-War is the Art of Deception- Sun Tsu, reputedly the greatest strategic mind and military commander this world has ever seen.

  762 days since the Beginning of The End

  "Heyyy, youuuu, guys!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

  Instantly I heard the loud rustle of a large group of people moving at once. The sentries posted in the guard towers had aimed what looked to be relatively modern looking high powered rifles with fancy looking scopes at me. I wasn't sure what kind exactly, not like I have a Cabela's manual for all the guns in the Apocalypse.

  Not all of the sentries had locked on to me though. Just one from each of the three towers guarding the front gate, which I had chosen to approach intentionally. After all, I had come here to do something that benefits everybody, including me, not to level up. It looked like there were about three other people per tower besides the one marksman to a tower, so twelve sentries in total. It also happened to look like there was an even mix of both male and female.

  "Huh, guess gender-equality still manages to stick around even during the Apocalypse. Guess chivalry really never died after all. Or maybe, it got resurrected along with the rest of those fuckers,"

  I chuckled a little bit in my head at that last thought I had.

  They probably had the three best marksmen each assigned to a different tower, that way they could conserve precious ammunition and cover their kill-zone better. It could also be a case of not putting all your eggs in one basket, in case one or more of the towers are taken.

  "Ladies and gentlemen!' I shouted. 'As you can see I'm unarmed, and my face is quite good looking. Would be a shame if one of you three sneezes and blows a hole in it. Also, someone once told me, I forget who, that you shouldn't aim a gun at someone unless you intend to use it. I'm sure you've all heard the sentiment a time or two," I finished.

  "We wouldn't give a shit if you're a quadruple amputee with the face of a Greek statue. We can tell from the fact that you just fucking appeared here, that you've already mutated, boy. We know a little about your kind, and we ain't got nothing here for ya," the armed sentry in the middle tower shouted, without moving his crosshair off of me, I might add.

  Not to mention, he seemed to be in a big hurry to force the words out, almost stumbling over them.

  I waited a few seconds, and as nobody reprimanded him from speaking I assumed that he was in charge or at least carried a good deal of respect and/or goodwill from the other sentries.

  "You seem to be the one in charge here, or at least they trust you to speak for em', and that's good enough for me. But you're wrong on one count, and a little bit wrong on the other. While I am most definitely able to demolish your camp single-handedly, including any Mutants that you may or may not have, I am not a Mutant myself. At least not yet. Although I still need Beast meat and zombie Cores, I require a much higher quality to progress my strength than anything you weaklings could possibly give me."

  There was a little bit of shifting of feet and a couple disgruntled looks thrown my way, but at least they were smart enough to realize the Apocalypse was not the right place or time to piss off someone that had just claimed they could wipe everybody, including any Mutant's, as a non-Mutant.

  At least probably until they devised a way to test my strength without offending me.

  I wasn't worried a bit though. I hadn't stretched the truth in the slightest. Before I had come, I and a... someone else, performed reconnaissance on the base.

  No way was I going in blind anywhere controlled by humans. Animals I can deal with, it's humans you can't trust. Half the time they don't even know why they like to hurt and betray people, it's just all they're used to. But back to my point, killing everyone in here would be as easy as turning over a palm was back when I was just a weak human, before my Integration. Even the hidden Mutant that this camp had for a leader wouldn't stand a chance.

  And I wasn't trying to brag. I've had some unique advantages and information that if others possessed they might have already exceeded me in strength. I doubt it though. My survival, and dare I say it thrival(A.N: I know it's not a real word, but it should be, so there.) has depended a lot on me somehow surviving near-death after near-death, most times flying by the seat of my pants, and barely surviving by a hair.

  "And in a world that makes you stronger the more you kill, it does something to you. It happens slowly, a little bit at a time. It's almost impossible to differentiate the feeling between a zombie and person in the heat of battle, with limbs flying and blood spattering, skulls getting caved in and spines broken. It changes you without you even realizing. And the more you kill the better and quicker at it you become, and the body count just starts piling up."

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I snapped out of my melancholy thought just in time to realize that the rough looking wooden gates to the kinda Skyrim looking base were slowly swinging outwards. A few seconds later, I saw a single man walking, big as fuck I might add, at least seven feet tall, if not eight.

  He kept waking until he was around fifteen yards away, about half-way from the gate and me,

  "I've been hearing some pretty big words from you for such a small man, at least compared to myself. Apparently, you think killing me and my men would be as easy as taking candy from a baby. Well, I don't know where your confidence comes from, but I can tell you right now it doesn't matter anyway."

  I raised an eyebrow at his words.

  "Maybe somebody actually is stupid enough to piss me off. He must either think I was just boasting, or he thinks he has some type of trump card. It's not normal to be so calm and casual in this day and age when a lone man tells you he's stronger than anything thought possible, before or after the Beginning.

  "Well, I know my own strength, and judging from the fact that your base is still pretty shit, including the people under your command, mine's much greater than yours. So I wonder, where is your false sense of security coming from?" I responded

  The man started laughing, starting as a slight chuckle and ending up in a booming Santa Claus-like gut buster.

  I started frowning, Something was not right here.

  Now, the giant man started speaking.

  "I don't think I have met someone in all my life as arrogant as you are, even from people that had every right to be so confident. You're kind of an asshole, you know that?"

  I did know that in fact, but I was really only an asshole to people I didn't like or didn't know. But one thing was funny to me in that statement.

  "I may be an asshole, but what does that make someone who has doomed his followers to death by hiding crucial information about the zombies from them? I noticed you ignored the fact that I mentioned zombie Cores, and I know for a fact your people don't know about them, or they wouldn't still be such fucking weaklings!" I was shouting by the time I finished speaking.

  I could understand as the leader and protector of a group of people taking the lion's share of the resources, but to purposely stifle the growth of sentient beings that rely on you, to maintain your weak grasp on power, that was where I crossed the line. The zombies and Mutant Beasts weren't lying around letting somebody do all the work protecting them. They were out killing and growing stronger by the second just because of their nature.

  "You just don't know when to shut your fucking mouth, do ya boy? I figured seeing me here unworried despite your strength would tip you off that I have something I'm confident in relying on, but I guess you're just as ignorant as you are cocky. Well, if you do end up being as capable as you apparently think you are, today's as good a day as any to meet my Maker."

  "He's too confident. He couldn't have found... no, it's not possible,'I thought to myself. 'I didn't come here to kill anybody, in fact with the opposite intentions, but I better end this, and quick, just in case," I finished my thought.

  I took off from a standing start at my top speed, which was by now a little over Mach 8, if measured in ideal laboratory conditions. Much too fast for anybody here to register, even the Mutant that I was attacking. Everything stood still in my perception, and when everything resumed, I was hanging off his head with one hand like a monkey gripping a tree branch, gripping his skull almost hard enough to start fracturing it, but not quite.

  "Give me one damn good reason why I shouldn't turn your head into a bloody fucking mist right now," I threatened him in a low tone.

  I could feel a full body shiver travel through him, but he somehow powered through the fear long enough to speak, with my hand still gripping his head and him facing away from me.

  "I'll give you one, this instant. If you want to see that pretty little thing of your's still breathing, you better let me go now and not touch another hair on me or my peoples head."

  "Fuck! I don't know how he discovered her, but there's no way I can take the chance of losing her." I thought, panicking slightly.

  "Fen, go now! Protect Leslie!" I shouted towards my shadow.

  A howl sounded out, and then a huge paw seemed to almost instantly rise from the ground itself, Then a second one. With another howl, it looked as if the paws were pushing off the earth.. or dragging itself from beneath it. In what felt like a few minutes due to the sheer size, but what was actually probably just a few seconds, the full body of an absolutely gargantuan, pitch black wolf materialized behind the man whose head I was still holding, between us and the survivor's camp. And when I say pitch black, I mean it, claws, eyes, fur, everything. There was no light reflected off the wolf's body at all. Even it's eyes were solid black.

  With another howl, the wolf leaped in a graceful arc towards the camp. The sentries hadn't had much opportunity to process what was going on, but when they saw Fen jumping towards them, they all collectively let out a shriek of pure terror. I stopped looking at Fen and focused back on the man I was just about to obliterate. I lowered myself just a little bit, After all, this fool was tall as fuck. I was literally hanging off him, albeit effortlessly due to my immense strength.

  I then put my mouth right by his ear and whispered "You better hope for the sake of your sanity, that she remains unharmed. You just threatened the one person that's holding me in check from burning this stupid fucking world down. If she has even the slightest scratch, I'll lock you up in Fen's shadow for the rest of eternity. Don't worry, I'd let you out periodically, so little Fen can have a small snack every now and then,” I spoke, smiling sadistically.