Chapter 3

"Scatter! Surround that tin can! Don't let any living creature escape!"

Derek's voice came through the night wind, carrying undisguised urgency and tension.

Behind the rocks on the high slope, I lay prone on the cold soil, the crosshairs of my tactical binoculars firmly locked onto the main entrance of the abandoned gas station.

In the footage, seven or eight armed guards stand cautiously in a semi-encircling formation, stepping over shattered glass. They carry a variety of firearms, the muzzles bobbing up and down with their trembling arms, clearly filled with fear of the unknown darkness.

Derek, however, strode past the crowd and walked straight to the front of the line.

The orange-red flames leaping in his palms illuminated the contours of his extremely excited face. In his eyes, he, with his dual superpowers, was the master of this ruin, while I, hiding in the tin shack, was nothing more than prey waiting to be slaughtered.

I ignored his exaggerated actions and shifted my gaze from the camera lens to the watch on my left wrist.

On the dial, the slender second hand was moving forward step by step, making a faint mechanical clicking sound that only I could hear.

Little by little, it gets closer to that invisible valve.

The camera pans back to Derek, who is now standing before the tightly closed tin gate. He raises his right leg, his heavy military boot gathering momentum in mid-air, and slams it into the rusty door.

"Bang!"

The ear-piercing sound of metal clashing echoed across the empty wilderness.

At the very instant the door hinge broke and the sheet metal dented inward, the second hand crossed the last red line on the dial.

"Preset" delay for precise triggering.

A very faint ripple spread through the air, like a pebble thrown into a calm pond. Deep inside the gas station, at the bottom of several huge, discarded fuel drums, the safety pins on the brass valves were simultaneously pulled outwards by an invisible force.

The high-pressure oil and gas, freed from their restraints, emitted a shrill hiss and gushed out wildly.

The flame that Derek used for illumination became his deadliest death warrant.

The moment the highly concentrated volatile gases came into contact with the open flame, time seemed to freeze for half a second. Immediately afterwards, a blindingly bright white sphere of light suddenly expanded from inside the gas station.

"boom--"

A deafening roar tore through the night sky. Huge tongues of fire, like a raging dragon awakening, shattered the fragile corrugated iron roof, spewing out twisted metal fragments and burning debris in all directions.

A violent shockwave swept across the ground, instantly flattening the weeds on the high slope. A scorching wave of air, mixed with a pungent burnt smell, rushed towards me, making my hair fly wildly in the wind.

I squinted, my crosshairs rapidly searching through the thick smoke and firelight.

The guards closest to the gate didn't even have time to scream before they were thrown like rag dolls by the violent blast of air and crashed heavily into a muddy puddle in the distance, their fate unknown.

At the epicenter of the explosion, as the smoke and dust gradually dissipated, a grayish-white figure was revealed.

Derek's prized "fire" ability is useless against pure physical explosions and chemical reactions—he simply cannot use fire to extinguish a larger fire.

In a life-or-death situation, he was forced to activate "hardening," which he considered his trump card.

The camera zooms in, revealing Derek's current appearance. He survived, but at a great cost. His skin had turned into a rough, grayish-white rock-like texture, having withstood the deadly metal shrapnel and intense heat.

However, his clothes, tactical vest, and even shoes all turned to ashes in the instantaneous high temperature.

With his superpowers fading, his grayish-white rock-like skin returned to its original flesh and blood form. Derek stood naked at the edge of the scorched crater, his head covered in ash, most of his eyebrows and hair singed off, and his body smeared with soot and grime.

The surviving guards struggled to their feet, their flashlight beams flailing wildly before finally focusing in astonishment on Derek.

The awe and fear that had been in those eyes were now mixed with an indescribable sense of absurdity and doubt. A naked and disheveled leader had instantly fallen from grace.

The collapse of prestige often happens in an instant.

Derek crossed his arms, trying to cover himself, his facial muscles twitching violently from extreme shame and rage. He stared intently at the gas station reduced to ruins, seemingly still unable to comprehend where the explosion had come from.

The trap's destructive effect has met expectations.

I didn't linger on this farce. With a flick of my finger, the metal buckle clicked softly, and the tactical binoculars were neatly retracted into my backpack.

I got up, brushed the grass clippings off my knees, and turned to walk down the gentle slope behind the hill. The night breeze dispelled the heat, and the outline of the pickup truck appeared and disappeared in the darkness.

The moment my palm touched the cold car door handle, a very slight vibration traveled through the metal body to my fingertips.

It wasn't the engine idling vibration; the source of the vibration came from the deep soil beneath our feet.

I stopped opening the door and turned to look at the end of the interstate highway.

At the horizon, the once deep night became murky and murky. A wall of grayish-yellow dust rose, engulfing abandoned vehicles along the way and sweeping rapidly toward the area.

The smell of burning was no longer carried on the wind, but rather a pungent, nauseating stench of decay.

A massive wave of mutated migration has arrived.