Chapter 521
Chapter 521
For a second or two, Jake looked at the enormous bio-ship floating high above. Then he turned his attention to the humans and said to Silvia, “You better get out of here while you can. It’s gonna get real messy in a few moments.”
Silvia met his gaze and asked, “What is going on, Jake? Who does that airship belong to? Why are they after you?”
Jake just stared at her for a second, bewildered. Instead of trying to get her people to safety while she still could, she was wasting time asking questions that could be answered at a calmer moment.
“Did you even hear what I just said?” he asked.
“Yes, Jake, I heard you all right,” Silvia said with a stubborn look on her face. “But I really want to know what is going on. We’ve never come across anything like that airship.”
“This ship belongs to the Grafters,” Jake said. “Aboard the ship is an army of synths, living beings fused with machinery and weaponry. The Grafters and their army of synths are incredibly dangerous. That’s all you need to know for now.”
The living airship was getting closer and closer to their position. There was no time to waste. Jake spun and leaped onto the head of the Saurian Prowler, which still remained flattened against the ground.
“Why are they after you?” Silvia called after him.
Jake turned to face the group of humans and looked down at them. “They want me for their experiments. They already captured Owen, and now they want to snatch me as well.”
“Sounds ominous,” Silvia said.
One of the Spartans looked at her and said with a hopeful tone in his voice, “Perhaps if they only want him, the Grafters, whoever they are, won’t consider us their enemies.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Jake said to the speaker before Silvia could reply.
The Spartans remained where they were instead of trying to get somewhere safer, as he had told them to. They were obviously waiting for Silvia to give an order, but her stubbornness got in the way, as always.
Jake turned his head to look at Catalina and said, “You need to get out of the streets right now. If Silvia orders you to stay, don’t listen to her. What is about to unfold here is not gonna be pretty.”
Having said that, Jake flattened himself across the top of his Kaiju’s head. He had warned the humans. What they were going to do next was out of his hands. The battle that was about to unfold between him and the living ship and its occupants was going to be real messy. If the Spartans were stupid enough to stay and watch, it wouldn’t end well for them, but that was out of his hands. All he could do was warn them, and he had already done it.
In a second, he merged with the Kaiju, becoming one with the huge saurian beast. He then rose onto his hind legs, straightening to the Kaiju’s full height. Tipping his head back, he looked up at the living ship gliding through the sky. He could already tell that the bio-ship was well out of range of his Void Siphon ability. He needed to get closer to the bio-ship in order to use it.
In one leap, he darted toward the nearest building. His Kaiju couldn’t cling to vertical surfaces, as it didn’t have the Adhesive Secretion ability. Still, the saurian beast was agile and powerful, and by digging its claws into the organic matter covering the building, it easily found purchase. He began to climb, stabbing his claws into the organic matter and pulling himself upward, steadily ascending one floor after another.
Since the Kaiju was five stories tall, he had a good head start. It took him less than a minute to reach the top of the building. Once on the rooftop, he straightened and looked up at the living ship drifting overhead. It was still well above him, but at least it was now within range of his Void Siphon.
Jake opened his mouth and employed the ability. The beam shot through the air, hitting the living vessel on the side. Immediately, the bio-ship slowed down. Jake attempted to pull the vessel toward the roof of the building he stood on, but as it turned out, the task wasn’t as easy as he had hoped. The living ship was too huge, and it resisted his attempts to drag it downward.
Exerting all his might, Jake focused on the task. He could tell that the Kaiju was burning through mana at an alarming rate, but he knew he had to pull the living ship closer. He could see the bio-ship’s engines trembling as they worked at full power, but the vessel struggled to tear itself free of the force pulling at it.
He could see that the bio-ship was no longer able to move. It was trapped in place, unable to resist the force’s pull. Moreover, bit by bit, the vessel was being dragged downward. The engines visibly trembled, and blue smoke began to seep from them. It seemed they were overheating and could explode at any moment.
At one point, the living ship attempted to escape using its teleportation ability. A black hole ripped open in front of the vessel, but since the bio-ship couldn’t move from its spot, it was unable to dive into the wormhole. A few seconds later, the black hole collapsed in on itself, disappearing completely. No matter what the bio-ship did, it just couldn’t get free.
By his rough estimation, it would take about a minute for the living ship to get close enough for the Kaiju to reach it. By the time that happened, the Saurian Prowler would be down nearly half its mana reserves. But there was nothing he could do about that. He needed to get the bio-ship closer in order to launch an attack.
Then two things happened almost simultaneously. First, the bio-ship’s mouth gaped open, and in the next instant, a synth phantom flew out from inside the living vessel. Second, one of the turrets mounted on the side of the ship pivoted and zeroed in on the Kaiju below. The phantom zipped through the air toward the Kaiju just as the turret fired.
A bolt of energy streaked toward the Saurian Beast, but there was nothing Jake could do to dodge it. He couldn’t dart out of the way without stopping his use of Void Siphon on the bio-ship, so he simply held his ground. In the next moment, the energy projectile slammed into the center of the Kaiju’s chest, blasting a huge hole through it. The massive creature stumbled but remained upright.
The turret was already charging another shot. It was bad. While the living vessel was gradually getting closer to the Kaiju, it was still too far away. There was no telling whether he would be able to pull the bio-ship close enough to attack it before the turret killed the saurian beast.
But there was another problem, and a more urgent one at that. The synth phantom was getting closer, and Jake knew it would attempt to use its mind-controlling ability on the Kaiju as soon as it came within range. Knowing he had to deal with the monster, Jake detached from the Saurian Prowler, rising to his feet atop his Kaiju.
The synth phantom came to a motionless hover about fifteen feet above Jake and immediately employed its ability on him.
Look at me, he heard an alien voice inside his head.
However, unlike his previous encounters with this type of monster, the ability failed to work on him this time. He could feel the phantom’s mind trying to grip his own, but it failed completely.
Look at me, the voice repeated more urgently, even though Jake was looking right at it. No matter how hard the phantom tried, it just couldn’t mind-control him any longer. All the effort he had put into increasing his resistances to the highest possible values had definitely paid off.
Look at me!
Screw you, Jake thought as he launched a grappling hook at the creature. As soon as it latched on, he yanked himself toward the enemy. The phantom tried to squirm away, but it was too late. Jake slammed into its body and immediately clung to it. He crawled closer to the monster’s head as the beast whipped around in the air, unsuccessfully trying to dislodge him.
Below him, he saw a second energy projectile slam into the Kaiju’s chest. The huge saurian beast staggered but didn’t cease using Void Siphon on the living ship. The turret was already charging another shot.
Wrapping his legs around the phantom’s neck, Jake morphed both hands into drills and drove them into either side of the monster’s head. The phantom screeched as it jerked around, but there was nothing it could do to save itself. It was dead within seconds.
As the creature began to fall, Jake pushed off and, a moment later, landed on the rooftop not far from where his Kaiju stood. Just as he touched down, another bolt of energy hammered the saurian beast’s chest, striking the same spot as the previous two shots. The hole in the creature’s armored chest was now deep enough to cause mana to leak out.
His Kaiju was taking some serious beating. Jake knew he had to do something about it, and quickly, otherwise his attack on the living ship would end before it could even truly begin.