Return of the Last Survivor

Chapter 5: The First Relic

Noah crouched low behind the rusted shipping container, his breathing slowed to a quiet, rhythmic pattern.

In his previous life, he had fought against high-tier Syndicate enforcers—monsters in human skin who traded survivor lives for dark mana skills. Seeing their silver snake insignia on tactical vests *thirty days before the apocalypse* filled the gaps of a history he thought he understood.

They weren't just a syndicate born from the chaos. They were a pre-apocalyptic cabal, harvesting dormant mana under the cover of normal human society.

Noah checked his System interface.

[Target Node: Southside Warehouse 4]

[Micro-Fracture Phase: 92% Complete]

[Hostile Count: 5 Outside, 3 Inside]

[Time Remaining Until Total Stabilization: 18 Minutes]

Eighteen minutes. If the Syndicate extracted the relic first, they would lock down the area, absorb the surrounding node energy, and gain an unearned foothold before the Gates officially opened.

I have E-Rank agility and 14 Strength, Noah calculated quickly, running through scenarios in his mind. Firearms are dangerous against my current stats, but suppressed submachine guns have blind spots, recoil patterns, and human operators with zero spatial combat experience.

These men weren't Hunters. They were hired mercenaries using high-tech gear, relying on guns rather than mana instinct.

Noah slid a heavy metal bolt—dropped by a nearby dismantled crane—into his gloved palm. He aimed carefully toward a stack of hollow aluminum pipes sitting eighty yards away on the opposite side of the loading dock.

He flicked his wrist.

CLANG!

The heavy iron bolt struck the hollow pipes with a loud, ringing crash that echoed sharply across the quiet industrial yard.

"What the hell was that?" one of the guards outside the SUV barked, snapping his suppressed carbine up toward the noise.

"Check it out. Quietly," the squad leader ordered, signaling to two mercenaries. "The Boss is inside setting up the containment unit. No distractions."

The two men stepped away from the black SUVs, their weapons raised as they cautiously advanced toward the sound.

Noah didn't wait for them to return. The second their backs turned, he moved.

He darted between the shadows of the rusted containers like a ghost, his new tactical boots making zero sound against the cracked asphalt. He closed the distance to the remaining guard standing near the rear bumper of the lead SUV.

Before the guard could even sense the shift in air pressure, Noah surged from his blind spot.

Noah’s left gloved hand clamped tightly over the man's mouth, smothering his scream, while his right arm looped around the guard's neck in a textbook, high-leverage rear-naked choke.

The guard thrashed violently, trying to raise his carbine, but Noah shifted his weight, driving his knee sharply into the back of the man's leg to break his stance. With a quick, precise twist, Noah cut off the blood flow to the man's brain.

Within four seconds, the guard went limp.

Noah caught his falling body, dragged him quietly behind the rear tire of the black SUV, and stripped him of his tactical ear-piece radio and two spare magazines before stepping toward the open loading bay.

He slipped through the side entrance of Warehouse 4.

The interior of the warehouse was massive, lit only by high dust-covered skylights and a eerie, pulsing violet glow radiating from the far end of the floor.

In the center of the warehouse, floating three feet above a cracked concrete pedestal, was a jagged, fist-sized crystal shard hovering inside a distortion of distorted air. The space around it shimmered like heat rising off hot asphalt, whispering with a subtle, static hum.

The Relic of the Swift Wind, Noah identified it instantly.

It was an E-Rank ancient core. In his previous timeline, an unknown mercenary had claimed it early, using its agility-boosting passive to become a notorious assassin during the fall of the city.

Standing in front of the floating crystal was a middle-aged man in a tailored dark suit, wearing thick insulated rubber gloves and holding a high-tech containment case lined with containment runes. Two armed guards flanked him, watching the crystal with wide, nervous eyes.

"It's stabilizing," the suited man muttered, his voice trembling with greed. "The energy output matches the reports from the European node. With this artifact, the Director will clear the first stage awakening easily."

"Boss," one of the guards whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Is it safe to touch? It feels like standing next to a high-voltage generator."

"That's why we brought the null-casing, you idiot," the suited man snapped. "Grab the anchor rods and prepare to seal the field."

Not a chance, Noah thought.

He reached into his jacket, pulled out his E-Rank Tactical Trench Dagger, and flipped the blade downward into a reverse combat grip. He didn't have mana to launch ranged attacks, but he had ten years of lethal close-quarters battle experience.

Noah stepped out from behind a line of wooden pallets.

"You're in the wrong warehouse," Noah said, his voice cold and terrifyingly calm in the echoing space.

The three men spun around violently. The two guards raised their suppressed submachine guns, their eyes widening in shock when they saw a young man in dark tactical gear standing alone in the middle of the floor.

"Who the fuck are you?" the suited man shouted, stepping back while clutching the containment case. "Shoot him! Kill him now!"

The guard on the left squeezed his trigger.

Pfft-pfft-pfft!

Noah didn't dodge after the shots were fired—he predicted the guard's aim from the angle of his shoulders and barrel discipline before the trigger was pulled. He ducked low, exploding forward in a zig-zag dash.

The 9mm rounds chewed through the concrete behind him, kicking up sparks and dust.

In less than a second, Noah closed a twenty-foot gap.

He slid beneath the second guard's line of sight, grabbed the barrel of the man's submachine gun, and slammed his steel-toed boot straight into the guard's kneecap with a sickening CRACK.

"Gah!" the guard screamed, collapsing sideways.

Noah didn't pause. He grabbed the falling man's tactical vest, using him as a human shield as the first guard panicked and fired another burst.

Thwack-thwack!

The bullets thudded harmlessly into the downed guard's body armor. Noah shoved the limp body forward, crashing into the shooter, and drove the heavy knuckleduster handle of his trench dagger directly into the shooter's temple.

The second guard collapsed like a sack of bricks.

The entire exchange took less than three seconds.

The man in the suit stumbled backward, his face drained of all color, dropping his containment case onto the concrete. He reached into his suit jacket, pulling out a small silver revolver with trembling hands.

"S-Stay back!" the suited man stuttered, aiming at Noah's chest. "Do you have any idea who we are? The Serpent Syndicate will hunt you down.."

Noah didn't let him finish the sentence. He blurred forward, grabbed the man's wrist, and twisted it downward until the bone popped. The revolver clattered to the ground.

Before the suited man could scream, Noah drove his palm upward into the man's solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him, then dragged him down, slamming his face hard against the concrete floor.

Silence returned to the warehouse, save for the heavy, pulsing hum of the floating purple crystal.

Noah wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. He looked down at his hands—they were steady, cold, and precise. His muscle memory from a decade of war was integrating seamlessly with his newly enhanced physical stats.

Ding.

The System interface materialized in front of his face, glowing brilliantly.

[Hostile Entities Neutralized: 3/3]

[Micro-Fracture Stabilization Complete.]

[The First Relic is ready for extraction.]

Noah turned his eyes away from the unconscious Syndicate enforcers and stepped toward the pedestal.

The violet crystal hovered in mid-air, casting rhythmic waves of light across his face. As he reached out his bare hand toward it, a strange, electric sensation coursed up his arm. The dormant mana surrounding the node began to swirl violently, drawn directly toward his body like a vortex.

[Warning: Claiming this Relic will trigger your First Mana Awakening.]

[Warning: The Serpent Syndicate has logged this location's failure. Your identity may be investigated.]

Noah didn't hesitate for a single second. He wrapped his gloved fingers around the floating crystal.

"Let them come," Noah growled.