The pale yellow flame of the Zippo danced in front of Shi-hun, its light glinting in his pitch-black eyes—cold, merciless, empty of pity.
Heavy combat boots crunched across the shattered glass outside the veterinary clinic… crunch… crunch… Each step would have driven a normal man insane with dread. But for Shi-hun, with his PSI now upgraded to 13, those sounds were nothing more than coins dropping into his pocket.
"Push that fucking cabinet out!" one scavenger snarled. A shoulder slammed into the heavy medicine locker Shi-hun had dragged across the door.
"Shit, it's heavy as hell… Shine a light in there. See if anything's moving."
A tactical flashlight beam sliced through the gap, sweeping across the stainless-steel table where Yu-jin lay unconscious.
"Hey boss! There's a woman inside! She looks half-dead, but she'll still do as a toy for us tonight!" The man with the shotgun shouted back to the leader waiting by the armored truck, voice thick with hungry lust.
"Then break in! Just don't kill her!"
All three men threw their weight against the cabinet. Wood groaned, then toppled with a thunderous crash. Dust and smoke billowed. The trio stepped over the wreckage into the dim hallway, shotgun and pistols sweeping left and right.
Shi-hun remained fused with the shadows behind the reception counter, breath so shallow it barely existed. He watched the three "prey" walk straight into killing range.
The first wore a motorcycle helmet and carried a pump-action shotgun. The second and third had dust masks, pistols, and machetes. They moved closer to Yu-jin's table.
Time to harvest.
Shi-hun made no sound. He simply flicked his right wrist and hurled the glass bottle packed with 99% ethanol and a gauze wick from the darkness.
The bottle traced a perfect arc—not at the men, but at the concrete floor between them.
"Shi—"
The shotgun man caught the flicker of the tiny flame from the corner of his eye.
Smash!
Glass exploded on impact. Ethanol sprayed in every direction. The instant the gauze flame touched the vapor…
Hell ignited.
Whoosh—BOOM!
A blue-orange fireball erupted, swallowing the narrow hallway. The heat wave sucked oxygen from the air with a hungry roar. Two men were instantly drenched in the flammable spray. Their clothes and scrap-metal armor caught fire like they had been doused in gasoline.
"AAAAAAGH! HOT! FIRE! HELP ME!"
The helmet man and the machete man screamed in agony no human should endure. They dropped their weapons, rolling on the glass-strewn floor, trying to smother flames that melted plastic armor into their skin. 99% ethanol did not care about rolling. The stench of burning human flesh filled the clinic within seconds.
The third man, furthest back, had been lucky enough to miss the main spray. He staggered away in pure terror, eyes wide as his comrades became living torches. Panicking, he raised his pistol and swept the barrel toward the dark corner where the bottle had come from.
Too slow.
With SPD 14, Shi-hun exploded from the shadows like a black panther. His speed shattered human limits. He did not draw the Glock. Instead he summoned the Surgical Scalpel he had bought for 0.1 days.
The third man never got the trigger pull. Shi-hun closed the distance, ducked under the rising barrel, slapped the gun arm aside, and slashed the carbon-steel blade across the man's right wrist.
Slice. Tendons and the major artery parted cleanly. The pistol clattered to the floor with a scream of shock. Shi-hun spun, drove an elbow into the solar plexus to double the man over, then reversed the blade and opened the side of his throat with surgical precision.
Thick red blood jetted across the wall and splattered Shi-hun's gas mask. The man dropped to his knees, both hands clutching the gaping wound, desperately trying to breathe through bubbling blood. He collapsed, twitching, and died in seconds.
[Kill confirmed. +1 day]
Shi-hun turned back to the two men still writhing in the flames. Their screams faded as fire ate their vocal cords and windpipes. He stood motionless, watching them burn, orange light dancing in his widening black eyes with quiet satisfaction.
[Targets killed by fire: +1 day] [Targets killed by fire: +1 day] [Current lifespan: 333 days]
Beneath the mask, his lips stretched into a crooked, twisted smile.
Killing zombies felt like cleaning. But killing humans who thought they were predators… that gave him the feeling of being God.
"Molotov 2.5 days… scalpel 0.1 days…" he whispered, voice hoarse with dark amusement. "Total cost 2.6 days… harvested 3 full days… net profit 0.4 days."
A soft laugh rumbled in his throat. The addiction to the power of death had already taken root. But before he could savor the profit, a roar from outside yanked him back.
***
"What the fuck happened in there?!"
The tattooed leader's bellow came from the armored truck. He had seen the fireball erupt from the clinic windows and heard his men's dying screams.
"Someone ambushed us! They killed our guys!" The bald man beside the truck abandoned the battered teenage boy, shouldered his AR-15.
"Kill them all! Raze that fucking clinic!"
The leader vaulted onto the flatbed, seized the grips of the 12.7mm DShK heavy machine gun, and yanked the ammunition belt into place with raw fury.
Inside the clinic, Shi-hun's instincts screamed danger. He knew exactly what a .50-cal could do. Those rounds were not made for people—they were made to punch through light armor and collapse buildings.
"Shit…"
He lunged forward, grabbed Yu-jin's unconscious body, and dragged her behind the steel table—the only real cover left.
A heartbeat later, hell opened its mouth.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
The heavy machine gun roared like continuous thunder. 12.7mm rounds tore through the clinic. Cinderblock walls shredded like wet paper. Bullets punched through cabinets, through the exam table, pulverizing everything in their path. Brick dust, glass shards, and metal fragments whipped through the air like a storm of razor blades.
The clinic that had been shelter moments ago was now a death trap. The AR-15 outside added its own steady hail through the shattered windows.
Shi-hun pressed himself flat to the concrete, shielding Yu-jin beneath his body. Not out of heroism—she was still an asset. If she died here, every day he had spent keeping her alive would be wasted.
Dust choked the air. Falling bricks and wood hammered his back. The heavy machine gun kept roaring. In less than a minute the remaining walls would collapse and bury them alive.
Think… think… Shi-hun told himself under the crushing pressure. He could not pop up and trade shots with a Glock—9mm would never penetrate the steel plates protecting the gunner.
He was the owner of the God's Shop. He had to use it.
Shi-hun opened the shop interface inside his vision amid the bullet storm. He scanned the items he had disassembled in B3. No military grenades. No rocket launchers.
But he had chemicals… chemicals that could create destruction far beyond any grenade.
His eyes locked on: [Ammonium Nitrate 10kg sack] (Price: 1.5 days) [99% Ethanol bottle] (Price: 0.5 days) [Zippo lighter] (already owned)
Fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate mixed with high-concentration ethanol and ignited… the main ingredients of a powerful IED capable of leveling a building or ripping an armored truck apart.
Shi-hun ran the death equation in his head in milliseconds.
"System… buy one 10kg sack of ammonium nitrate and one bottle of ethanol."
[Purchase confirmed. Total lifespan cost: 2.0 days] [Current lifespan: 331 days]
A heavy 10kg fertilizer sack and a fresh ethanol bottle materialized beside him on the concrete. Shi-hun did not hesitate. He sliced the sack open with the scalpel, poured the entire bottle of ethanol in, and mixed until the prills were soaked.
He pulled out medical gauze (0.1 days), rolled it into a long fuse, and inserted one end deep into the chemical-soaked sack.
His homemade ANFO IED was ready—powerful enough to flatten everything in a fifteen-meter radius.
But the biggest problem remained: how to deliver a 10kg sack fifty meters through a hail of .50-cal fire? He could not throw it that far.
Shi-hun's black eyes flashed with that same twisted light. He did not need to throw it himself.
He had something stronger than physics.
"Clone."
***
Level 3's item duplication synergy reduced costs by 20%, but the Meat Clone skill still cost a flat 5 days. With over three hundred days in the bank, it was nothing.
[Initiate cloning? Cost: 5 days. Yes/No]
"Confirm!"
Blue particles coalesced in the air above him. In a split second an identical copy of Shi-hun crouched beside the bomb sack.
Shi-hun flicked the Zippo and lit the gauze fuse. Orange flame raced toward the soaked ammonium nitrate. He had less than six seconds.
Pick it up and charge the truck! he ordered mentally.
The clone knew no fear, no hesitation. It hugged the burning sack to its chest, sprang to its feet, and sprinted out from behind the counter.
The instant the clone burst past the clinic wall, it became a target.
"Boss! Someone's running out! He's carrying something!"
"Kill him!"
The leader swung the DShK and opened fire without mercy.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
12.7mm rounds hammered the clone's shoulder, chest, and stomach. The impacts did not just punch holes—they tore flesh and bone apart. The clone's right arm was ripped clean off. Blood sprayed. The body staggered but kept running.
At the same moment, the real Shi-hun felt every bullet through the neural link.
"Ugh—!"
His eyes bulged, capillaries bursting. Hellish phantom pain slammed into his brain. He felt the shoulder shatter, the arm sever, the stomach tear open.
But PSI 13 acted like a dam, cutting the agony by nearly half. He did not black out. He did not scream. He kept perfect control…
And deep inside, the pain twisted into a sick thrill. Adrenaline surged. He caught himself smiling.
The clone—missing an arm, riddled with holes—refused to fall. It was programmed to obey until death. It clutched the bomb with its remaining arm and staggered straight toward the armored truck.
"Shoot him! Shoot him down!" the leader screamed, seeing a man still running after taking .50-cal rounds. He poured the final burst into the clone's chest and head, blowing the skull open.
The clone collapsed three meters from the truck's front grille…
Exactly as the gauze fuse burned down to the ethanol-soaked ammonium nitrate.
[Clone deactivated: fatal damage sustained]
The pain link snapped. The final order completed.
BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!
Ten kilograms of ANFO detonated with an earthquake roar. The shockwave flattened everything in a fifteen-meter radius. A gigantic orange-red fireball roared into the ash-filled sky. The front of the armored truck crumpled like tin foil. Armored glass shattered. The engine exploded, hurling razor-sharp steel in every direction.
The bald man standing beside the truck took the full blast and shrapnel. He flew ten meters and died instantly.
The tattooed leader on the flatbed was hurled off the truck, smashing onto the street. The heavy machine gun was torn from its mount and destroyed.
Thick smoke and dust swallowed the road.
***
Deafening silence returned to the ruined street. Only the crackle of burning truck wreckage and the weak moans of the still-living remained.
Shi-hun rose slowly from behind the shattered counter. He brushed concrete dust from his shoulder, checked the Glock—still fifteen rounds—then walked out of the demolished clinic with calm, unhurried steps.
A young man in a blood-stained gray hoodie, half-face gas mask, and black pistol emerged from the smoke like the Grim Reaper stepping out of hell itself.
On the street… the bald man was dead.
But the tattooed leader still lived. Both legs shattered and twisted from the blast. He crawled pathetically on his elbows, leaving a long blood trail across the ash, whimpering like a crushed insect.
"P-please… help…"
Shi-hun stopped above the crawling man and looked down. The once-arrogant predator who had ruled the block minutes ago was now a worm at his feet.
The big man rolled over, looked up into the cold black eyes behind the mask… and realized in that instant that the real monster had never been him.
"W-what the hell are you…" he stammered, fear making him piss himself.
Shi-hun did not answer. He simply tilted his head, mind already running cold cost-profit math.
One 9mm round to end this trash would cost roughly 0.33 days in duplication average… for a +1 day profit.
Acceptable. But he could do better.
Shi-hun lowered the Glock and summoned the Surgical Scalpel (0.1 days) into his left hand.
He knelt beside the broken man, grabbed the collar of his armor, and forced his face upward.
"AAAAAGH! NO! I surrender! Take everything!" the leader wailed, begging like the animal he truly was.
Shi-hun's smile widened beneath the mask—crooked, satisfied, delighted. He savored the scream. He savored the terror in those eyes.
"Thank you for the lifespan," he whispered, voice icy.
Slice.
The scalpel opened the carotid artery slowly… deliberately deep enough to cut nerves but not instantly fatal. Shi-hun wanted him to feel every second of drowning in his own blood.
The leader's eyes bulged. Both hands clawed at the wound, but blood jetted between his fingers. His body thrashed, convulsed, and finally died in agony.
[Kill confirmed. +1 day]
Shi-hun stood, flicked the blood off the blade, and tossed it away. He rolled his neck, inhaling the coppery stench of blood mixed with gunpowder smoke with strange satisfaction.
He turned toward the smoking remains of the truck.
There, a few meters away, the teenage boy the scavengers had captured and beaten lay trembling on the asphalt, miraculously alive.
The boy looked up and met Shi-hun's eyes. His body shook uncontrollably. His swollen eyes were not wide with relief at being saved…
They were wide with absolute, soul-crushing terror.
He had just watched this masked man conjure knives from thin air, send a clone to die in his place to trigger a bomb, and slit a man's throat with a smile. In that single second the boy understood: the person who had saved him was not a hero.
He was something far more terrifying than a hundred scavengers.
Shi-hun stared at the boy who now feared him more than death itself. He slowly raised the Glock… eyes cold, empty, already calculating the cost-profit of the life still breathing on this ruined street.
The collapsed world had forged its own monster.
And it was beginning to enjoy its freedom.