Paul started walking toward the gas station. A spot of blood was on his right shoulder, the last mark of an honorable soldier. He was hurt but victorious. The slight smile on his face showed the mood he was in. He was satisfied, and he had a reason to be. He, a teenager with no experience in combat, just took down four highly trained soldiers.

Paul knew he, weapon or not, couldn’t take on the one dozen or so enemies in the gas station. Jean could, but she told him a while ago she wanted to see him fight by himself to prove his worth to her. She need a reliable underling, not a useless liability. If he wanted to make a deal with her, he needed to prove his worth.

That was why he fired a shot on purpose to attract the attention of the soldiers.

The soldiers, obviously, couldn’t just ignore someone that just took down their guard and might launch an attack on the forces. They would send someone to investigate. They couldn’t send too many men either because it would leave the gas station vulnerable. Likely they would just send a small squad, a couple men.

This opened up a chance for him to pick them off one by one.

Sure, in a fair fight the result of 1 vs 4 may not be that different from that of 1vs 12, but Paul wasn’t into fighting fair.

First, before firing the warning shot, he rigged up the body of the guard Jean slaughtered. A grenade was positioned so that it would explode as soon as it was moved.

He didn’t have that knowledge before, but Google was a powerful tool. Even the apocalypse didn’t fully destroy the internet It didn’t take him very long to find out how to make the trap. He was sweating the entire time, but the result meant that he was successful.

Logically speaking, the soldiers wouldn’t just ignore the body of a fallen comrade. They would certainly check it out. Granted they would do it carefully, but they couldn’t just escape the impact of a grenade with caution.

Just like he expected, the trap took down one men, reducing the enemy count to three. Later, with the element of surprise, he tossed a grenade to one of the enemies. Frankly speaking he thought the projectile would kill that man, and he was quite shocked to see the man trying to toss that soon to explode grenade back to him. However, he didn’t let his shock slow him down. As the man reached out in a throwing gesture, Paul fired his pistol multiple times. Most of them missed, but one of them hit and knocked the man off his feet, sealing off his fate.

As the explosion pierced the air, he knew he took another life.

He waited patiently for the rest of the squad to make a mistake. He was also prepared for reinforcements, but for some reason help never came.

When the two men made their last stand, Paul unleashed his entire clip on one of the men. One of the bullets reached his head. What he didn’t expect was to see the last survivor firing at where he was. His pistol had a silencer on and the flame was covered, so Paul was fairly confident he would always have the element of surprise the entire time. He underestimated the skill of the soldier.

A string of bullets hit his cover. He groaned slightly when he felt something going into his shoulder. He knew it was a bullet. At that point he thought he was a dead man. He could barely hold on to his weapon while a fully armed professional soldier was approaching slowly but steadily.

He was surprised, in a good way, when he heard another explosion.

Paul made a lot of preparations for this ambush. His position was carefully crafted. Booby traps were all around the place. Maybe the professional soldiers could see the traps if they were careful enough, but that was a difficult thing to accomplish when the soldier’s attention was fully occupied with Paul himself. He should’ve been aware of every single part of the surrounding, but it wasn’t exactly realistic.

At this point all four men were gone. There were still twice that number in the gas station, but the already healed wound on his shoulder told him it shouldn’t be that difficult. With a few tricks and his mutated mending power, he should be able to take down the eight or so men.

He was slightly surprised to see the gas station was already empty.

A slight footstep sound came from beside. Paul turned around with his pistol ready and relaxed when he saw it was Jean.

“Nice job back there.” Jean complemented, wiping something red off her hands.

“I thought I’m supposed to deal with the soldiers.” Paul frowned.

“Yes, but they are leaving this place, so I had to put them down.” Jean replied and turned around. “Follow me.”

The two walked along the road for a minute until they encountered the convoy. The only thing was that the convoy was completely down. Nine bodies laid around in the field. All of them fell from a fatal wound. Empty bullet cases covered the ground. Paul peaked at Jean and realized her clothes were slightly grazed.

A slight cough told Paul they weren’t alone. He turned and was slightly alert to see that a woman in army uniform was lying next to one of the abandoned SUVs. She was still alive...for now.

Her eyes shined with horror as she saw Jean. She and her men fired enough ammo to rip open an SUV at the girl, but all it destroyed was her modesty. The pieces of flesh revealed by the torn clothes were as smooth as ever. It was as if she wasn’t wounded at all.

It was a very unfair fight because on the other hand the girl could punch a hole through everything the soldiers had to offer. Literally everything. One of the SUVs cut in half proved that.

“You left a survivor?” Paul asked curiously, knowing Jean wouldn’t do something without a reason.

“For now.” Jean knelt down beside captain Courtney Riley and put her right hand on her forehead. The captain groaned in pain as Jean brutally ravaged through her mind with her psychic power, absorbing every piece of information she might need for what she was about to do.

When the absorption was done, Jean didn’t hesitate to snap the poor woman’s neck.

Standing back up, Jean processed what she just received. The captain’s memory was passed onto her like she was watching a movie. Instantly she knew everything about the woman from who she had sex with to what she had for dinner. She had more than enough to turn into the captain herself.

“What was that?” Paul asked, slightly taken back by the brutal murder, but when he looked at Jean again he found himself looking at a completely different woman. Jean looked exactly like the woman dead on the ground.

“I just put a hallucination field around both of us. Look down.” Paul looked down and found himself in an army uniform. “This will make the soldiers think we are one of them.” She walked to one of the SUVs she left intact on purpose and dragged a body with its head chopped open out of the driver’s seat. “Come on.”

Paul gave one last look at the dead woman before getting on the vehicle.