Chapter 409
Chapter 409
As he jumped, Jake simultaneously activated Gravity Leap, soaring high into the air. Midflight, he fluidly twisted his body, turning to face the direction he had just come from.
Although his momentum carried him forward, his trajectory was largely vertical, aimed toward the open sky. Upon reaching the peak of his jump, he utilized the third upgrade of Gravity Leap, which allowed him to briefly hover in place, defying the laws of physics.
Glancing downward, he confirmed that his calculations were correct: he hung directly above the heart of the street. Then, surrendering to the fall, he engaged the fourth upgrade, triggering the fourth upgrade of Gravity Leap that allowed him to drop with greatly increased force, as though gravity’s pull had multiplied several times over, turning him into a living meteor.
The ground rushed up at him with incredible speed, the buildings on either side blurring into streaks of motion. Just before landing, he activated Ground Strike. He slammed down onto the asphalt with such force that the pavement sank beneath him.
Dropping to one knee, he drove his smashfist into the ground with bone-shaking power. The powerful landing, accompanied by the punch, carved out a crater, with long, jagged cracks zigzagging outward from the point of impact.
Yet the damage to the surface was only part of the effect. From the point of his landing, a powerful shockwave erupted, radiating outward in every direction, a ring of raw force rippling outward.
The shockwave struck the SUV’s driver’s side with such force that the vehicle lifted off the two wheels on that side. The large vehicle remained precariously tilted on the other pair of wheels, and for a moment, it seemed as though it might roll onto its side and then crash onto its roof. Then, with a jarring thud, it crashed back onto all four wheels, the violent motion rattling its frame and sending shudders through its heavy chassis.
As for the four humans, they fared much worse. They were knocked off their feet and scattered like bowling pins struck by a perfect throw, none managing to keep their balance. Shoved from behind, they crashed hard onto the pavement with bone-jarring force.
By now, they must have invested lots of points into their Constitution attribute, making their bodies harder and much more resistant to damage than pre-Collapse humans had been. As they stirred, groaning and sluggishly pushing themselves upright, Jake could see they were mostly fine. A few fresh scratches marred the exposed skin where clothes and armor offered no protection, but that was the extent of their injuries.
Had they been as fragile as humans before the Collapse, the outcome would have been far more severe, and the impact might have left their bodies completely broken.
Ground Strike had turned out to be much more powerful than Jake had anticipated. He was certain that if he had landed on a powerful, well-protected mutant such as an armored brawler, whose body was fused with dense layers of reinforced metal plating, he would have crushed it, rendering its defenses meaningless. And if his target had been a less-protected mutant, he could have pulverized it entirely.
However, Jake understood that his landing had been so devastating largely because he had jumped from a ten-story building and triggered the fourth upgrade of Gravity Leap to amplify the impact. The way Ground Strike worked, the higher the jump, the greater the damage upon landing.
In a real fight, of course, opportunities to drop from such a height would be rare. Still, the ability had proven impressively destructive, and Jake was certain it could become even deadlier once he unlocked more upgrades.
Staggering, the four humans slowly rose from the ground, the lingering effects of the shockwave still clouding their senses. As they turned toward him, Jake stood tall and silent, his emotionless gaze fixed on them. Their unfocused eyes and slack expressions made it obvious that they hadn’t quite regained full awareness yet.
“What the hell just happened?” one of the males muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “It felt like something slammed into us from behind.”
“It’s his doing,” the female standing next to him replied, nodding toward Jake. “He dropped from above.”
The four survivors craned their necks all at once, eyes tracing the endless expanse above. Morning light spilled across the flawless blue sky, unmarred by even a single drifting cloud.
“You think he jumped off the roof of his lair?” one of them asked.
“Sure looks that way,” another answered.
“Why would you do something like that?” a female human asked, directing her question at Jake, her eyes sharp with accusation.
Jake said nothing.
Suddenly, one of the female humans snatched up her assault rifle from where it had fallen when she collapsed. She whipped it up and aimed at Jake. Before she could fire, the male human closest to her stepped into her line of fire, blocking her aim.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed.
“What the hell are you doing?” he shot back. “He’s not our enemy!”
“You think?” she said. “Why the hell did he drop from the roof, knocking us down then?”
The survivors all glanced at Jake at once, as if expecting him to suddenly charge toward them. He didn’t move from his spot, though.
“Why didn’t he just use the entrance like a normal human being?” somebody asked.
“Maybe leaping off rooftops is his idea of normal,” another replied, half-joking, half-nervous.
“Either way, dropping on us like that was a real jerk move,” the first human muttered quietly. “And let’s be honest, there’s nothing human about him.”
“One thing’s for sure, guys,” one of them murmured to the group. “If he wanted to attack us, he would have already done so.”
One of the survivors cautiously stepped forward, addressing him in a steady voice. “We’re not here to fight, Jake. And invading your lair was never our intention if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Jake remained silent, his emotionless eyes betraying nothing.
“Do you think he even understands us?” one whispered to another, the words barely audible. “Is he even intelligent?”
“Of course he is,” someone else replied. “He even has a way to communicate with us.”
“Why is he so silent then?” one of the males asked nervously. “Why is he just standing there, staring at us? It’s freaking me out.”
The female beside him leaned in and murmured, “Maybe he’s deciding the best way to eat your face off.”
“That’s not funny.” Her joke did nothing to lift his mood.
One of the other humans spoke up, addressing him. “We have a message from Catalina for you, Jake. We are only here to deliver it, that’s all.”
Jake had just finished reviewing their memories with Mind Reader, sifting through their thoughts and piecing together the full story. So he already knew everything they knew.
Earlier in the day, Catalina had sent these four survivors to his lair to deliver a message: she wanted to see him and was asking him to visit her base. She needed help but hadn’t told them what kind, leaving the survivors themselves unaware of her specific request.
Probing deeper, Jake uncovered a more intriguing detail in their minds. He discovered that over the past several days, Catalina had been sending helicopters to an unknown location. She was searching for something, yet apart from those she had dispatched, no one knew her true objective.
And curiously, not a single helicopter had returned. Now she was asking for a meeting. She definitely needed his help with something. However, since she kept her people out of the loop, Jake was unable to determine her exact intentions from their memories.
There was only one way to find out what she wanted from him. Jake pivoted in the direction of Base Catalina and launched into a full sprint.
Behind him, a survivor’s voice rang out, “Hey! Where are you going, Jake? Don’t you want to hear what we have to say?”
He didn’t slow, didn’t look back. He’d already extracted every scrap of information they had to offer, anything more would be a waste of time.