The tank stood there motionless for a brief period, but the lethal attack to its skull was indeed enough to send it into the clutches of the grim reaper.
"Well, that was certainly easier than the last." John thought aloud as he inserted another 40mm grenade into his under-barrel grenade launcher and prepared to cleanse the remaining forces inhabiting this metro station.
Although the Tank was a boss-level entity amongst the infected hordes and certainly a tough opponent to put down, it wasn't invincible and still remained susceptible to lethal fire, especially armor-piercing rounds directed at its vitals. Hence, it met its end and fell to the subway platform lifelessly, not all that dissimilar to a marionette whose strings had been cut. Despite the fact that the Tank died unexpectedly fast, there was still a large portion of the infected horde still hot on his trail, so John rapidly scanned the numerous undead for special infected.
Hmm, a few Chargers and a handful of Hunters and Jockeys were drawn to the disturbance I was causing down here, huh… I better prioritize them first since they pose far more of a threat than the normal common infected.
Cognizant of which hostiles were the most dangerous to his wellbeing, he wisely grabbed a bile bomb from his grenade sack and flung the damn thing into the crowd of undead to keep the rabble distracted whilst he handled the bigger problems. The second the liquid filled device made contact with a zed it shattered and spread its contents every which way and as expected the low tier common infected entered a maddened frenzy and flew at the source of this reaction like a swarm of flies to shit… But not the special variants.
Now that they're distracted, it's time to dispatch these special infected before I exterminate the rest of the horde. And hopefully after that I can get the fuck out of these subway tunnels and make it to the surface. Well, even if I got to do a bit more work to pry myself out of here, I just pray whatever that new massive infected was didn't move over to this region of the city because the last thing I want to do right now is try to come up with a way to defeat it. Especially when I'm already running on fumes.
Intent on not leaving a single one of these abominations alive, John switched to semi, targeted the nearest special infected, which happened to be a Charger, and planted one armor-piercing bullet straight through its hardened skull. His window of time before the horde would turn their attention back towards him was limited, so our zombie-killing protagonist swiftly went from head to head, speedily dispatching each special infected with ruthless efficiency.
These mutated infected were fast, but they couldn't outrun speeding bullets that were coming from a newly released military man, who had become quite proficient at popping heads… Though that was to be expected since he had slaughtered over 6,000 infected by this point. Thus, these normally exceptional killers fell one after the next, and with their passing, he noticed something strange that had gone unbeknownst to him this entire time: his killing speed appeared to improve gradually.
Huh, that's strange. Why does it feel like this is so much easier compared to when I first got spat out into this world? Like I can tell I'm getting increasingly better and faster the more of these guys I take out. I mean, I'm running out of energy and practically nearing my limits, so I couldn't possibly be making any improvements at this stage of the game. Yeah, nah, that can't be… Yet I do have a system, so it wouldn't be weird if there's some sort of hidden exp for my attributes and skills or whatever.
Even though he wasn't completely sure if this was really the case or if his tired mind was playing tricks on him, John knew this wasn't the place nor time to be testing anything related to this subject out, so he made a mental note in his head for later and focused up. Once he redirected his attention from the over a dozen dead special infected, he replaced his mostly unused APDS drum with his FMJ one, switched back to full auto, and started lighting up the crowds. It wasn't all that dissimilar to shooting fish in a barrel… But that only remained the case for several seconds longer because the Boomer bile's effects soon wore off, and when it did the horde's many sets of eyes turned in the direction of John's suppressed shots.
This is where the real fun begins.
Eager to get over this hump as fast as possible, he kept on spewing his storm of lead at head height while slowly backing up as the zeds unhesitatingly charged towards him. He was all alone down here, and seeing how there were so goddamn many zombies, he knew from experience that dragging this out was the only way he could survive this trial, so that's just what he did. Magazine after magazine got put through his KORD without rest, heating up his high fire rate assault rifle like never before, but the Russian-made weapon held up strong and kept firing reliably.
"HAHAHA, COME ON YOU FUCKERS! I'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON! AHAHAHA-" He shouted as his full metal jacketed bullets brutally pierced through multiple zeds.
...
The horde was relentless in its pursuit of John, and although they put up a decent fight, one worthy of applause, they nevertheless succumbed to his onslaught of potent firepower. A long trail of bodies was left in his wake but he was too excited by the prospect of finally leaving these dark dreary tunnels behind, so he didn't let the gruesome scene, that would've fit right in hell, and maneuvered through the field of corpses… Or at least he tried to before he found a long, thick, grotesque tongue wrapping around his armored hazmat covered neck.
Urgh, not another one of you sneaky bastards doing this shit again.
John's arduous journey across the city of Fairfield, Pennsylvania, had taken its toll on his body, so when that Smoker started reeling his tongue in, his feet gave way and the next thing he knew he was quickly being dragged across the tracks. Things had suddenly taken a bad turn for him, and it would get even worse if he didn't do something.
Why can nothing ever go easy for me, man!
Seeing how he would soon enter the clutches of the awaiting Smoker, John thought on his feet… Or his back in this case, and retrieved the bowie knife that had been sitting in the sheath on his belt. The long, beefy combat knife had gone unused for most of this trip, but that was about to change because he slipped it out of its sheath, grabbed hold of the extremity behind his head, and ruthlessly cut into the thick overgrown tongue reeling him. Its tongue was quite thick, so he had to slice into it, going back and forth in a sawing motion as it withered in pain.
The creature screeched in pain as John cut himself loose, and as soon as he got on his feet, he brought up his 10mm pistol and put one round right between its eyes, killing it on the spot.
"That'll teach ya to touch me with that nasty appendage."
With the Smoker having received a very lethal headshot from an equally deadly round, he returned his secondary weapons to their respective holsters and sheaths and retrieved his KORD, which he had ditched when he was getting dragged. From there, he dusted himself off, checked his surroundings real quick, and proceeded back up the tunnel to the last stop. It took a minute because of all the bodies in the way, but he eventually got past the lot of them. And when he did, he climbed onto the subway platform and scanned the area for any stragglers that may have escaped his most recent slaughter. Sadly, all he found were the remnants of his battle with the infected.
I guess I got em all.
Finding nothing that needed a nice solid 7.62 round right through its dome, he approached the way up and began his ascent to the surface. The steps were many but not ridiculous, so soon an emptied-out subway terminal came into view, one very similar to the one he first passed through hours ago.
Hmm, looks like all the noise I made down below cleared this place out in its entirety.
Unsure if that was truly the case, he remained on edge and scanned the subway tiled lobby from one side to the other… And then again and again but no matter how many times he looked, his eyes couldn't locate a single zombie nor a body for that matter.
I really did get them all, huh.
With not a single zed in sight, he stood there at the top of the steps for a couple of seconds longer before growing a pair and beginning to check the place out. He spent about a dozen minutes or so between going through the four booths this station had and the back office he had to crack the lock to get into and what he found was a pretty sizable stash supplies made up of various guns, meds, munitions, and other miscellaneous items that would help one survive day to day.
As much as I would love to take this stuff with me, I'm kind of running out of energy here and since I still haven't located a place to hunker down for the night, I'd rather not increase the load on my tired body anymore than I have to right now. That said, I'll move the finds to the back office to come by and pick up later when I've recharged my batteries.
Although he very much wished he could take these various supplies with him, so he wouldn't need to waste a trip coming back, John knew it wouldn't be the wisest move at this time; hence he moved everything to the back. Confident his stash would be safe until his next visit, he refreshed his spent supplies with those from the system's store and as soon as he was back to fully loaded status; he locked the door once more and headed for the next set of stairs he eyed earlier.
John was inching ever closer to the surface and though he was nearly a hundred percent sure he had drawn out all the infected from hiding, he was well aware that over confidence here on the last stretch could very well lead to dire consequences, especially in his spent state, thus he remained vigilant. And it's a good thing he did because when he rounded the corner at the following level, he came across a group of a dozen infected coming down the hall. A dozen infected would've been a lot for most normal people, but for John they had become nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
Only a dozen, huh… This'll be quick.
The moment the dozen infected caught sight of him, they began their charge, but unfortunately for them it would never go anywhere because he raised his rifle and made short work of them in this straight tunnel. When the last fell to his primary means of damage, he didn't give this inconsequential encounter a second thought and strode forward and approached the next set of stairs. Once he reached the end of the hall, he looked up and caught a glimpse of the outside world, though it had gotten much darker and the rain heavier.
Finally, I can leave these fucking tunnels.
Even though the environment awaiting him outside wasn't all that welcoming, to say the least, he was still amped to leave this dreadful underground, so he wasted no time climbing the long flight of steps and soon enough he popped out at the top. What he found beyond the entrance to the network of subway tunnels running under this urban hellscape was a big, open, multi-use space with a large fountain sitting in the middle of it. And surrounding that, were numerous tall buildings you'd expect to see in a city this size, many of which seemed to be of the commercial and residential variety. Or at least that's what John thought, because it was hard to make out the signs through this absolute downpour.
I was expecting to come across a far more wicked scene, but this weather has done a solid job cleaning up some of the gruesome mess the infected left in their wake.
Obvious remnants lay everywhere throughout this park-like space and the nearby streets, but the blood and other nasty liquids had been long washed away by the storm's unrelenting rain and carried to the many storm drains that dotted the area. Aside from that, this new environment also had a number of undead wandering about aimlessly, meaning he hadn't exactly stumbled upon a danger-free zone.
Okay, now that I've made it back to the surface at last, how do I want to approach this… Well, I'm certainly getting tired aggroing every single fucking zombie that exists within the vicinity, so I think it's time I've gone the subsonic route for a while. That said, I only have a single 30 round mag packed for my KORD and a 30 round stick for my 10mm Glock, neither of which is anywhere near enough to deal with numbers I can see let alone those that no doubt exist beyond the obscurement of the rain… I guess it's time to make some new purchases and since I'm already running on the rather heavy side, I think I'll run my side arm for this bit primarily.
Wishing to change things up and take a different approach from the usual guns blazing route, John returned to the underground and began purchasing the supplies and equipment he'd need for this endeavour. There were a lot of them up above, many of which were in the way of him finding a nice location to hunker down in for the remainder of the night, so he added 3 more big stick mags for his beloved pistol and filled them to the brim with subsonic FMJ rounds before sticking them in the mag pouches he bought alongside them.
Now we're in business.
Ready to embark on finding a decent place for himself, he strode back up to the surface with his rifle on his back and his Glock 20 in his hands. Raring to go, John stepped out from the cover of the station's entrance and began his silent slaughter of the undead.