Apocalypse: I Can See Health Bars

Item prompt detected!

Lin Fan’s eyes widened. With a thought, the spear in his arms instantly disappeared...

"Ah!"

’The inventory!’

With a thought, he opened his inventory. And there, among a list of items, his spear was prominently displayed!

’It can go into my inventory!’

For Lin Fan, this was an even greater breakthrough than enchanting the weapon with a crystal’s ability!

’Finally, I don’t have to lug this giant iron rod weighing dozens of pounds everywhere I go!’

"Heh heh..."

At Lin Fan’s thought, the spear appeared in his hand. With another thought, it vanished in a flash...

’A spear that can appear and disappear from my hand in an instant.’

Lin Fan pressed his hand close to the floor of the rooftop, and with a thought...

Unfortunately, the spear simply appeared horizontally in his hand, instead of embedding itself directly into the concrete as Lin Fan had envisioned.

Lin Fan, who had been excited for nothing, pursed his lips. ’He’d thought he had discovered a bug in the inventory system. Since it can’t phase through other objects, the lethality of this Spatial System ability is a lot lower than I thought...’

But even so, it was still a spear that was, in a sense, impossible to defend against.

Its specific applications would have to be explored in actual combat. Lin Fan raised the spear and slashed forcefully at the concrete of the roof’s ledge. It carved a deep gash into the slab without the slightest resistance! Debris flew everywhere!

’Now *this* is what you call a divine weapon...’

Feeling the heavy tremor travel from his palm through his body as the spear tip scraped across every grain of sand, Lin Fan’s eyes brimmed with irrepressible joy. This was the weapon he had always wanted...

But when it came to choosing a crystal, he found himself in a bit of a bind...

Generally speaking, both of his attack-effect crystals—one Impact Crystal and one Sharpness Crystal—could be applied to the spear. But he would have to experiment to know which one was better.

Just as he was mulling it over, he suddenly heard the faint sound of shouting.

The sound was distant and intermittent, impossible to make out clearly.

Lin Fan frowned and looked toward the sound, only to see a person on the fifth-floor balcony of a distant building, desperately waving at him!

As Lin Fan’s gaze focused on the person, a health bar slowly faded into view above them.

A purplish-red border, a yellow health bar, and a blue energy bar!

’An Awakened One!’

Lin Fan’s eyes widened, too stunned to speak!

’A wild Awakened One actually exists!’

Seeing that Lin Fan had finally noticed him, the man waved his arms even more frantically, leaning out of the window and shouting in Lin Fan’s direction,

"...Hey, man!... Don’t jump!... There’s a group here to rescue us! They’re just downstairs, to the north!"

"...Huh?"

Lin Fan’s hearing was excellent; he had heard every single word the man said. Put together, however, they made no sense to him...

But the man’s shouting caused figures to appear on the balconies of that building and several others. People stuck their heads out of windows, looking around as if searching for the source of the noise...

But those people were all incredibly weak, with yellow Life Values of only thirty or forty. All except for that one man!

The one with the purplish-red border and [350/350] Life Value!

Just as Lin Fan was slowly raising a hand to wave, the man turned and ran back inside, disappearing from view...

’How bizarre...’

...

Wang Yuanhua stood on the balcony, leaning out the window. When he saw that the person holding a stick, who he thought was about to take their own life, had finally seen him, he was overjoyed to have saved another soul.

Seeing that the person was no longer about to jump, he hurried back into the room, opened the door, and ran downstairs...

He had to hurry and meet up with that group to figure out what was going on!

...

Nine days ago, he had been just an ordinary renovation worker, tiling a house all by himself.

That day, he was in the middle of work when he suddenly fainted. When he came to, the world outside was completely different...

Driven by hunger, he smashed open the iron door of a residence. When a zombie, looking just like something out of a movie, lunged out from inside, it was as if a furnace ignited within him. Using his work hammer, he smashed the zombie’s head to pieces.

He was injured in the process and thought he was done for. He ate and drank his fill, then waited for death to claim him.

But as if fate were playing a cruel joke, his wounds had almost completely healed after just one night.

Not only that, but after replenishing his energy, he felt his body surge with power. Where he could once only lift two bags of tiles, he could now lift six in one go!

A full 330 pounds!

Relying on this strength and his renovation tools—a hammer and a crowbar—Wang Yuanhua spent a few days prying open every apartment in the building. He killed all the zombies, gathered a good amount of supplies, and found a clean apartment to settle down in...

During that time, he even encountered a giant, monstrously strong zombie!

During the battle, he felt himself go into a frenzy. By the time he came to his senses, the zombie was lying dead beside him. He himself was in excruciating pain, with one arm and both legs broken, on the verge of death.

He thought this was finally the end, but in his delirious state, he had instinctively picked up a Crystal Stone from the ground and swallowed it...

When he woke up the next day, not only had feeling returned to his limbs, but he also felt that he had grown even stronger.

With this newfound strength, he climbed out the window to the adjacent building unit to gather supplies. Along the way, he encountered four different, powerful monsters, but he fought desperately and killed them all, swallowing their crystals. And with each crystal, he grew stronger!

But even so, he didn’t dare leave the safety of the building.

Looking down from the window, the sight of the zombies wandering below made him shrink back in fear.

He knew that with his current strength, he could probably take on three, five, or even eight zombies at once...

But there were dozens in his line of sight alone, not to mention the hundred or more gathered beneath the building where the strange noises had come from earlier.

If he were surrounded by that many, he would surely die, no matter how strong he was.

Fortunately, he had enough supplies, even a surplus to share with the few other survivors in his building, keeping them from dying of thirst or starvation.

An explosion to the south yesterday had cut off the gas supply completely. This left him feeling lost, wondering whether he should risk leaving the building to fight for a way out, or how much longer he could hold on like this...

But just this morning, while Wang Yuanhua was going through his daily routine of planning an escape route from his apartment to the residential complex gate, a strange sound came from the window. He crept to the window and witnessed a scene he would never forget...

A giant, dark-green, metal dumpster was "patrolling" the streets of the complex!

The four people standing inside were using steel pipes to cleanly and efficiently kill any approaching zombies.

’What... What kind of tactic is this...?’

Wang Yuanhua was stunned. Based on his own experience hunting zombies, the "human tank’s" defense was nigh-invulnerable to ordinary zombies. However, it was too slow, and its method of attack was too one-dimensional. If it were surrounded by dozens of zombies, or if it encountered a mutated monster, it would likely become an inescapable iron coffin.

"Watch out for the zombies!"

From his high vantage point, he saw six zombies burst out from a nearby hedge and charge straight for the dumpster!

The people inside didn’t seem to have noticed, so Wang Yuanhua quickly shouted a warning!

But his voice only served to draw the attention of everyone in the "tank," who all looked up toward his building...

"Crap!"

’My good intentions backfired!’

’Six zombies... It’s fine! They should be able to hold out for a bit!’

"Hang in there!"

Wang Yuanhua made his decision. With a shout, he grabbed the crowbar beside him and was about to turn and head downstairs to help.

But what he saw next was the second unforgettable scene of the day...

A girl in the "tank" waved her hands, and two short steel pipes hanging from the outside of the dumpster flew into the air like a pair of silver, gleaming Flying Swords!

One flew low to the ground, tripping three of the zombies, while the other skewered the heads of two more together.

Even so, a third zombie had already lunged for her, and it was too late for the two short pipes to fly back in time!

Just then, another woman in the dumpster leaned out and thrust her spear. From an impossibly sharp angle, it shot past the first girl and plunged precisely into the zombie’s eye socket. The movement was clean and efficient, without a single wasted motion...

’...They’re like me... Superpowered?’