Doomsday Pillars

DDay +6

Before taking their leave, Alex gathered Aria, Rama, Sergei, Cindy, and Theo to choose weapons and test their abilities. 

Aria, as usual, selected her AWM Warfare Magnum 338, and Glock Pistol. Alex told her to also pick up a melee weapon because she needed to train on her close combat abilities, so Aria grabbed a set of short knives and put it on her hips.

As for Rama, he brought his own spear and shield. He had gone to the steel workshop yesterday and ordered for a full metal spear as well as a full metal rounded shield to be forged. The specifications of the one-handed spear were 1.6 meters in length with a 40-centimeter vanguard. It weighed about 15 kilograms, which was too heavy for any normal person but not for a high stage mortal realm user. With the longer blade, Rama could do both pierce and slash attack. Adding the heavy size into the equation, it could also be an effective smashing weapon. Regarding his shield, it was 60 centimeters in diameter and he held it on his back.

BANG! BANG!

"Wuhuuuu! Did you see? Bullseyes!" Cindy said, the 9mm pistols still had hot air rising up its muzzles. She had taken six spirit stones the night before, so her perception had improved a lot this morning.

She then placed the two 9 mm pistols on her hip holsters.

"You should also choose a melee weapon," Alex said.

Cindy walked around the storage and finally found something that interests her... It's a bullwhip.. its made of leather and its 300 cm long.

"..."

"WHAHAAHHAHAH" Sergei laugh really hard

"I didn't know your that kind of girl... kinky"

"..."

Cindy annoyed, she swings around the whip make a loud crack. she swings around one more time and the whip suddenly tied around Sergei's feet, she pulled.

"..."

BRAKKK!! Sergei fall down

"Wow... I really like you girl... You're one feisty girl..!!"

Cindy smiles. Its been a while since she used it, her grandfather used to teach her when she was small. Alex wasn't sure if a whip will be practical, but he really doesn't want to argue with Cindy. The argument will be endless.

"What about you, Sergei? What kind of weapon would you like to use?" asked Alex.

Sergei stared at the weapons laid down on the table. According to his bio, he was a wrestler who was an expert in sambo. A hand to hand combat technique that used punching, kicking, elbowing, kneeing, headbutting, throwing, and gripping. After some time, he grabbed a pair of steel knuckles. It seemed fitting to him with his high stage mortal realm and abnormal strength that made his punches like a canon.

Lastly, Alex asked Theo to choose a weapon. Alex knew Theo never liked violence, so the choosing process took quite some time. Nevertheless, Alex made it his personal goal to have Theo get used in handling weapons, so Theo'd be able to defend himself. 

Theo picked up an assault rifle and after firing a few rounds with good precision, he put it down while shaking his head. 

Since this was the first weapon Theo touched half-willingly, Alex stored a few assault rifles in his storage ring in case Theo needed them later. Alex also stored a machine gun, grenade launcher, and a flamethrower. As for a close combat weapon, Theo was still stuck in choosing one. He truly had no preference.

"What about a polearm?" Theo said. Before Alex had a chance to say yes, Theo shook his head and said, "Actually, nah. I'm not feeling it."

Theo continued, "What about picking a weapon you think will be the best for me?"

Alex thought about giving Theo the pickaxe as a joke when Theo suddenly said, "A pickaxe! really?"

Alex's eyes showed disbelief. He stared weirdly at Theo and said, "Bro, you did consume the spirit stones I gave you correctly? Are you feeling right in your head?"

Theo fell into thought before saying, "Now that you've mentioned it, I am feeling a bit weird. I've been hearing things and can somewhat understand other people better. Thought I heard you saying pickaxe earlier, did you? Is this because of the stone's power?"

"Jackpot! If my assumption is right, then you're one of the rare spirit enhancers, the psychic type," said Alex excitedly.

In the modern world, psychics or people with latent mental power were usually referred to as Extrasensory Perception or ESPers for short. Some also called the ability as the sixth sense, an ability to claim reception of information not through physical senses but with the mind. In fact, most people were already using it on a basic level called intuition. However, many people still mistook ESP ability with high perception, but the real difference between those who had high perception against people with ESP were dreams.

Scientists had tried to find the connection between perceived reality and dreams countless times but still couldn't come to a conclusion. Hence, dreaming still remained as one of the greatest mysteries of the mind. Although most people dreamt, they usually forget about it because their level of using their sixth sense was low, unlike those with higher ability, they could remember it with greater details. 

It seemed that Theo was one of those lucky few called ESPers. Zhao Fan, the head of the Zhao China's big four families, could be considered as the high-level psychic spirit enhancer.

Alex hoped Theo truly was a psychic type spirit enhancer, and he couldn't help but confirm what kind of specialty Theo had: telekinetic, telepathy, clairvoyance or an even stronger one like Zhao Fan.

Once the group was ready, Alex prepared two jeeps. Their first destination was the biggest city in the west, Nagara City.

After Alex's group had arrived, Jerry went out to give them a sitrep. Based on Jerry's scouts that had been going around the city and the surrounding villages, he estimated there should be at least three-hundred-thousand zombies. He had sent out many smaller units from his two-thousand to rid the area of zombies, however, with only two-thousand survivors doing the job, the skirmishes had been difficult due to the presence of the red mutated zombies if it were only regular zombies, they would have cleared the area already according to Jerry.

With that settled, Alex's high stage human realm team began the operation. Alex led the team using his two katanas; Jerry moved in with high speed using daggers; Rama's ever-flowing spear thrusts and swings; Sergei's explosive punches; Aria's sharpshooting to cover; Theo firing an assault rifle and Cindy having fun with her handguns and whip. These seven people cut through waves of zombies with their main goal of annihilating all red zombies. If the mutated ones were gone, the army could easily take over the city. And within just two days, they had taken back the city. The survivors of the city were either sent to the main base or moved to the west section survival post in Gilimanuk City.

Alex left the defense of the west section to Lieutenant Rangga. He gave the lieutenant three tasks; the first task was to monitor the communication signal and protect the antenna; second was to create patrol groups to secure the smaller villages scattered in the west section; and third was to send a scout to swim across and check the situation in Bayuwangi City, the easternmost city of Java Island about four kilometers away from Gilimanuk separated by the sea. 

Before Alex left, he also provided thirty spirit stones to the lieutenant for him to reward the most talented fighters, including himself. 

Alex's group of seven fighters swept toward north hunting for more mutated zombies until they reached the biggest city on the east section, Amalapura City. 

Lieutenant Russel was the person in charge of Amalapura and reported the same thing to Alex. It took Alex's group another two days to clear up rid the city of mutated zombies. And after making sure all remaining survivors had left the city, the Amalapura was then abandoned.

The lieutenant was then given a task to guard the eastern section of the Bay city and to prepare some survivors who would become sailors. Alex also provided a dozen spirit stones with the same purpose.

Alex's group then spent two days driving around the central section from one small village to another targeting the red zombies while relaying information about the main base and how imperative it was that they all should move there within the next three months.

Finally, Alex found the time to go to a very important village, it was the village where Erick and little Vina lived. They headed toward the location and he was hoping to see some familiar faces, he had spent many months in the place in his previous life after all. 

Erick's family had saved him, especially little Vina who had stayed with him and became his surrogate daughter. However, as the two jeeps neared the village, Alex's heart raced to see a large black smoke rising in the general direction of the village.

"No No Nooo!"