Chapter 508
Chapter 508
Now that every strike he delivered triggered an extremely powerful explosion, he figured it would take about twenty minutes for him to reach the other end of the tunnel. It was definitely a huge improvement, considering that without the explosive effects of his punches, it would have taken him a few hours to achieve the same thing.
So the amount of gems of the same type he could absorb at the same time was governed by the size of his body. The bigger he was, the more gems of the same type he could absorb, multiplying the effects they gave. It was good to know.
He continued to move down the tunnel, blasting the walls with his explosive strikes. As it turned out, he miscalculated a bit. The explosive effects from the magical gemstones depleted sooner than he had initially hoped. He had no more gems, so he had no choice but to continue widening the tunnel with his bare hands.
Luckily, he had managed to navigate most of the tunnel before the explosive effects wore off, so it didn’t take him much time to finally reach the other end. After widening the exit enough for him to crawl through, he finally emerged from the tunnel. He rose to his hind legs and took a look around.
He stood at the bottom of a chasm. It was about a dozen yards wide. Tilting his head back, he looked up. The edge of the rock wall was far above him. He would have to climb. The Saurian Prowler didn’t have Adhesive Secretion or any other similar ability to cling to vertical surfaces, so he would have to climb the old-fashioned way.
Turning toward the sheer rock face, he stretched upward and drove his claws into a network of wide cracks. The stone bit against his palms as he tested his grip, then hauled himself off the ground. His hind legs quickly found purchase on protruding ridges, powerful muscles bunching beneath his scales as he climbed.
He began his ascent. Despite its size, the Saurian Prowler was surprisingly agile. For the next several minutes, he kept ascending. His clawed fingers made use of every imperfection in the stone, such as fractures or jagged protrusions, while his feet anchored him against the wall. Whenever he encountered a wide crack, he dug his claws deep into the gap and pulled himself higher.
The bottom of the chasm grew smaller and more distant beneath him as he continued his ascent, scaling the rocky face with surprising ease. It didn’t take him long to reach the rim. Wrapping his claws around the lip of the cliff, he tightened his grip and heaved. Muscles strained across his shoulders and back as he hauled his body upward, his tail lashing behind him for balance.
With one final pull, he slid over the edge and rose to his feet. At last, he stood beneath the open sky. He then turned back toward the chasm and looked down for a moment. The drop plunged into darkness, its depths now hidden from view. It was difficult to believe he had been standing at the bottom only moments earlier.
He swept his gaze across the devastated landscape. Just like everywhere else in the Scarlands, massive crevices scarred the earth in every direction, splitting the ground into jagged fragments. Turning toward Dead City, he searched the horizon for any sign of it. As expected, the city was nowhere to be seen. It was completely swallowed by the great distance.
Without wasting a second, he broke into a run.
The rough terrain thundered beneath his powerful feet as he charged forward. Loose stones bounced and skittered away with every stride, while dust billowed behind him in a widening trail. For a time, the only sound was the rhythmic pounding of his enormous feet against the fractured earth.
It wasn’t long before the first obstacle came into view.
A broad crevice stretched across his path from left to right. He slowed slightly as he approached the edge and measured the gap with a glance. It was far too long to follow in either direction. Finding a way around it would take too much time. He would have to jump over it instead.
The crevice was wide but not overly so. Assessing the distance, he was pretty sure he could clear it without much trouble. He accelerated, running faster and faster. The ground trembled beneath him as he raced toward the edge. As he reached it, he bent his knees and launched himself skyward.
While the Saurian Prowler didn’t have any kind of ability that could enhance the length or height of its jump, it was still impressive. The earth seemed to fall away beneath him. He soared over the yawning chasm. The edge on the other side rushed toward him, and a moment later, he crashed down on the opposite side with a tremendous impact that shook the ground.
Upon his rough landing, a shockwave rippled through the ground, scattering pebbles in every direction and sending dust erupting into the air. He absorbed the force of the landing, took several heavy steps forward, and gradually slowed to a halt. Standing still, he stared into the distance for a moment.
Sure enough, the route to Dead City was riddled with crevices. Countless fractures stretched across the wasteland, crisscrossing the terrain like a vast web of scars. The gap he had just crossed was among the smallest. Many of the others were significantly wider, and some seemed so massive that they appeared like canyons from where he stood.
Dead City remained impossibly far away. He realized the journey ahead would take many long hours, much longer than he had first expected.
He couldn’t afford to spend so much time simply trying to get to the city. He didn’t know how much time it would take for the bio-ship to return for him, but he had to assume it was going to happen sooner rather than later. And he had so much to accomplish. By the time it returned, he had to be completely ready for another battle with those synthetic creatures.
There was no time to waste. He had to increase his resistances. Level up. Evolve. Get new abilities for the Kaiju. He had a lot to accomplish, and he needed it all done in a short amount of time. He just couldn’t afford to personally lead his Kaiju to Dead City. The creature was going to have to get there on its own.
So he issued a mental command to detach from the Kaiju. When his own body formed on the crown of the Kaiju’s head and detached from it, he once again saw the world through his own eyes. After standing up, he jumped all the way down to the ground. He then instructed the Saurian Prowler to head to Dead City and mentally reach out to him once it got there.
The huge beast immediately broke into a run across the rough landscape. For a moment, Jake remained where he was, watching the Kaiju navigate the Scarlands, jumping over some of the chasms and navigating around the others. It wasn’t long before the huge beast was nothing more than a speck on the horizon.
It didn’t take Jake much time to return to the Apex Hollow. Once there, he got to work. For the next several hours, he was busy combining various unique genetic materials in search of a specific special ability. Once he found it, he began to evolve the Managatherer. During the process, he imparted to the creature the ability he had just unlocked.
A few hours later, the work was complete. All the managatherers he developed in hive nexuses from that point onward would have the ability to transfer mana from their abdomens to any of his creatures that were low on mana. After that, he set several hive nexuses to begin developing new managatherers, as those that already existed didn’t have the ability he had just unlocked.
Just as he was finishing this work, the Saurian Prowler mentally contacted him to let him know it had finally reached Dead City. Jake established a mental link with the Kaiju and immediately saw the world through the beast’s eyes. He watched as the huge beast approached the organic wall that surrounded the city and began to scale it.
The Saurian Prowler dug its claws into the wall without any trouble, climbing higher and higher. At one point, the Ravage sprouted a long whip-like tentacle that immediately lashed out at the Kaiju. It struck across its scaled body, hardly doing any damage to the creature. When the tentacle whipped at the Kaiju a second time, the beast was ready. It swung its claws at the tentacle, severing it in half.
The Saurian Prowler continued its ascent, fighting off tentacles that erupted from the choking mass of Ravage Contamination. Thick, writhing tentacles sprouted from the corrupted layer one by one, lashing out at the Kaiju, but it swatted them aside with powerful sweeps of its tail or simply tore them to shreds with its claws.
At last, the creature reached the top of the contaminated wall. Without hesitation, it vaulted over the edge and soon crashed down on the opposite side. The impact shook the ground and sent waves rippling through the carpet of Ravage Contamination beneath it. The corrupted surface sagged and buckled under the Kaiju’s tremendous weight.
The Saurian Prowler immediately put distance between itself and the wall. Taking several long strides away from it, the beast moved beyond the reach of any tentacles that might emerge. Once it was satisfied with its position, it came to a halt.
After that, it simply stood where it was. Since it received no more telepathic instructions from him, it remained motionless. Bulbous growths had already begun to swell all around the huge creature, but it ignored them completely.
The Kaiju was in Dead City now. It was time for him to get there too and merge with the saurian beast once more.