Adam opened his eyes with a terrible headache splitting his skull, as he saw the figure of Elena punch a hole with her bionic arm through the head of the Brute.
Never in his life had he seen anything this badass, and he was a self-diagnosed heroine addict, someone unable to resist the sight of strong and powerful female characters.
Judge Titania was his particular favorite, in her form-fitting black inquisitorial power-armor, condemning hundreds of heretics with her oversized battle axe, and weaponized femme fatale long legs that she can't stop waving around for some reason.
Such thoughts were what can be described as Adam's psyche trying to maintain what remained of its sanity. Two Unique-grade summons in such a tight window of time were enough to overwhelm an adept sorcerer, let alone someone who was barely a sorcerer for a week.
Adam stood up, trying to retrace the thought process that led him to such a dire state of body, mind, and soul. He had been fighting a horde of Gobzkin; he had managed to command his troops with the help of Sergeant Elena. He personally killed the Gobzkin Shaman and took his weapon. The survivors drove away the Muncher, Sharp dispatched the Gobzkin Skulker, and finally, Elena destroyed a Gobzkin Brute.
Even when he retraced all that, his mind was weighed down by a limit he couldn't possibly break, yet just as he regained some clarity, a System pop-up formed from magic words and gradually translated itself.
≪ You have gained 2 EXP! ≫
≪ Your Skill has improved! (Firearms II → Firearms III) ≫
≪ You have gained a New Skill! (Senses) ≫
——————————
Name — Adam Clay
Role — Survivor
Class — Sorcerer
——————————
Statistics (EXP: 6)
Might — 3 (+)
Trick — 3 (+)
Spirit — 4 (+)
——————————
Skills —
— Artifice (IX)
— Cook (V)
— Charisma (IV)
— Firearms (III)
— Psyche (III)
— Sanity (II)
— Senses (I)
——————————
Powers
— Font of Magic
— Puppeteer Rune
——————————
A new feeling washed through Adam's brain.
Something raw and powerful, volatile and whimsical, fleeting, and elusive.
It was akin to trying to hold fire. It burns with its presence, yet evades you like air.
Adam recognized what it was the moment he sensed it; he understood its nature: it was no fire or air or some mundane element; it was its complete opposite.
It is the destructive force that wrecked this whole world.
Now he gets it.
It is the Arcane, the Weave, the Aether, the flow of energies that generates all these fantasy powers.
The Magic.
Pushing his mind to the limit opened new pathways to an extrasensory realm of perception very few of humanity had ever reached, and he started to make sense of what was going on.
But first, he needed more space in his RAM; he needed more cores and threads to compute all these new processes, especially since he had already exhausted all his circuits.
Without hesitation, he added a new stat point to his "Spirit," and immersed himself in the sensation that came after it.
——————————
Name — Adam Clay
Role — Survivor
Class — Sorcerer
——————————
Statistics (EXP: 1)
Might — 3
Trick — 3
Spirit — 5
——————————
Serenity, calm, quietness.
Finally, his brain was able to take some rest now that its cerebral capacity was expanded.
Adam raised his head and could sense new things, everything related to his magic.
Before, he could at least know where his Familiars were through mental feedback, and recognize them for what they are, and distinguish his summons from imitations, like a Mimicker.
But now, he had received a whole new update to his operating systems.
He could feel them, recognize their strengths and weaknesses just by focusing his mind, and accurately tell their locations and gain some understanding of their feelings.
"Amazing!"
Immersed in such a power, Adam extended his reach, and the moment he felt all his summons, ranging from the closest Buzz, through Elena, Biscuits, and Hammerhead, Adam's senses finally reached Sharp, whose movement was frantic and quick.
Adam looked up and started to get an understanding of the situation.
"Oh no!" He mumbled and then turned to his left, "Biscuits! We've got injured above that roof. Critical conditions!"
"Sharp?"
Sergeant Elena approached Adam fast, her bionic arm now sending off sparks, many internal parts completely busted, due to the insane energy discharge that had blasted the Brute's head.
"Negative. It's our allies. Ivan's group," Adam said, urging both Biscuits and Hammerhead to move quickly for rescue, before turning to Buzz, "Call Kave, tell him to bring the Van to Harper Square."
"Affirmative."
Adam then started moving after Hammerhead and Biscuits towards the church's direction. They turned left in order to reach the alley that leads to the roof, where he met up with Ivan and told him of the situation. Ivan's position offered a new view of Yuki's team on the roof, which alarmed him greatly as he broke into a run towards his team.
All that remained here was Adam and the two following him, Sergeant Elena and Private Buzz. The three now stood face to face with the last active officer of the BCPD, Officer John Reeves.
"Are you guys with the military?"
Officer Reeves was the first to ask the moment Ivan left, looking with wary eyes at the rifle in Buzz's hand and the strange arm that kept sending off sparks on Elena's side.
"We're the next best thing." Adam replied, then amended his statement, "We're better, actually."
Without delving deeply into the matter, Adam stepped past Officer Reeves and met Toby's gaze, who was rushing downstairs to join the new reinforcements. Adam spoke right away:
"Megan? Is she up? Did she make it here?"
Officer Reeves and Toby exchanged looks, carefully assessing the situation, without answering much.
None of them knew who Adam was, none of them understood what kind of people these laser-shooting soldiers were, and the existence of a girl in a group would usually attract all manner of weirdos.
Adam saw the two not answering him anytime soon, so he immediately pushed past them. Officer Reeves tried to reach for his sidearm, but Buzz was much faster as he drew his own. Elena unnerved Toby with her intense gaze and sheer presence, as he couldn't even offer any resistance as Adam walked past him like the wind.
"Megan!" Adam called as he ran up the stairs, "You there?"
He ran up to the first floor, looked around, and saw two people lying there. One was covered with a sheet, breathless and motionless, while the other was a girl flaring up with fever.
Adam looked carefully around him and saw nothing except those two lying around in this messy place, with a lot of supplies and containers strewn about.
Adam approached the covered dead body with fear and slowly reached out for the sheet covering its face, only to find that it belonged to a male. His skin was deformed and twisted in horrendous ways, indicating that he was transformed into a blighter before getting shot in the head, leaving a hole in his skull.
The girl not far from him was unconscious but showed no signs of mutation. Adam, however, did not know whether the blighted could recover, but he still left her there, seeing that efforts had been made to save her.
"Megan!"
Adam called once again, looking through the rooms, before finding his way to the church tower. Knowing Megan, Adam climbed up to what could have been her shooting spot, but he found it empty.
Only when he looked through the tight shooting slits that were made in the makeshift fortifications of the tower did he notice the rooftop south of the church.
Adam didn't need to look further; the moment he saw her, every strand of his being surged to critical mass, and he ran down as fast as he could, past the second floor to the church's hall. He sped past Ivan's group, who were defusing the situation between the officer and the Men-at-Arms, and then from the street to the alley, and finally to the fire escape leading to the rooftops.
Elena and Buzz were on Adam's heels, covering his corners and securing his back as he simply ran.
He scaled up the fire escape stairs, his hands and feet coordinating in thoughtless unison, his aim focused on finding the only good, positive thing in this world.
And just as he peeked his head through the roof, he stopped, he froze, he saw her helping those who were injured, helping Biscuits hold them still, and passing a splint kit to Sharp for Yuki's injured leg.
When was the last time he ran to her that way?
That night in the hospital.
She returned home, believing she was pregnant due to pressure from her parents. Her father, most of all, wasn't pleased with the choices his daughter made and relentlessly interfered with her life as an adult. He had everything planned for her, and Adam was in no way, shape, or form part of that grand plan.
A fight broke out in the hospital, words were exchanged, and fists were about to fly. If not for Megan's older brother, it would have gotten uglier than it did.
Then Megan and Adam had a conversation afterward.
It wasn't the best conversation they had, probably the second worst. Megan was angry that Adam had almost hit her father; Adam was angrier that he was the one who got hit, and because of the words her father said, and so the two abruptly broke up. They needed space from each other, and it just got worse as time went on without speaking.
Five years of a relationship, six months of breakup, then they met face to face.
Everything about her was just as he remembered: her long black hair flowing in the wind; her steel-colored eyes, powerful and hardened by her strong will to survive; her fair skin and expressive features, which seemed a bit thinner than he recalled; the familiar curve of her long neck, adorned with a chaotic tangle of mismatched necklaces that somehow suited her perfectly; and her consistent fashion sense, dominated by black, green, and white, a style she always denied yet maintained. All of these details were familiar, but the way she looked at him—that was what he had been searching for all this time.
The moment she saw him, Biscuits no longer needed her to help with the wounded, and she stood up in sync as Adam climbed the metal steps to the roof.
She saw him and realized the changes: he had almost lost half his weight, grown a rough beard, become scruffy and rugged, and lost all the innocent charm he once had. A deep power now resided within his eyes, one he had never possessed before. He was not as she remembered him, but he was her Adam, the one who would fly over the states for her, who endured all the trouble her father caused him for her, and who crossed the apocalypse-ridden city just to get to her.
There was the bright sky, the clouds, the little bit of cool breeze, and the moment they had for themselves amongst all the wounds, the blood, and the smell of gunpowder.
"Hey there, city boy."
"Hey… Tennessee girl."
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
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