Chapter 25: Descending from the Heavens

In an instant, the fishman's body went limp, and with that, Kong Zhe finally felt relieved. This was a common weakness of the fishman species—there was an acupoint on their neck, and pressing it would sap their strength entirely. In his previous life, this was common knowledge, but in this life, no one had discovered it yet.

What followed was much easier. Kong Zhe drew the dagger from his waist and finished off the fishman with a few swift, clean strokes.

Meanwhile, not far away, the puppy had already dispatched the kobold. That kobold was already a lower level than it, and with the puppy striking first, the fight was utterly one-sided. By the end of the battle, the puppy had barely lost any health.

Facing two magical beasts at once would have been impossible for an ordinary awakened one, but Kong Zhe had both his holy summon and the combat experience from his past life, which allowed him to deal with the two level-two beasts so easily.

A crisp chime rang out as Kong Zhe killed the fishman, and a silver coin dropped onto the ground.

Gold and silver coins were the currency of the post-apocalyptic world—a gold coin was worth one hundred silver coins. They could be used to buy equipment and potions at NPC shops, or for trade among awakened ones.

Kong Zhe pocketed the silver coin. Including the ones he’d already collected from defeated monsters, he now had six silver coins. The kobold that the puppy killed hadn’t dropped anything.

He opened his status panel—he’d lost thirty health points. Checking his experience, it was at 110/100, enough to level up. However, he frowned. By his count, he'd already killed fourteen or fifteen magical beasts in total. Even if the ones killed by the puppy didn’t count, he’d slain at least eight or nine himself—why did he only have just over a hundred experience points? Kong Zhe distinctly remembered the numbers from his previous life: level-one beasts gave 20 experience, level-two gave 50. By that logic, he should have leveled up long ago, but his experience was nearly two-thirds less than expected.

Could it be that experience was halved at the start of the game? That was the only explanation he could think of. After all, in his past life, he awakened in the second month, so the experience data he knew was from two months in. He hadn’t paid attention to how much experience beasts gave at the very beginning of the apocalypse.

Shaking his head, Kong Zhe decided to set aside the question for now and pressed the upgrade button.

A golden light flashed. Kong Zhe reached level two, and his slightly depleted health and mana were restored to full.

A chime sounded: upon reaching level two, he received six attribute points.

“Six?” Kong Zhe looked at the prompt in surprise. According to past data, awakened ones gained five freely-allocated attribute points per level, but this time he had received six. Reflecting on it, he realized it was likely due to the fishman that had attacked him during his awakening—the experience had made his awakening more complete, granting him one more point than others.

A single point at level one might seem trivial, but by level forty or fifty, that would mean forty or fifty extra points—almost the equivalent of a legendary artifact’s bonus.

Kong Zhe distributed the points evenly—two each to strength, agility, and intelligence. For a swordsman, all three were crucial early on, so it was best to keep them balanced. Of course, if he was dissatisfied later, he could always buy a potion to reallocate points.

For his newly acquired skill point, he learned Sword Mastery at level one. Compared to swordsman skills with fixed damage that consumed mana, this fundamental skill was simply more useful. With Sword Mastery, the sword techniques he’d perfected in his previous life could now be deployed.

At this moment, the people before him looked at him with a mixture of awe and fear. The girl, though eager to thank him, was clearly still frightened. When she saw Kong Zhe looking her way, she even shrank back a step in alarm.

Kong Zhe had no time to pay them any mind, for he had seen a mass of magical beasts gathering at the entrance to the supermarket, evidently drawn by the noise of battle.

“Bang, bang, bang…”

The glass doors rattled under the assault of the beasts. The doors were made of reinforced glass and would hold for a while, but as more and more beasts gathered, it was only a matter of time before they broke through.

Kong Zhe quickly assessed the survivors, wondering if any of them might be suitable for the protection quest. But he soon shook his head—none of them had awakened any talents.

Since there was no one worth protecting, he ignored them and began collecting supplies from the supermarket.

This supermarket was well-stocked, with food and all kinds of daily necessities. Kong Zhe didn’t bother to pick and choose—he swept everything in sight into his storage ring.

“Food and water are the priorities, then clothing and daily goods…”

He took everything he could. In his former life, poverty had made him desperate; now he didn’t care about sorting things out. If there was anything he couldn’t use, he could always trade it for coins later.

The survivors watched as item after item vanished into the black-robed man’s ring in a stream of light. But they weren’t especially surprised—the past few days had numbed them to strange sights. For someone as powerful as he, such abilities were only to be expected.

Still, as they watched the supermarket being emptied, they felt a pang—especially when the black-robed man reached the food section. Watching the piles of food, vegetables, and water disappear before their eyes, it was as if their hearts were bleeding. After all, they’d risked their lives to get here, only to leave empty-handed?

But none of them dared ask the black-robed man to stop, feeling it would be inappropriate. He had killed the two magical beasts here—the supplies rightfully belonged to him. Not to mention, he had saved their lives. In the end, they could only watch in silence as Kong Zhe gathered the goods.

Kong Zhe, however, was not utterly ruthless. He left them with one shelf of food. If it was within his power, he didn’t mind helping others, as long as it didn’t harm his own interests.

After clearing the first floor, Kong Zhe glanced at his ring—about a third of the space was now filled. Clothes and food were piled together in a jumble, wasting a lot of space, but there was no time to organize it now. He still needed to go upstairs for more supplies.

“I’ll give you some advice: take the food and hide in the basement. Stay silent, and you might survive…”

With those words, Kong Zhe wasted no more time, turning to run toward the stairwell. The number of beasts at the entrance was growing, and they might break through at any moment. It was best to head to the upper floors quickly.

He dashed into the stairwell, shut the door, propped it with an iron rod, and hurried up to the second floor—only to find, near the landing, three fishmen glaring at him with glowing red eyes.

“Damn, more of them?” Kong Zhe couldn’t help but curse inwardly.

The fishmen didn’t care what Kong Zhe thought—brandishing their shell knives, they charged at him with shrill cries.

The puppy was the first to leap into action, while Kong Zhe hurriedly raised his blade to block an attack.

The remaining fishman seemed to weigh its options between the puppy and Kong Zhe, but ultimately chose to attack Kong Zhe. Fortunately, all three were just level-one fishmen—not a real threat to him, though he would lose quite a bit of health.

After becoming an awakened one, the body was datafied—one would not die unless health dropped to zero. The pain from attacks was also greatly reduced. So Kong Zhe simply shouldered the attacks from two fishmen and dispatched them one by one.

With the puppy’s healing magic, as long as he didn’t die, any lost health could be quickly restored.

The three fishmen left behind two silver coins and a piece of white-grade equipment.

Kong Zhe picked up the item and examined it.

Cotton Gloves: Increases strength by 1 point.

“Well, better than nothing.” It was only a single point of strength, but he equipped the gloves immediately—one extra point meant twenty more health, and that could improve his survival odds.

Equipment in the post-apocalyptic world came in white, green, blue, purple, and gold grades. White equipment provided only modest attribute boosts; green and above not only raised stats but could also have special effects like lifesteal or increased attack range.

Killing beasts could drop equipment, but even white gear had a pitifully low drop rate. This was the first piece he’d gotten after almost twenty kills. As for purple or higher, the drop rate was outrageously low.

“Ah! Help!”

Just then, Kong Zhe heard a scream from above. He looked up to see a dark shape plummeting toward him.

“An ambush from above?” With a cold glint in his eyes, Kong Zhe immediately turned and raised his hand to attack—only to find himself gripping something soft. Then a weight landed on him, knocking him to the floor.

Xiao Lei was dizzy. Usually, her sister forbade her from going out, but today she’d slipped away with friends. No sooner had she arrived than the apocalypse began—snow, monsters, chaos. Timid since childhood, she had never faced anything like this.

Separated from her friends, she had no idea where she was and could only hide in a fitting room. Fortunately, she had brought some snacks with her, which kept her from starving.

Today, hearing no sounds outside, she decided to venture out in search of her friends. But as soon as she stepped out, a monster spotted her; she screamed and fled in panic, stumbling into the stairwell and slipping, tumbling down from the third floor in a daze.

She thought she was dead for sure, but as she fell, she seemed to crash into someone, which cushioned her fall. She wasn’t hurt, but to her shock, she found herself straddling the person, his hand accidentally clutching her chest.

Almost on instinct, Xiao Lei slapped him across the face.

Kong Zhe didn’t dodge the blow—not because he didn’t want to, but because he was still stunned.