Come morning, Orion was bursting with enough energy that he cracked the floor merely while trying to stand up, leaving a permanent ass-shaped hole on the floor, where he had passed out from the pain of the enhancement.
"Fuck…" He mumbled, immediately closing his eyes and meditating to get a feel of his body's internals. Ten minutes later, he stood up with a complex expression on his face. "I don't think Foundational Strength Control is going to be able to help me for much longer. Maybe at most until my physique crosses ten thousand… Anyway, focus."
His immediate move was to summon his Rune Compendium from his inventory as he flipped over to the page with the Blaze rune. With a physical entry as reference, it took him less than a minute to inscribe the rune within his soul, on the third slot that he had unlocked after crossing over to a thousand points.
Taking a moment to see what Rio was doing, he saw that she was back in her home, fast asleep, seemingly having finished what she had planned.
"I need some kind of method to defend myself," he said. "Let's see…"
Knowledge: Rune of Defense
Origin Energy Cost: 25,000 Units
"No, I can't afford that," he said. "I need something more affordable, even if it's not aspected."
Knowledge: Defense Rune
Origin Energy Cost: 100 Units
"That works…" Orion nodded. "Let's speed it up as well. I want to be done in fifteen minutes."
Knowledge: Defense Rune
Origin Energy Cost: 400 Units
Not minding the cost, he spent the extra Origin Energy and started dreaming. The time he spent inside was still what he had expected—five years, but in reality, only fifteen minutes had passed when he woke up.
"All right, the rune is done, I can get rid of Storm for now from its slot. It doesn't have the kind of attack power I want today."
It ended up costing him a single unit of Runic Energy to expel the rune from its slot, but with his current reserve of over a thousand units, it was nothing. He first recorded the defense rune in his Rune Compendium before condensing it in the second slot that the Storm Rune had just been expelled from. The whole recording, removing, and swapping process cost him twenty-one units of Runic Energy in total. He knew that it normally took a long time to reach such a level, which allowed people to slowly shift to using the higher-grade runes, but he didn't have the kind of time to research new chaining schemes for his runes to upgrade them for now.
His highest priority was to survive and preferably kill whatever Rio had prepared for him and find an opportunity to suck away the Origin Energy contained in the Origin Harvester. That would allow him to move out of this place with Mai and her sister far earlier than his original estimate.
Once he was satisfied, he glanced at his status to make sure that his preparations were sufficient.
Name: Orion Vaelor
Exile Gear: Infinite Dream
Specialization: Creation
Origin Energy: 3,935.26 Units
Physique: 1117.68
Matter Limit: 20 KG
Runic Energy: 487/1117 Units [Grade III]
Aspected Runes: [Grade 1 Inspection]
Slot I: Grade 1 Light (100%)
Slot II: Grade 1 Defense (100%)
Slot III: Grade 1 Lava (100%)
Techniques: (Expand)
Knowledge: (Expand)
"It's a pity that improving my physique didn't immediately restore my Runic Energy to its max and will need the usual twenty-four hours to completely fill… It makes sense, though. It's something that is passively generated by the fountain by using my mental strength as a basis, but is fundamentally different from it.
After running a few subtle tests with his new runes, he left the apartment, calling Mai out. She already seemed much more serious today than usual, with an extra layer of clothes under her cargo jacket and an icy expression. Then again, that expression was always there and shouldn't be counted.
"Stay ready for anything," Orion said. "If you realise that things are too dire, immediately retreat. I have enough means to survive and will rendezvous with you later."
She nodded before asking something out of the blue. "Where did Futaba go yesterday?"
"Not really sure, it was one of those open malls that don't have a roof."
"…I see," she said. "Then you should know that when I found them that day, they were in that mall."
"I understand. It's possible that while the harvester had been placed and under Claire's control since the start, Rio was only possessed recently. Or that might not be the case. We can never be completely sure," he said. "That place is like a sort of extremely secure base for her, and she might just regularly visit it as well."
Mai nodded as the two of them stepped out of the building and disappeared.
"Time to maintain the farce…" Orion mumbled as he made his way to Rio's house.
…
Rio led them through a route that Orion was already familiar with.
She, Orion, and Yuuma slowly moved through the highway area that she had crossed the previous night and eventually made their way toward the open mall under her lead.
At first, it was just the harvester zombies that Orion had seen the previous night, but eventually came the first encounter with an assault type zombie. This one had a noticeably bulky build as compared to the harvesters; not only that, it was far more aggressive, and even had some battle instincts that allowed it to step back and become the first zombie to survive Orion's katana, forcing him to use a second swing to decapitate it. Of course with with Orion's current strength, the first-grade assault zombie was no different from the harvesters.
They slowly encountered more such zombies amidst the harvesters, but that did little to slow down Orion's endless slaughtering. Soon, however, a blurry shadow suddenly passed by his vision, and he immediately heard a painful scream from beside him. Yuuma had been punched and thrown away into the distance, leaving a large amount of his blood, along with his intestines, on the ground. Worst of all, even if he survived the attack, he wouldn't survive the endless zombies surrounding him. The next was Rio, who met the same fate due to a single kick from the blurry silhouette and was thrown through the second-floor window of a nearby building. She seemed a little luckier and didn't leave behind any of her organs.
While anybody else would believe that she was probably incapacitated, Orion was sure that this was a way for her to isolate him, forcing him to face this creature all by himself while she made her way to the Origin Harvester.
Hopefully, Mai shows some initiative and prevents her from disappearing. I don't know how I'm going to enter that underground space without her authenticating me. If she holed herself up in there, it would be troublesome.
As the creature turned toward him, Orion finally got a good look at it.
Its body was ape-like, with long and thin scythe-like arms that went down to the ground due to its hunched back and posture. Even then, it stood a meter taller than Orion, forcing him to look up at its oddly human face with dead eyes and rotting teeth. It was definitely still undead, but it had a threatening aura that made Orion wary.
When it moved, Orion barely raised his sword to block the arm that swung at him while also activating the defense rune at its full strength as his body gained a faint glow. Just as the ape's arm was cut off by his katana of unmatched sharpness, Orion heard the creature's growl as it raised its leg and kicked him, flinging him backward until he slammed against a car. Still, he quickly stood up, looking completely unscathed.
Thank fuck, this thing has the same stats as me. If this is the ultimate weapon that Rio got after expending two million units of Origin Energy… This has to be some kind of resistance from the world due to her impatience, which has made it cost so much more. She did mention some kind of ten times penalty, if I recall correctly…
"All right, I don't even need to expose the runes to take care of this thing," he mumbled, quickly sidestepping a swing of the zombie's arm. Though he wasn't used to fighting zombies with the same physical prowess as him, he was far from being at a disadvantage. The defense rune he'd fully activated would last for ten minutes, giving him ample time to take care of the zombie without worrying about getting hurt. Even when the zombie flung him away, he hadn't gotten a single scratch because of the rune.
With only a single arm of the zombie remaining, there was little Orion was worried about as he calmly retreated, letting the mindless creature try to take a few shots at him. Without any fanfare, he took advantage of a faltering moment from the creature as it stepped over a broken door, stumbling. Immediately, Orion's katana went vertically into its head, cleaving the undead in two halves.
As a large amount of blood splashed on him, he turned to look at the location where the zombie had thrown Rio. He saw Mai already there, looking like she was bandaging Rio's wound.
Still not completely believing my words, huh? You could've just held a dagger to her throat. Then again, it's better this way since she won't abruptly pull something insane out of her ass.
Since Mai was still maintaining the farce, Orion decided to play along with her and quickly went into the building to check up on Rio.
***
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