Chapter 389 - Searching For Connection

Zeel continued his journey from rooftop to rooftop…

He voided gunshots, projectiles, and the occasional grenades…

Of course, he retaliated whenever he could, careful to avoid at hinting his direction of travel, which was, ironically, towards the danger instead of away from it…

Occasionally, Zeel would stop roof-hopping to help some of the survivors, digging them out of the rubble in exchange for some information…

And if they could not provide the information he wanted, then he dug them out anyway, ensuring to memorize their names and faces in case he needed a favor at a later date…

After all, he never received anything for free, so there was no need to give away kindness…

Even Elizabeth with all her naivety understood the Law of the Jungle…

[Warp]

When the gunshots were starting to drift more frequently in his direction, Zeel accurately judged that the few smarter amongst the Militants had surmised his final destination…

Zeel didn't like the fact that humans, with their Two-Dimensional minds, could somewhat predict his goals…

He quickly withdrew the phone from his pocket, raising it in the air to see if the signal could connect from his current position – it could not!

"I have to continue…" Zeel frowned, not liking the thought of entering a situation blind…

He had long realized that he could not disguise himself as a Militant because the lower-ranking members were not allowed in this area…

And while he could probably disguise himself as a high-ranking member, Zeel could vaguely distinguish a vest filled with bombs strapped across their chests'…

Obviously, these guys were fanatics, and it was better to sneak around fanatics than associate with them…

A couple of minutes later, Zeel reached a relatively isolated compound…

At least, the immediate twenty feet around the compound was isolated, but Militants were posted everywhere else…

This was definitely a heavily guarded miniature fortress…

Judging by the vibrations from underground, Zeel could more or less confirm that Militants were either securing the escape route, or they were even guarding underground…

An option for infiltration could come from the sky, but Zeel didn't have his Anti-Gravity Boots, but luckily, he had something better…

[Warp]

Zeel appeared on the building's roof, and staggered a bit…

Warping so much had finally taken its toll on his Divine Energy reserves, exhausting his Speed Divinity to the point it was almost out of balance with his Death Divinity…

Luckily, the feeling faded fast…

With all the people Zeel had killed, it was enough to offset the exhaustion from warping nonstop, forcing his Divinities into a state of balance once more…

The moment Zeel set foot on the roof of the building, he was certain…

Initially, he thought this sudden invasion was a personal attack from Mojdeh since it happened immediately after he killed one of the Old Man's sons…

But obviously, this village was targeted for whatever was in the building beneath his feet…

As for Mojdeh and his family, Zeel was sure the Old Man fled at the first sight of blood…

After all, you don't get to become two hundred years old by throwing yourself into every battle happening nearby, especially with a body weaker than the average human…

Closing his eyes to focus on his sense of smell, Zeel knelt atop the building and tried to smell what was happening inside…

He could focus on his sense of hearing, but the mere fact that all Militants surrounding the building were silent and he still didn't hear anything showed it was a useless endeavor…

'No one inside?' Zeel thought, not picking up anything distinct with his nose…

It smelled like empty air, mixed with a hint of blood, urine, and lead…

Nothing unexpected…

And to add temptation to the situation, the light on the phone was constantly blinking, showing that Zeel was indeed in the right place…

"There is a constant stream of information…" Zeel said, examining the blinking light on the phone "And it lowers in frequency every two minutes… so, perhaps a satellite in orbit?"

Without any cyber-lines inside his body, Zeel was unable to feel technology like a normal Homo-Superior, but he could still guess the behavior of technology…

All technologies follow certain principles, and he had spent enough time in Human Society to know how their satellites behaved…

Not wanting to waste a warp uselessly, Zeel leaped nearly ten feet into the air, spinning a couple of times before he came down with the momentum to shatter cement…

---CRACK---

The ground crumbled beneath Zeel's feet, and his body sunk through the roof, landing on the ground inside the building…

But as soon as he landed, Zeel froze… the building was not nearly as empty as his senses had perceived earlier…

One glance around, and Zeel could tell what happened – the building was covered in plastic and noise blockers…

Obviously, the boss of the Militants were men of substance…

This building was meant to be a slaughter ground… and now, it was the Militants who would be killed here…

A militant stood some ways away from Zeel, raising a machete in his hand, ready to chop down at any moment…

A dark-haired, brown-eyed female knelt before the Militant, shivering in terror but the defiance in her eyes showed that she didn't cave under whatever interrogations preceded this moment…

Off to the side was another person out of place…

From what Zeel could tell, this person was a Researcher being held against his will…

How did Zeel determine this?

Well, pretty easy…

The Researcher would not be able to survive on his own… even just standing there, Zeel could tell that the Researcher would probably stumble over his feet at any moment…

Finally, Zeel glanced down and noticed the twelve beheaded bodies lying lifelessly on the ground…

He tried and fail to absorb the Death Energy in the air, but such an endeavor proved futile, meaning he could not absorb the Death Energy of people he didn't kill…

At least, not yet…

Still, the thing that caught Zeel's attention the most was the large computer at the center of all the slaughter…

'Definitely has a direct satellite upload…' Zeel cheered internally 'And it uses Quantum Bit data to shroud the transmission's origin – this is a bit surprising considering Earth's level of tech in this century… could I have estimated the era wrongly?'

"That is some good stuff…" Zeel broke the silence, pointing to the computer at the center of all the mess with admiration in his tone…

Zeel's words broke the dazed atmosphere, and it turned tense…

A deadly type of tenseness that whispered directly to the subconscious of the Militants – the first to move would be the first to die…

Slowly…

So slow that nobody thought it mattered…

Zeel used the tip of his sandals to draw a SPIKE rune on the ground…

When someone finally noticed Zeel's subtle movement, it was already too late…

The first to move was indeed the first to die…

The Militant raised his gun, ready to pull the trigger but Zeel kicked the ground, sending a spike directly into the throat of that Militant…

And all Militants immediately jumped into action; however, unlike the usual chaos in battle, they were organized and very precise…

Zeel expected all of them to charge at him, but instead, some surged forward while others fell back to find secure positions…

Bullets swished past Zeel's face, and he blurred the next moment, reappearing with his hands through the chest of a Militant…

More bullets came, and unable to avoid them all, Zeel used the dead Militant's body as a shield, blocking most of the projectiles but not all…

Some bullets shot through the Militant's corpse, impacting Zeel at various locations on his body…

It stung very badly, but the bullet fragments didn't penetrate Zeel's skin, but this was precisely due to the diminished force as each bullet exited the Militant's corpse…

Zeel felt the wind rushing towards his back, and he bent forward just in time to dodge a Militant's machete strike…

With fluids movements, time slowed in Zeel's perception and the next instant, his hand was around the Militant's neck, twisting until a crunching sound was heard…

Not wasting a second, Zeel grabbed the machete of the now-dead Militant, and precisely deflected three bullets that would have otherwise found their way into his chest…

Sadly, while he blocked the bullets heading for his heart and vital areas, he could not deflect the bullets heading for his shoulder…

Three bullets embedded themselves into his right shoulder, just deep enough to be a hindrance but not enough to kill…

Yet, this injury slowed Zeel down…

It slowed him down just enough to look at the battle in a different way…

With a shift in perspective, Zeel clapped his hands together, shattering the blade of the machete into small metal fragments…

'I need to take out the guys laying down cover fire…' Zeel corrected surmised, and instantly went and did just that…

The metal fragments in his hands were thrown with pinpoint precision, each finding its home in the neck of hidden Militants…

Every once in a while, a Militant would return fire and Zeel would slow his perception of time to dodge the incoming bullets, but he never stopped throwing the metal fragments…

But as more Militants fell, more found their way into the building…

It was like a tide of ravenous beasts were killing themselves to drown Zeel, and he was not about to let the waves swallow him…