Time was of the essence, but while Yashas was busy restocking his ammo carrier and checking his rifle, I took the opportunity to test something out.

  The battles that would surely lie ahead felt like the perfect opportunity to exploit my newfound powers of Uninitialization and so, pulling out the desk I’d kept in my inventory, I had Aerion chop it up into small, randomly shaped pieces, each a few inches long.

  Aerion finished in under a minute thanks to her stats, and I quickly swept all the pieces back into my inventory just as Yashas appeared again.

  Until recently, I’d been extremely hesitant to Initialize random objects. Since I could only Uninitialize them when I leveled up—which usually happened in the middle of a fight—it hadn’t seemed wise to experiment freely. But everything had changed now that I could Uninitialize gear on the fly, and now that I was at C - 4 with a total Essence pool of 1250 and 350 free points, there was no reason not to.

  Just thinking of the possibilities nearly made me burst out laughing, and only present company stopped me. I was pretty sure Yashas wouldn’t appreciate being stuck in an elevator with a grinning lunatic.

  I no longer had to pre-prepare items, for one. I could Initialize random objects on the spot, see what powers they manifested, and if they were garbage, I could just get rid of them. There was no point doing this with mundane materials, of course—basic metals produced basic abilities, and Commons or Uncommons were useless to me. Even most Rares weren’t worth the effort.

  But Epics? Epics made from Voidsteel or Frostsilver?

  Those would have all kinds of unique, fun effects. And with the obscene amount of raw material I had in this dungeon, I didn’t have to worry about conserving ammo. I could Initialize and spam items as fast as I could physically make them. This seemingly minor upgrade was possibly even more potent than Soulweaving, if I used it right.

  The elevator descends to the Lobby… and kept going, and when I saw the G1 floor light up, my eyes did the same.

  “Does this mean what I think it means?” I asked, fighting to keep my excitement down.

  “This building has quite the extensive garage filled with vehicles,” Yashas said with a smirk as we walked up to a very familiar-looking vehicle painted in urban camo. “I managed to steal one of their armored… Humvee’s, I believe you call it?”

  Neither Aerion nor I could keep the grins off our faces.

  “Normally, I would never even consider driving such a loud, bright vehicle in the middle of the night. Even driving it during the day poses a challenge, however, time is of the essence. We shall use the highway system to outpace the shamblers. I will be relying heavily on you two to deal with any threats.”

  Yashas jumped into the driver’s seat, and I gestured Aerion to take the 50 cal machine gun mounted on the roof. Aerion was a mechanical genius and would likely be a better shot than me. It’d also allow her to be effective while we drove, since all of her abilities centered around up-close melee combat.

  Aerion climbed into the Humvee and stood up between the seats, manning the gun, while I sat in the bed at the back in my Vigor armor. This one was configured like a truck, leaving ample space for me to scan for threats and to act as a shield for Aerion and Yashas, deflecting any attacks that came from the rear.

  [Remote Launch] would be getting a workout here, and honestly? I couldn’t wait.

  Yashas fired up the mighty V8 and flipped on the headlights, bathing the dark garage in light. He wasn’t kidding. This thing was gonna light up Tokyo’s night.

  I only hoped we could outpace them as planned, because we were about to have the mother of all hordes on our tail.

  Yashas gunned it, and I soon learned that the Champion had a lead foot as the Humvee literally flew off the garage ramp and sailed onto the street, the massive bay door retracting with just inches to spare above Aerion’s machine gun.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Stealth was, very clearly, nowhere on the menu as Yashas slammed into a zombie with such force that the undead woman’s arms went flying, ripped off with a sickening ‘thunk’.

  It was one of the most disgusting sights I’d seen, but it was hardly the last.

  One after another, zombie innards splattered the Humvee’s hood until it was stained an inky black, and Yashas had to turn on the wipers to be able to see.

  We made good progress for the first several blocks, but as Yashas predicted, it wasn’t long before the horde began to accumulate.

  Aerion held her fire at my direction, firing in controlled bursts at only the ones that threatened to stop our forward progress.

  We only had what looked to be a few thousand rounds, after all. That sounded like a lot, but as I knew well from my time with the Battlefield franchise, machine guns ate up ammo at a terrifying rate.

  Which was fine, because my own ammo was far more replenishable.

  I fired my first Voidsteel-Frostsilver alloy shard, [Remote Launching] it right into the nearest shambler, initializing it mid-flight.

  I had no clue what ability I’d get. Even before my rank-up, I knew I had some control over the direction an Initialization could take, but specificity was never the right play. This time, I focused on a single, vague concept.

  Devastation.

  Nothing more. Just raw destruction.

  And to my shock, it actually worked. Kinda.

  Voidsteel Alloy Shard [Epic]

  It oughta be a crime to make something so fugly out of material so glorious. Shame on you, Greg!

  Stats:

  — None

  Abilities:

  — Frag Out! [Foundation-0]: Detonates into thousands of microshards. Extremely effective against organic matter.

  [Voidsteel Alloy Shard] has leveled up to Foundation - 1.

  [Voidsteel Alloy Shard] has leveled up to Foundation - 2.

  [Voidsteel Alloy Shard] has been destroyed.

  Well, it would have been effective. If zombies had functioning organs, or if they felt pain.

  As it was, it shredded their flesh, but did little other than slow the ones closest to the blast a bit. The damage the mob did trampling the zombies that fell was honestly more than the blast itself.

  No, frag grenades, as terrifying as they were, wouldn’t do jack shit against the undead. Unless their heads were destroyed or they were vaporized, they’d keep going.

  And kept going they did. The ungodly screeching, wailing noises built into a cacophony that filled the air. Like an orchestra where every instrument was out of tune, it sent chills up my spine, even if I knew I could handle them individually.

  There was just something about them that summoned a primal fear ingrained into all humans.

  I shook off the thought. I had plenty more ammo, and the moment the first shard detonated, another was already on the way.

  This time, I concentrated on the idea of targeted destruction. Less grenade, more laser.

  The result wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely better. A tight, localized explosion blew one shambler’s head clean off, while ripping the limbs off another. Not the strongest explosion, but for a tiny sliver of void steel? Pretty damn good.

  That said, I did lose the piece in the process.

  So I kept firing, left and right, each time tweaking the Initialization, trying out different concepts. Most shards exploded immediately, but some manifested interesting properties—like one that flew straight to a zombie’s skull like it was magnetized, crushing it like a melon.

  The best part? It wasn’t even damaged. It just bounced off, intact, and thanks to [Remote Launch], I recalled it into my inventory, ready to fire again.

  And again, and again.

  Once I latched onto that idea, I made half a dozen more just like it. Half the attempts turned into useless abilities, but it hardly mattered. My resources were basically infinite now. Worst case, I’d have Aerion carve out a nearby building for more Voidsteel.

  The only issue was that [Remote Launch] could only throw and retrieve one object at a time, but since I just needed to slow the mobs down, it was plenty. I hurled shard after shard, each one popping shambler skulls before warping back into my inventory, ready for another go.

  Without Essence to worry about like Aerion, there was literally nothing to stop me.

  Arms extended, I felt like a fucking god.

  I got so efficient that I even started handling the zombies ahead of us, clearing the path for Yashas, allowing us to go even faster.

  Aerion started shooting me looks, annoyed that I was stealing her kills.

  “Amazing!” Yashas shouted. “Truly amazing!”

  No, it wasn’t the killing that was amazing. The amazing part was how my little shards kept leveling. And leveling.

  And with each level, they grew faster and deadlier and before I knew it, they’d ranked up.

  Not to Emergence. By the time Yashas brought us onto the onramp and accelerated to freeway speeds, my half-dozen shards had ranked up all the way to Divergence and had gained a new ability.

  The ability to change course, carving a path from one enemy to another.

  Suddenly, in less than fifteen minutes, I’d gained the most powerful weapons I’d ever had.

  And it was all because I was now free to experiment to my heart’s desire.

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed into the wind that tousled my hair. I laughed an evil, maniacal laugh that would’ve put supervillains to shame.

  The craziest part? I hadn’t even imbued these things with souls yet.