Luke was glaring at Roy while they were inside a tent full of weapons.

"Hey I didn't promise you there would truly be swords, it's the 21st century, who would use swords in the Philippine army?" Roy defended himself.

"Hmph. Of Course I know that, but because of what you said I thought you knew someone who has one. Good thing they do have some close combat weapons I could use"

Luke was currently choosing among the many knives lined up on a table. From Swiss knives to US knives, there were a wide variety of knives that he had no idea which one to choose.

"Excuse me, do you perhaps have a knife that's also used by foreign elite forces?" Luke asked the soldier who accompanied them in the tent.

He thought that since he didn't have any knowledge about knives, he might as well use one that elite forces use.

"Well if you want one used by elite forces, you'll probably like this one." The soldier said as he picked up a 6-inch knife with a plastic sheath and handle. "This is the Mark 3 Knife used by the US Navy SEALs, wanna test it out?"

Luke got excited hearing that Navy SEALs used the knife but as soon as he got hold of it, he felt a bit uncomfortable with the grip so he put it back on the table. He noticed another knife with a hole on it's handle and asked what knife it was.

"Oh that's the M9 Bayonet that can be attached to an M16 or M4 gun. Wouldn't recommend that if you just purely want a knife as a weapon."

Luke nodded and then tried to pick up the knives one by one to see which one would feel comfortable in his hands. 'They're all sharp anyway' he figured.

He picked up more than a dozen kinds of knives but nothing seemed to work for him when he noticed a knife on a shelf with a red leather sheath and he couldn't help but be curious.

"How about that one? What knife is that?"

"Oh that's the KA-BAR knife used by the US Marine Corps. KA-BAR knives actually originated in World War II so they're definitely proven to be good knives, you interested in it? We don't really use it much so you can take that one if you like" the soldier said as he took the knife out of the shelf and handed it to Luke.

As soon as Luke felt the leather handle of the knife, his eyes immediately widened at how comfortable it actually felt. He took off its sheath, revealing the 7-inch dark blade of the knife.

"This is it" He said with no hesitation. Besides the fact that the knife felt comfortable in his hands, the colors of the knife resonated well with him. He was a gamer at heart, he's just like those players on RPG's online who would rather choose to wear armor on his character that matches well with his weapon even if there's another armor with better stats. Since he liked wearing dark clothes, the KA-BAR knife definitely matched him well.

Asking for a pouch to put the KA-BAR knife in from the soldier, he then placed it on his waist as he left the tent with Roy with a satisfied look on his face.

An hour after he chose his knife, Luke was now wearing a kevlar body armor usually worn by the police since he felt that the armor used by soldiers were too much and it would compromise his speed; he had Reactive Armor anyway so light armor would be best for him.

At the side, Roy was wearing the same uniform as the soldiers as he didn't have the same defense as Luke. He was comforting the pouting Sunny who complained that she felt useless.

"Don't worry, as soon as you get yourself an ability, you can immediately join us then" he said as he patted his sister's head.

"Everyone is ready boy, you should proceed to your assigned vehicle. Your sister would be safe here with me." Police Commissioner Webster spoke as he approached them.

Roy shared a look with Luke who nodded at him as they left after thanking the commissioner.

***

Luke and Roy were riding an army truck together with Roy's men and some veteran soldiers assigned to assure Roy's safety.

The ride towards the hospital was especially quiet with Luke looking troubled the whole time. He suddenly had a bad feeling about the operation; he always had a knack for sensing trouble ever since he was a kid so he didn't dare relax on the way.

Meanwhile the soldiers were warily looking at Luke as if he was some panda at the zoo, they managed to witness his display of strength earlier so they didn't dare find any trouble with him.

The area they were in was already void of people, making the place look like a ghost town. Sitting on the driver's seat, Luke noticed the tracks and damages done to the road, showing how the monsters passed through there.

The hospital was still at a fair distance when the trucks in front of the one they're riding suddenly halted.

"Monsters in sight, proceed by foot" Luke heard on the radio.

Getting off the car, Luke proceeded to check the tracks and jby the size of the foot prints, he could tell that the creeps they'll be facing are from Medium Camps that are significantly stronger and bigger than the ones he had killed so far; the same level as the wolves that almost killed him in the mountain.

They then carefully travelled with Luke in the lead and after meeting up with the soldiers in front, he asked where the monsters were as a soldier pointed at the direction.

Proceeding to where the soldier pointed, he asked the soldiers to stay back as he wanted to check what they're about to face. Luke walked carefully as he pulled out his new Ka-Bar knife, making sure that he wouldn't make too much noise as he wasn't sure if making noises would provoke the creeps.

At the end of the block, Luke stuck close to the wall of the store on the corner as he peeked at the creeps at the next turn. What he saw immediately stunned him, there were different kinds of creeps gathered in a group!

'What the hell! Did someone stack monsters here or something? why are there different kinds of creeps here?!' he exclaimed inwardly. There were 3 different groups of creeps on the road; centaurs, ogres and golems.

Ogres and golems aren't a big deal for him with the current level of his Reactive Armor but with the centaurs added in the mix, it immediately became problematic. The HP and damage dealt by the ogres and golems aren't that big compared to the centaurs so with his Reactive Armor, he can easily handle taking the damage.

Jungle creeps are actually divided into three types; Small creeps like the kobolds and trolls Luke has killed, medium creeps like the ones in front of him and large creeps which he hasn't encountered yet. The three types are divided according to their strength. Among all medium creeps, the strongest one is the Centaur Conqueror. There are actually both medium and large centaur camps, with both having Centaur Conquerors as the leader and their only difference being the number of Centaur Coursers the Conqueror is accompanied by.

A Centaur Conqueror boasts the largest HP among all jungle creeps so killing one will obviously be harder, added by it's damage that's only 2nd to Wildwing Rippers, Luke wasn't sure if his Reactive Armor can heal him fast enough before the centaur would kill him.

Counting the number of creeps on the road, he saw that it was composed of 3 medium centaur camps, 2 ogre camps and 2 golem camps.

A medium centaur camp is composed of 1 Conqueror and 1 Courser with the Courser having the 3rd lowest HP among the medium creeps.

An ogre camp on the other hand is composed of 2 Bruisers and 1 Frostmage with the bruisers using giant clubs and the frostmage using a giant staff that it uses as a blunt weapon and sometimes cast Ice Armor on itself or its allies that increases its armor while slowing whoever attacks them.

Meanwhile, a golem camp is mainly composed of 2 mud golems, once a mud golem dies its remains turns into 2 shard golems that have the lowest HP among medium creeps. So basically, to wipe out a golem camp, you have to kill 6 golems.

Luke also noticed that tens meters from the first group of creeps was another group of creeps significantly larger than the first group, so he had to make sure that they wouldn't aggro that group while they're in battle with the first group.

Another problem that he thought was whether his knife could even damage those golems, so he figured that he'll just deal with the other creeps and let the soldiers deal with the golems. The soldiers brought a tank but he first had to check whether noise would attract the other groups, he didn't know how many monsters there are surrounding the hospital but he was sure that he wouldn't be able to handle it once they get swarmed by all of them.

Getting back to the group, he informed Roy and the soldiers about what he saw and decided the course of their action. He let the officers decide their formation as long as he led the group and Roy would stay at the back and would only act if they get swarmed by other groups of creeps.

He let the soldiers stay where they were as he went back to the first group of creeps; he decided to pull the creeps towards the soldiers where there would be no other creeps nearby that might join the fight. But first, he decided to check whether making noises at a distance would provoke the creeps.

He stood in the middle of the road where the creeps could see him, and they did notice him but they simply treated him like an insect and didn't bother with him. Shouting curses at the creeps, they still didn't bother with him although they continued staring at him as if wondering whether he was a crazy insect.

Rejoicing the fact that noise wouldn't provoke them, Luke went back and informed the soldiers about it.

After instructing them on how they're supposed to deal with the creeps and constantly reminding them not to accidentally hit him, Luke went back and just like a raging bull, he charged towards the right side of the group of creeps where the ogres were standing in.

He first needed to generate stacks of Reactive Armor so he chose the ogres that deal low damage. Luke bravely faced the tall ogres as he stabbed a bruiser on its chest.

The ogres got riled up immediately and the bruiser that got hit dropped its club and pushed Luke away that led to a Frostmage hitting Luke on his back. The first hit is always most painful since he'll feel the full brunt of the force so Luke grimaced in pain after getting hit as he tried his best to stay standing.

Following it were 2 more hits from other ogres that dealt large damage to Luke as he felt like getting hit by a truck.

Reactive Armor immediately activated as the parts on Luke's body that got hit clearly healed up as his physical defense also grew. After feeling less pain, Luke then tried to move around the ogres by slipping between them as he could easily do so with how large the ogres were as he sliced their legs with his knife.

The knife didn't slice too deep but it still did the job of slowing their movement. Luke was constantly getting peppered by blows from the ogres as he was moving around and he generated 10 stacks of Reactive Armor in no time.

With 12 additional armor that increased his effective HP by 72% and an HP regeneration of 11.5 HP per second, he still felt the pain of the attacks but it visibly lessened and he could handle it better now.

He then ran back to where the others were waiting as his bruises visibly disappeared and he felt his strength quickly return.

As soon as he reached the soldiers, he dropped to the ground and the soldiers immediately fired a round of bullets. The bullets did tremendous damage especially to the Conquerors that Luke especially instructed to be targetted as they were filled with wounds although they were still standing.

With his Reactive Armor still on, Luke didn't waste time and went back to attack the creeps. He only asked the soldiers to fire a single round as he didn't want them to waste their bullets. It was still the first group so they had to conserve as much bullets as they could in case there are more creeps than expected.

This time, Luke ran towards the centaurs as he wanted to get rid of the conquerors as soon as possible. The creeps' movement became sluggish so it became so much easier to dodge their attacks.

Dodging the attacks of the conquerors while allowing those from the weak coursers to hit him for his Reactive Armor to stay activated, he managed to continue slashing at the conquerors without putting himself in any danger.

Once he saw that the conquerors were on the verge of dying, he stopped moving around and stabbed the nearest conqueror as he stood where he was. The centaurs immediately took the chance to surround Luke and after receiving 4 hits at the same time from them, Luke felt that familiar tug in his chest again and in a blink of an eye, the centaurs around him dropped to the ground and a huge gash can be seen on each of their chests.

1 courser managed to survive as it wasn't in the range of Counter Helix. Luke immediately tackled the surprised centaur and made it drop its weapon as he followed it up by stabbing its neck thrice, killing it immediately.

As he was doing so, the ogres who were the angriest of the bunch surrounded Luke and hit him again with their clubs and wands pushing him off the dead courser as he quickly pulled himself up.

This time, luck was on Luke's side as Counter Helix activated immediately after he was attacked again after he stood up and just like the centaurs, the ogres dropped on the ground leaving 2 ogres standing who were not in range of Counter Helix.

Besides the 2 ogres, there were also 4 mud golems left in the group. Relaxed, Luke didn't bother dodging any attacks anymore as he faced the remaining ogres head on.

He definitely wasn't a good fighter but trading blows was no problem for him as every attack from the ogres barely did any damage to him with how fast his wounds heal up. The soldiers who were watching him felt like he was some sort of feral beast with how barbaric he looked as he fought the monsters. Nobody among them would dare fight the monsters without a care about getting wounded.

Quickly killing off the remaining ogres, Luke then faced the 4 mud golems. He still didn't know whether his attacks would work on the golems hard body. With his Reactive Armor still having 10 stacks, he closed in on the golems as he stabbed a golem on its side and to its surprise, it seemed to have received damage with how it was flailing around in anger.

With a smile, Luke then stayed still as he let the golems freely hit him as he focused on one golem. There were chunks of rocks on the gound so the gunshots must have dealt quite some damage to them earlier.

With 4 golems attacking him at the same time, Counter Helix took no time in activating and after it activated once, he managed to kill the golem he focused on attacking while the other 3 golems looked like they were about to fall apart. The golem that just died then turned into 2 shard golems which meant that 5 golems were now attacking Luke. Counter Helix seemed to be working in Luke's favor as it kept on activating twice more until the last golem died.

Roy stared at his new friend in shock even though he already saw him in action before, he couldn't get used to how wild he looked in battle.

The soldiers couldn't help but swallow their salivas after Luke wiped the group of monsters in about 3 minutes. Although they did manage to deal tremendous damage after a round of gunshots, Luke still received the whole brunt of attacks from the whole group by himself.

Luke on the other hand was currently smiling and it looked like a manic smile to the soldiers. After Counter Helix activated and killed those 4 ogres, he actually leveled up! As soon as he thought of upgrading an ability, a window immediately appeared in front of him.

You have 1 ability point available, would you like to assign it now? Yes

After clicking 'Yes', the window then got replaced by another window.

lvl. 1 Counter Helix lvl. 2 Reactive Armor

He then decisively clicked on Reactive Armor as his survival is the most important right now, and with how the groups he's about to face are getting larger each time, upgrading Reactive Armor would be a big help to him.

You have upgraded Reactive Armor to lvl. 3! Max Stacks: 10 -> 15 Armor Bonus per Stack: 1.2 -> 1.4 Health Regen Bonus per Stack: 1.15 -> 1.3 Stack Duration: 13 -> 16