Chapter 473
Chapter 473
The wingclaw lashed out at the morphus with its talons as it passed over him. The sharp tips carved deep furrows into his shoulder, and they were deep enough to cause mana to drift out.
So the Mana Bleeding ability he had bestowed upon the Wingclaw during one of the evolution cycles had definitely paid off.
D wasn’t happy about such a turn of events. While he couldn’t feel pain, he could still perceive damage dealt to him, and he could certainly tell he was now losing mana. While the injury inflicted on his shoulder was already healing, he was now aware that those winged creatures were far more dangerous than the previous monsters he had fought, the monstrosities.
Furious, he swung one of his scythe-blades at the wingclaw as it flew over him, but it was already beyond the reach of his melee weapon.
Several crawlers began hurling globs of sticky substance at him. The projectiles splashed across his body, solidifying within seconds. One of the gobs hit one of his feet, effectively gluing him to the ground. Exerting all his might, D managed to tear free of the substance and pull his leg loose. But the crawlers kept firing, determined to immobilize him.
At the same time, a pack of smaller creatures, scorpos, began launching barbs from the tips of their segmented tails at him as well. Those barbs were about two to three inches long and ended in a razor-sharp point. They were strong enough to rend human flesh and shatter bone.
However, D’s body was far sturdier and more damage-resistant than that. As a result, the barbs hitting him hardly dealt any visible damage. Upon impact with his armored body, they harmlessly bounced away, leaving no visible marks on his armor.
This ability was called Fangshot. While it could be effective against regular ravagespawn and humans, it was pretty much useless against his counterpart.
D charged at the nearest crawler, crushing every scorpo unlucky enough to be in his path into mush. When he reached the massive arachnid, he dodged one of its stabbing legs, seized it with both hands, and ripped it off.
He then set about tearing the monster apart with his bare hands while chopping at it with his scythe-blades. The crawler stood no chance against a killing machine like D in full berserk mode. Once the arachnid was dealt with, D turned and rushed toward another one.
The crawlers fired gobs of adhesive substance at him, but they did little to slow him down because most of them splattered across his bulky torso. In order to actually anchor him in place, the sticky substance needed to hit his feet and glue them to the ground. However, due to D’s fast and chaotic movement, the sticky projectiles missed his legs altogether.
The scorpos kept releasing volley after volley of barbs, yet the sharp projectiles lacked the force needed to penetrate his armor. If a much larger creature, something the size of a crawler, for example, had launched them, the impact might have been enough to pierce D’s tough exterior.
But the scorpos were simply too small to fire with that kind of power, making them incapable of inflicting any real damage on the powerful morphus. It definitely seemed like this type of combat unit was pretty much useless too, so Jake figured it probably wasn’t worth spending any more time trying to improve it.
His counterpart moved relentlessly from one crawler to the next, ripping huge arachnids apart with his bare hands and hacking them to pieces with his scythe-blades. He crushed any scorpos in his path underfoot, reducing them to a mishmash of flesh. Though the smaller creatures posed no real threat to him, he still made a point of destroying every one that got in his path.
For a moment, it seemed like the battle was unfolding in his favor. The crawlers couldn’t do anything to stop him from killing them. However, at some point, D’s luck ran out.
As he charged toward another crawler, a wingclaw swooped down on him. By then, he had grown used to those winged creatures diving at him and had learned how to evade their talons. The instant he saw this one closing in, he darted aside, and its claws sliced through the space where he had been a heartbeat earlier.
Whenever a wingclaw attacked, D tried to strike back, but it always escaped before he could land a blow. This time, though, whether because D had learned from the earlier attacks or because this particular creature was less fortunate, he managed to seize one of its legs.
The creature thrashed its wings, desperately trying to break free, but D refused to let go. It even lifted him several feet into the air, but that was the extent of it. The creature exerted all its might, but its opponent’s weight kept dragging it down.
Driving his scythe-blades into its body, he hauled himself onto its back. Once there, he tore into it with his claws, shattering its armored exterior and rending its flesh.
With the wingclaw’s lifeforce gone, the creature plummeted to the ground. D pushed off and landed not far from where it fell. The moment he got back to his feet, two nearby crawlers fired sticky projectiles at him. The adhesive coated his feet, gluing him to the ground.
As he struggled in vain to break free, two wingclaws pounced on him at once, raking their talons across his bulky frame and carving deep furrows that immediately began leaking mana. The crawlers kept hurling globs of adhesive at him, and with D immobilized, nearly every shot found its mark, adding to the growing mass gluing him to the spot.
Wingclaws kept diving at him, adding more and more tears to his body. D desperately tried to fight back, lashing out at the wingclaws with his scythe-blades. While he occasionally managed to inflict a minor injury on some of the creatures, it did nothing to improve his dire situation.
The other creatures immediately took advantage of his misfortune. Wasps began to pounce on him in droves. Their ability was Stillbarb. They used their stingers to inject venom into their target, either to paralyze the victim or at least slow it down, depending on the target’s defensive capabilities.
But sure enough, they couldn’t paralyze D. Their stingers couldn’t even pierce his armored body. They covered the morphus from all sides, clinging to his frame and repeatedly jabbing their stingers against his armor but failing to pierce it.
The morphus fought back relentlessly, grabbing wasps with his hands, tearing them off his body, and crushing them in his huge fists. But there were too many of them, and every one he tore off his body was immediately replaced by another.
About thirty yards down the road, the group of humans who had been desperately trying to escape the morphus not long ago now stood watching him from where he was anchored in place. It was an incredibly stupid move on their part. They should have been heading back to their base while D was immobilized, but instead, they remained rooted to the spot, watching the battle play out.
And they weren’t just watching. Having realized the creatures belonged to Jake, they were cheering for him to finish D off. They clearly believed the fight was already over and that all that remained was the final blow. But they couldn’t have been more wrong.
Just like the wasps, the blastfiends took advantage of D being unable to move from the spot. These creatures were also small, but they looked like crabs, each one with a bulbous growth on its back. This sack grew larger over time as it filled with potent acid, which was generated from mana stored within their bodies. The sack could grow to twice the size of a blastfiend’s body. This ability was called Acid Blast.
So the swarm of blastfiends closed in on D from every direction. As soon as one got within a foot of him, its sack ruptured, spraying acid everywhere and drenching his body. What was interesting was that a blastfiend didn’t die after its sack exploded. Instead, it quickly regenerated, and over the next few minutes, the sack would grow back and refill with acid. After using its ability, a blastfiend would retreat from the fight and remain out of combat until it was ready to attack again. Once its sack was full, it would charge the target again.
So, at first glance, D’s situation looked dire. He was stuck in place, unable to break free while wingclaws, blastfiends, and wasps relentlessly attacked him. From the look of it, his counterpart was done for. But then everything changed. After another futile attempt to free himself, D must have had enough of the situation. He employed one of his most powerful abilities, and the tables were suddenly turned.