before he snuffed it out, ‘No. I can’t let them irritate me. If they want to be naive then let them sign their own death wishes.’

“Please. You won’t hear from us again. We don’t have the resources to seek revenge, we won’t be a problem I swear!” The pleading man sensed the change in mood and realized their time was ticking and couldn’t help but get anxious. His voice trembled in fear.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

O’Brien glanced at him with an apathetic look, “You should know better than to beg for mercy, you should have made your piece with death. Guns are for killing, the moment you hold one in your hands you should do so with the resolve to kill and the resolve to die as well. If you didn’t then that’s on you, what I know is the act of pointing a gun at me makes you an enemy and the only fate for my enemies is death.”

Rose rushed over and placed herself between them and O’Brien, “Please. There is no need for all this senseless killing.”

“Sense. Whoever cared enough for that?” He scoffed.

O’Brien took a deep breath and the air seemed to grow still, his muscles grew a circle in size as the pale air of death lingered around him.

Rose had grappled with fear, loss, self-hatred and blame since the dawn of the New World, she had seen too many horrific things, things she could have stopped with her newfound power.

With Roya and Lea, she had been able to work through her emotions somewhat and she had resolved to do more for others going forward.

Here and now she would do more!

Yet, looking at his eyes why did a different kind of fear clasp its fingers around her heart.

Rose couldn't help but sweat seeing his serious and intimidating demeanor.

“Wait, O’Brien let’s not act too hastily.” Lea rushed over as well feeling the situation escalate in a new direction.

Rose evidently wanted to make a stand for herself and her beliefs and unleashed the full power of her natal card [Sanguine Queen of Thorns]. The corridor was covered in her reddish-black thorns and everyone seemed to feel their blood pulsate in their veins.

“Hm?” O’Brien’s cold gaze dissipated a bit as he once again felt a similar sensation to when he killed someone.

‘This again…. No, it’s different. Something is coming.’

He had managed to grasp the feeling somewhat resulting in his ability to raise the dead but what he was feeling now was a completely different yet similar sensation.

O’Brien looked to the left, a weird feeling grappled with his heart.

Come to think of it, it was weird.

They had made it all the way down to the pharmacy but they only met around a dozen sickle beetles, in pairs or by themselves. Sickle Beetles usually acted in large packs so there should be a nest nearby yet they never met any other monsters to suggest conflict.

Crack~!

O’brien took a leap backwards as the walls shattered from the outside.

A large purple-mushroom headed creature with the torso of a man, and the lower body of lion with humanoid palms for feet revealed itself, holding a strange trunk-like weapon as sixteen eyes gauged the area. Its spotted white tail swung in the air like a treacherous strange snake.

‘I don’t recognize it, but that can only be an activated card.’

This was a rarity.

Though it was one that would become more common in the coming days.

Activated cards grew at an abnormal rate. When they devoured each other and large swathes of monsters they could grow stronger rapidly but even without this they already grew stronger naturally by simply existing.

Getting stronger was merely a by-product of recovering to their true state.

Before O’Brien had met less than a handful of them post-apocalypse.

Like the larger packs of sickle beetles or intertwined green worms, he took the long way around each time he encountered traces of their activity as they were outside his ability to handle.

However, this time…

‘My peak adaptation period has passed and begun to decline, my strength shouldn't make any drastic improvements from now on.’

His period of rapid growth lost fusion of his natal card had already begun to slow down, at this point his base physical fitness was already more than twenty times superior approaching thirty.

With that being the case, O’Brien felt it was a good a time as any to test how strong he had truly gotten.

It was clear where the abnormally low concentration of monsters in the hospital were from.

Such a large and dark yet aromatic lunch box that occasionally delivered packs of humans seeking medicines as food was a great lair for a ‘Lieutenant level’ Sickle Beetle yet he hadn't sensed one’s presence.

He knew that a monster capable of concealing itself well must have taken root here and now it was clear what it was.

‘It's a Bluestone quality monster just shy of recovering its true rank. At the very peak of the Grey Ash rank.’

O’Brien was quite sure of his judgement, a Black Iron quality monster wouldn't recover to such an extent in such a short period of time barring special situations, a Green Copper quality monster would be even more unlikely, such creatures were likely to be in hibernation most of the time until a few more months and gone by.

The supernatural energy of the current earth was still too little to support creatures of their caliber running around although the situation would slowly change as the void rifts in the sky belonging to different dimensions continued to let in the supernatural energies from their side.

Then the precarious situation of Earth's humans would worsen.

‘If I can't fight at the forefront of the New World then all my efforts would have been for naught, I didn't come this far to continue fighting below my weight class!’

O’Brien ignored Rose and focused his attention on the newcomer who was also sizing them up, eyeing Rose’s thorns with scrutiny.

While he had been injured frequently on several occasions against Green worms and Sickle Beetles, this was in a prolonged battle where he was outnumbered, and his enemies grew over time instead of shrinking so it was an inevitability.

He also controlled his injuries and no vital points were ever harmed despite his ragged appearance so it actually wasn't all that dangerous to him.

His injuries would heal in a day after a good nap apart from the rare cases he allowed Lea to heal him where he would be back to normal in just a few hours.

He had just gotten used to his natal card, fighting against a strong singular opponent at this time, would be a true test of his abilities.

‘I guess this can be considered my first real battle, I was never in any real danger before and I never allowed myself to face any truly large groups.’

Sssk~!

A tail swung in O’Brien's direction, cutting short his internal calculations.

‘Let’s do it.’

O’Brien lowered his stance and connected a swift and powerful kick to the monster sending it through several walls.

He gave Rose a cold glance then followed after the monster.

“Hah.” Rose heaved a huge sigh of relief and calmed her rapidly beating heart seeing O’Brien disengage.

“Are you alright?” Lea looked at her with worry.

“I got to say auntie, I didn't expect you to actually stand up to him!” Jules couldn't help but say, normally she would be onto insulting O’Brien right now but recalling his serious look she couldn't find the strength.

He looked dead serious.

If that monster hadn't interfered then maybe he might have, no, he would have definitely done something.

“We told you to stop beating yourself up and look forward but going against O’Brien isn't very wise Rose.” Roya joined them while lamenting her own foolishness from getting shot so many times and the miraculousness of Lea’s healing abilities.

“He's the only one that seems to know what's going on and how to use these miraculous cards, without him we'd be in a very bad situation right now, we wouldn't have even gathered together without his interference and you wouldn't be there to help. For us, it would be a terrible situation and for you… well you'd be trying to find your family unaware that the world's geography has changed and end up swept into uncontrollable situations.” Roya added with a sigh.

Naturally, after they calmed down about the Apocalypse their first thoughts were to find their families but O’Brien quickly put a stop to that.

In the New World finding your family members separated by various monsters, treacherous landscapes and long distances was already a tall order. That was if you knew where they were. Which most didn't.

In the end as a promise to Rose, O’Brien said after he taught her how to survive well enough, he'd find her a card to locate her family then they would go their separate ways.

Although they had learnt quite a bit since the dawn of the New World, it was far from enough and they couldn't even activate any other cards with the exception of their natal card.

It was a bad time to be at odds with O’Brien.

“I can't just stand by and do nothing.” Rose’s eyes were watery as she spoke in a low whisper. She knew all of this. She knew all of it… O’Brien was also the only reason they could eat in peace otherwise not to mention long term goals they would be struggling just to gather food and rest safely.

Still, she couldn't just ignore the slaughter of troubled humans attempting to survive, while they had their flaws and faults and sins, it was hardly worth such drastic measures.

“I know. I know.” Lea brought her into an embrace and patted her like a sorrowful toddler.

She knew just how Rose was feeling but unlike her, she didn't have the power to stand up to O’Brien.

“In a real fight, you'll definitely lose. You've seen him fight surrounded by those demonic sickle beetles and several green worms. Although you are capable of replicating such feats. You're still somewhat immature.”

“Let me give you some advice based on my life, experience makes a great difference in who wins a fight on a level playing field, so does knowledge. You might be the only one of us capable of resisting him head-on but you still can't beat him, at least not now.” Roya crossed her arms and although she didn't want to, she felt Rose needed to hear the hard truth.

Suddenly, some shifty figures caught her attention.

“Stop. Even if we didn't keep you, think about it. Just the four of you as ordinary folk can never make it back to your base. Wait. It's not like there's no hope.” Roya turned to their former foes who were now trying to slip away under their noses.

She drew her bow in their direction prompting them to stop.

‘Still, why did he look at me like that seeing me go for my gun instead of my bow.’

She couldn't help but wonder, feeling something strange was hidden in the matter.

*

O’Brien looked at the strange mushroom-like creature emerging unscathed from the rubble and clicked his tongue.

If that strike had landed on a human, then they would have several broken bones at the very least but the creature was completely unscathed.

Even with cards the difference in biology of ordinary humans and supernatural creatures was card to bridge.

O’Brien thought of the healing cards within his possession, the current sparsely populated environment and even Lea who he left behind.

‘I won't get many chances like this, I should go all out.’

Normally he would plan around limiting injuries and maintaining his aperture reserves but in such a controlled situation, he could afford to be a little reckless and give his everything.

Puhwoo!

A drum-like bellow sounded from the creature as it glared at him angrily.

It covered the distance with unnatural speed and slapped O’Brien away with a swig of its tail.

But he didn't fly too far unlike the previous strike he landed on it.

O’Brien licked the blood on his lips with a smile forming on his face. He had barely managed to avoid a full-on hit but he wasn't worried instead he was a bit excited.

‘Yes, this is it. The sense of death, the vibrancy of life!’

O’Brien felt his heart beat even stronger as blood flooded his veins and a sense of power erected in his spine.

He jumped into the air to meet a strike from his foe, both of them flew backwards at the same time.

But O’Brien wasn't discouraged, instead fighting spirit burned brightly.

‘Indeed, I was playing it too safe, also I was still subconsciously fighting like a human, it seems I had it too easy since the Last Days began.’

O’Brien laughed as they both got up and exchanged blows with him on the losing end of the exchange.

He couldn't help but remember watching the fights of certain elites with beastial tendencies: Red Ogre Oleg, White Wolf Bertrand, Blood Crow Felix… when he had watched them fight from afar they didn't look human at all and they decimated their enemies like wild beasts.

He had let his subconscious habits from over a decade of fighting influence his current fighting style.

Now he began to discard it, bit by bit, losing himself in the brutality of battle.

O’Brien knew he was too reliant on his mind which was seeping into his actions, this might be a plus when fighting with weapons and against humans but against monsters and with his new natal card, this wasn't the case.

He had to change, from the ground up!

He let loose a low howl as he lunged towards the mushroom monster.