Headlong Charge

The moment the sun's rays were completely swallowed by the buildings, the Darkseekers behind him, acting like manic patients, rioted in unison. Their bodies moved with such extreme amplitude that it was as if they were constantly pushing the limits of a sprint.

Li Wei tucked his pen into the blank page where he had just written a sentence and stood up from his chair. His right hand transformed into a blade, his left into a claw, and he turned to face the gray-skinned Darkseekers.

Having mutated for three years, these Darkseekers were no longer the brainless creatures they once were. They possessed a higher level of intelligence, and upon seeing the changes in Li Wei's hands, expressions of confusion even flickered across their faces.

Yet, the constant mania in their brains drove them to attack Li Wei—all for the sake of feeding!

Facing a number of Darkseekers that far exceeded his own, Li Wei was like a powerhouse capable of holding his own against an army; he charged into the enemy ranks and began a slaughter.

His blade thrust and swept, cutting seven or eight of the swarming Darkseekers in half at the waist. As his right-hand blade danced, his left hand was not idle, grabbing the severed limbs and beginning to absorb them.

After the virus combined with humans, it produced a strange change: while it caused manic irritability, it did not completely strip the Darkseekers of their judgment, and it even established a strict hierarchy.

Li Wei devoured these Darkseekers, wanting to know the reason for their emerging intelligence and judgment, but the results were disappointing. They had not evolved intelligence autonomously; rather, it was a byproduct of their brain functions gradually recovering.

His gaze pierced through the hundreds of Darkseekers in front of him, and Li Wei locked onto a male Darkseeker wearing tattered clothes, standing on a sedan at the back of the horde. He appeared to be the leader of this group.

That Darkseeker was also watching him, and it let out an angry roar in his direction.

Li Wei had assumed this roar was merely an instinctive display of intimidation, but to his surprise, after the leader finished roaring, the remaining Darkseekers all ceased their meaningless attacks and collectively turned to flee!

"They actually know how to run when they can't win!"

Seeing the Darkseekers flee, Li Wei had no intention of chasing them and watched them depart. His hands shifted back to their original form, and he extended his left hand, squeezing out a drop of concentrated viral essence.

After the viral essence hit the ground, it rapidly expanded from a single drop into a... pig.

It was a giant pig over four meters long and two meters tall, covered in fine, dense fur. Its face lacked eyes and a nose, featuring only a blood-red maw and a pair of curved tusks as thick as siege stakes.

This was a mutant monster born from a heavily modified Hunter. Originally, he had wanted to create a bear, but after the virus hit the ground, it was influenced by external environmental factors and mutated into this shape uncontrollably...

But that didn't matter!

Li Wei jumped onto the giant pig's back and slapped its rump. The pig let out a pained howl and began to gallop, driving its four limbs forward.

Every time the four hooves struck the ground, they left a crater in the asphalt. Under his deliberate control, the giant pig's weight reached eighty tons, serving as both his transport and a source of amusement!

Charge of the Pig!

Cars blocking the weed-choked road were tossed aside one by one. On the buildings on either side, Darkseekers who had never witnessed his prowess would occasionally rush out like mad dogs to attack him.

But Li Wei's right hand extended, transforming into a bio-metallic spear. Any Darkseeker attempting to block their path was mercilessly impaled, only to have tiny tentacles sprout from his body to pierce and assimilate them.

"Awoo!" Tonight, Manhattan Island was destined to have no peace.

The tireless Darkseekers chased the hog-rider frantically, but intimidated by the spear in his hand, they mostly just followed after several rounds of slaughter, rarely launching attacks.

In this manner, Li Wei charged all the way from the docks to the vicinity of a landmark building in the city center.

His gaze turned to a building on his right, and he murmured, "Huh? Isn't that the Empire State Building?"

As if he had discovered something fun, Li Wei steered the giant pig, heading toward the Empire State Building.

Nearby Darkseekers followed like shadows, like tireless machines. But as they approached the vicinity of the Empire State Building, these Darkseekers seemed to be wary of something; they stopped at the edge of Fifth Avenue, roared in frustration, and then turned away angrily!

Li Wei was currently using a dual-special vision of thermal sensing and pulse sensing. He could tell that the Darkseekers behind had stopped their pursuit, and he could also see thousands of heat sources near the Empire State Building.

One of the characteristics of the Darkseekers in the I Am Legend world was that their internal body temperature was much higher than that of a human, with an average temperature reaching 42 degrees Celsius.

Therefore, when he turned on his thermal vision to look at the buildings, dense clusters of Darkseekers filled Li Wei's sight. A special roar seemed to ring out again, and thousands of Darkseekers rushed out from the ground floor of the building, running toward Li Wei.

Although the giant pig had no eyes, it could perceive the outside world. The number of Darkseekers here was several times that of the ones chasing them earlier, yet it maintained its charging momentum, smashing through everything in its path as it headed straight for the Empire State Building.

As they approached Fifth Avenue in front of the Empire State Building, several abandoned tanks appeared on the road ahead.

Without needing Li Wei's control, the giant pig revved up its power and accelerated, slamming head-on into the tank's road wheels, creating a heavy, explosive sound upon impact.

The tank blocking the way was sent flying by the nearly hundred-ton giant pig into the building, crushing a large group of Darkseekers rushing out.

At a broken window of a nearby office building, a tall Darkseeker, who looked quite sophisticated in its attire, let out another angry roar at the sight.

Li Wei thought they were afraid, just like the previous small group that wanted to run back, but the result was not what he expected.

Since they were in the Empire State Building area, he decided to call their Darkseeker faction the Empire!

The roar of the Empire's leader was very rhythmic. The thousands of corpses that heard its roar did not flee, but instead changed their attack strategy!

The next moment, Li Wei was submerged by countless pieces of debris. The Darkseekers on the nearby office buildings threw everything they could lift at him!

"Good man!"

His right hand turned into a shield to block the debris thrown at him. Li Wei was genuinely impressed; the intelligence of these Darkseekers was too high!

Although the damage from this debris was basically zero to him, if it had hit an ordinary animal or person, they would have been broken and mangled on the spot.

These Darkseekers were less like a new species and more like a new humanity that had inherited human civilization.

Perhaps in another hundred years, the Darkseekers here would be able to communicate with each other and, with the eyes of a new humanity, conduct archaeology on the ancient human civilization.

However, looking at them now, Li Wei felt they were no different from monkeys—just like the monkeys in some tourist spots, throwing things around!

When the giant pig, bearing the brunt of the thrown debris, reached the front of the Empire State Building, Li Wei jumped off its back, retracted his shield, and left the surrounding Darkseekers to the giant pig to handle as it pleased. He began to run up the wall of the Empire State Building.

Three steps per floor, he ran up the Empire State Building at high speed, finally reaching the top. His left hand grabbed the sixty-meter-long antenna at the summit, and after steadying himself, he looked out over the city's forest of high-rises.

One could see more when flying, but the view from a "standing" position had a sense of immersion, making it feel not so far out of reach.

Clinging to the top floor of the Empire State Building, he looked around constantly, feeling the wind rushing against him, and he couldn't help but mutter to himself, "So this is the perspective of Kong!"

Although it wasn't dawn yet, the city certainly looked quite impressive from this vantage point.

It was a pity there were no planes; if there were, he could have taken a shot at them!

After taking in the view, Li Wei stomped on the antenna and leaped... the sixty-meter-tall antenna of the Empire State Building, destroyed!

Spreading his arms, he dove headfirst from the four-hundred-meter-tall Empire State Building, adjusting his trajectory to accelerate toward the loosely scattered Darkseekers below.

After two seconds of rapid descent, he twisted his body when he was ten meters from the ground, landing feet-first.

BOOM!

"Ah!"

Inside 11 Washington Square Villa, a Black man bolted upright in bed following the deafening crash, joined by his dog, Sam, who had been startled awake beside him.

Robert took a few deep breaths of stale air and furrowed his brow slightly, as if trying to recall something with uncertainty.

A moment later, he turned his face toward the south, a look of confusion appearing on his features.