Global Devourer: I Survive by Slaughtering Beasts

Chapter 11: The Gathering Storm

The night vision binoculars slipped out of Brandon’s shaking fingers, crashing hard against the concrete floor of the balcony. His face was completely drained of color, his skin as white as a fresh sheet of paper.

Inside the bright, warm lounge of the sports complex, Sarah was sitting on a soft sofa, painting her nails with a pink bottle she had stolen from the campus store. She looked up and giggled.

"Brandon, sweetie, what is taking Vance so long?" Sarah asked, her voice sweet and annoying. "Did he bring back those nice blankets from the library yet? And tell him to bring some fresh clothes too. I hate wearing the same jacket twice."

Brandon turned around slowly, his lips trembling so hard he could barely form a word.

"Vance is dead," Brandon whispered, his voice hoarse with absolute horror.

Sarah stopped her nail polish brush in midair, blinking her big eyes. "What? What do you mean dead? Vance had guns and twenty guards!"

"He hung him!" Brandon shrieked, suddenly grabbing his own hair in pure panic. "Kai hung Vance upside down on the main archway! He killed all eight guards in fifteen minutes! He pointed his spear right at me through the rain!"

The remaining twelve security guards standing around the room gasped, their faces turning pale. The tough, mean look on their faces melted away instantly.

They had seen Vance fight before. Vance was a giant man who could break a brick with his fist. If Kai could break Vance like a dry twig and hang him up like meat, what chance did they have?

"We need to leave!" one guard shouted, dropping his iron bat to the floor. "That kid is not a man anymore! He is a demon!"

"Nobody is leaving!" Brandon screamed, pulling a small silver handgun from his belt and pointing it at the guard. "I have the key to the food vault! If any of you try to run away, I will shoot you myself! We have iron doors and high walls here! He cannot get in!"

While panic and fear tore apart Brandon's little gang inside the sports complex, Kai was walking quietly back toward the library.

The thin purple rain felt refreshing against his warm skin. Behind him, his three purple-eyed zombie thralls carried the weapons and tactical vests taken from Vance's dead guards. Fang walked right beside Kai's boots, his black tail wagging gently.

Kai tapped the side hatch door of the library three times.

A small viewing slot slid open, and Chloe’s eyes peeked out. The moment she saw Kai standing alive and untouched, she unlocked the iron latch and pulled the door wide open.

"Kai!" Chloe called out, her voice full of relief. "You are back! What happened out there?"

"Vance will not be coming back," Kai said simply, stepping inside the dry hallway. "Neither will his men."

The surviving students who were huddled in the main hall stood up, looking at Kai with deep respect and fear. They saw the blood on his spear, but they also saw the weapons his zombies dropped onto the floor. High-quality hunting knives, iron bats, and three heavy tactical vests.

"Distribute those weapons to the strongest five students," Kai ordered Chloe. "Set up a two-man guard watch at the main doors. I am going to rest for two hours."

Kai walked over to his quiet corner in the research room, sitting down on a soft leather couch. He reached into his pocket and pulled out three green beast cores he had harvested from the science building.

He tossed the cores onto the floor. Fang pounced on them instantly, crunching the hard cores like candy.

As the wolf swallowed the beast energy, its body expanded right before Kai's eyes. In just two short days, the starving little pup had grown into a massive hunting dog, standing as high as Kai's waist.

Its black fur was thick and glossy, and the bone-spikes along its back were sharp as daggers.

Kai rubbed Fang's head, watching the beast close its eyes and rest beside his feet.

"You are growing fast," Kai said softly. "Good. I will need your strength soon."

Kai closed his eyes and summoned his system status screen in his mind.

[Name: Kai] [Level: 5] [Strength: 45] [Agility: 42] [Stamina: 40] [Skills: Undead Command (F-Rank), Heavy Shield Defense (F-Rank)] [Equipped Weapon: Blood-Bone Spear (Tier 1 Evolved)]

Kai looked at his stats and smiled dark. His strength was now four times higher than a normal adult man. He could punch through a wooden door and run as fast as a moving car.

But he knew that strength alone was not enough to survive the changing world.

The sports complex had enough canned food, clean water, and medicine to last a hundred people for six months. It had a generator for power and thick concrete walls.

"The sports complex will be my main stronghold," Kai muttered to himself, his cold eyes staring into the dark. "Tomorrow at dawn, I am taking everything Brandon owns. I will strip him of his wealth, his food, and his pride until he has nothing left to beg with."

He rested his head against the couch, letting his body absorb the energy from his recent kills. His mind was sharp, his plan completely set.

Two hours passed quickly. The dark night began to fade as the first faint lines of purple morning light showed through the cracks in the window barricades.

Kai stood up, picking up his six-foot blood-bone spear. He walked to the main hall, where Chloe and five armed students were standing ready, looking brave and alert.

"It is time," Kai announced, his voice firm and cold. "We march to the sports complex."

He pushed open the side hatch door and stepped out into the cool morning air. Fang leaped out beside him, his bone-spikes raised. The three zombie thralls fell into formation right behind them.

They walked around the side of the library building, heading toward the main footbridge that led straight to the sports complex.

But as Kai reached the open courtyard separating the two large buildings, a strange, wet scratching sound filled the air.

Kai stopped dead in his tracks. Fang let out a deep, dangerous growl, his black fur standing on end.

Kai looked up at the four-story student dormitory building on his left.

Covering the outer brick walls were dozens of giant, dark purple creatures. They were Tier-1 mutated spiders, each one the size of a small car, with eight long hairy legs and glowing red eyes.

Hundreds of thick, sticky white webs covered the path below, completely blocking the bridge.

A massive horde of Tier-1 mutated spiders begins climbing down the walls of the nearby student dorms, cutting off the path between the library and the sports complex.