Chapter 420
Chapter 420
A pulse of sonic energy blasted outward from the elite monster, radiating in every direction. It was accompanied by a visible distortion in the air, like heat ripples over desert sand. Interestingly, the attack barely fazed Jake. At most, it brought a fleeting sense of unease and left a soft, short-lived ringing in his ears, but it was quickly fading into the background.
As for the human, he fared much worse. He collapsed back onto the ground as if an invisible force had physically pushed him down, his palms instinctively flying to his ears in a futile attempt to block out the excruciating sonic wave. His assault rifle clattered noisily to the floor beside him.
Once the sonic wave had passed and dissipated completely, Ragnar tentatively removed his hands from his ears, his movements sluggish and uncertain. He struggled to his feet, barely able to keep his balance. The sonic discharge had left him not only dazzled but disoriented. Thin trickles of blood began to seep from his ears, staining his skin with a crimson trail.
When he finally managed to focus, he looked at Jake with a confused, lost expression, his eyes wide with the shock of having lost his hearing in the violent attack.
Jake’s gaze locked onto the Myrmex. The insectoid monster streaked in a tight circle through the atrium, its wings humming like a swarm, before coming to a hover above the center of the area once again.
In the next instant, the Myrmex suddenly vanished, and several identical copies of the creature materialized throughout the atrium. The elite beast had clearly just used another of its special abilities, Chitin Mirage.
Jake leveled his revolver at the spot above the center of the atrium where the Myrmex had been only moments before and squeezed the trigger, sending a slug tearing through the air only to strike nothing. There was no impact, no resistance. The winged predator had clearly moved to a different position the moment it had turned itself invisible.
Jake turned his attention to the creature’s illusions as they darted through the air, circling over the atrium. He tracked one of them with the muzzle of his sidearm and squeezed off a shot. The round sliced cleanly through the illusion, causing the phantom to explode in a burst of iridescent light. The sudden flare left a fleeting afterimage in his vision, which faded almost immediately.
Apparently, the Myrmex wasn’t a particularly tough opponent for him. Normally, he encountered elite monsters dozens of times stronger than him, making those battles quite challenging. By comparison, he was three levels ahead of his current foe, and it showed. Its attacks, from the blinding bursts that accompanied the shattering of its illusions to the resonating sonic charge it unleashed, barely scratched him. None managed to inflict more than superficial damage, leaving him unfazed and steadily in control.
After he dispatched the last of the illusions, the Myrmex reappeared. It immediately tilted its head skyward, clearly preparing to unleash another furious screech. Ragnar’s eyes widened in panic, his face twisting into a mask of horror. He clearly expected the monster to unleash another sonic attack.
However, the creature instead used a different ability, Swarmcall, tearing open dozens of portals. From each portal launched large, winged creatures resembling wasps, but each was the size of a cat.
Ragnar unleashed a hail of bullets from his assault rifle, firing at the swarm of winged creatures on full auto. The bullets ripped through some of the creatures, shredding their bodies and sending fragments of chitin and wings fluttering to the ground. However, there was no way he could take them all down.
In mere moments, the wasps began to descend upon him. They stung him repeatedly, their stingers piercing through his clothing and into his flesh. Each sting caused immediate painful swelling, large lumps forming where the venom took effect.
Overcome by the intense pain, Ragnar’s grip on his weapon faltered, and it clattered to the floor. In a desperate attempt to escape, he broke into a frantic run across the atrium, his boots echoing on the cracked tiled floor, as he darted into one of the branching hallways, hoping to break free from the wasp-like monstrosities assaulting him.
Jake couldn’t follow him, as the challenge had erected semi-transparent boundaries indicating the area in which he needed to remain. The atrium marked the designated zone, while the corridors beyond lay sealed off behind the curved wall of light. Ragnar, oblivious to its existence, charged forward at full speed, passing cleanly through the barrier before fading from view.
Jake dropped his disguise, revealing his true form beneath the illusion. The wasps swarmed around him, but their stingers were unable to pierce through his tough exterior.
He caught one of the wasps that was aiming for his face, its wings fluttering desperately. With a swift motion, he tore the insect in half. Another wasp managed to clamp its mandibles around his arm. But before the insect could inject its venomous stinger, he tore the wasp away from his flesh with one hand. With a swift motion, he swung his other smashfist with enormous force, the impact turning the creature into a pulp of green goo.
Jake was about to swat away yet another bothersome bug when a shadow fell over him. The Myrmex descended from above, its claws locking tightly onto his shoulders. With startling speed, the elite creature shot back into the air, hauling Jake upward all the way to the ceiling.
He turned his left forearm into a chainsaw, and as the creature spread its mandibles wide, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth, he drove the rotating blade directly into its gaping maw. The jagged teeth of the chainsaw tore through the creature’s flesh from within. The sounds of tissue rending and bone shattering filled the air as the blade emerged from the back of its head.
The Myrmex’s iridescent wings, which had been beating furiously, faltered and stopped. In the next instant, both Jake and the creature began to fall. In mid-air, Jake activated Gravity Strike, enhancing his strength and weight. As they hit the ground with a thunderous crash, he slammed his smashfist into the creature’s head with incredible force, turning it into a gruesome mess of green goo and shattered chitin.
All the wisps the Myrmex had conjured immediately disappeared after that. And just like that, the fight was over. Several system messages flashed through his mind.
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Enemy Killed. +25,350 XP
XP: 83,735 / 195,300
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Challenge Complete!
You have received 250,000 XP.
You have received Shardflare (Epic Ability).
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Level Up. 168 → 169
+5 SP
XP: 138,435 / 201,600
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Jake decided he might as well check out the newly unlocked ability right away. Closing his eyes, he summoned the Genetic Development Interface with a mere thought and scrolled down until he located the new skill.
Shardflare: By sacrificing a portion of your own flesh, you can create a powerful projectile, infused with mana from your reserves. Upon mental command, the projectile’s stored mana ignites, triggering a detonation after five seconds, which shatters the projectile and sends razor-edged shards shooting through the air in all directions. Once created, the projectile can cling to nearly any surface.
Rarity: Epic
Total Upgrades: 5
Requirements: Body 250, Magick 300
Cost: 175,000 MP
Purchase: Y/N
With his Body at 250 and Magick at 300, Jake met the requirements for acquiring the ability. He spent 175,000 MP to purchase it and decided to test it out immediately. With a mental command, he activated Shardflare, feeling the flesh in his right hand gather and swell, filling with mana from his internal storage. The entire process took barely a second, and soon the detached projectile, which looked like a sphere-like mass, rested in his palm.
–1% HP
HP: 346,500 / 350,000
–1% MP
MP: 348,545 / 400,000
Jake glanced around. Initially, he considered throwing the projectile at the fountain but quickly realized it wouldn’t be wise. If one of the fragments hit the anomaly, the Electro would set off. Instead, he activated the projectile with a thought and hurled it at the wall on the second floor.
Upon impact, it clung to the wall, and after a couple of seconds, it exploded, blasting a hole through the surface and sending jagged fragments of the projectile and shards of debris hurtling through the air. Clearly, Shardflare functioned much like a fragmentation grenade, with the added ability to adhere to any surface.
For a couple of moments, Jake experimented with the ability and discovered that he could control the size of a projectile during its creation. As expected, the larger the projectile, the more body mass, and therefore HP, he lost. However, a larger projectile also contained more mana and thus produced a more powerful explosion.
Overall, it was a good ability, and Jake was confident he would find numerous applications for it, both in combat and in situations where he needed to demolish something. Once he grasped the core mechanics, Jake invested all five of his newly gained skill points into Mind, raising it from 211 to 216. With that, his overall command point total climbed to 352.
Jake then turned and headed down the corridor where Ragnar had vanished moments before. It didn’t take him long to run into the human. To his astonishment. Ragnar was still alive, though barely clinging to consciousness.
He was slumped on the cold, stone floor, his back propped against the rough wall for support. His body was a canvas of agony, marked by numerous swollen lumps where the wasps had viciously stung him. Each of the inflamed swellings throbbed as the venom coursed through his veins.
“Mark… that you?” Ragnar whispered, his voice barely audible, as he turned his head slowly to look in Jake’s direction.
The human’s face was grotesquely swollen, his eyes completely obscured by massive, purplish lumps. If he could see anything at all, it was merely shadows and blurs. Although he perceived Jake’s presence, he couldn't discern that Jake had shed his human guise for something more terrifying.
“Please… kill me,” Ragnar pleaded, his voice a mixture of pain and resignation.
Jake extended a sword from his right wrist and plunged the blade into Ragnar’s skull, instantly ending his suffering.
Once he got out of the mall, he paused to orient himself before setting off toward Base Catalina at a steady, brisk trot. This time, nothing distracted him along the way, and before long, the looming silhouette of his destination came into view.