Chapter 410
Ducking low, Jake narrowly avoided the sweeping, razor-sharp blade the slasher had just swung at him. He lurched forward, a blur of motion, and impaled the mutant on his own gleaming blade. The slasher erupted in a bone-jarring scream, its massive jaws opening wide in a display of pure rage.
Unimpressed by the creature’s terrifying scream, Jake wrenched his bloodied blade free from the mutant’s putrid flesh. With a swift, powerful motion, he swept both his swords in a deadly, scissoring arc, cleanly beheading the slasher.
Before the slasher’s severed head could even hit the ground, Jake spun with practiced agility to face another incoming threat. An enormous armored brawler barreled toward him, its massive, spiked balls, which were fused to its forearms in place of hands, swinging in brutal, wide arcs.
Jake reacted instantly. Morphing his right hand into a whirring drill and his left into a pulverizing smashfist, he lurched toward the approaching mutant. Ducking under a crushing blow that would have shattered concrete, he closed the distance, getting within a hair’s breadth of the huge monster.
He drove his spinning drill deep into the brawler’s armor-protected chest. The tool whined, a high-pitched shriek, as its diamond-hard tip bored into the thick, reinforced tal plating. With a focused thought, Jake activated Structural Weakness, the ability upgrade that instantaneously created a critical, weakened point within the armor, greatly increasing the damage of any follow-up attacks. From the point where his drill had pierced the monster’s defenses, a spiderweb of jagged cracks spread outward with great speed.
Yanking his drill free with a shower of sparks, Jake imdiately slamd his smashfist into the now-compromised chest armor with imnse force. The impact was devastating, shattering the weakened chest armor into thousands of shards as if it had suddenly turned into brittle glass.
Without a mont’s hesitation, Jake drove his drill into the exposed, quivering flesh beneath the shattered armor. Black ichor sprayed violently in every direction as he plunged the drill deeper and deeper into the brawler’s massive chest cavity.
In his peripheral vision, a swarm of smaller threats, slashers and chasers, closed in from multiple angles. The mutants brandished their wicked claws and bone blades, their guttural snarls filling the air as they charged. Still fully focused on drilling the massive armored brawler, Jake’s own body responded with primal ferocity. Nurous serrated bladed tentacles exploded from his back and lashed out with blinding speed at the surrounding monsters. He stabbed and slashed with vicious efficiency, severing limbs, pulping eyes, gashing open throats, and cleanly taking heads from shoulders in a whirlwind of brutal combat.
Finally, the tip of his drill punched through the brawler’s remaining vital organs, dealing a devastating, critical blow to the hulking mutant. Then, with a powerful, wrenching yank, he withdrew the drill from the brawler’s mangled body. The enormous monster remained precariously on its feet for a fraction of a second longer, its massive form teetering, before collapsing onto the pavent with a ground-shaking thud.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake spotted another slasher charging directly at him. It was still too far to be reached by his flailing bladed tentacles, so he extended one of his arms toward the approaching threat and launched a spinning, circular blade saw. It whined through the air, slicing cleanly through the slasher’s head and bisecting it into two perfectly equal halves.
With the imdiate threats neutralized, Jake turned his attention to the remaining mutants. He dispatched them with ruthless efficiency, cycling through his arsenal. For those attempting to engage from a distance, whirring circular blade saws carved through the air. For those daring enough to close the gap, his whip-like bladed tentacles lashed out, severing limbs and spines. And for any that managed to get within an arm’s reach, the roaring chainsaws tore through flesh and bone.
It didn’t take him long to dismantle the rest of the horde, leaving a grueso scene in his wake.
Multiple Enemies Killed. 32,185 XP
XP: 191,965 / 183,785
Level Up. 166 → 167
5 SP
XP: 8,180 / 189,100
Jake’s gaze swept the street, his eyes darting between the alleyways and the towering buildings flanking either side, wary of any sign of movent. All was quiet now. Satisfied, he shut his eyes and called forth his stat interface. Glowing bars materialized in his vision, and he noticed that two progression bars had reached 100%, indicating that both abilities were ready to be upgraded to the next rank.
Drill Gauntlets: Rank III (100%) (Upgrades: 3 of 5) (Epic)
Rotary Blade Launcher: Rank II (100%) (Upgrades: 2 of 5) (Epic)
He spent two of his skill points to raise Drill Gauntlets from Rank III to Rank IV and Rotary Blade Launcher from Rank II to Rank III. Each of these abilities could now receive one additional upgrade. The forr could have a total of four upgrades now, while the latter could have three.
However, since both abilities were Epic, each upgrade cost 2 SP, aning he could only afford an upgrade for one of them at the mont. After so thought, he chose to enhance Drill Gauntlets first and checked out the new upgrade that had just beco available.
Stunning Impact: Slamming one of your drills into the earth triggers a localized earthquake, rippling outward in a 10-yard radius. Any living being caught within the tremor is struck with the Dizzy debuff, leaving them reeling and unsteady on their feet for several seconds. Cost: 2 SP.
Jake acquired the upgrade, confident there would be plenty of opportunities to put it to good use. He then invested the remainder of his skill points, nudging his Mind attribute from 207 to 208. His gaze swept across the battlefield once more, examining the bodies of the mutants he had just killed. All of them were regular ones, offering no unique genetic materials to harvest.
After regaining his bearings, he continued moving toward Base Catalina. Occasionally, he encountered groups of mutants along the way, and he slew every one of them, earning chunks of experience in the process.
At one point, while crossing an intersection, he spotted one of his arachnids scurrying across the street. The massive creature carried a mutant slung across its back, the arachnid’s tentacles wrapped tightly around its prey, ensuring it was secured. The hulking arachnid was returning to the lair, and since it had received no direct orders from Jake, it kept moving along its set path, dutifully fulfilling its designated role. The arachnox’s unwavering focus was a clear sign of the efficiency of his creations.
At another point, he caught sight of a managatherer gliding high above, its abdon distended with freshly gathered mana as it made its way back to the towering, ten-story lair.
His creatures continued working tirelessly, scouring the city for valuable resources and transporting them back to his lairs. While he didn’t command an enormous army, it was still large enough that he occasionally crossed paths with them as he sprinted through the city. He could sense each one of them even when they weren’t visible, always aware of their presence and able to issue telepathic commands whenever necessary.
He continued to weave his way through the city. Rather than moving in a straight line toward Base Catalina, he diverted through safer routes to bypass zones infested with the Ravage Contamination. The ravagespawn lurking there were stronger, tougher, and far more durable than ordinary mutants, yet they yielded the sa ager experience. Fighting them held no strategic value, so there was no point in engaging them. Battling the ravagespawn was often long and tedious, and until he found a way to deal with them more efficiently or had leveled up a few dozen tis, he chose to give them a wide berth.
Jake pressed on toward Base Catalina, slaying every group of mutants in his path and steadily gaining experience.
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