I am Just a Passerby

"The military has already entered the infected zone. Elizabeth Greene... the one who caused all this, she's become the virus's mother body. We need to find her, kill her, to stop the virus from spreading!"

Li Wei nodded, piercing an infected's chest with his claws, assimilating and devouring it.

Alex Mercer stomped on the spot in frustration, but there was no way to make Li Wei move any faster.

It was always the same—if they weren't strong enough, they couldn't stop Blackwatch's schemes, and then he'd just have to watch Li Wei slowly consume the infected wandering nearby.

"If you want to get stronger, you can go to the highly infected Hive and look for Hunters. Those monsters will give you a lot of energy. But we really don't have time right now—I need to destroy all the contaminated water towers in Manhattan. If the Hunters inside those towers finish gestating, the whole city will be infected!"

After waiting a while longer, Alex finally lost his patience and grabbed Li Wei's massive claw as it reached for another infected.

Somewhat reluctantly eyeing the remaining infected, Li Wei reformed his arm and nodded. "Fine. We'll split up. I'll take the lower district, you take the upper."

Hearing Li Wei finally give in, Alex released his grip on Li Wei's hands and gave a solemn nod. "Deal. We'll meet at the tallest TV tower when we're done!"

With that, Alex eagerly leaped onto a high-rise and flew toward Manhattan's upper district.

Watching Alex leave, Li Wei killed two more infected that emerged from the shadows, then ran up the side of a building, weaving between skyscrapers in search of contaminated water towers on the rooftops.

The contaminated water towers were easy to spot, and Blackwatch soldiers were guarding them.

When Li Wei spotted the first tower, his left hand transformed into an absurdly large blade.

Claws and blades worked on the same principle—with a little guidance, they could be formed. Li Wei gathered strength in his knees, crushed the floor beneath him, and leaped over thirty meters...

"Alert! Twelve o'clock high!"

"Damn! It's Mercer!"

"13th Squad requesting backup! We've spotted Alex Mercer!"

"Fuck, Mercer's in the upper district? Are you saying all our eyes are blind?!"

The ten Blackwatch soldiers guarding the water tower spotted Li Wei mid-jump and shouted in alarm. Distress signals went back to command, and every gun barrel aimed at Li Wei.

Hundreds of bullets per second slammed into Li Wei's body but failed to drive him back. The rounds penetrated his flesh only to be pushed out by regenerating tissue.

His raised blade, after cutting through the air, came crashing down on the three-meter-tall pointed water tower below. The ten Blackwatch soldiers had no way to stop him and were sent flying by the impact of his landing.

The tower's iron skin, crawling with fungal threads, was torn open by the sharp broadsword. The blood-red tentacles and the gestating Hunter inside were cleaved in two by the descending strike.

The ten soldiers on the rooftop were blasted several meters away by the shockwave. A few unlucky ones fell straight off the building, their screams trailing long into the air.

The high-pressure air impact from extreme motion to extreme stillness could crush a tank into scrap metal or send a car flying several meters. Even from just a forty-meter drop, Li Wei's landing shock had already incapacitated the ten Blackwatch soldiers.

Seeing the dying Hunter that had fallen from the water tower, Li Wei stabbed his left blade into its body. His assimilation ability activated, and the Key's energy surged by a full 5%!

Seeing such a big jump in the Key's energy, Li Wei grinned. Ignoring the Blackwatch soldiers with their internal organs rattled by the shockwave, he quickly left the scene, ready to look for more contaminated water towers to farm.

There were many contaminated water towers in Manhattan's lower district, and all of them were under strict Blackwatch surveillance. Blackwatch had detected what was gestating inside the towers through various scanning equipment but hadn't destroyed them—they wanted to capture more Hunters for experiments.

The virus extracted from these captured Hunters was purer than that of ordinary mutants. Most of GENTEC's current experiments used virus extracted from Hunters.

Li Wei's figure darted between buildings, spreading his limbs like a giant flying squirrel, gliding from one skyscraper to another.

Occasionally, he'd run into Blackwatch helicopters, but he simply ignored them.

Below were the most densely populated streets. Shooting down an armed helicopter would cause at least ten casualties when it crashed.

And the Blackwatch soldiers didn't dare risk the damage from their cannon rounds hitting the streets or buildings, angering an entire nation's people. No matter who was in power, they'd be ruthlessly overthrown.

Li Wei could destroy the helicopters circling overhead, but he didn't consider himself a bastard who casually took lives.

He liked Batman and admired the man himself, but he wouldn't copy the no-kill rule.

If Blackwatch's helicopters didn't attack, he wouldn't bother lifting something heavy to smash the metal birds.

Each contaminated water tower held a gestating Hunter, all in a pre-activated state. If Li Wei and Alex hadn't destroyed them, the Hunters inside might have torn through the towers' seals and escaped by nightfall.

His blade swung down, and Li Wei destroyed another contaminated water tower, assimilating the Hunter inside. Around him, Blackwatch soldiers lay sprawled on the ground again.

The helicopters above were still adjusting their gun muzzles, but their slow turrets trying to hit the agile Li Wei was no easier than hitting a fly with a bullet.

Blackwatch command had also realized this problem. They began withdrawing the squads guarding the contaminated water towers, deciding to stop throwing away lives.

This made Li Wei's subsequent destruction missions much easier. There were twelve water towers in Manhattan's lower district. By the time he finished them all and arrived at the TV tower where he'd agreed to meet Alex, Alex was already waiting there.

"Are all the water towers destroyed?" Alex's first question upon seeing Li Wei again was about the towers.

Li Wei gave him a reassuring look and replied, "I checked back and forth several times. Didn't miss a single one~!"

Though Li Wei had confirmed the towers were destroyed, Alex still planned to check again at night. He felt Li Wei seemed particularly unreliable.

Even when talking about serious matters, Li Wei gave off an unserious vibe. With millions of lives at stake, Alex wouldn't so easily trust someone he'd just met.

So after agreeing to meet again at the same spot tomorrow morning, Alex glided away.

Li Wei watched Alex leave, then turned and headed back to the infected zone.

He could tell Alex didn't trust him. But what did that matter to a passerby like him?

The Key's energy had already reached 63%. At this rate, he'd be able to leave this world in at most three days!

...Assuming his guess was correct!