Trash in the Apocalypse

Chapter 194: Power Levels

The gardener carrier stabbed its hand into the chest of the remaining D1 while he watered the D2's back. Then, without waiting for the watering-can to run out of energy, the D1's heart was tossed inside.

At the same time, Jun's group was throwing bone spears from a distance, which were blocked by the three-meter Destroyer's enormous body.

Bone spears were consumable items made from R0 Carrier's bones. Most of the Evolved Carrier's bones were used as materials for weapon forging and tool crafting. Even in fighting the hordes, they were only used as a form of pre-emptive attack to reduce enemy numbers while inflicting additional damage. It could only be used as a support tool and never as a primary weapon since there's a lot of more reliable choices out there.

Numerous low-quality bone spear landed on the D2's chest. Some split in half after hitting the D2's defined muscles while others got its sharp ends chipped and fell on the ground.

The bone spears didn't dealt any damage and only caused its skin to redden, which irritated the D2. Aside from that, there was nothing else, but the group didn't stop throwing them in the slightest.

'It's not enough... I need a little more.' the gardener thought then looked around. He saw Jun's group slaughtering the newly respawned R0 Carriers. There was no more sacrifice that it could use, so it sighed deeply before stabbing its chest with his hand before pulling his heart out.

The heart is the one who produces energy for the carriers. It contains all the essence of a living thing. On the other hand, the watering-can extracts the purest energy from the item fed to it.

The gardener stared at Jun's face as he used his remaining time to water the D2 from behind. He then commanded the D2 to destroy the watering-can after it evolved.

Jun watched as the strange carrier's body shatter and dissipate in shimmering specks of light. Afterward, the D2 clutched its face while staggering forward. It fell on its knee before suddenly smashing the ground repeatedly. Its body trembled slightly before calming down.

And so, when the D2 stably stood up, and its supposed height of three meters changed, it has become a four-meter giant with much denser and more energized muscles.

It entered a new realm and received some changes in its physical appearance.

The Rank 3 Destroyer has several changes on its upper body. The shoulder bones came out of its body and became black shoulder pads forming a unique shape with a coverage befitting of its sizeable body.

The black bones created a solid defense from any attacks on its shoulders.

After evolving, it planned to accomplish the duty it was given, but it felt something ominous coming and hurriedly closed its eyes.

"Ting, ting, ting!"

Several dull sounds rang after the bullets bounced off the D3's eyelids. It raised its hands in front defensively while trying to take a peak on its attackers.

Upon seeing the D2 evolve in front of them, Jun had no choice but to try killing it as soon as possible. He quickly equipped his Colt pistol before unleashing a row of gunshots. When the attack wasn't effective, he promptly switched back to melee.

He know nothing about whether it gained new abilities after evolving, and the only way to make sure is to fight it head-on.

"Keep a safe distance. Never let yourself fall on its hands." Jun said as he charged forward. Everyone instinctively debated whether to follow him or not. They knew that they would not be of any help, but they can't let Jun go alone.

"Let's just distract it!" Marvin said as he dashed forward, wielding a bone spear to support Jun. In the worst-case scenario, he could transform and stall time for Jun to escape. He knew that if Jun couldn't kill this Destroyer, everyone else would fail.

He roughly knew the town's people's strengths after surviving by himself for a long time.

Marvin was a well-known drug addict among the survivors. Although no one knew about his transformation skill, everyone knows him as someone not to be close to. People who get on fights and disagreements were never found again. Thanks to that, he was able to live a quiet life and was able to observe everybody.

Jun was the only person that was able to beat him up, and its a fact. If he loses to the D3, there would be nobody on the same skill level as him to be found in the town.

As he ran forward, Jun focused on the D3's movements and noticed that it was turning its back once again. It seemed like it was focusing on something behind it. Before it could do what it wanted, Jun started shooting while aiming at its ears.

The D3 shook its head as if tickled by the gunshots then angrily turned to Jun. It ignored the orders it received earlier and focused on the annoying bug that kept on pestering it.

With an angry howl that echoed inside and outside the cemetery, it started charging towards Jun.

Jun kept on firing as he ran until the pistol made clicking sounds. He immediately threw it to his dimensional storage then continued charging Bumuth's Warhammer with energy. Empower isn't a simple one plus one of energy. The longer you charge Empower, the stronger it becomes. Just like exponents, the longer the value gets raised to the power of n, the higher it becomes.

Accompanied by the stronger attack power was the higher energy consumption per second. Usually, Jun would only use two or three seconds to charge Empower since, with his stats, that amount of pent up power could kill anything on his path.

With the D3's eyelids even able to block bulletseven if it were only a pistol'sit was enough to scare him to take this gamble.

Jun could run out of energy if he was not careful since the energy consumption was also being raised to the next level. He used Empower by only using 3energy/sec output, and he wouldn't be able to sustain Empower for more than five seconds since it would consume 243 energy out of his 260 energy pool.

Fortunately enough, the D3 was charging at him with massive strides, which shortened their distance faster. 

The D3 was twice the size of Jun. It pounced forward adding the gravitational pull on its attack and slammed its right hand towards Jun,

Jun matched its attack with an underhand swing of his Warhammer, and both attacks met at mid-air.

A crisp metallic sound resounded, followed by a blinding flash of light after the energy from the attack was released. A strong shockwave produced from their bout stopped the people behind Jun from advancing. They could only watch Jun's silhouette disappear after getting blinded by the bright light.

The D3's body staggered as it retreated a few steps backward. Its chiseled right arm kept trembling even after the collision with Bumuth's Warhammer. It glanced forward with a shocked expression.

A R0 Carrier needs to absorb 10 Human energy cores or cultivate for 100 days to gain 1000 energy points and then evolve into its desired path. Afterward, the Rank 1 Evolved Carrier needs to absorb 100 Human energy cores or cultivate for 1000 days to gain 10,000 energy points to evolve further. And so on, so forth.

The number of Human energy cores or the number of days to cultivate could differ since human's max energy points vary from one another and could increase after consuming mystical items. Carriers could also eat foods(e.g., energy fruit) that contain large amounts of energies to evolve themselves.

There were billions of humans on earth, and it would be extremely hard to monopolize killing humans.

Although the evolving conditions for carriers were harsh, the strength amplification they receive was unfathomable. 

Humans become stronger by gaining levels, encountering treasures, and by consuming items. On the other hand, carriers become stronger after evolving by increasing their overall stats by the multiple of two.

An average human has more or less 5 points on their every stats depending on their physiques. When a human dies and reanimates into a carrier, it would maintain its current stats. After it evolves into its desired path(based on instincts and physique), it would immediately receive an increase in stats by the multiple of two.

A D1 would have an average of 10 points on its stats after evolving from a R0 Carrier that has an average of 5 stat points. A D2 would have an average of 20 points, while a D3 would have an average of 40 points.

Currently, Jun was on the same level of strength as the D3. The only difference between the two was the natural defense of the D3's body.

Jun, who tumbled backward after the clash, lay sprawled on the ground while glaring at the D3. Unlike the reinforced body of a Destroyer, Jun's arm muscles received a solid impact when the two of them clashed. Blood was dripping from some open wounds on his arms.

Seeing Jun's situation, the initially surprised D3 became ecstatic.