Defiance of the Fall

Finally it seemed that he found out everything that he could for now . He had entered the outpost shop as well , but it seemed nothing new was added from gaining a class .

There were a few new skills added at the Node , but they were prohibitively expensive , with the cheapest being 500 000 Nexus Coins .

All in all it had been a fruitful day . He was disappointed that the demon had self-destructed rather than answering questions . There were so many things he needed to know . To be fair , Zac would likely have killed him after questioning the demon in any case . That the demon chose making a last ditch effort to bring Zac with him to hell was a logical choice .

Luckily the gear he gained and the strengthening made the sting less severe . He still looked positively insane from the blood and broken gear , and didn’t want to put on the gear while looking like this . He left the camp to patrol the vicinity for a while , and then went back .

This would likely be a new addition to the daily routine . The humanoid demons seemed far more organized compared to the dumb beasts that hade came through the incursion first .

Satisfied that there were no enemies nearby , he moved water from the water array into the tanker’s reservoir . Finally he ripped the patchwork armor off , and took the first good shower in over a week . It was a risky move , but the grime and blood was making even him crazy , and he needed to get it off . He brought his new axe with him into the bathroom in case he was ambushed while in there .

It took half an hour to scrub the layers of dirt and blood of himself before stepping out of the shower .

Even cleaned up he could barely recognize himself in the mirror . His whole body had undergone a metamorphosis during the last month . Almost all of the fat was gone , leaving only a thin layer covering his muscular frame .

His physique looked hard . His muscles were compact and wiry rather than big and swollen like a body builder’s . He thought he actually might be smaller now compared to when he worked out at the gym .

Of course he knew that an explosive power was contained in these muscles , and that they were so dense that maybe not even a bullet would penetrate them by now . All over his body were scars of varying size and severity . His tactic of boosting his vitality and taking blows for landing killing strikes had been effective , but it had left an undeniable mark .

He looked down on his rough and calloused hands . It was hard to believe what these hands had done the last weeks . Once he had actually ripped the jaws of a Gwyllgi straight apart when he had dropped his hatchet .

Zac sighed and put on one of his last whole t-shirts and undergarments . He didn’t want to use his rags together with his new gear .

Unfortunately the chest pieces of both the males’ leather armors had been blasted to shreds so he could only put on the female’s armor . He didn’t worry about it too much though , as he had a strong suspicion that there would be many more demons in the woods that could supply new gear .

To get adjusted to his new weapon he dragged over a thick log . He reactivated his gravity array , and started cutting the log into firewood , working out and working on his quest simultaneously . It was already late , and he would not go out hunting anymore today . As he was methodically swinging his axe a trace of anticipation could be seen on his face .

For the first time since the world changed , he looked forward to go out and test his might .

Chapter 26 - Demons

Zac woke up early the next day . He had slept outside with axe in hand and geared up , just in case of a nightly raid . He once again set out to scout the vicinity , but nothing seemed to have moved through there during the night .

Zac wasted no time , and set out towards the direction of his fight against the herald . He wanted to scout out the situation before proceeding toward the next Herald .

He still wanted to complete the quests as quickly as possible , but the new enemies had proved that something had changed on the island . Zac wanted to scout the situation out until he knew what that change meant , and decided to start from where he had fought Vul .

After walking for a while he ran into a barghest . A creepy smile appeared on Zac’s face , and he brandished the axe .

The beast was aggressive as ever at least , as it mindlessly charged at him . Zac sidestepped to let it run into a tree behind him just to gauge its power .

He was surprised to see that it didn’t actually just charge in to the tree as before , it instead bit into it and ripped a good chunk out of the wood out almost impossibly fast . Of course , it still couldn’t stop its momentum , and still hit the tree square with its now closed maw .