第5章 首战,捡尸

After creeping forward for about a dozen kilometers, Lin Fan stopped and looked up at the warning sign: County 0201.

He had arrived.

From this point on, he was entering the true Wilderness Zone.

He had walked only a few hundred meters deeper into County 0201 when he heard a strange sound.

He approached a window on the second floor of a nearby abandoned building to peer toward the noise.

Not far away stood an abandoned gas station with half of its roof collapsed.

Beside a toppled pump, three dark shadows were hunched over on the ground, their heads buried low, emitting a teeth-grinding "crunch, crunch" sound.

"Are these... Shadow Cats?"

Though called cats, they were actually as sturdy as calves. The lines of their muscles rippled beneath their fur, looking packed with explosive power.

Lin Fan narrowed his eyes, and when he saw what they were gnawing on, his pupils constricted violently.

It was a corpse.

The body wore an ill-fitting, tattered protective suit, and even the arm guards were makeshift, fashioned from tire rubber.

Clearly, this was some poor soul who had the same idea as him—coming to the Wilderness Zone to try his luck—only to lose his miserable life in the process.

"..."

Lin Fan watched the scene in silence, momentarily speechless.

In his two lifetimes combined, this was the first time he had seen a living monster with his own eyes.

It was also the first time he had seen the mangled remains of one of his own kind at such close range.

To be honest, his legs felt a bit weak.

The primal fear of a living creature made his heart, which was not particularly strong, hammer wildly against his ribcage.

He couldn't help it; after all, just yesterday, he was an ordinary student who hadn't even killed a chicken.

"Hoo..."

Lin Fan forced himself to take a deep breath, suppressing the sour bile rising in his stomach.

Was he afraid?

Yes.

But fear was useless.

He reminded himself that while he was indeed just an ordinary student yesterday, today, he was a transmigrator with a system.

He had awakened psychokinesis, and his physical fitness had skyrocketed.

So...

"Damn it, how long am I going to live like a coward? Let's do this!"

After steeling his nerves, Lin Fan flipped his palm.

The pitch-black, menacing Calamity, looking like the smile of the Grim Reaper, appeared out of thin air in his hand.

The moment Calamity materialized, the already weathered concrete floor beneath Lin Fan's feet let out a sharp crack.

The sound instantly caught the attention of the three Shadow Cats. They jerked their heads up, their muzzles stained with blood, and looked toward Lin Fan.

One of them even arched its back.

But unfortunately, it was too late.

"Die, you bastards!"

Lin Fan didn't hesitate. His psychokinesis erupted instantly, acting like an invisible giant hand that firmly supported Calamity.

He leaped from the second-floor window.

With the full boost of his psychokinesis, he and the giant scythe plummeted like a black meteorite, carrying terrifying kinetic energy as they smashed precisely toward the nearest Shadow Cat.

BOOM!

A deafening roar erupted, sending dust and gravel flying.

The moment Lin Fan landed, the Shadow Cat didn't even have time to let out a scream.

It was like a tomato crushed by a hydraulic press.

Splat!

It was reduced to a puddle of meat!

Red and white gore exploded everywhere.

This wasn't a fight.

This was just pure, damn weight-based crushing!

But the commotion thoroughly enraged the remaining two Shadow Cats.

"Meow!"

With shrill screeches, two gray blurs moved with lightning speed, carrying a foul stench as they pounced on Lin Fan from the left and right.

Too fast!

And the distance was too short!

Lin Fan's feet were buried deep in the cracked concrete; he couldn't even pull them out, let alone dodge.

If he tried to tank the hit with his body, he would be torn to shreds in the next second.

"Get lost!"

The madness in Lin Fan's eyes intensified. He poured his psychokinesis out wildly, his brain throbbing with pain from the overload.

He didn't try to raise the scythe to block.

Are you kidding? With something this heavy, trying to lift it to block? That was just asking for death.

Following the momentum of his landing, he gripped the handle tightly with both hands and put his waist into it!

Like a spinning top, he used the lingering downward inertia to force the heavy, dead-weight scythe into a horizontal sweep along the ground!

WHOOSH!

The heavy blade sliced through the air with a screech like a heavy truck blowing a tire at high speed.

This wasn't some refined sword technique.

This was clearly a runaway truck drifting!

The Shadow Cat pouncing from the left was still in mid-air with no leverage, and it was caught squarely in the waist by the pitch-black blade.

Splatter!

There was no resistance.

It was like a high-speed propeller blade hitting a sparrow.

The upper half of the Shadow Cat flew toward Lin Fan, claws and teeth bared in a desperate attempt to bite, but its lower half had already turned into a rain of blood, spraying against the abandoned gas pump nearby.

But it wasn't over.

Facing the Shadow Cat on the right, whose claws were about to reach his eyes, Lin Fan hardened his gaze. Using the terrifying centrifugal force of the sweep, he suddenly released his right hand.

He relied solely on his left hand and the pull of his psychokinesis.

"Go to hell!"

The crescent-shaped head of the giant scythe continued to swing wildly from the inertia, acting like a massive meteor hammer, and slammed heavily into the Shadow Cat's head.

BANG!

A dull thud.

It felt like a water-filled watermelon being struck head-on by a sledgehammer.

The Shadow Cat's head exploded, and its headless corpse was carried over ten meters away by the massive kinetic energy, finally hanging off a gas station pillar with a wet "thwack."

The battle was over.

Time elapsed: three seconds.

CLANG!

Calamity, which Lin Fan had released, slammed heavily into the ground, creating another deep crater in the already shattered pavement.

"Hoo... hoo... holy..."

Sweat poured from every pore, soaking his cheap camouflage uniform.

His chest heaved violently, the muscles in his arms spasmed and trembled uncontrollably, and his temples throbbed as if they were about to burst.

"That was... exhausting."

Lin Fan gritted his teeth, using a trembling hand to wipe the sweat from his eyes.

Calamity was too heavy.

Controlling such a heavy object for such high-intensity combat was like driving a junk tractor with a racing engine installed.

He hadn't gone far before he felt like he was going to fall apart.

"Strength... still too weak."

Lin Fan dragged his heavy feet to the Shadow Cat that had been crushed into pulp and looked at the mess on the ground.

His mouth twitched.

"The first one is ruined; the fur is useless, it's basically dumpling filling now."

"The second one has a broken waist; the fur isn't intact either."

"Only the third one is passable..."

Lin Fan felt a pang of heartache.

The three sets of claws and teeth from these Shadow Cats could sell for a good price, and the meat would fetch something too, but now that it was all paste, there was nothing left to sell.

"This smell of blood might attract something even more troublesome."

"Better pack it up and deal with it later."

Lin Fan endured the throbbing in his brain and waved his hand, sweeping the three carcasses and the scattered meat into his space ring.

Only after doing this did he turn around.

His eyes, slightly red from blood congestion, stared fixedly at the heavy oil tanker half-buried in the dirt beside the gas station.

Looking at this big guy, Lin Fan couldn't help but swallow.

Compared to those few thousand credits worth of materials, this tens of tons of high-quality industrial steel was the resource he craved and needed most right now.

"Only when you're full do you have the strength to run."

Lin Fan took a deep breath, dragged his scythe, and moved forward step by step.

"Dinner time!"

He pressed the pitch-black blade directly against the massive metal tank of the oil truck.

Sizzle!

That familiar sound rang out again.

Under Lin Fan's expectant gaze, the massive oil tanker began to soften and collapse at a speed visible to the naked eye.

A vast amount of metal essence turned into a gray stream, pouring wildly into the scythe.

At the same time, a warm current flowed along the handle, feeding back into Lin Fan's body without reservation.

"Awesome!"

It was like a parched riverbed receiving a torrential rain.

The warm current flowed through his limbs and bones, the spasming muscles in his arms from the overexertion quickly calmed, and even the needle-like pain deep in his brain was soothed.

[Consumed heavy alloy steel]

[Calamity growth progress: +0.12%]

Lin Fan let out a long breath, feeling the wonderful sensation of strength returning to his body.

"As long as there's iron to eat, I'm basically a perpetual motion machine!"