CHAPTER 35: RETURN

Still in the abandoned warehouse, in an isolated room, Rick and the other three members of his group who knew about the future were drinking coffee while talking.

"Basically, Berserk is a Universal Force that is simple to use, it has no abilities, and the user’s control and training is in how to use it without losing themselves during the rage like animals... Once it is activated, the more anger you have, the stronger you become, but the less conscious you become."

"Fascinating, is that what the cannibal wolf used when you fought?" Maya asked as if she were a reporter using a recorder to do her story/research.

"Yes, but I didn’t let the fight last long after that, so the increase in strength wasn’t that great."

"So that’s what happened? Hehe."

Joe said with an awkward smile.

"Yeah, don’t worry about it, even though it’s a rare Universal Force, I still knew details about it... I’ll help you whenever you want to train your anger control..."

"Sure, you’re very good at annoying me..."

Everyone laughed at the last sentence, and Maya looked at a bit of blood in the corner of Rick’s mouth. "Do you need me to heal you?"

"No, I’ll be healed by the time we get to the hospital."

"It’s nothing, and I also need to train my ability."

Maya stood up and placed her hands on Rick’s abdomen where he had been kicked and began to heal him.

"So... I remembered that I have some things to prepare before we leave for the hospital... Come on Ethan." Joe said in an exaggerated way...

"But I haven’t finished my coffee yet, and I’m sure I’ve prepared everything..."

"Shut up and just come."

After dragging Ethan out of the room and giving Rick an exaggerated wink, Maya and him were alone while she still healed him.

"So why did you come? I told you that at least one of us needed to stay in the city..."

"Rum, I’m not one of your soldiers to give me orders... I’ll go wherever I want and whenever I want..."

"That’s not what I meant... It was just—"

"Besides, you promised to send me more level 2 zombies along with the cargo for my research, but after 4 days nothing has been delivered."

"I really forgot, and the truck was too full..."

"Is that all?"

"I’m sorry, it was my mistake..."

"Hmm, much better this way... This time I’ll just do some field research, and see with Ethan if any equipment in the hospital can be fixed..."

"And when we get back, we’ll have dinner together again, I need to collect data from your body after using that instant teleportation skill you used against Joe."

"A dinner, right? Last time you made me stay as a guinea pig for a whole day in your lab after dinner..."

"Well, science never—"

"Okay, I accept, but this time I need to be compensated... My time is very valuable..."

Maya blushed and stood up.

"Your cure is finished, I’ll wait for you in the truck..."

Rick smiled when he saw the doctor get embarrassed in front of him. Despite being qualified in everything, she wasn’t so good at the social side...

Rick joined the others, and this time the truck took everyone to the city center. The plan was to attract parts of the horde to a narrower street and gradually eliminate it... The plan worked, and soon, hundreds and hundreds of zombie corpses were piling up on the street...

Rick, who had been the one who contributed the most to the deaths, saw his survival points rise to extremely high levels, but he didn’t collect any crystals, leaving that for later. But in the middle of the fight, Rick got distracted for a moment before returning to the massacre as if nothing had happened...

He slowly walked away from the horde, giving Joe a hand signal, and took out his radio, sending a signal to Ethan.

"They’re back..."

As Rick whispered the message, he slowly moved away from where Maya, Joe, and the captain were fighting. He took two daggers out of his inventory and threw them in the same direction. The daggers flew into the sky and pierced a drone that was still invisible. They went in and out of the drone like hot iron through butter.

But as soon as the drone fell from the sky, Rick realized that it wasn’t the same type of drone that had attacked him before. Trying to act quickly and look for other targets, the attack drone appeared and shot him in the back. After the energy blast, Rick felt a burn wound on his back, but nothing too serious. His new jacket had held the energy beam well, and his body was much more resistant as well.

That was why he didn’t dodge the attack, using the opportunity for a small axe to do the job of eliminating the correct attack drone. Just as Rick was about to relax thinking that the attack was over, the blade of a sword almost pierced his head from behind. Jumping away, Rick looked at the new target that had attacked him. It was a figure dressed in a black cloak, and wielding a medieval two-handed sword. The scariest thing of all was that this thing moved extremely fast without making a sound.

Not only that, Rick could not hear a heartbeat, a breathing sound, and much less any smell coming from the figure in black... He even suspected that there was no heat in its body...

Abandoning his throwing weapons, Rick held his axe with both hands and went after the mysterious figure. But unlike what he expected, as soon as it saw Rick running towards it, the figure gave up fighting and fled towards the hospital horde.

"Don’t even think about it!"

"Blink"

Rick disappeared from his current position and reappeared behind the killer, and swung the axe straight at his head, but the figure acted as if it had eyes on its back, and she dodged the blow, showing agility similar to that of a level 3. She then ran even faster, reaching the hospital horde, the zombies in the horde seemed to ignore her, and seeing that he could no longer reach her without risking himself in the middle of the zombies, Rick threw his two-handed axe, trying one last desperate blow.

The axe flew and Rick used both "Distance Break" and "Space Blade". But the target dodged again, but this time not without a cost. Rick saw his left arm being severed at the elbow by the flying axe. But then the figure disappeared before his eyes, just like the stealth drones did...

With several flashes of silver light, all the weapons thrown by Rick returned to his hand and were stored in the system, and along with them was an arm that looked human on the outside, but on the inside it was not even close to being human...

***

In the Watcher’s surveillance room, everyone was watching the new attack against Rick intently. When the fight was over, all 4 of Vice Admiral Thulliver’s subordinates gave their comments:

"He had been missing for almost 3 weeks, and now he’s reappeared as a level 3."

"Not only that, but he didn’t show that kind of power while we were watching the fight against the hospital horde, it was almost like he was luring us in."

"We lost another stealth attack drone, and we almost lost the android."

"It was a necessary cost to confirm their current strength, besides, drones are no longer useful on targets that are still alive... We should also take his group seriously..."

"Exactly, now that we know what we’re dealing with, we can actually begin the real attack... Get the crystals ready, it’s time to feed some pets and create true threats worthy of an apocalypse..." The Observer replied, as he once again opened the recruitment list that his previous self had recruited before time was reversed...