Chapter 486
Chapter 486
Jake launched a grappling hook toward the Titan. Once it latched onto its scorpion-like body, he reeled himself in. The fracture still tried to suck him in, but the hook held fast.
Once he hit the monster’s body, he sprouted dozens of tendrils from his sides and back. As he pressed the appendages against the Titan’s body, adhesive secretion oozed from the countless pores on the tendrils, making him cling tightly to the monster’s body.
The Titan must have realized he had managed to avoid getting pulled into the astral fracture, because it reared its tail once more, aiming its stinger at him. D clearly noticed the creature’s intent to impale Jake, because he immediately began tearing into the Titan’s back with savage strikes, gouging a sizable hole in its body.
But the distraction didn’t work. The Titan’s attention was still fixed on Jake alone. He knew he couldn’t afford to stay at the same spot. The interdimensional fractures were still active, but now that he had numerous long tendrils attached to the monster’s exterior, he could move across its body without the risk of being ripped free.
He began to crawl across the Titan’s body just as its tail lurched toward him. However, Jake was no longer in the same spot, and the Titan must have realized it, because it halted the lunge of its tail. The monster must have learned from the previous two times when it had stabbed its shell with its own tail and was eager not to repeat the same mistake again.
Before the monster could adjust its aim, Jake reached the other side of the monster’s body and launched his grappling hook at the building across the street. A second later, it latched on, and he pulled himself toward it. He shot through the air across the street before hitting the organic mass coating the building’s side.
Now that he had put some distance between himself and the astral rends hovering over the center of the street, he wasn’t affected by their pull as much as before. He even detached his tendrils to reduce mana consumption.
He began to crawl up the building, floor by floor, intent on reaching a point above the Titan. To his surprise, the monster was still intent on getting him. D continued to lash out with his power claws at the monster’s back, but the Titan wasn’t even trying to snatch him with its hands anymore. The monster seemed eager to get Jake, no matter what.
Before he could climb high enough, Feral Instincts warned him of danger. He quickly glanced over his shoulder in time to see the Titan lash out with its tail at the building. Jake immediately detached from the wall, letting his body drop just as the Titan’s stinger carved a deep horizontal gash through the organic surface where he had just been.
He then pressed the tips of his fingers and feet against the wall again, arresting his fall. The Titan clearly wasn’t happy about its prey constantly slipping away from it. The monster lurched toward the building, opening its mouth wide into a huge X. The monster’s jaws were lined with huge, jagged teeth, each one the size of Jake’s entire body.
The Titan emitted a thunderous roar, and a second later, a tentacle-like tongue darted from the maw. Jake noticed that the tip of the tongue itself looked like a sucker-like mouth filled with sharp teeth. The tongue lurched toward him with a clear intent to latch onto his body.
Jake pushed off the wall and threw himself toward a fracture to his right, two stories below. Its pull caught him instantly and yanked him sideways with brutal force. That sudden movement saved him, the sucker mouth of the Titan’s tongue missed him, latching onto the organic mass on the wall instead.
Before the fracture could drag him in, Jake launched his grappling hook at the street below and reeled himself toward it. Upon hitting the ground, he glanced over his shoulder. He saw that the astral fractures above began to fade, their pull quickly weakening.
As for the Titan, it had just ripped its tentacle-like tongue free from the wall, leaving a large central hole with smaller ones around it in the organic mass. The Titan turned to face him again, its enormous tongue writhing through the air like a serpent. All the fractures had finally vanished completely. Jake rose to his feet and turned to face the enormous monster.
He expected it to lunge after him again, but the Titan did something else instead. It began slamming its tail against the ground over and over again, sending vibrations through the organic mass beneath them. Jake immediately realized the monster was performing this action to activate one of its special abilities, Abyssal Rain.
Just as he thought that, he spotted what looked like a black vortex appear above the Titan. As the monster kept pounding its tail against the ground, more and more similar portals opened up above it. They all appeared over the Titan at about the level of the sixth floor.
A moment later, the monster stopped smashing its tail against the ground. In the next instant, each of the portals began raining down what looked like spears. They were completely black and seemingly made of some immaterial substance.
Jake dashed to the side as one of them stabbed into the ground. A second later, it turned into a black cloud that dissipated almost instantly. Another spear lanced through the air, barely missing him. He darted aside as another zipped down from above.
He continued to dash from spot to spot, doing his best to avoid being hit by those weird spears. But while he was fast and agile, there were too many spears raining down, making it incredibly hard to avoid them, and at one point, one of them stabbed him in the shoulder, punching through his flesh and bursting out from the front of his body. A moment later, it crumbled into black dust, and Jake felt the damage dealt to him.
– 13,750 HP
HP: 401,250 / 415,000
He immediately realized that those spears dealt Chaos-type damage. His resistance against this type of damage was 25%, which wasn’t all that great, but it was definitely better than nothing.
As he continued to evade the deadly storm, he suddenly realized that the Titan no longer seemed interested in him. As he ducked to evade another spear of dark energy, he glanced at the monster. He saw that it was indeed no longer paying him any attention, having returned its focus to D.
Just as Jake glanced at the Titan, he saw his counterpart emerge from behind the monster, climbing onto its shoulder. Without slowing down, D proceeded to descend to its chest, all while bending down to slash at the monster’s flesh with his power claws. Every attack left behind four long furrows on the monster’s chitinous armor, deep enough to ooze black ichor.
When D reached the middle of the Titan’s human-like torso, something unexpected happened. His power boots suddenly disappeared without warning. Sure enough, he immediately began to plummet to the ground, no longer magnetized to the monster’s body.
D sprouted scythe-blades from his shoulders, attempting to stab them into the monster’s body to arrest his fall, but he was too late. Jake also noticed that D’s power claws were gone too, having vanished at the same moment as the boots.
It was interesting. It certainly seemed like they were out of charge. Or maybe they could only be used for a limited amount of time. Jake’s and D’s natural abilities could work as long as they had enough mana to sustain them, but whatever tech allowed D to use power boots and claws apparently operated under a different set of rules. It was definitely a huge disadvantage.
D landed on the ground at the monster’s front feet. The Titan lifted one foot with the clear intent to crush him. D immediately jumped to his feet and darted away, and the monster’s huge foot crashed onto the spot behind him where he had just been.
A spear of dark energy suddenly struck the ground next to D. Then another one. And another. He weaved desperately from side to side, doing his best to dodge the falling projectiles. He was fast, but not as fast and agile as Jake, and at one point, two spears of dark energy pierced his armored body at once.
They exploded into black dust, doing some damage to him. D staggered and even dropped to one knee. He definitely fared much worse than Jake when he was hit by a spear. From the look of things, D didn’t have much protection against this type of damage, if any.
D rose to his feet, but he was still a bit dazed. He seemed disoriented and unstable. Another spear of dark energy lanced down, and D attempted to dodge, but the effects of the previous hit he had suffered reduced his reaction speed. The spear impaled him and exploded into black dust, dealing more damage to him.
He collapsed to the ground. The Titan wasted no time taking advantage of his misfortune. It spread its X-shaped mouth wide, launching its tentacle-like tongue toward him. Just as D began to rise to his feet, the sucker-like tongue latched onto his back.
D froze for a heartbeat, clearly surprised by this turn of events. Then the Titan jerked him off his feet and flung him backward through the air as it retracted its tongue. A moment later, D vanished into its maw, and all four jaws snapped shut.
While its cone-shaped face wasn’t capable of showing any emotions, it definitely seemed like the Titan was quite pleased with itself for taking care of one of its opponents. Then it turned its full attention to Jake.
Jake quickly assessed the monster. It was wounded and not in its best shape. Both he and D had managed to inflict a good amount of damage on it, and now it was up to him alone to finish the Titan off.