Chapter 404
Chapter 404
As the Mantiscor leaned in, coming within an arm’s reach, Jake seized the opportunity. With a swift motion, he grabbed hold of one of its menacing mandibles with both hands. Exerting all his inhuman strength, Jake pulled sideways. There was a tense moment of resistance, but then, with a solid, resounding crack, the mandible broke in half. The blunt stump remained attached to the insectoid beast’s face, while the other half, with its sharp, pointed end, was now in Jake’s grasp.
Without hesitation, he used the broken mandible like a dagger. He lunged forward, plunging the sharp point deep into one of the Mantiscor’s large, multifaceted compound eyes. The eye, once a vibrant mosaic of colors, turned into a pulpy mess as Jake twisted the makeshift weapon, ensuring maximum damage. With a final, forceful push, he released the mandible, leaving it embedded in the creature’s ruined eye.
The insectoid beast tipped its head back and let out an ear-piercing scream, a mix of pain and anger. For a moment, it remained frozen in place, its body rigid, stunned by the sudden loss of half its vision. Despite this, the enormous elite monster maintained its grip, keeping Jake pinned down against the ground. He knew he wasn’t out of the woods just yet.
A moment later, the insectoid beast recovered. It tipped its head forward, its remaining eye now fixated on Jake. The mandible was still embedded in its ruined eye, from which a yellowish-green gunk seeped slowly. While the monster had sustained some damage, it was far from defeated. The insectoid beast was very much alive and ready to exact revenge for the loss of one of its eyes.
The Mantiscor didn’t know that, but just seconds earlier, Jake had mentally instructed some of his wingclaws to attack the elite monster. The beast leaned in, intent on biting into his face. His wingclaws hadn’t yet arrived to assist him, so he pressed both hands against the Mantiscor’s face, shoving it away from himself.
The monster was exceptionally strong, and bit by bit, its jagged triangular teeth, set behind a menacing mandible, crept closer to him despite his efforts to hold them back. However, before the beast could tear its teeth into Jake’s face, two of his wingclaws finally swooped in to aid him.
They pounced down on the Mantiscor, lashing out at its torso with their talons. The first wingclaw did little to no damage to the elite monster, though. Its claws scraped against the armor-like chitin carapace of the monster, leaving nothing more than faint scratches. The second wingclaw, however, had more luck. Its talons pierced the armored chitin plates, breaking through the beast’s defenses and ripping into the vulnerable flesh beneath.
The Mantiscor finally let Jake go, realizing it needed to focus on the more imminent threat. Withdrawing its stinger from his body, the creature immediately spun, whipping its tail through the air toward one of the wingclaws pouncing down on it again. The stinger slammed deep into the winged creature’s body, injecting venom that took effect almost immediately.
The wingclaw’s body went limp as its wings failed, completely drained of the power needed to keep it airborne. The wingclaw plummeted, and as it dropped to the ground, the Mantiscor was immediately upon it, swinging one of its foreblades at the fallen enemy and slicing right through its neck. The wingclaw’s head came off, rolling across the asphalt as mana poured from the severed stump of its neck.
Jake jumped to his feet, but he didn’t hurry back to the fierce battle. [Medium Paralysis] was still in effect, somewhat slowing him down. Until the status effect wore off, he needed to refrain from re-engaging the elite monster. So he backed up, putting some distance between himself and the Mantiscor so that the insectoid beast could focus on battling his minions instead.
Seeing how quickly and easily the elite monster had dispatched the first wingclaw, he commanded all his creatures to assault the formidable foe simultaneously. They converged from every direction: crawlers scuttled across the rubble littering the ground, while wingclaws wheeled and dived through the air above.
Jake remained at a safe distance from the elite monster, watching the battle unfold before his eyes. Crawlers lunged at the Mantiscor from multiple angles while wingclaws pounced at it from above.
Unfortunately, the claws and fangs of his monsters didn’t deal too much damage to the insectoid beast. As for the Mantiscor, its stinger and foreblades slashed through his creatures and stabbed them right through without much difficulty, killing them one after another.
At one point, it employed Caustic Maelstrom, spewing torrents of acid in all directions. This potent corrosive dissolved his minions, reducing them to unrecognizable, molten puddles of flesh. Wherever the acid hit the asphalt, it ate right through it, forming sizable hollows filled with the burning liquid.
Even though his monsters inflicted minor damage, bit by bit, they still managed to harm the elite creature. When the Mantiscor’s health dropped below 40%, the monster employed its Bloodfang Frenzy special ability. Its damage and attack speed increased drastically, allowing the insectoid beast to tear right through the ranks of his army of monsters with terrifying efficiency.
Jake stayed put, unwilling to risk re-engaging the Mantiscor while it was in its Bloodfang Frenzy state. By the time it wore off, his negative status effect had finally vanished as well. He was ready to return to the battle.
While the insectoid beast dealt with remnants of his monster group, Jake positioned himself behind it. He fired his grappling hook, and upon securing it to the monster’s back, he launched himself forward, retracting the cord into his arm. He slammed into the monster’s upper torso moments later, latching on. The beast instantly retaliated by driving its stinger into his back.
Despite taking damage, Jake continued to cling to the monster. He transformed one of his arms into a chainsaw and immediately plunged the rotating, jagged teeth of the blade into the monster’s shoulder. A moment later, the creature’s foreblade came off, dropping to the ground. Jake then focused on the beast’s other arm, morphing his other arm into a chainsaw while reverting the first to a human-like hand to maintain his grip on its back.
After both arms of the elite monster were severed, Jake jumped down to the ground, dislodging the stinger from his back. The Mantiscor was now heavily wounded, bleeding profusely, and its movement speed was greatly reduced. Grabbing one of the severed foreblades, Jake used it like a scythe to swipe at the monster in a horizontal arc.
The foreblade sliced cleanly through the Mantiscor’s neck, beheading it. The now headless insectoid beast remained on its legs for a moment longer, greenish-yellow gunk gushing from the stump of its neck. Then the monster finally tipped sideways, collapsing onto its side as greenish ichor flooded from its neck, pooling on the asphalt below.
Enemy Killed. +45,575 XP
XP: 89,725 / 183,785
Well, it was a difficult opponent, but at least he had received a very good amount of XP for defeating it. He looked thoughtfully at the foreblade he had used to decapitate the Mantiscor, which he still held in his hands. He then summoned a tumor from his inventory, letting it fall to the ground. With a mental command, he made it spread, forming a patch of Corruption.
Once the process was finished, he created a Transfer Maw and used it to transport the Mantiscor’s severed foreblade to his ten-story lair. He initiated the mental link to his lair and instructed one of his creatures inside to extract the Adamachitin Sequence from the elite mutant’s severed limb and store it for future use.
Once the foreblade was swallowed by the inky vortex of the Transfer Maw, Jake straightened up and glanced at the body of the defeated Mantiscor. One elite monster down, two more to go. After he collected the other two unique genetic materials, he would be able to initiate the evolution process of the primorph to the next stage.
However, he wasn’t sure if he should go after the other two elite mutants right away. The Mantiscor turned out to be extremely powerful, having been able to dismantle his entire group of monsters. Sure enough, there were more of them in his lairs, and he possessed ample resources to create more. Still, considering how powerful those elite mutants were, he should probably level up a few dozen times before facing the other two elite monsters.
A new idea occurred to him. He had recently acquired Restoration and its first upgrade, which granted an energy shield after a few hours of sleep. He hadn’t yet gauged the shield’s strength, so he might as well test it out. Before resting, he could arrange for the development of crawlers and wingclaws. By the time he woke up, the group would have been ready, allowing him to go searching for the next elite mutant. With that plan in mind, Jake set off for his lair.