Lucian’s body flung backward across the street, crashing into the concrete steps of what used to be a bank. His fingers brushed against the side where he'd been hit, exhaling in relief that he was in his [Angry Gremlin] form. While transformed, his muscles were robust and unusually dense. The rabbit's horn couldn't penetrate deep enough to reach any critical organs.
Like wasps, more spiraled horns filled the air in Lucian’s field of vision. The speed of the rabbits challenged his senses, making it difficult to track their movements. Scrambling up the stairs, Lucian was forced to contort his body into letter-like shapes to dodge the balls of fur crashing down like catapult boulders.
Despite being in shambles, the bank the stairs led to retained four standing walls and a roof—a potentially secure shelter, or at the very least, an obstacle to impede the oncoming rabbit onslaught. Although his original focus was the entrance, Lucian found himself drawn to an unusual sight. On a nearby bridge, a young man with gray hair stood, gazing at Lucian with complete disdain. There was no time to guess at his identity, as the rabbits rapidly closing in on Lucian demanded he stay focused. Glass shattered and flew like a splash of water as Lucian burst through the bank doors.
Inside the bank, yet another decaying scene of the destroyed old world appeared. Dusty beams of dim, filtered sunlight pierced through cracked windows, casting shattered patterns on the tarnished, once-gleaming marble floor. Forgotten deposit slips and old ledgers lay scattered across the counters, their pages yellowed and brittle with time.
A door at the back of the bank, beyond the chipped and cracked counters, promised an escape route. The crunching of glass under white fur paws indicated that the ferocious, plump rabbits were approaching. However, too many tried to enter at once, their bean bag shapes temporarily clogging the entrance and providing Lucian with a brief window to escape freely.
Lucian's muscular [Angry Gremlin] form leapt athletically through the air like a jaguar, passing the counters and the spot where the old bank vault stood wide open. Prickled by instinctual curiosity, he cast a quick glance into the vault, expecting it to be barren, given that the old city would have been ravaged long ago by looters leading up to its destruction.
To Lucian’s surprise, his assumptions were wrong; the vault was far from empty.
Staring back at him were beady eyes belonging to hulking, barrel-shaped creatures covered in jagged plates of sand-colored carapace, each taller than he was. Hefty, spiked tail sections protruded from behind them, and wickedly sharp claws extended from their muscular, armor-covered limbs. Bony, horned helmet-like protrusions guarded their heads, giving them an almost draconic appearance.
“Giant armadillos…?!” Lucian sputtered, flinching in response.
Already wary of a strange invader in their home, the monsters became agitated at his words, interpreting his speech as a challenge. Like rampaging bulls, they charged toward him with thunderous steps, all the while shrieking.
[Basic Polearm] x [Goblin Bash]
Without hesitation, Lucian whipped out his quarterstaff enveloped in white Aura at the first monstrous armadillo that approached. The bright glow from his Skill illuminated more of the grotesque rodent-like face of the monster and its chomping incisors. Instincts kicked in for the armadillo in response, and a bright golden glow grew to surround it as the hulking creature curled into a ball. A resounding impact, like a hammer striking an anvil, echoed as Lucian's Aura-infused weapon shattered upon hitting the glowing monster's armor.
Lucian paled at the sight of his new weapon breaking upon impact, as he was abruptly thrown back by the rebounding force from colliding with the monster’s strange, glowing armor.
A heavy claw from another one of the beasts attempted to cleave Lucian in two, turning him into a log rolling down a hill as he avoided the blow by rolling across the floor. More of the armored creatures lumbered toward him, shrouded in golden light. Fortunately for him, their pace was a slow waddle and couldn’t catch up to him.
The backdoor he’d been aiming for beckoned him.
As he reached out to grab hold of the doorknob, a spiral horn punctured the side of his head, knocking him off his feet. The rabbits had joined the fray.
The world spun in a daze before Lucian; he had been concussed. His [Angry Gremlin] form became disrupted and shrank away, revealing the body of a laborer he had always possessed. A sense of vulnerability overcame him without his powered-up body. A shower of pebbles and debris rained down as another rabbit barely missed his exposed head, its horn landing just above him in the wall.
Lucian clenched his teeth, climbing to his feet, refusing to die here. Mana became wrapped around him as he conjured his Spell.
[Angry Gremlin]
Growing back into the lumbering, muscle-bound figure, he scrambled to duck and slide under more rabbit horns hurtling toward him. The backdoor reflected in his red eyes with promise of safety as he made another attempt to leave. However, a shadow enveloped him, as one of the spiky armadillo creatures stepped forward, obstructing too much of the door to allow access.
Worry could be seen in Lucian’s wet clothes as nervous sweat doused him. He searched for another way out, hoping the bank entrance would offer him an escape. He saw the disconcerting sight of a flood of white fur rabbits already pouring in from there—more rabbits than Lucian had seen outside earlier.
There was monster feast to be had at the bank with Lucian as the main course. Only death could be found in watching the encroaching creatures beginning to surround him. Yet, hope remained. In the dingy dark shadow of a nearly collapsed section of the ceiling, a flight of stairs lay, ascending to another floor.
Desperation drove Lucian to sprint toward it.
Lucian raced up the cracked stone steps to the second story, the hallway before him bearing the effects of the passage of time. Faded, cracked wallpaper clung to the walls. Long-forgotten documents filling the floor and upturned chairs added to the sense of abandonment.
He hurried through the hall, bursting through doors in search of an exit, only to find dead ends. A ruckus echoed from the stairs. Poking his head out, he saw horned rabbits searching for him. Judging by the slow thuds coming up the stairs, the armored monsters promised to arrive soon.
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Lucian looked back to the room he was in and at the window that took up half of a wall. The decimated city skyline beyond the glass stared back at him, the sun outlining the emaciated landscape. Approaching the window, he looked down at a thirty-foot drop.
He gulped and stepped back. There wasn't much detail in Lucian’s Monster Guide on how far a Base Anointed like him could fall and survive.
A rabbit, scurrying past in its search, stopped at the sight of Lucian standing in the dark room and cried out to alert its kind that it had found their prey. Hearing its shrill screams, Lucian gritted his teeth and steeled himself. With a running start, he breached the window and leapt into the air outside. His stomach dropped as the ground quickly approached.
In a pile of rubbish, he landed, throwing up old trash into the air and cracking the pavement underneath him. A spindling pain ran up his legs. Stabilizing, Lucian breathed out a sigh of relief, having heard no bones cracking and sensing no injuries.
[Angry Gremlin]
His muscular form dwindled back into his normal body, surprising him. It seemed there were limits to his [Angry Gremlin] form. The critical hit to his head by one of the rabbits and the immense drop from the window suggested that [Angry Gremlin] could only absorb so much damage before running out of juice.
A numbing pain penetrated his mind. Drawing from his research on Anointed, he understood the reason. His [Angry Gremlin] transformation consumed Mana, and when Mana ran dry, the mind suffered the consequences, as both the mind and Mana were inexplicably linked. Conversely, when the body ran low on Aura, it became exhausted, as if it had just completed an arduous marathon.
For the time being, he would have to refrain from using [Angry Gremlin] to conserve Mana.
Where he had landed was a narrow, grimy alleyway filled with trash. The walls, covered in cryptic graffiti signs of youth gangs from a time before, filled the alley like ancient hieroglyphs. Silence surrounded him, broken only by the distant echoes of monster howls.
Lucian looked up to the window where he had jumped from and saw the furry white face of a rabbit staring back at him. With his tongue out, Lucian flipped the monster a middle finger.
“You’re making a ruckus.”
Lucian nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of a voice. Standing above him on a fire escape was a young man, seemingly around his age or even younger. The youth possessed sharp, angular features that bordered on the near-feminine, almost reaching the realm of beauty, yet still retained a handsome male appearance. Silver-gray hair brushed across his forehead stylishly. An impeccably tailored all black suit hugged his body closely, accentuating his slim silhouette. His black eyes held a depth of cold indifference as if he were looking down upon the world itself.
“Corp Anointed?” Lucian murmured, hazarding a guess. He knew that a normal human wouldn’t risk wandering the Wasteland’s monster territories, and only Anointed working for corporations wore suits—suits crafted from monster materials. Leave it to corporations to find a way to make suits work in a fallen world.
“You should go back to whatever slum you crawled out of, New DC trash,” the young Corp Anointed seethed with disdain.
“What business is it of yours that I’m here?” Lucian responded, his eyes narrowing, already disliking this stranger.
“You’re disturbing the area here, Crow. Leave immediately.”
“Why don’t you make me? And who are you calling, ‘Crow?’” Lucian had enough of being pushed around by life. Now that he was an Anointed, he wouldn’t let things slide as they had been.
“Fool.” The Corp Anointed’s face twisted in derision.
“Come say that to my face,” Lucian demanded.
The menacing growl of bobcats resonated from around a corner as two lengthy, ebony-furred felines emerged. Their emerald-green predatory eyes fixed on Lucian, their limber bodies adorned with faint, ghostly stripes, and sharp claws extended from powerful limbs.
“Hey, help me with this,” Lucian muttered, turning back to the well-dressed young man only to find that he had already disappeared. “Damn…” Lucian could sense from the cats that it would take more than his [Goblin Bash] to handle them.
The first cat didn’t allow him to think further and lunged at him. Purple liquid suddenly spewed from Lucian’s mouth onto its approaching snarling face.
[Naga Venom]
The creature howled in pain as it fell, the venom already eating through fur and skin.
Lucian's [Naga Venom] required Mana and time to create, but it could be stored for later use. In this instance, he didn't need to expend Mana, as he already had the venom stored in his body—a useful ability, especially given Lucian’s current lack of Mana. This move served as Lucian’s trump card, one he had been saving for a moment just like this.
The other cat spared no time to charge at him, its bulky muscles able to be seen bulging from beneath its striped fur.
[Goblin Bash]
His most dependable attack used Aura, so he still had a chance to fight. Yet, the cat used a wide paw to bat away his punch, almost too easily. Then, it began clawing at Lucian, tearing into his leather armor like paper mache before he could mount a defense.
[Goblin Bash]
He accelerated his punches, channeling more Aura to infuse the skill into both hands while executing them in rapid combinations. However, each strike failed to inflict harm or push back his feline opponent.
The failure of Lucian’s strikes could only mean one thing—the cat was at a higher level than him, indicating it had broken free from a yellow gate, an Elevated Threat Level Monster Gate. The imminent defeat Lucian would soon face was not lost on him. Without [Angry Gremlin] or [Naga Venom], he would only end up as cat food here.
[Angry Gremlin]
Lucian had made up his mind on his next move.
[Goblin Bash]
Empowered by his [Angry Gremlin] form, Lucian forcefully pushed the predatory cat away, creating a significant distance. Suddenly, he leapt into the air, reaching out with a hand to grasp the fire escape the Corp Anointed had been standing on. With a swift motion, he pulled himself upward. The monster cat tried to follow, but once Lucian ascended to a sufficient height, he ripped away the section of the fire escape beneath him, taking away the cat’s chances of catching him.
[Angry Gremlin]
Pain wracked Lucian’s mind as his body returned to its normal state, his mana now completely depleted. On the roof of the building, he saw the street below teeming with monster armadillos and plump, horned rabbits.
“Fuck this place,” Lucian murmured, massaging his aching head, “Maybe I’ll just try to find a Low Level Threat gate to kill monsters in. The Clan Bearer might not be looking for me that hard…”
“Leave already, Crow,” a voice demanded.
Leaning against a rusted AC exhaust fan was the Corp Anointed, arms crossed, glaring at Lucian with impatience.
“Yea, yea,” Lucian responded and spat on the ground, “When I come back, I’m going to beat you up for being so rude.”
“As if that could ever happen,” the Corp Anointed scoffed, rolling his black eyes.
With no need for further words, Lucian began leaping from rooftop to rooftop, heading toward where he knew he had parked his car. Filled with hubris, he acknowledged that his only option was to leave the Wasteland. Defeat loomed over him, exacerbated by the destruction of his weapon, making it clear he shouldn't have ventured here. None of the monsters he'd encountered so far were in his Monster Guide, showing he wasn't prepared for this kind of fighting.
Like a gecko, Lucian scaled down a red brick building to the street below. He hugged every corner and shadow, avoiding further monster encounters. Up ahead, a large bowling ball sign stood on the top of a bowling alley.
This hellhole would soon be a thing of the past for Lucian.
The imps flying above fixed their red eyes on Lucian as he hurriedly crossed the bowling alley parking lot. Ominous giggles spilled from their sharp-toothed mouths as they watched him. Lucian allowed himself a quick glance at them floating in the air. It was as if they could sense his weakened state. Before he could hope they wouldn't attack, terror engulfed him as the flock began to dive-bomb from the sky, their cackles filling the air.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Lucian cursed repeatedly as he broke into a full sprint. His face fell immediately upon discovering a lot filled with only rusted and broken cars—the Humvee missing.
“Melly…!” he sputtered in disbelief, realizing Amelia had taken the car, not willing to wait around. “This is why I don’t trust beautiful women!” he cried out as claws from the flying imps dipped low, attempting to tear him apart.