Chapter 503
Chapter 503
The monster was massive, about the size of a two-story house. It stood on four segmented legs like a scorpion’s but with one notable difference. Instead of feet, each leg ended in a pair of curved, double-edged blades.
The torso and head of the monster looked like those of a praying mantis. It had four arms, however, each ending in a hand with three long, talon-like fingers.
Just like any other creature deployed from the living airship, it also had clearly artificial modifications fused into its body. On each of the creature’s shoulders was what looked like a small autoturret, and mounted on its back was a heavy metal pack, likely a missile pod.
The creature’s level was the same as that of the previous three types of enemies Jake and Owen had encountered in the past several minutes. The monster was called a Mantid Goliath. Unlike the mantid soldiers they had fought moments earlier, the chitinous exterior encasing the Goliath was clearly much more durable.
The giant four-legged mantid before them was an elite enemy, and as such, it had three special abilities. It was clearly much more powerful than the three synthetic enemies that had been deployed from the living vessel: stalkers, phantoms, and mantid soldiers.
However, Jake wasn’t going to fight that enormous mantid. They simply didn’t have time for that. As Mick had told them, it was just a matter of time before he lost control over the living vessel’s computer systems, so Jake knew he and Owen had to hurry.
For that reason, he didn’t even bother to read the descriptions of the massive mantid’s special abilities. Instead, he raced across the vast cargo hold, giving the gigantic mantid a wide berth and hoping Owen would do the same.
He was already aware that his partner wasn’t keen on retreating, even when it was necessary. Being a Devastator, an extremely powerful mutant, he found the very idea of turning tail almost offensive. When facing an enemy that either outnumbered him or was much bigger and visibly more powerful than he was, he took it as a personal challenge he needed to overcome.
Luckily, as he glanced to his right, he saw that Owen was running across the cavern as well, circling around the gigantic mantid from the other side. That was good. Despite his instinct to always take an enemy head-on, his partner wasn’t reckless enough to let that instinct overrule his judgment.
However, the massive mantid wasn’t willing to let the two of them just slip past it. Sure enough, it couldn’t chase both of them simultaneously. It needed to choose, so the monster spun with surprising agility for its size toward one of them. The one it chose to pursue was Jake.
He heard the heavy pounding behind him as the massive mantid followed him. He didn’t need to turn around to know that the monster was gaining on him, and very fast at that. A second later, a sharp crackle split the air, and his Feral Instincts alerted him to some danger.
He had a good idea of what it was. Without glancing back, he darted aside, and a heartbeat later, a bolt of energy streaked past him to blast into the floor where he had just been. Undeterred, the gigantic mantid kept firing at him from its shoulder-mounted energy cannons.
The fire rate of those armaments was pretty high, the red bolts sizzling past him in droves. There was no way he could dodge them all. One of them slammed into his back, sending him staggering forward. He managed to keep his footing and kept running. But not for long. Another bolt of energy slammed into his leg, chewing right through it and leaving a glowing hole behind.
This time, Jake couldn’t keep his balance. He pitched forward and hit the ground face-first. The huge mantid was on top of him immediately. Feral Instincts warned him of danger once more. He wasted no time rolling to the side. In the next instant, one of the mantid’s sharpened, blade-like feet speared into the spot where he had just been.
The monster lifted another of its forelegs with the clear intent to impale him. However, Jake was already on his feet and darting away. He ducked as the gigantic mantid took a swipe at him with the same limb.
Sprouting a blade from his wrist, Jake parried the attack, hoping to shear through the mantid’s leg and at least partially cripple it. But the attempt failed. His blade struck the creature’s limb with a sharp clank and bounced off without cutting through. The force of the impact knocked his arm wide and nearly threw him off balance.
The mantid lurched forward, leaning in and reaching for him with one of its hands. Jake immediately darted away, spun away from the monster, and broke into a run again. Sure enough, the mantid wasn’t willing to let him go. He expected the monster to open fire on him again and got ready to dodge bolts of energy once more.
However, the gigantic mantid did something else instead. Rather than chasing him, the monster employed one of its special abilities. In his peripheral vision, Jake saw some kind of projectile shoot through the air to his left. It traversed several yards before suddenly coming to a motionless hover about a dozen feet above the floor.
Whatever the thing was, it looked like a tiny black hole about an inch in diameter. Before Jake could even comprehend what it was, he felt himself being pulled toward it. The force of the pull was surprisingly strong, and he realized he wouldn’t be able to resist it. He attempted to employ Adhesive Secretion to anchor himself to the floor, but either he was too slow or the pull was too strong. Either way, the ability didn’t help him.
The pull ripped him off his feet and hurled him through the air toward the miniature black hole. The moment he reached it, his motion stopped. He remained suspended in midair as though magnetized to it. He flailed his arms and kicked his legs but couldn’t break free. Since the black hole was immaterial, he couldn’t grab it or rip it away. He fired a grappling hook into the ceiling and tried to pull himself free once it caught, but the black hole held him fast.
Whatever ability the mantid had just utilized, it was clearly chaos-based. Jake’s resistance to chaos was only 25%. Had it been higher, he most likely would have been able to resist the pull of the black hole. If he was able to get out of the living airship, he was definitely going to find a way to increase his resistance to chaos, as well as to some other types of damage and abilities.
Seeing that he was absolutely helpless and trapped at that moment, the gigantic mantid lurched toward him. Jake thrust out both arms toward the quickly approaching monster, firing saw blades at it. The spinning projectiles shrieked through the air toward the creature and slammed against its torso.
However, they failed to penetrate the creature’s tough exterior. The saw blades harmlessly pinged off it, bouncing away in various directions. The monster reached out as it got dangerously close to Jake, ready to grab him.
Just as it was about to close the fingers of one hand around his body, Owen slammed into its torso with incredible force. The monster staggered but managed to keep its balance. Owen attempted to stab his scythe-blades into the monster’s chitinous exterior, but they failed to pierce its natural armor.
Unable to cling to the monster’s torso, Owen dropped to the floor. But he immediately shifted into his golem form, his body swelling dramatically in size. Without wasting a second, he launched a barrage of crushing punches at the elite monster.
Every time his fist slammed against the monster, the mantid was forced to take a step backward. However, other than that, Owen’s punches, powerful as they were, failed to shatter the mantid’s armored carapace. As for Jake, he was still affected by the pull of the micro black hole, so all he could do was watch.
At one point, as one of Owen’s fists crashed against the mantid’s exterior, a spiderweb of cracks radiated from the point of impact. Encouraged by that, his partner redoubled his onslaught, aiming his punches at the damaged section of the mantid’s armor again and again. Every punch he delivered weakened the carapace further, cracks spreading wider. It was clear it was about to cave in on itself.
Suddenly, the black hole holding Jake in place disappeared, letting him drop to the floor.
Almost at the same time, there was a hiss behind him, and when he glanced back, he saw a round section of the floor at the back of the cargo hold spiral open, revealing an opening leading somewhere downward. Immediately, Mick’s voice blared from a nearby control console on one of the walls.
“Jake, Owen, what the heck are you doing?” Mick shouted. “You don’t have time to fight that monster. You need to enter the hatch I just opened for you. It’ll lead you right out of the ship. But you need to go right now! I’m about to get locked out. I don’t know how much longer I can maintain control. Jake, get Owen to stop fighting that thing and jump into the hatch! You don’t have much time left to escape, guys!”
Jake glanced at Owen in time to see him deliver another punch that crashed right through the creature’s carapace. The mantid screeched in pain and fury. Then it lashed out, bringing one foreleg down in a brutal strike. Owen wasn’t especially agile in his regular form, and he was even less so in his golem one, so he had no chance of dodging it.
The sharp tip stabbed deep into his left shoulder, effectively trapping Owen in place. Jake was aware that the hatch behind him was still open, but for how long it was going to remain that way was a big question. Whoever controlled the living airship could notice it was open at any second and seal it shut.
Jake knew he had a hard choice to make: come to Owen’s aid and risk getting trapped aboard the living vessel or dive into the hatch and leave his partner behind.