Hakeem and Esther stared at the sight of a man threatening a soldier with a knife on her throat. Hakeem wanted to say something but Jason held out his knife hand signaling him to back down. Hakeem wasn’t comfortable seeing this but since it’s Jason, he might have his own reason for doing this at such length.

 

“Wait! Don’t kill me,” said Miss Portman her heart started to wavered upon meeting death. She didn’t escape Ottawa City just to die in the hands of an unknown Awaken.

 

“It depends on what you can offer,” said Jason.

 

“I can tell you everything just please don’t kill me,” she said. She was confident in manhandling anyone else since she did distribute a few points to strength but against this Awaken who she assumed to be stronger than Hakeem who was at level thirteen, the thought of retaliating was foolish, she would die in a matter of seconds.

 

“Who are you and why are you here?” Jason asked.

 

“We are the Canadian Special Ops unit and I’m the only Awaken in the squad. We’re tasked to do reconnaissance while trying to retrieve as many artifacts as possible.

 

“I see, so that makes it okay to steal other people’s stuff?” Jason said. Miss Portman who heard it couldn’t stop shaking her legs.

 

Their whimsical action of taking the iron mace at first glance was a big error.

 

“Please, I was ordered to do it, the Canadian Armed Force is to blame for this,” she said not caring of her words pushing the blame Canada’s military force.

 

She really knew how to survive in this world, not caring whether it was right or wrong and to lie or not.

 

“Why do they want the artifact?” Jason asked.

 

“I’m not in the clear about this but I heard rumors that the military R&D department is doing research on the artifact’s foreign energy, they said they might be able to weaponize it towards the UC,” Miss Portman didn’t waste any time as she threw out whatever information that she had.

 

“Interesting,” Jason said. Humans never gave up no matter the odds. The Canadian military is bumping up their odds against these creatures hoping to reverse engineer the loot from the UC and not only them every human in this world is fighting in their own way and even Jason has his own way.

 

“What else?” Jason said as he pushed the edge of the knife’s blade to Miss Portman’s neck.

 

Hakeem worried that Jason would hurt her. The friend in need came closer but Jason waved off telling him to back off.

 

“Wait. Wait. Wait,” miss Portman’s couldn’t hide her nervousness. “There're two more squads sent to Peterborough.”

 

She paused as she swallowed a gulp of saliva, she could felt the knife digging into her skin as she swallowed.

 

“Go on,” Jason said. His voice was monotonous as he was hoping to fish out more from this nervous lady.

 

“Their tasks are different from ours, they were told to support the Awakens in their squad to level them up,” she said.

 

“I see, do you guys have any of these artifacts?” Jason said.

 

Again, she gulped down another one and the woman didn’t stop herself from revealing whatever that this man wanted. She could have lie but she was afraid, afraid that this person might have some kind of ability that deduce between a lie and a truth. She met one before back in her time surviving through Ottawa City.

 

Rather than betting he didn’t have it, it was safer for her to told him the truth.

 

“The other two squads have some and ours none. Since they are tasked for subjugation, most of the artifacts are with them and it’s theirs, to begin with,” she said.

 

“Care to tell me what they are?” he asked.

 

“They are…” Miss Portman gave the details about the artifacts. A wooden rod with the innate ability to enhance elemental based energy attack by ten percent and another artifact, a great axe imbued with fire elements energy.

 

Just hearing those effects made Jason trembling in his boots. For one thing, none of his current looted equipment had those kinds of effects and second of all, he was dumbfounded by how lucky these bastards are. They were even luckier than him. He wished there was a Luck status so he could throw every point he had into it.

 

“I see,” the glint in his eyes changed as if he decided on something. “Thanks.”

 

Jason choked hold Miss Portman as the thought of dying resurfaced in her mind. She struggled as her hands tried to reach out to Jason’s head and her feet trying to kick Jason by the nuts but all of her attempts were futile. Seconds later, she fainted.

 

“Dude,” Hakeem reproached Jason with his gesture telling him was it necessary to do that.

 

“Let’s continue killing the pigs before these people wake up,” said Jason. He was outright ignoring Hakeem as if it was the natural thing to do.

 

“I think we should get back Jason, even the military is involved in this,” Esther said as she felt terrified going through such things.

 

“So you’re going to what? Crawl back in your bed and cry like a baby? If you’re a little braver back then, you could have knock these weak soldiers off,” said Jason. As he stated the facts.

 

Esther turned silent.

 

“Just remember this, if the monsters come down to Toronto, who do you think is going to protect our family? These people? The military? They can’t do anything,” said Jason. He was slapped bitching his sister with logical statements.

 

Esther cast her eyes down as she could refute him back. His words made sense, she got the sense of being powerful but guns were terrifying, no matter if you’re an Awaken or not.

 

But Jason was different, he knew his own capability. Even Hakeem faced head-on against a bullet and survived.

 

“and you,” Jason pointed at Hakeem, “you’ve got something to say?”

 

“No,” Hakeem realized it was useless to reason with this friend of his. He picked up his iron mace which was kept inside a duffel bag. He looked back at the floating window screen as his Iron Body leveled up. His Iron Body points were getting closer to breaking.

 

Then a glowing green glow enveloped his body as he realized he was being healed by Jason.

 

“You did a pretty good job taking that shot head-on, but be mindful of your points,” said Jason.

 

“Thanks,” Hakeem replied.

 

While the two men prepared to go out once more, Esther who had been silent the whole time made a decision.

 

“Train me,” she said.

 

Jason glanced at Esther.

 

“Train me to take a bullet,” she said once more as she was determined to change herself. She’s a smart girl and she knew the fact the world was changing to a different course. Sooner or later with the advancement of these monsters, there would be no more land for humans to strive and prosper.

 

Her future plan of being a research biologist would be put on hold for a moment not until she managed to be confident to face the uncertain future.

 

“Sure, but first we need to take care of those pigs,” said Jason. Before they left, Jason asked them two to looted these military pricks as they confiscated their two of their SMG and a whole lot of ammo.

 

Esther had an idea about where her brother was going with this looting and she couldn’t say no to that.

 

The three people went out into the open as they continued killing the pigs and boars with their sneaky ambushing tactics. Soon, Jason leveled up to twenty-two and Hakeem reaching fourteen with Esther reaching thirteen. They were a lot more left but they didn’t want to encounter those special ops team again, thus they left the place and head deeper into the city.

 

Meanwhile, a few klicks from the unconscious special ops squad, another special ops squad with twenty men are fighting against a sole physornis or also known as a Terror Bird, a flightless avian. Similar in looks to a dodo bird but they were bigger, stronger, faster and deadlier.

 

This sole Terror Bird stood at a height of seven feet and nine inches and it was in a state of massacring this military ops squad.

 

Guns and bullets didn’t work as the military had expected as such but their job wasn’t to inflict damage but merely to distract the killer bird.

 

“Scott, you’re good to go,” said the squad leader as he was focused on firing this gigantic wingless bird.

 

A man emerged standing on top of a balcony higher than the Terror Bird. As the bird was distracted by the constant bullets raining over it, this man who was holding on to a wooden rod was deep in concentration as his eyes didn’t leave the sight of that overgrown bird.

 

His lips were moving as he was mumbling unknown words. The soldiers who were keeping watch over this man’s back felt the surrounding around them was getting cold. They knew what was happening, the glanced at the sight of this man as a subtle mist floating around him.

 

“I can never get tired of seeing this,” said the soldier who was watching Scott’s back.

 

Then it emerged as several sharp icicles formed around Scott.

 

“Icicle Rain!” Scott shouted he swung the glowing bluish wooden rod while aiming at the Terror Bird.

 

These frozen icicles flew through the air as their sharp pointed edges pierced the flightless creature.

 

“Kaw!” the bird cried out pain as they finally did some damage to the bird.

 

“Scott, it isn’t dead yet,” the message relayed to Scott’s communication device.

 

“Shit!” Scott didn’t think the Terror Bird would survive through this sole ability. “Buy me some time, I need to get ready once more.”

 

Again, the soldiers need to do the sacrifice as the squad leader gritted down his teeth and threw a grenade right on the feet of the Terror Bird.

 

Scott turned to his back.

 

“Hey, Ellen’s squad dropped near us, am I right?” he asked the soldier.

 

“Yeah, Miss Portsman’s squad is just a few klicks from where we are,” said the soldier.

 

“Then, tell her to get butt over here. I need her to scan this thing,” said Scott as he could only rely on Ellen’s scanning ability. He knew that the most well-trained Awaken ability in the military was Ellen’s Scan.

 

The soldier tried to send a message to the other squad. But back inside a storage facility, a group of people was still fainting and the message relayed was left alone with no one to answer.

 

“Squad gamma we need your assistance, over. I repeat, please escort Miss Portman to our current position, over. Hello! Please respond…”