The Wastelander Read online

  The Godsfall Chronicles

  Book 1: The Wastelands

  Tipsy Wanderer

  Translated by Xiao Lai

  Edited by Blizzgrarg

  Cover Art by S0licide

  WuxiaWorld LTD

  Contents

  Book 1 – Prologue

  1. The Young Scavenger

  2. The Tartarus Mercenaries

  3. Mad Dog

  4. The Sweepers

  5. The Mysterious Jewel

  6. Passing Over

  7. Metahuman

  8. Blackflag Outpost

  9. The Mercenary Base

  10. The Night of Death

  11. Training

  12. Life in the Base

  13. The Bloody Ring

  14. The Crazy Innkeeper

  15. A Bloody Party

  16. Legacy

  17. Beast Wave

  18. Wolf Pack

  19. The Alpha Wolf

  20. A Near Escape

  21. One Wave After Another

  22. The Sweeper Battalion

  23. Crushed

  24. Entering the Fray

  25. The Experts of the Wastelands

  26. Life and Death in the Balance

  27. The Bloodsoaked Queen

  28. Breathtaking Power

  29. The Queen’s True Visage

  30. The Children of the Gods

  31. A Dangerous Woman

  32. Purposeful Poisoning

  33. Treatment

  34. The Outside World

  35. The Conviction of the Weak

  36. Accounts Settled

  37. Exorcist Staff

  38. Mission

  39. Heading Out

  40. A Trap

  41. In the Face of Death

  42. A Man’s Choice

  43. Rage

  44. Betrayed

  45. Wipeout

  46. Another World

  47. The Fallen Outpost

  48. Knock 'Em Flying

  49. The Last Frenzy

  50. Dreams

  51. Fugitives

  52. The Edge of Life and Death

  53. A New Relic

  54. Supported in Life and Death

  55. Fiends of the Desert

  56. Land of Ruins

  57. The Desert Oasis

  58. The Fatal Forest

  59. Selling the Goods

  60. Exposed

  61. The Dungeons

  62. Hydra's Scheme

  63. Escaping the Dungeon

  64. Rebuilding the Team

  65. Temporary Accommodations

  66. Uncovered

  67. Tested

  68. Operation Fiendslayer

  69. An Uncertain Feeling

  70. Sudden Changes

  71. Crisis

  72. The Desert Titan

  73. Decisive Battle in the Wilds

  74. Rock and a Hard Place

  75. We Die Together

  76. The Final Confrontation

  77. I Want Your Life

  78. Another Endowment

  79. Power Spike

  80. Salamander

  81. Rescue

  82. Conflict

  83. Relief

  84. Night Raid

  85. Unstoppable

  86. The Fearsome Colossus

  87. Vanquished

  88. Disastrous Defeat

  89. The Showdown

  90. Fleeing the Outpost

  91. A Bitter Victory

  92. A Cunning Game

  93. The Queen's Gifts

  94. Determined to Depart

  95. Traversing the Wilds

  96. A Mistake?

  97. Heedless Ruin

  98. Enemy of the Wastelands

  99. Stealing Wheels

  100. The Brutal Wastelands

  101. Mercy Gets You Killed

  102. The Marshes

  103. Dead End

  104. Seekers

  105. Blackwater Base

  106. The Academician

  107. The Deal

  108. Examinations

  109. The Dark Atom

  110. Stealing Secrets

  111. The Monster in the Lab

  112. Dead Men Tell No Tales

  113. The Weapons Master

  114. Hyena's Capture

  115. Secret Room, Secret Intrigues

  116. Roste's Snare

  117. The Strongest Mutant

  118. Mad Torture

  119. Excitation

  120. The Bird Egg

  121. An Accord

  122. Not A Traitor

  123. Liberating the Beasts

  124. Last Stand

  125. Hysteria

  126. The Fall of a Genius

  127. Pandora's Box

  128. The Caliph's Warning

  129. Trespasser

  130. Profound Education

  131. The Skycloud Army

  132. Demon hunters

  133. The Lighthouse

  134. Sudden Crisis

  135. Slaughter

  136. Fighting Back

  137. Lifedrinker Arrow

  138. Fatal Hit

  139. Lunae's Madness

  140. Pyrrhic Victory

  141. The Elysian Spirit

  142. Leaving Forever

  Epilogue: Failure

  Notes

  Book 1 – Prologue

  The blazing sun was like a greedy tyrant, wantonly unleashing its deadly heat upon the wastelands and wicking away what little moisture it had left. The endless sands stretched out into the horizon, so vast as to engender despair as it swallowed up all other colors with its own drab yellowness. Waves of hot air swept through the arid wastelands, kicking up sandstorms that occasionally blotted out the sun itself. The entire world was in a state of desolate chaos, and it seemed as though the skies and the ground were of the same dull color.

  The ground was filled with bits and scraps of rubble that clumped together to form small mountains. There were tens of thousands of these protrusions, resembling steel dinosaurs that had been buried within the sand with only their backs visible. The passage of countless years had slowly eaten away at them, causing patches of rust to appear everywhere. This place was filled with scar-ridden buildings that had been utterly decimated, leaving only their skeletal frames behind, forever a silent testament to their former glory.

  Thousands of years ago, this place was a city. Thousands of years later, it was nothing but ruins.

  Fifty years ago, this place became a scavenger camp.

  Who still remembered the city’s former extravagance? Its glittering opulence? Its dazzling prosperity?

  Who still remembered that this place was once filled with countless high-rises and towering skyscrapers? Who remembered the atomic hovercraft that had shuttled through this place, the aerial motherships that had flown in intricate matrices?

  Who remembered that this endless desert wasteland was once a vast ocean known as the Atlantic Ocean? Who remembered the beautiful, artificial islands that once glittered like pearls? Who remembered the many underwater cities scattered throughout the seabed like stars in the sky?

  And who remembered that this place once had a name? An ancient, true name buried long ago by the tides of time, a name that had been completely forgotten: New York!

  1 The Young Scavenger

  The setting sun was the color of blood as it shone down upon the wasteland. The scavenging hour had arrived.

  Cloudhawk was woken by throbbing spasms of pain in his stomach. This familiar sensation had accompanied him his entire life and filled many of his memories. The scavengers referred to it as ”hunger”, a supposedly perpetual curse pronounced upon all living beings by the Creator.

  If he once again failed to find any sustenance,
he wouldn’t survive the night.

  As for what he would do tomorrow? This was a question Cloudhawk had never even considered. Tomorrow? For scavengers, ”tomorrow” was an extravagant concept they couldn’t afford to worry about.

  Cloudhawk laboriously crawled out of the burrow he had hidden himself within. When his feet once more stood atop the scorching ground of the ruins, he was suddenly struck by a strong dizzying spell. The ancient ruins around him were filled with crumbling fences and dilapidated walls, as well as scraps of corpses that had fallen from other worlds. The once dazzling buildings erected here had been reduced to worthless piles of rubble, buried and forgotten by both the sands of the wasteland and the sands of time.

  The gaunt youth was such a tiny figure, dwarfed by the howling sandstorms that ruled this place. The wind blew through his tousled black hair, which covered up his slender, youthful features. His withered frame was covered with a few scraps of dirty cloth, and his rough, callused skin was filled with wounds both new and old. His eyes, however, were clear and alert. This difference was the only thing that separated him from the other ordinary scavengers.

  Cloudhawk was only fourteen or fifteen years old.

  Scavenger life was very simple. Spend roughly twenty hours each day hiding inside a hole or burrow to avoid the sweltering heat and blistering cold. Only during the scant hours at dawn and dusk would you be able to climb out of your hole and forage within the ruins. Day after day, year after year, this cycle repeated itself. This type of life seemed rather dull, but the scavengers viewed the dullness as an incredible blessing since any disruption of this boring cycle almost always portended impending death.

  Cloudhawk couldn’t help but think about the old-timer.

  The old-timer was an unconventional scavenger who had withstood the vicissitudes of time. Not only did he know how to read the language from Ancient Times, he also knew many things scavengers weren’t supposed to know. He loved to tell stories and delighted in collecting useless things, especially tools, paintings, and books from Ancient Times. The only one with whom he could share these things was Cloudhawk, and so the two of them became each other’s only companion and friend.

  This morning, the sun rose as it always did but this time, the old-timer didn’t crawl out of his hole.

  Still, the old-timer was a lucky man. At least he had Cloudhawk around to bury him.

  Cloudhawk didn’t want to think about what would happen to him if he fell over. He didn’t have much meat left on his bones, but starving scavengers generally weren’t picky about their food. The crazy meat merchants would probably chop his body into eight pieces, smoke his flesh to cure it, and then hang it on their rusting steel hooks. They’d save part of the meat for themselves, trading off the rest for some mildly contaminated drinking water.

  These were the wastelands. For the sake of survival, many were willing to eat anything and do anything.

  Sometimes, Cloudhawk envied the others. However, the old-timer had once told him that if mankind discarded its final scraps of decency and morality, the entire human race would truly be doomed.

  He was so hungry he could barely walk.

  Cloudhawk dragged his skinny frame through the ruins, looking like a strand of straw being tossed about by the wind. He felt as though he could collapse at any moment. Scavengers had scoured the ruins clean long ago. Finding food was no easy task.

  Would he fail yet again?

  Would this be his last time seeing the setting sun as well?

  Cloudhawk sat down lifelessly. The setting sun was making its way down past the horizon, painting the ruins with its blood-red glow. He saw a goshawk soaring through the skies, weaving its way through the clouds, and he couldn’t help but reveal a hint of jealousy in his gaze. When he had named himself ”Cloudhawk”, it was because he wanted to be like one of the hawks that flew through the clouds, free and unfettered. Alas, in the end, it was all nothing more than a crazy dream. Right?

  Things weren’t over yet.

  He couldn’t give up. He wouldn’t give up!

  Right at this moment, he suddenly picked up the sound of hurried footsteps ringing off in the distance. Cloudhawk leapt to his feet like a startled animal, unsheathing a shard of metal that he had honed sharp long ago as he vigilantly stared off into the distance. This was a chaotic, crazed era. Every single day, there would be starving scavengers who attempted to murder their own kind, and their victims were often skinny children just like Cloudhawk.

  Indeed, the sounds of the footsteps drew nearer and nearer until finally, three raggedly dressed scavengers suddenly appeared within his line of vision, charging him at high speed.

  Cloudhawk’s face turned pale as he took two steps back. He was now so weak that a strong wind could knock him down. Three scavengers were attacking him at the same time? There was no way he was going to be able to get out of this alive!

  Wait. Wait!

  Something was wrong!

  Although the three had savage-looking faces, they didn’t have the murderous look of predators nearing their prey. Instead, they looked like terrified prey filled with horror and despair.

  They weren’t attacking. They were fleeing for their lives!

  Just as Cloudhawk began to have a bad feeling about this, a large group of black creatures suddenly appeared directly behind the fleeing scavengers, charging straight towards them. There had to be at least ten of the things. They were each roughly the size of a wild dog, with terrifying, rabid red colored eyes.

  Cloudhawk stood there for a stunned instant, his mind overwhelmed by what he was seeing. Only a single thought was able to make its way past the cacophonous din in his mind, an instinct that came from his very soul…

  RUN!

  The threat of death brought out everyone’s full potential.

  Somehow, his utterly emaciated body managed to squeeze out another burst of energy. Cloudhawk didn’t waste any time trying to figure out exactly what was behind him, nor did he want to. He already knew the only thing that mattered: those mutabeasts, those savage mutabeasts, were utterly terrifying predators.

  Within the ruins, and in fact within the entirety of the wastelands, scavengers were at the very bottom of the food chain. How could they possibly fight back against such terrifying mutabeasts?

  The first to fall was a woman. She had been the slowest of the three.

  “Save me!”

  “Save me!!!”

  “SAVE ME!!!”

  One of the creatures sank its sharp fangs into her neck and gave it a vicious tug. Blood spewed out like a geyser, blanketing the area with a crimson hue.

  A second monster. A third. The black shapes competed to get at her, and bloody chunks of meat were ripped off of every part of the woman’s body. In the blink of an eye, her stomach was torn open and her intestines and internal organs were all dragged out of her.

  It was bloody, cruel, and terrifying!

  For a brief moment, screams of utter terror and agony could be heard, reaching out like specters of death towards the other three. Some of the mutabeasts were too slow to get a share of the meat, so they continued pursuing the remaining scavengers. They were simply too fast. Just three seconds later, yet another scavenger was caught.

  “AHH!”

  “NO!”

  The sounds of bones splintering and flesh being torn apart caused Cloudhawk’s entire body to turn cold!

  As the terrified Cloudhawk rounded a corner, the scene that greeted him brought him utter despair. Rubble completely sealed off the path in front of him. This was a dead end that he could not pass!

  What should he do? What should he do?

  A third agonized scream rang out as the final scavenger was brought down.

  Three of the mutabeasts leapt straight past the final scavenger’s corpse, moving like streaks of black lightning as they sprinted towards the helpless, emaciated youth.

  Danger! Danger! Danger! Cloudhawk could sense that death was approaching. If he hesitated for even a moment, he
would never be able to recover.

  Turning back meant death. His only choice was to give this last attempt his all!

  Ignoring what was coming for him, he charged straight towards the rubble and dove into a deep but incredibly narrow opening.