n

n

nAs I had nothing else to do here, I found a calm place next to the base's wall and let my body fall on the ground. I was tired! Got out a few pieces of meat and drank mouthful gulps of the water I had.

nThen I closed my eyes and slept like a baby.

nMy sleep lasted for a blink of an eye for me. At some point, I felt someone holding my shoulders and shaking me in a violent way.

n

"What?!!

" I hurriedly opened my eyes, jolted to my feet and instantly took out my swords. I was ready to fight, fight even the one who woke me up.

nWho would wake someone up in such a violent way except for that maniac jumper?

n

"Rise and shine, sleepy boy,

" the jumper's hoarse voice came and I felt a hint of a smile over his covered face with that ugly mask of his.

n

"Damn you,

" I didn't let my interrupted sleep go without shouting in anger. Who in his right mind would go and wake people in such a harsh way?

nCome one man, I lacked good sleep in this f*cking apocalypse! Why did it have to be this way when waking me up? What did I do wrong to deserve all that?

n

"We are here for half an hour now,

" Isabella laughed,

"and you're snoring… God! It was a torture!

"

n

"I never snore!

" I glared at her but in return I was welcomed with a wave of laughter from everyone here.

nThey were all here, all my valiant heroes. Even Karoline was here as well with the major who did nothing but to show a mocking smile on his face.

n

"Alright,

" as I had no way to go back to sleep now, I stretched my arms and legs,

"how are the operations of controlling castles going?

"

n

"We controlled everything south from Queens,

" the spearhead said,

"all that remains now is the Bronx.

"

n

"Great,

" I looked at the jumper,

"the Bronx doesn't have many monsters, right?

"

nHe nodded while I could imagine his slaking smile behind his mask.

n

"Where are we going to go now?

" Alex seemed more unsettled with Angelica literally holding her arm in hers and acting all lovey dovey with her.

n

"First we need to arrange things here,

" I said before turning to the major. I didn't want him to lead, but in the light of lacking any fighting experience here, and with the fact of my need for someone to control and give military commands, he was the best without doubt.

n

"You'll be the one leading New York forces,

" I said, and it seemed my decision came as a surprise even to him.

n

"S… Sure,

" he said in doubt,

"what should I do?

"

n

"Three things,

" I raised three fingers in his face before adding,

"first make sure you control the entire city as fast as possible. Don't let a single monster slip by, and try to minimise the losses as far as possible.

"

n

"I can do that,

" he nodded and he gave me a reassuring feeling.

n

"The second task is to strengthen our current troops,

" I turned to the large military forces we had here,

"all of them must kill monsters using their systems and abilities. They must buy out cold war weapons from the market, increase their stats by selling items in the market and exchanging them for stat points. There are packs sold in the market which can help them increase their stats faster…

"

nI started planning out the big plan of turning those war veterans into strong and capable fighters. In fact the big weakness all my forces had in common was the lack of military experience.

nAnd ironically speaking that weakness was perfectly solved by those military personnel. Yet what was ironic was that they didn't work over their stats or used their system properly, turning them into weak humans despite having such a unique advantage.

nSo turning all those military people from people of the already gone civilization into people of the apocalypse was a must.

nYet the major seemed a bit hesitant and didn't give me the same confident feeling when he nodded in response. I knew he looked down on our retired looking weapons and gears.

nBut come on man, you couldn't even kill a single monster even with all the heavy guns you had, but we could! We easily could kill a monster now using those out of age looking weapons and gears and moves!

n

"The last thing is that after doing all this, you need to stretch out our forces. Send some to the nearby counties, make them train and kill more monsters, evolve further until they fill their stats with the highest points ever.

"

nI paused for a second before adding,

"our next target would be going to Jersey city. I would do something that would enable the forces to come through in a special way. The base would be here, in his spot.

"

nI took out my staff, the one I bought before to solve one problem. Once I took it out, I started to examine its stats.

nTeleportation system staff: Unique grade item. An ancient staff that's being made by an unknown genius. Once used, you can link two places apart through an instant teleportation portal. Can be used more than once, but each time must consume one million coins

nThe staff was like a long rod, with a crystal gem in both ends. The shaft was smooth and milky white in colour. Just taking it out made the eyes of many look at me in doubt.

nI didn't explain anything and simply pointed one of its ends to the ground. A message popped up the next moment once I did that.

nDo you want to mark this location for future use? To mark a place, you'll need to pay ten thousand coins per time

nWhat? I could mark and store locations using the staff? Knowing this made me realise how heaven shaking this staff would be.

nIn just mere minutes, my mind orchestrated many usages for this staff. I couldn't only use it to mobilise my army anywhere I wanted, but I also could use this as a brilliant ambushing method.

nJust imagine I went around places I knew enemy forces would come through. Just thinking about this made me so much excited that I wanted to go all over the world now and mark everywhere using my staff.

nBut I had to deal with the Jersey city situation first and foremost. As I accepted, another message appeared.

nLocation is saved successfully

nTen thousand coins are deducted

nYou can activated the staff ability to link two saved bookmarks once you have at least two places marked in the staff memory

nEach linking attempt will cost you one million coins, and will last for an entire day

nThe time duration was new for me, but it didn't matter much. As long as I had the bookmarks saved without a time limit, that meant I was able to link any two spots together anytime I wanted.

nWhat did it mean? I felt like a spider queen, weaving her large network silently across the entire world.

nIt might not seem big and that much useful for now. But later on, no matter where I was, I could simply intervene and save the situation simply using this method.

nBut I had to have more coins at the moment rather than ever! If I was faced with a situation I couldn't help but from far away, then I had to be ready to consume one million coins at any given moment.

nAdding the amount needed for Alex and Karoline, that meant I had to store three million coins at least without touching inside my account.

nKnowing that I was going to kill many strong race fighters next made me not feel any worry for now.

n

"Alright, follow me,

" as I finished arranging things here, I started moving towards the direction of Manhattan.

nI didn't forget to mark a place in Queens, before marking another in Manhattan.

nThe scene of the city changed, least to be said, it became a picture of a fairy tale story compared to before. Yet it was much better than the images I saw in the records about the destruction of this magnificent city.

nDuring our walk, I knew that Karoline did her task as I told her. The army generals loyal to her and the four big defensive military firms agreed to do as I planned.

nAs for the Raytheon tech corp, they explained that they already had connections with MIT university. They said the two locations were considered special, but they would try to move the corp big machines to the MIT campus.

nAfter all, the university was much safer than any military defensive corps base. Just by hearing their answer I realised the leaders of that branch of the corp were smart enough and knew how to adapt in these harsh times.

nHopefully the transition would go smoothly, and their losses wouldn't be that great.

nStanding on the side of Manhattan, I learnt about two ways to go to Jersey city. The two cities were separated by the Hudson river, with either going through one bridge on the surface or through two tunnels under water.

nOur best option was a bridge that was located at the Hudson heights, just at the northern parts of Manhattan. It was called the George Washington bridge.

nThe tunnels were considered a very risky move in my opinion. On the surface, ground monsters were only the hyenas or the wolves.

nBut underground, there were other dangerous breeds of monsters. Bronzed rats, the scaled worms, the slithering snakes, the bugling frogs, the life sucker bugs were just a simple example of such a deadly variety of such monsters.

nIf I had the choice, then it would definitely be going through the bridge. Luckily for us, the bridge stood erect and intact, with one side secured from my boys, the other end was clouded in mystery at Jersey city.

n

"This is George Washington bridge,

" Isabella stood in front of us acting as a new yorker guide, at least for me.

"We can cross it and reach Jersey city on the other side.

"

n

"What's the plan here?

" The jumper was direct and impatient as usual. In fact during our march, he was the least to speak, the least to interact with anyone.

nIn fact, aside from Alex who tried her best to shield herself from Angelica using me, he was also sticking to my side like a shadow.

nThe others were smoothly talking with each other. Be it Isabella or Karoline, the two girls were chatting like they were old friends.

nThe spearhead was, strangely, sticking his but with Isabella. The latter looked at me in a weird way a couple of times before I finally intervened and stopped that spearhead from annoying her.

nThe seven of us stood in front of this modern looking bridge. Unlike the other bridges that seemed fit to such an era, this silver metallic one made in modern fashion stood out of the picture.

nIt was a grand bridge, with two big steel towers from each side, linked together with gigantic steel cables.

nIt had two decks, making it more spacious than other bridges. However it also showed the same desolate image of the bridges I saw so far.

nMany cars were scattered in an irregular and chaotic way till the end of my sight could reach. Many doors were opened, many cars were ending head to head with other cars. Despite not a single smoke rose up from the bridge, the marks of a fire engulfing many cars were obvious in my eyes.

n

"We can go above or through the lower deck,

" Isabella continued to play her role perfectly,

"which side should we go through?

"

n

"We should decide our tactics beforehand,

" the jumper was still fixed over his point,

"I want to go and scout the city and report things back.

"

nThat jumper! He seemed to like the free and leisure task of going around and playing Spiderman all over the city without the need to break a sweat in a fight!

n