Chapter 79: Items

Summer stood amidst the settling dust of the fractured desert highway, her small boots planted firmly upon the cooling remains of the annihilated Lord abomination.

The chaotic energy that had violently surged through her veins during the brief, explosive confrontation was already beginning to settle into a deep, rhythmic warmth radiating from the core of her stomach.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the hollow, gnawing ache of absolute hunger that constantly plagued her undead biology was entirely gone.

Her stomach felt comfortably full, rounded and warm under her jacket, completely free from the sharp, stabbing cramps that had accompanied her over these past few days.

A wide, utterly genuine smile stretched across her chubby face, lighting up her crimson eyes with childish glee.

She looked down at her small hands, then over at the three glowing items resting on the dirt beside the ruined corpse, her heart fluttering with the pure joy of a child discovering presents on a holiday morning.

’Finally got some items!’ she muttered inwardly, feeling blissful. The irritation that had followed her due to hunger vanished, and alongside it, the golden light of the item drops elevated her mood even further.

Without wasting a single second, Summer squatted down on her heels, her dark hair falling forward over her shoulders as she reached out to inspect her newly acquired spoils. The first item she picked up was the thick, dark leather skill book bound in heavy, blackened iron plates.

The moment her pale fingers brushed against the cold leather, a translucent system notification materialized in her line of sight, detailing the exact nature of the prize dropped by the mutated abomination.

[Acquired Skill Book: Corrosive Spike (Rare Grade)]

Description: Channels corrupted essence to materialize and hurl jagged, high-velocity corrosive projectiles capable of dissolving armor and melting structural barriers.

Summer’s eyes sparkled with amusement as she looked at the heavy, iron-bound book. While her primary combat style heavily favored brutal, up-close physical devastation backed by her Gravity Compression and Shadow foundations, having a versatile ranged attack was never a bad option.

With a mental tap, she absorbed the skill book into her system interface, instantly committing the complex mental pathways of the Corrosive Spike technique to her memory banks.

She could already picture how useful it would be for sniping targets from afar without needing to close the distance every single time.

Next, she reached for the small crystal vial filled with a thick, swirling purple liquid that seemed to pulse with a faint, heartbeat-like rhythm.

The glass was cool to the touch, and the liquid inside radiated an intense, concentrated density of corruption.

Without any hesitation, Summer uncorked the glass stopper with her teeth and tossed the vial back, swallowing the glowing purple liquid in a single gulp.

The moment the liquid hit her throat, it exploded into a torrent of rich, dark energy that flooded her entire body.

It tasted like sweet, concentrated blackberries mixed with the metallic tang of fresh rain, sending a shiver of pure ecstasy down her spine. The system chimed softly in her mind, updating her progression metrics.

[System Notification]

[Consumption of Lord-Tier Corrupted Essence Detected]

Apprentice Progression: +1% (From defeating the Lord-tier abomination)

[Essence Vial Absorption: +1% (From consuming the Concentrated Corruption Extract)]

[Total Apprentice Rank Progression: 2%]

Summer let out a soft, delighted hum as she felt her overall foundation solidify just a fraction further toward the next major rank breakthrough.

Killing the Lord-tier monster had granted her a solid one percent boost, and the specialized vial had matched it instantly, pushing her total progression up to two percent.

It was slow, agonizing work trying to fill the massive gulf of the Apprentice rank, but finding concentrated resources like this made the climb feel entirely manageable. Finally, her crimson gaze fell upon the third item, which was a pair of sleek, dark golden metallic gauntlets radiating a faint, humming spatial energy.

She picked them up, sliding her small hands inside the articulated metal plating. The gauntlets instantly resized themselves to fit her tiny wrists and fingers perfectly, settling comfortably against her skin without hindering her movement in the slightest.

She brought up the item description to check their precise combat functions.

[Item Analysis: Apex Momentum Gauntlets (Rare Grade)]

Function: Amplifies the user’s physical striking strength by a flat ten times base output.

Passive Effect (Kinetic Stack): Accumulates 1% of every physical damage point inflicted during combat.

Special Activation (Hundred-Fold Burst): Once the accumulated kinetic stack reaches 100%, the wearer’s next physical punch will unleash a catastrophic one-hundred times multiplier strike, instantly discharging all stored energy.

Summer blinked in surprise, a wide grin splitting her face even further. A flat ten-times multiplier on her physical strength was already an incredible boost to her base stats, but the stacking mechanic took it to an entirely different level of absurd lethality.

Every punch she threw would store a percentage of the impact, leading up to a devastating, hundred-fold explosion of kinetic force that could shatter practically any defense she encountered. Paired with her Gravity Compression, those gauntlets effectively turned her small fists into localized tactical warheads.

Standing up slowly from the dirt, Summer stretched her arms out, flexing the dark golden metal on her hands. She felt incredible.

Her stomach was full, her core progression had ticked upward, and she had just secured some of the finest loot the desert had offered so far. A short distance away, Salma stood near the front of the lead command vehicle, her long dark coat swaying gently in the cold breeze.

Her dark green eyes watched the radiant, happy expression on her daughter’s face with a deep, fond warmth. Seeing Summer genuinely smiling and content after a battle washed away the cold edge that usually defined the Rogue leader’s temperament.

’It seems my little duckling really likes to eat Lord cores,’ Salma thought to herself, a soft, affectionate chuckle escaping her lips. Though her expression softened when looking at her child, her mind operated with the ruthless, calculating efficiency of a commander.

She lifted two fingers to her temple, opening a direct, encrypted shadow link with her most trusted shadow. ’Derrick,’ Salma’s voice echoed silently through the shadows straight into her subordinate’s mind.

’Yes, young miss,’ Derrick’s steady, disciplined voice responded instantly across the mental connection. ’What are your orders?’

’Order our men stationed across every province in the country to begin stockpiling as much zombie cores as they can get their hands on,’ Salma commanded smoothly, her gaze lingering on Summer as the girl cheerfully admired her new gauntlets.

’I want every single core they can unearth cataloged and secured, with absolute priority given to Elite and Lord-tier variants. Spare no expense. Buy them, steal them, or rip them out of the ground if you have to.’

"As you order, young miss." Derrick did not question the staggering logistical scale of the command.

The Rogue syndicate’s presence was not merely confined to this single barren stretch of desert. Salma had deliberately allocated sleeper cells, scouts, and combat units across the entire country during the initial chaotic days of the apocalypse, specifically to search every corner of the nation in case her daughter had been displaced.

Some of those deep-cover units had even infiltrated high-ranking military installations and government outposts under the very nose of the Supreme Commander, operating entirely in the shadows without the authorities ever realizing the true extent of the syndicate’s reach.

’Good,’ Salma cut the connection smoothly, letting her hand drop back to her side.

With the logistics of her daughter’s ongoing evolution safely set into motion, Salma’s gaze slowly shifted away from Summer and drifted sideways across the dusty road.

Her gaze locked onto the trembling figure of Nadir Sha, who was still crouched miserably near the edge of the roadside ditch, desperately trying to keep his bleeding face and shredded suit out of the dirt.

As Salma watched the drug lord’s frantic, cowardly expressions and listened to his ragged breathing, one single conclusion crystallized in her sharp mind with absolute certainty.

This man knew something.

There was simply no logical way a common, cowardly human parasite running a localized drug ring in a civilian migration convoy could have managed to obtain an unpurified Lord-tier corrupted core through normal means.

To acquire an item of that magnitude, one had to hunt down and butcher a Lord mutant, a feat requiring power that completely defied the normal limits of humanity at this stage of the apocalypse.

A Lord core did not just fall from the sky like rain. It had to be deliberately extracted, preserved, and traded.

So, the fundamental question remained hanging heavily in the cold desert air: If Nadir Sha had not killed a Lord himself, exactly how had a priceless, highly volatile Lord core suddenly appeared in his possession, and who had given it to him?