Chapter 406
Chapter 406
The creature Jake had designed for spying on humans was called the Lurker. It resembled a human-sized salamander, but without a tail. Its agile, flexible body allowed it to scale any vertical surface, and it could also turn invisible.
Moreover, when stealth was paramount, the Lurker could creep at an agonizingly slow pace, slipping past the sophisticated sensors on the automated turrets that guarded all three human strongholds. The Lurker’s large eyes offered a panoramic field of vision and could focus like precision lenses, zooming in to survey targets across vast distances.
Its sense of hearing was also exceptional, allowing it to pick up even the faintest sounds. In battle, however, the Lurker was almost useless, and its movement speed was far lower compared to some of Jake’s other creatures.
He simply couldn’t develop a creature that excelled at everything, so in order to design a monster with impressive spying skills and a talent for staying hidden, he had to sacrifice its combat capabilities. So, the Lurker was pretty weak. If attacked, it couldn’t even escape, as its overall speed was also lacking.
That was fine, though. After all, the Lurker’s sole purpose was to slip into the heart of well-guarded places and quietly gather information on whatever events were unfolding within.
Jake had stationed several lurkers at each of the three human strongholds. The creatures clung to the walls like shadows, their unblinking eyes scanning the activity within. They eavesdropped on every conversation, studied every movement, and committed the smallest details to memory.
When life inside the strongholds remained routine and nothing out of the ordinary occurred, they would telepathically send the standard report with the information they gathered to Jake every few hours. However, if something extraordinary occurred at one of the bases, they were programmed to immediately contact him, again telepathically.
So far, nothing like that had ever happened, though. Not yet, anyway.
The lurkers had another useful ability. Unlike Jake, they couldn’t explore a human’s memories, but they could sense the overall emotional atmosphere surrounding the humans they spied upon. Thanks to the lurkers keeping watch, Jake always knew what the humans were doing and what emotional state they were in.
Although the lurkers couldn’t read minds or see memories, their ability to perceive the prevailing mood of a specific human group allowed Jake to understand what the survivors thought of him. And in most cases, the mood within a particular base tended to reflect the viewpoint of that base’s leader.
He was well aware that the residents of Catalina’s stronghold largely saw him as an ally, sharing their leader’s own feelings toward him.
As for Melissa, although she had initially been very skeptical of him, she eventually seemed to accept Catalina’s point of view, acknowledging that, while he might not be their friend, at least he posed no threat. As long as they left him to his own devices, he extended them the same courtesy. In her mind, and in the minds of most under her command, this uneasy truce was enough.
As for Samantha, she made no effort to hide her hostility toward him, and most of her followers shared her sentiment despite everything he had done for them in the past. Jake suspected that Samantha still held a grudge against him simply because she couldn’t forgive him for denying her the chance to claim the Los Demonios’ main base.
Most of Catalina’s and Melissa’s followers took Jake’s warning to heart, steering clear of his creatures as he had advised. Samantha’s people, however, were far less compliant. More often than not, they clashed with his arachnoxes, launching attacks whenever the opportunity arose.
The managatherers were a different story. Since they flew high over the city, could turn swiftly at sharp angles, and become invisible when necessary, survivors had far less success taking them out. As a result, humans mostly focused on trying to kill his arachnoxes instead.
Apparently, word had it that the System granted humans a hefty surge of experience points for every one of his creatures they managed to kill. In the beginning, Samantha’s people hunted his monsters solely out of deep-seated hatred for him, but once whispers of the lucrative XP reward spread, the tide shifted. Even those humans who had initially shown no interest in fighting his monsters now found themselves eager to join the hunt.
Jake wasn’t happy about that. If left unpunished, the humans would only continue their hunts, killing more of his arachnoxes without hesitation. He knew he had to teach them a lesson. What lesson would that be, he didn’t know yet.
For now, it could wait. The Ravage Contamination was a far more serious problem, and he needed to deal with that first. Compared to the number of creatures he had lost to the ravagespawn, the losses caused by humans were far smaller.
Even so, Jake understood too well that if he allowed them to operate unchecked, human hunters would grow increasingly bolder, taking down more and more of his arachnoxes. He knew that eventually, he would have to turn his attention to that problem and deal with it very decisively.
Jake was aware that humans were just as concerned about the Ravage Contamination as he was. At first, survivors chose to avoid the strange, pulsating organic growth that had been gradually overtaking the city. They lacked the means to destroy it, and the ravagespawn that emerged from it were far too dangerous to confront, so they simply chose not to try. They had kept their distance, steering clear of the sections of the city swallowed by the spreading biological plague, skirting the contaminated zones entirely.
In time, the survivors came to understand that the Ravage Contamination could no longer be ignored. It was advancing through the city with alarming speed, devouring street after street, and if left unchecked, it would engulf the whole city. Determined to stop it, they began working on a plan to destroy the strange organic infestation.
Jake, too, was suffering the consequences of the Ravage Contamination. His managatherers and arachnnoxes rarely passed the ravager nests without incident. The moment they drew near, the creatures would launch a savage attack.
The managatherers were ill-suited for combat, delicate aerial units whose instinct was to flee at the first sign of danger. Fortunately, their speed, agility, and the ability to turn completely invisible often allowed them to slip away from their pursuers.
The arachnnoxes, however, were a different matter entirely. Developed for the task of capturing mutants and transporting them to Jake’s lairs for conversion into biomatter, these colossal spiders possessed the strength, resilience, and predatory skills to defend themselves. When threatened, they could fight fiercely, all the while safeguarding the precious cargo they carried.
However, arachnoxes tended to operate alone, in stark contrast to the ravagers, who moved in tightly knit packs. One arachnox could easily overpower a pair of ravagers, but when faced with a large group of them, it stood no chance. When an arachnox realized it couldn’t defeat a group of ravagespawn attacking it, it would try to escape. Unfortunately, while his arachnoxes sometimes managed to flee, often they did not.
Usually, an arachnox transporting a mutant would steer clear of confrontation, but unfortunately, evading danger wasn’t always an option. The Ravage Contamination continued to spread, overtaking more and more sections of the city, and with it came escalating assaults from the ravagespawn. One by one, his creatures were falling victim to the ravagers’ attacks, reducing the flow of resources making their way back to his lairs.
So both Jake and the survivors had taken losses because of the Ravage Contamination. They all understood the need to either destroy it or at least find a way to stop it from spreading. Thanks to the lurkers spying on the humans, Jake had learned that Catalina’s people had been attempting to engineer a weapon capable of wounding the bio-plague.
Each of the two helicopters hovering over the nest was clearly equipped with this experimental weapon. Perched on the edge of the roof, Jake watched with interest, eager to see how effective Catalina’s creation would prove against the Ravage Contamination.
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