Ex-Human Morphus [A Mutant Evolution Apocalypse LitRPG]

Chapter 500

Jake looked up at the door he had been brought through. It was fully sealed now, with no trace that an opening had existed there only moments earlier. The ceiling looked completely solid, as if the door hadn’t merely shut but had fused seamlessly with the surface around it, becoming one with the ceiling.

Not that he was going to let that stop him. He jumped up and clung to the ceiling with the tips of his fingers and feet. Morphing one hand into a smashfist, he crashed it against the section of the ceiling where the door had to be. He wasn’t really surprised when his powerful strike failed to leave so much as a dent on the surface.

It was obvious that he hadn’t been put in that place if it was easy to escape from. He kept pounding the ceiling with his smashfists for a little while. Not surprisingly, his efforts achieved nothing. He tried some of his other weapons and abilities, like drills and acid spit, but none of them made any difference.

Now that he knew crashing through the ceiling wasn’t an option, he moved on to trying something else. After dropping from the ceiling and sticking the landing, he turned his attention to the force field that prevented him from leaving his cell.

He charged at it, crashing his smashfist against the yellow, semi-transparent wall with tremendous force. The point of impact flickered for an instant, but that was the extent of his fierce attack. Unfazed, Jake kept attacking, pouring all his strength into every strike.

Out of his arsenal, smashfists were the best weapons for crushing and pulverizing solid objects. However, the force field easily withstood every strike. It hummed slightly and flickered at the points of impact every time he struck it, but other than that, his powerful punches had no effect on it at all. It was the very first time Jake had encountered something so durable, so damage-resistant.

After a minute or so, he finally ceased his assault and took a step back from the force field. The yellow surface was as solid and unscathed as it had been before he launched his attack. Jake was starting to lose hope of getting out of there. If his smashfists failed to leave a scratch on the force field, the chances that any of his other weapons would be able to break it were pretty slim.

Just like him, Owen was having trouble getting out of his cell. He battered the barrier with punches and slashed at it with his scythe-blades, but none of his attacks accomplished anything. At one point, he even shifted into his golem form, bulking outward and upward until his limbs were as thick as tree trunks.

He hurled himself at the force field only to bounce off it like a rubber ball. Ripples radiated from the point of impact across the force field, but it remained completely undamaged. Owen kept trying, crashing against the barrier over and over again, yet failing to break through every time.

Finally, he reverted to his normal form. He retreated to the back of his cell, then suddenly jumped. In midair, he transformed into a missile and slammed into the barrier with enormous force. More ripples raced across its surface, but it still held. Owen-missile dropped to the floor, defeated. He morphed back to his normal form and then took a step backward from the force field.

For a moment, both of them simply stared at the barriers confining them. Then they looked at each other, each seeming to hope the other might have a plan to destroy the barriers. But they both were out of ideas by that point.

Jake knew he had a lot of options he could still try, but he had a feeling each one would fail. Whoever built this airship was obviously so much higher-level than Jake and Owen were. Against something like this, their abilities were practically useless.

Still, he had one last option. Unlike the others, it should work. Only, since neither he nor Owen could break free from their respective cells, Jake knew that if his plan worked, he would escape, but Owen would be left behind.

It was definitely unfortunate, but he didn’t know what could be done about that.

Suddenly, through the soles of his feet, he felt the floor vibrate. The airship was definitely moving somewhere. That settled it. He had to get out now, while he still had the chance. He hated the idea of leaving Owen behind, but there was nothing he could do. At the very least, he would come back for him later. How exactly he would get him free, he didn’t know yet, but it wasn’t the right time to think about that.

The vibrations kept intensifying. The airship was accelerating. He needed to hurry.

With a thought, he extracted a tumor from his inventory, and it popped out of thin air right before him. Catching it before it could drop to the floor, he turned away from the force field and carried the tumor to the wall on his right.

He pressed it against the solid, flat surface, and the tumor immediately glued itself to it. Jake took a step backward, watching the tumor flatten as it spread across the wall. He knew it would take about a minute for the process to complete. Usually, it didn’t feel long, but at that moment, it seemed like an eternity. Every second seemed to drag on.

In his peripheral vision, he could see Owen standing still behind the force field in his cell. He had stopped trying to shatter the barrier and was now watching what Jake was doing with keen interest. It was the first time Jake had used this ability in front of him, so Owen had no idea what he was seeing.

Jake felt bad for Owen. His partner had no chance of escaping the airship. He probably thought Jake was using another of his combat abilities in an attempt to break through the wall. He wondered what Owen would think when he realized what Jake was actually trying to do. Would he get angry with him? Or would he understand that it was the only chance, if not for both of them, then at least for one of them, to escape?

Jake wanted to retrieve his electrolarynx and tell his partner that he would come back for him, but at that moment, the tumor had finally spread across the wall, creating a wide splotch of Corruption. With a thought, he instructed a Transfer Maw to form on the pitch-black patch, and the process immediately began.

It was going to be another minute of waiting, more than enough time to explain the situation to Owen. Jake turned his head to look at him. His partner met his gaze. Jake was about to retrieve his electrolarynx when something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

He shifted his attention back to the black patch of Corruption where the Transfer Maw was forming. Something was happening to it. Something that was not supposed to happen.

The Corruption patch began to tremble, faint ripples running across its surface. Then wisps of vapor started rising from it, and the black mass began to sizzle and bubble like fat in a hot pan.

Jake took a step back from the wall. He had no idea what was happening, but one thing was obvious: it had to be some kind of defensive countermeasure that had been activated by either the automatic system of the airship or whoever controlled it.

The patch kept trembling and sizzling, as if it were being cooked alive. Jake watched in frustration as his only escape plan was destroyed before his eyes. Pieces began flaking away. The whole thing shrank rapidly, breaking into shriveled fragments. Seconds later, the fragments dropped from the wall, hit the floor, and crumbled into dust.

He just stared at the remains. Just like that, his only way out was gone. Owen realized that whatever Jake had tried to do had just failed. He turned his attention back to his own barrier and resumed pounding his fists against it.

Even though Jake was sure there was little point in trying to break the force field holding him in his cell, he didn’t feel like passively standing still, waiting for who knew what. He began growing a shardflare in the palm of his right hand, feeding it with flesh from his own body and mana from his reserves.

When it reached the size of a baseball, he stopped the process. Taking a step toward the force field, he attached the shardflare to it. Then he took a few steps backward and detonated the shardflare with a thought. As expected, the resulting explosion failed to destroy the barrier or even weaken it.

Jake wondered if there was any point in trying to create a bigger shardflare. After all, to create one, part of his own body and mana were used, resulting in him losing HP and MP. The larger the shardflare, the bigger the loss.

On the other side of the corridor, Owen kept trying to break free from his cell. He pounded his fists against it with great force. He seemed determined to keep trying no matter what. Every blow sent ripples spreading from the impact point.

He brought one fist back and then slammed it into the force field for what felt like the hundredth time. Then he pulled his arm back again for another strike. Just as he began to strike, the force field before him blinked and then suddenly disappeared.

It happened so suddenly and unexpectedly that Owen didn’t seem to immediately realize what had just happened. Still carried forward by his momentum, he lurched through the now-open space, lost his footing, and hit the floor in the middle of the corridor.

But he immediately jumped back to his feet. He was free now.

Jake had a feeling he had no hope of shattering his own barrier. After all, Owen was much more powerful than him in terms of pure physical strength.

Owen glanced back at his cell as if to confirm the force field was no longer there. Then he turned his attention to Jake and took a step toward him, raising his fist with the clear intent to smash through Jake’s force field as well.

However, before Owen could even hit it, the barrier blinked just like the previous one and then simply disappeared. At that moment, it became obvious that Owen hadn’t smashed his way out of his cell. No, it was clear that both force fields had simply been deactivated.

But there was no time to wonder who had done it or why. Jake quickly left his cell and stopped next to Owen in the corridor. He quickly glanced both ways. They were standing in the middle of a long passage, with a circular closed door at each end. There were several other cells on both sides of the corridor, but each one was empty and without a force field.

Jake knew that, to escape the airship, they likely needed to get back to the maw through which they had been brought. Which meant they had to attempt to break through the door on his left. Whether they would be able to open or breach it was a big question, though.

But before they could head there, something happened. The door on the right side of the passage spiraled open with a hiss. They both looked that way. The door led into a long corridor, which led somewhere deeper into the airship.

It definitely wasn’t where they needed to go. But whoever had deactivated the force fields and opened the door clearly wanted them to head that way.

Jake didn’t like that. Not one bit. It definitely felt like a trap. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to have much choice, though.

They started for the open door.