Chapter 4

Johnathan suddenly opened his eyes only to find himself back at the market, as if not even a minute had passed, he had just stood up and was staring directly at the Crystal Maker from before.

Blinking his eyes somewhat confused, he noticed an injure on its mouth and slowly remembered what had transpired before he arrived at the strange world full of data.

"So it was you!" Anger filled his heart as he stared at it.

The one who injured him so heavily was this beast that after failing to take him down decided to use sneaky methods!

The creature howled and kicked the ground, launching itself towards him.

In Jonathan's mind rows of data surged incomparably faster compared to the first time he received them. Stepping to the left slightly, he only tilted his head and avoided the creature's claws.

But he hadn't finished yet. Stepping forward, he used the time when the creature had yet to turn to directly punch it near the ear.

The fist that seemed to cut through the air rotated slightly, causing the wind to twist as he moved. The muscles on his body seemed to move at the same time. The turn of his waist, the stretch of his leg, not a single inch of his body was lacking in this movement.

It was a punch that used every inch of his body to accumulate strength. When his punch arrived, the Crystal Maker didn't even have time to react when an incomparably sturdy force hit its ear.

A loud bang reverberated, and the creature's body shook as its head sunk inwardly. As if that wasn't enough, the meat on the creature's neck stretched unnaturally before mostly ripping apart.

Johnathan watched coldly as the monster flew away with such force that it disappeared on the other side of the market.

From the place where the monster's body fell, a much brighter ghostly wisp appeared and rushed towards him. Stunned by the scene, he was unable to react and could only watch as the wisp arrived before him in an instant and entered his chest.

For the first time, Johnathan felt the energy that had been absorbing unknowingly for a while now. Closing his eyes, he focused for a moment and a new feeling arose from within him.

"This… this thing is making my body stronger?"

As crazy as it may seem, he knew that it was really happening. A strange energy inside the monster really fused with his body and made him stronger. The numbers would never lie.

"But if that's really the case… just… what the hell are those things? Where did they come from?"

Shaking his head hopelessly, he turned around and focused on the now empty market. It was time to gather resources.

…

A week later.

Bang! Bang!

In a four-story building, a group of survivors ran down the flight of stairs with fear in their eyes. Carrying assault rifles in their hands, and ammo clips on their waist, they kept running and rarely turned their heads to look behind them.

At the back of the group, a large man with light brown skin wearing a black cap suddenly turned back and pressed the trigger all the way to the end.

On the stairway behind them, the space suddenly distorted as bullets seemingly drew blood directly from the air!

"AAAGGGH!" The roars of pain echoed through all the floors and made the entire group stunned with the ear-piercing cry.

"Die, fucking demon!" Without caring for the stunning cry of the beast, the man unloaded his clip on the creature. When the last bullet shell flew out from the chamber of the gun, a monster suddenly became visible where he had just been firing. It stood still for a moment before falling down on its four legs with blood oozing down from each hole on its body.

Sneering, the man reloaded the gun and urged the group to keep walking. Ignoring the whisp of ghostly energy that fused with him, he and the group finally arrived at the ground floor where gunshots could be heard constantly.

At the building's entrance, various creatures with powerful muscles that stood on their hind legs cried in pain whenever they tried to get inside. Fortunately, they would always retreat momentarily after injured, but if things continued like that, their ammunition would not last for long.

"Cooper! What was the situation up there? Did you find anything useful?" A woman standing silently at the back shouted impatiently at the large man escorting the group back to the ground floor.

"Captain Vanessa!" Cooper raised his hand in a military salute. "We swept the whole police department, the guns have all been taken away before we arrived and there was even a new type of monster up there, it could camouflage itself, but it wasn't enough to escape my Improved Five Senses."

Vanessa was stunned for a moment before frowning heavily. "Fucking hell! How the fuck are we supposed to survive this shit without guns!"

Vanessa's light blond hair swayed as she moved back and forth in anger. It took then almost a week to go from the military base to the city and the moment they arrived they had already got in combat with the hairless monsters that looked like a werewolf.

Staring at the blocked entrance full of monsters, her eyes hesitated for a moment as if she was about to make a hard choice.

Before she could make a choice, the voice of one of her soldiers sounded, interrupting her thoughts and drawing her attention.

"W-what the hell was that?"

Looking up at the entrance, Vanessa and the others were stunned to see what looked like one of the hairless werewolves flying away before hitting the ground. When they turned to the other side, they noticed a figure covering in a large cloak with his face hidden behind a Halloween skull mask.

When the other werewolves noticed they snarled and pounced at him, however, it was like the man was a ghost of sorts. His movements were exquisite, and he seemed to predict every single one of their actions as he avoided their powerful arms and claws by a hair's breadth.

Nobody there had ever seen something like this. For them who had been fighting monsters for so long, it made zero sense to see a normal human going head-on against those types of creatures.

Outside, Johnathan smirked slightly as he lowered his head, narrowly avoiding a sweep of a claw before punching forward towards the precise center of the creature's heart.

His movements that seemed to have been practiced countless times caught the creature by surprise as it could not understand why such a small pitiful creature would dare to face it in hand-to-hand combat. Thinking that its dinner decided to give up its life willingly, joy surged on the monster's hungry eyes, but before it could even have a taste of its meal, something unimaginable to it happened.

Johnathan had a smile underneath his mask as he punched through the creature's chest, his hand even piercing its back in the process.

This scene stunned not only the soldiers but also the monsters that had never experienced this situation.

For Johnathan, however, there was no surprise. The moment he arrived, his spiritual power acted on its own and drew him inside the green world.

Ever since that day on the supermarket, every time he met a new type of enemy, his mind would be draw over to that place where he would be forced to fight the enemy until he defeated it or willingly left.

With such a safe place to practice, why wouldn't he make use of it? Because of this, his combat experience was soaring like a rocket as he slowly increased his battle record to tens of thousands.

At this point, his perfect muscle control and his body had turned into a killing machine. Normally he wouldn't be able to do what he just did with only his strength, but when you add to the equation his ability to use every muscle on his body plus his knowledge of the monster's flaws and weaknesses, it became a very simple thing to do.

"Fuck! Fuck! Did he punch through it?!"

The soldiers were astonished and couldn't even process what they had just seen. Even their bullets could only pierce a few body parts, how the fuck did he do that with only his hands?!

Vanessa and Cooper who were the strongest of this group naturally saw a lot more things than those soldiers. When the cloaked man punched the hairless werewolf chest, the muscles on the monster seemed to move unnaturally as if giving way for his punch to do whatever it wished.

Clearly, there was something wrong with these monster's chest…

When Johnathan killed the last of them, he turned to the soldiers and tilted his head slightly.

"Finally… I thought I was the only one alive in this damn city…"