Chapter 509
Chapter 509
Jake stepped through the Fleshport and emerged from the wyrmcaller that he’d mentally instructed to land on the Kaiju’s head a moment earlier. He wasted no time in merging with the Saurian Prowler, becoming one with the huge beast once more.
He then took a moment to briefly study his surroundings. The Kaiju was huge but not overly so. It was about five stories tall, or a little taller, so most of the buildings still towered over it.
While the beast wasn’t too large, it was powerful and incredibly damage-resistant. The tentacles that kept lashing out at the saurian beast as it scaled the organic wall had hardly dealt any damage to the armor-like scales that covered every inch of its body.
But what Jake liked most about his creature was the fact that it was not only extremely strong but also exceptionally agile and fast.
The only thing the Kaiju currently lacked was special abilities. Out of five slots, it had only one at that moment, which was occupied by the Transfer Maw ability. To unlock more slots, the Kaiju needed to level up.
It was time to get to that.
Some of the bulbous growths were nearing completion. A few seconds later, several of them finally transformed into various types of ravagespawn. For a moment, they clung to the organic matter covering the buildings on either side of him. Then they pushed off, launching themselves through the air like released springs.
Jake snatched one of the ravagespawn soaring toward him with a clawed hand and crushed the monster in his fist, instantly killing it. He opened his fist, letting what was left of the monster drop to the ground.
Another one shot through the air toward him, but he swatted it away with his tail. The damaged monster crashed to the ground. It was still alive but not for long. He lifted one clawed foot and stomped on the monster before it could even get up.
An insect-like ravagespawn landed on his chest, clinging to his scaled body. It began to crawl up his chest but didn’t get far. Jake snatched it with one hand, parted his jaws, and tossed the monster into his enormous mouth. He swallowed the unfortunate ravagespawn, and a moment later, it found itself in the Kaiju’s stomach, where it was quickly dissolved into nothingness by the mana stored there.
Several more ravagespawn clung to different parts of his saurian body. The monsters lashed out at him with their claws and tried to sink their teeth into his flesh, but their feeble attempts failed to deal any damage to his armored scales. One by one, he defeated the monsters with terrifying ease.
It wasn’t long before the last of the ravagespawn was dealt with.
Multiple Enemies Killed. +3,325 XP
XP: 3,325 / 50,000
It was the Kaiju who received the experience reward, not him. Which was good. The Saurian Prowler needed to level up to the next rank to unlock the second ability slot. Jake wondered whether, aside from that, the Kaiju would gain any additional benefits. Perhaps it would become larger and more powerful than it already was.
He then checked the beast’s hit points.
HP: 1,242,351 / 1,245,000
It had taken a bit of damage. But it had come from the tentacles sprouting from the organic walls, not from the ravagespawn he had just fought. If the Saurian Prowler had taken any damage from them at all, it had been insignificant. Those tentacles, however, were much more dangerous. Which wasn’t surprising. After all, their job was to make sure human survivors could neither escape from nor enter Dead City.
The organic matter covering the buildings was already growing more lumps, transforming them into monsters. However, the process wasn’t instantaneous, and Jake knew it would take a little while before a fresh group of monsters would be ready. It was clear he could defeat ravagespawn much faster than the Ravage Contamination could spawn them.
He decided not to wait for a fresh batch of monsters to develop. He set off at a light jog, moving down the streets. He was eager to pit the Kaiju against an elite ravagespawn. Or better yet, against a Titan.
There was only one way to summon a Titan, though. For one to appear, a core nestled inside a nest had to be attacked. Jake knew that to do that, he first needed to tear a hole through the organic matter covering a nest.
From experience, he knew that the exterior of a nest was not only surprisingly damage-resistant but also possessed an incredible regenerative ability that allowed it to repair damaged sections almost immediately. None of his natural abilities could inflict any lasting damage on a nest’s tough exterior.
It was time to find out if the Kaiju would prove any different.
He reached a four-way intersection and slowed down. Turning toward a random ten-story building, he approached it, preparing to tear into its organic covering. He swiped his large, razor-sharp claws at the organic shell, carving long furrows across it.
But the damaged organic matter knitted itself together almost instantly. Not that Jake had expected anything different. He took a step closer to the nest and unleashed a flurry of lightning-fast slashes at the organic shell, trying to tear a sizable hole through it.
Unfortunately, his fierce attack hardly achieved anything. Any damage he dealt to the nest was repaired almost instantly. Jake kept at it for almost a minute before finally giving up. Frustrated, he ceased his assault and stepped back from the nest. Any damage he had inflicted had already been repaired.
Dang it.
So it definitely looked like the only thing that could deal lasting damage to the nests was the technology developed by Mick, on which the guns used by the Spartans and Owen’s power claws were based.
Jake needed to defeat four more Titans, but as he had just discovered, he still couldn’t do it on his own. Since Owen had been captured by the Grafters, he would have to work with the Spartans, as originally planned.
Only he wasn’t going to return to them just yet. He had promised to help rid their city of the Ravage Contamination, but that had been before he and Owen encountered the bio-ship. Whoever the Grafters were, it was clear what they had been doing. They explored the world, capturing various lifeforms and fusing them with machinery, turning them into combat units.
They had captured him and Owen for the same reason. While he had managed to escape, his partner was still trapped on the bio-ship, and whoever controlled it was clearly going to try to subjugate him, turning Owen into a mindless killing machine. Whether they succeeded or not, they would soon return for Jake and try to capture him again.
So the Spartans could wait. He had a bigger problem to deal with before helping them free their city from the Ravage. He had to prepare for another fight with the bio-ship and its synthetic inhabitants.
A fresh batch of ravagespawn had just finished developing. They charged at him from all directions. Sure enough, it was as easy for him to deal with them as it had been with the previous group. Jake then detached from the Kaiju and rose to his feet, standing on the crown of the saurian beast’s head.
He mentally reached out to his wyrmcallers patrolling Dead City, instructing them to keep an eye on the Kaiju. When the Saurian Prowler started to run low on mana, the nearest wyrmcallers were to deploy managatherers to replenish its reserves. After that, he instructed the Kaiju to go hunting ravagespawn and gain experience.
Just as the huge reptilian creature broke into a predatory jog down the street, Jake launched a grappling hook toward the nearest building and swung toward it. Clinging to the organic wall, he summoned the nearest wyrmcaller. As it flew past, he launched himself toward it with perfect timing and clung to its back. In mid-flight, the winged creature opened its riftmaw, and Jake crawled through it to emerge in the Apex Hollow.
He approached the Genome Fusion Lab and spent the next several minutes searching for interesting abilities he could unlock for the Kaiju. Having been evolved to the final rank, the structure allowed him to view a list of abilities available to his creatures.
Finally, he found an interesting option that could serve as a good second ability for the Saurian Beast. When the bio-ship eventually returned for him, this ability would come in handy. He selected it and requested the list of genetic materials needed to unlock it.
The structure also provided the names of elite monsters from which the required unique genetic materials could be harvested, along with the approximate locations of the beasts. Since Dead City was populated only by ravagespawn, all the elite creatures on the list were located in New Hope.
Jake committed their whereabouts to memory and stepped through the Fleshport.