Chapter 516
Chapter 516
The group moved through the contaminated streets of Dead City with practiced efficiency honed by countless battles against the horrors lurking within. Silvia confidently led from the front, her eyes constantly scanning the streets ahead. Catalina brought up the rear, keeping watch for threats that might emerge from behind.
Several Spartans accompanied them, each carrying either an assault rifle or a combat shotgun as their primary weapon, along with a sidearm at their hip. Every firearm in the team’s arsenal was energy-based. This tech had specifically been invented by Mad Mick to combat the Ravage. The weapons were capable of unleashing concentrated bursts of energy bolts that could both tear through ravagespawn flesh and burn away patches of Ravage Contamination covering the streets and protecting the nests.
Catalina knew she should stay on full alert and be focused entirely on her surroundings. Dead City was a truly dangerous place. At any moment, ravagespawn could emerge from numerous swellings that grew on the organic masses around them whenever they went. A single lapse in attention could get someone killed.
But even knowing all that, she found her thoughts drifting back to the same grim subject that had occupied her mind for days. She was conflicted about what they were doing. Part of her understood the necessity of the mission. The remaining Titans needed to be dealt with, as time was quickly running out. Every day they delayed was another day the Ravage continued to spread unchecked in New Hope.
But another part of her couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a mistake. She would have preferred to wait for Jake’s return. They could really use his help. The initial plan had been to wait for him to come back so that he and the Spartans would hunt down the remaining Titans together. Those enormous creatures were among the deadliest monsters in existence. Even with a large team of experienced fighters, confronting one was extremely dangerous. Going after them without Jake was reckless.
But unfortunately, Silvia had a different opinion about it. Several days had passed since Jake had killed the Commander and vanished from the Spartan base. At the time, he had promised he would return within a couple of days. Once he did, he would help the Spartans eliminate the remaining Titans. Initially, nobody had been particularly concerned by his absence. After all, it was Silvia herself who had suggested that he leave for a couple of days.
After all, Jake had just killed the Spartans’ leader. The Commander had deserved his fate, at least in Catalina’s opinion, but many of the Spartans thought otherwise. Many of them had been angry, confused, or simply struggling to process everything that had happened. They were mad at Jake. That was the reason Silvia had decided that Jake’s presence would only make matters worse. A couple of days apart would give everyone time to cool their heads.
At the time, Catalina had assumed the Spartans would never forgive Jake for killing their leader. As it turned out, she had been wrong. To her surprise, Silvia had actually somehow managed to convince her people that Jake had done what needed to be done. More importantly, she persuaded them that making an enemy of someone as powerful as Jake would be extremely stupid.
Slowly but surely, the hostility toward him had faded. Most of the Spartans agreed with her. Interestingly enough, Silvia had been accepted as the new leader of the Spartans without any real opposition. Nobody challenged her claim. In fact, most seemed relieved by the decision. They agreed that if anyone could guide the Spartans from that point onward, it was Silvia.
Since then, they had waited for Jake to return. And waited. And waited. The couple of days Silvia had requested had stretched into many more. By now, everyone expected him to have come back. But he hadn’t. What made his continued absence even stranger was what had happened several days earlier.
The number of Titans remaining in Dead City had suddenly dropped from five to four. But the Spartans had nothing to do with it. Someone else had killed a Titan. The only explanation was that it had to be Jake. There simply wasn’t anyone else in Dead City capable of accomplishing such a feat.
Technically, the devastator was powerful enough to defeat a Titan of course, but everybody doubted it was him who had killed the Titan. After all, until that point, he had never bothered to take down a Titan, and therefore, nobody had any reason to believe he would suddenly start hunting them now.
Then, a few days later, it happened again. The number of remaining Titans had dropped from four to three. Another Titan was dead. Out of ten, only three remained. At that point, there was little room for doubt. Jake was clearly hunting them. He was obviously doing it alone, and that hadn’t sat well with Silvia. It wasn’t what they had agreed upon.
Their initial arrangement had been simple: Jake would help the Spartans eliminate the remaining Titans, and in exchange, the Spartans would assist Catalina and her team in purging the Ravage Contamination from New Hope and would eventually relocate there once Dead City had been cleansed. After all, once the Ravage was eradicated, there would be little reason for anyone to remain in Dead City, as there would be nothing for them to do there.
But Jake’s actions were beginning to undermine that agreement. At least, from Silvia’s point of view. The more Titans disappeared, the more suspicious Silvia became. She couldn’t understand why Jake refused to return to their base. Why did he continue fighting alone when they had already agreed to work together?
Eventually, Silvia developed a theory. She suspected Jake was intentionally eliminating the Titans by himself so he could later claim that the Spartans had contributed nothing to the effort. If that happened, he could argue that they had no right to settle in New Hope.
Catalina thought the idea was absurd. She had argued against it repeatedly. She was trying to convince Silvia that Jake wasn’t that kind of person. She believed the explanation was much simpler. Jake had always worked alone. For someone as powerful as him, bringing along a squad of Spartans would simply slow him down more than help him. To Catalina, that seemed like the obvious answer. Jake was simply being Jake.
Unfortunately, Silvia remained unconvinced. The Spartan leader viewed the remaining Titans as leverage. As long as some of them were still alive, the Spartans had something valuable to offer. If Jake killed them all himself, that leverage disappeared. And Silvia wasn’t willing to take that risk.
So earlier today, she assembled a strike team. Their plan was to find a nest, enter it, and destroy the core to force one of the remaining Titans to materialize itself so they could kill it before Jake did. That was why they were here now, navigating the dangerous streets of Dead City toward a nest they intended to eradicate.
Sure enough, Catalina had volunteered to accompany the mission. Not because she agreed with Silvia’s reasoning, but because she understood the urgency of the situation. The Ravage Contamination continued to spread at an alarming rate in New Hope. The last time she had spoken with Melissa, the news had been grim. She told her that more than eighty percent of the city was already infected.
The number had haunted Catalina ever since she heard it. They were running out of time. If the contamination fully developed before they could intervene, New Hope would become another Dead City. They needed to eradicate what was left of the Ravage here and immediately make it back to New Hope to stop the Ravage there before it became fully developed.
So she was on the fence. She believed that if Jake had found a reliable way to get inside a nest and destroy its core and then deal with a Titan, then he genuinely didn’t need the Spartans’ assistance at all. Part of her thought it would be better to let him handle the remaining Titans on his own. It would save Spartan lives and likely get the job done faster.
But at the same time, they had reached the point where every single day counted. Whether Jake liked it or not, they couldn’t afford to stay idle. The remaining Titans needed to be dealt with as quickly as possible. The goal was to relocate the Spartans to New Hope to save the city before the Ravage swallowed what remained of it.
Lost in thought, Catalina barely noticed the passage of time. The group continued through the contaminated streets of Dead City at a brisk pace. Every now and then, groups of ravagespawn attempted to ambush them. The creatures emerged from the swellings growing on the organic matter all around them wherever they went, but none survived for long. The Spartans dealt with them with practiced efficiency, coordinated volleys of energy fire, reducing the monsters to smoking remains before they could close the distance.
Eventually, the team reached their destination. The nest loomed before them. Pulsing masses of weird biomass clung to the towering structure. Veins of black and crimson growth spread across the organic layers. Silvia stopped and surveyed the target. A grim smile crossed her face.
“This is the one, team,” she said. “Let’s get to work.”
No further instructions were necessary. Every Spartan perfectly knew their role. Long months of fighting together had made lengthy briefings no longer unnecessary. The moment Silvia gave the order, the team moved into position.
Three of them moved toward the front wall of the nest while the rest stood guard. Catalina was among the latter. As she raised her weapon and scanned her surroundings for any threats, she wondered where Jake was and what he was doing at that moment.
Their goal was to eliminate the nest and deal with the Titan that would begin to materialize the moment they launched an attack on the core. But whether they would be able to complete their objective without Jake’s assistance was anybody’s guess.