Chapter 256 July 24th, 2032 | Suicidal Training

"I'll kill you!" A vicious woman screamed, running at a bald Hispanic man with a ripped blouse. She couldn't run fast because she suffered from gangrene on her left leg, festering from a wound she had gotten days or even weeks prior.

The wound did not hinder her passion and anger, and she had power and speed far surpassing what should be possible for a starving woman suffering from late-stage necrosis.

A large bolt of Qi ripped across a broken city street in Meridian City, ripping through her chest and making her upper body explode. While it got the job done, it continued further until—

BOOOOOOM! Rubble, rubble, RUBBLE, BOOM!

—it hit a building behind the woman, crashing through its support beams and making it collapse.

"Denzel!" The bald man roared, "You're using too much Qi!"

"It's only one woman, Eric." A buff black man scoffed, "Chill out. The streets here are empty, there's plenty of time to—"

"KahhHhhHHhhHhhHHhhHhhH!"

A horrifying shrill of a hundred screaming voices wailed in a half-mile radius, sending icy chills crawling down everyone's spines.

Insults echoed through the previously empty streets, and shadows passed across the ground as the sun rose over the ocean.

"I-I didn't know!" Denzel stuttered.

"We don't have time for excuses—find a location where people [aren't] screaming!" Eric ordered, checking on the other ten people around him. All were shivering as the sick had them surrounded.

"Yes, Eric." The black man nodded before running and jumping onto a strip mall store's rooftop.

It didn't help him see much, as they were on an outdoor mall with skyscrapers on all sides. They were in the middle of the commerce district on the south side of Manrock bridge, near the waterfront.

All the story front windows were shattered, and the stores were picked clean. Bodies rotted on the ground with mutant bugs eating them. However, they didn't smell, as Soul Qi had killed the infections around them. So only the bugs and scavengers in the area helped them decompose.

Due to the location, the man could only see over the other strip mall stores, but that was enough to see something important.

"THEY'RE COMING!" Denzel screamed, seeing a sea of running people.

"How many!?" Eric yelled back with a pounding heart.

"JESUS CHRIST, THERE'S A LOT OF THEM!" The black man yelled back. His tone said it all; it was an overwhelming number.

All the soldiers, save one, readied Guided Arrows as the sick met up with the large shadows they cast on the ground.

"WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD!?" A man roared, running at 20 miles an hour at the group. His eyes were bloodshot, and his arm hung by tendons, but his speed was unhindered. "HAH, EVEN BETTER!

NOW I CAN KILL YOU AGAIN! HAHAHA!"

"My God…." A brunette whispered as she saw the man, followed by a sea of other people screaming equally incoherent statements.

WhooOOoooOOooSH! BOOM! Beep! Beep! Beep!

One of the men in the group panicked and released his arrow while he turned his head back and forth, sending an arrow weaving through the street erratically. It accidentally hit a shuttle and set off the alarm.

The bearded man who shot it trembled. "S-Sorry, Eric—"

"STOP WITH THE SORRIES AND KEEP FOCUSED, KEATON!" Eric roared, snapping them out of their haze. "SHOOT!"

WHooooOOooHhhhOOhHhoooSHhhHoooOOoH!

Nine arrows cut across the battlefield, creating a sharp wind sound as they passed through the Qi Sickness-festered humans.

BOOM! Boom! BOOOOM! Rubble, RUBBLE! Boom, boom, BOOM!

Every arrow cut through multiple people, crashing into buildings afterward. The street was dyed red in an instant, with body parts flying and blood splashing against storefronts.

"Did the general send us here to die, Aaron!?" Denzel yelled at a red-haired man, listening to his surroundings silently without lifting a finger, "Answer us, you son of a bitch!"

"Stop projecting, Denz." A Chinese man with neat black hair scoffed, releasing an arrow, "While Ice General Skye has a reason to kill you, the same isn't true of most of us."

Whooooosh!

The arrow cut through a dozen people in the distance, snaking around, making heads explode on contact.

"Don't play games, Chen!" Denzel scoffed, glaring at the redhead, "We're in a death trap, surrounded by thousands of people in an empty fucking city!

That bitch gave us a Qi control training exercise where we need a fuck ton of Qi. This can't be a coincidence!"

"Think about it later, we need to get off this street!" Eric roared, releasing another arrow, "Let's hit a streat. We'll use the grid locked cars as a buffer!"

The first thing to seize during the apocalypse was the streets. Countless people went crazy while driving, leading to accidents and instant gridlock. As a result, the streets became unusable on the first day and continued being unusable every day after.

Everyone followed the bald man down a side street at full speed. When they got to the street, it was a mess of cars that everyone jumped onto.

CRASH! Crash! CRaaaCKKkKkkKKk!

Only a few seconds later, a tidal wave of sick crashed into the cars, trucks, and shuttles, breaking windows. The blockage didn't last long, as the sick were more than capable of jumping.

"Are you ready, Jackson?" Chen asked a blonde-haired teen that had barely turned eighteen as they jumped from vehicle to vehicle.

Jackson nodded and then turned around simultaneously, kneeling and waving their hands in a slash attack.

The sick running on the cars ran straight into two sickles of raw Qi that cut through their shins, causing them to crash into the vehicles.

"GahHHhhahhHHhahhHHhahhH!"

CRASH! CrashHhhHHh!

"WAIT UNTIL I GET MY HANDS ON YOU!"

"I'll rip your throat out!"

"DIE! DIE-DIE-DIE!"

Despite crashing into vehicles, the sick didn't stop their death threats. They ran on their hands and knees, pouring blood across the roofs of cars and on the ground.

Between the initial wounds and moving, the blood coated the tops of vehicles, leading to countless sick slipping and crashing onto the ground.

"Don't go right!" A brunette soldier with matted hair yelled, "For the love of fucking God, don't go right!"

The group turned to the right and saw a sea of sick running down the side streets, weaving through vehicles and jumping onto them.

"SEE!?" Denzel yelled, jumping onto a semi and running across it, "This is a fucking death trap!

Don't tell me that bitch didn't set us up under the guise of training, Aaron!"

Aaron, the special forces soldier that usually ran the training at Immortal Skye with Sandra, ignored the buff black man as he ran across vehicles silently. He still didn't have any intention of drawing an arrow or counter-attacking.

​ "You son of a bitch!" Denzel roared, "If you don't—"

WHOoooOOooSH! BOOM!

"Shut the fuck up and concentrate, Denzel!" Eric yelled, releasing another arrow that flew past the man's head.

The black man flushed red with anger, noting how close he was to dying. However, he changed his tune when blood and brain matter washed down his face. "W-What the fuck!?"

He looked back and saw a line of sick people strewn on the ground from a side street. The bald man saved his life.

"Out training is QI control." Eric yelled, "If ya'll haven't noticed, we're fucked if we don't adhere to it! I'm already half empty, and there's still a sea of these fuckers!

So focus on Qi control and only that as we escape this nightmare!"

Aaron smiled, keeping pace with the soldiers with a relaxed expression.

"Don't smile, you bastard." Denzel scoffed lightly, acquiescing while glaring at the red-haired man, "This isn't training—she's toying with people's lives."

It had only been three hours since the Ice General's new "training" had begun, and everyone had already missed their "cozy" life at Lainwright Military Base the day before.