Chapter 459
Being a Devastator, Owen relied on brute force in combat. His armor was incredibly strong, and even his regular attacks were capable of dealing devastating amounts of damage to his enemies. It was obvious that facing him head-on wasn’t the best strategy. It was impossible to overpower an opponent whose strength lay in overwhelming protection and power.
Each of the three subclasses had its own strengths, and D’s clearly lay in raw power. Compared to him, Jake was much weaker, so trying to overpower such an opponent was definitely not going to work. Unlike Owen, Jake’s strength lay in an altogether different area.
Being a Corruptor, his best tactic was to send forth an army of creatures he had developed himself. While they might not defeat an extrely powerful opponent like D on their own, they could at least weaken and tire him. So, as a Corruptor, it wasn’t wise for him to use brute force against D. Rather, he should rely on his own strengths against such a powerful opponent.
But the problem was that he had no minions available at the mont. He didn’t have any group of monsters nearby, not even a single creature in Dead City, and he couldn’t currently summon any, because a Transfer Maw wouldn’t work on the layer of Ravage Contamination.
Therefore, instead of fighting Owen, he simply continued to run away from him. Until he could regain the advantage, he’d better avoid fighting D.
Unfortunately, his counterpart wasn’t eager to let him slip away that easily. He continued sprinting after Jake, maintaining a pace that kept him dangerously close. While D couldn’t quite catch up, he managed to remain steadily on his tail. Street after street blurred past as Jake darted around corners, choosing random turns in the hope of shaking D, but his pursuer never wavered or fell behind.
Each glance over his shoulder revealed the sa determined figure closing in. With both of them able to sustain peak performance as long as they had enough mana, this pursuit could stretch on for hours. Simply trying to escape wasn’t going to work, so he needed to think of a way to slow his pursuer down, and fast.
As he looked back once more, Jake stretched one hand toward D and activated his Cinch Net Blaster ability. A lump ford on his palm before detaching and zipping toward the other morphus. As it flew through the air, the projectile expanded into a large cinch net. D darted aside just in ti to avoid being captured, though.
Jake fired twice more in quick succession, and one of his projectiles successfully hit his opponent, enveloping his powerful body in a cinch net. The net wrapped tightly around D, knocking him off balance and sending him crashing face-first onto the ground.
He didn’t remain trapped for long, however. His armored body quickly grew in size until the net burst apart in shredded fibers. In an instant, he was back on his feet, charging after Jake again. The attempt had hardly accomplished anything, perhaps only putting a few more feet between him and D.
He used the ability several more tis, but none of his subsequent shots hit the target. D either lashed out at the expanding nets with his claws, extending them in a fraction of a second to slash the nets apart, or simply darted out of the way. After a few more failed attempts, Jake gave up the tactic and focused entirely on running.
A mont later, another idea ca to mind. In New Hope, he occasionally traversed the city by the rooftops, leaping from one building to another. He decided to try it now. He already knew Owen could leap pretty high, too, but could he actually perform mana-infused jumps, covering distances between buildings like Jake could? He decided it was worth a shot.
Darting toward the nearest building, Jake began to scale its wall, which was abundantly covered in organic matter. Lumps had already begun to swell on it, but Jake ignored them, continuing his ascent higher and higher. A few stories up, he glanced down just in ti to see Owen begin his own climb.
D’s thod of scaling vertical surfaces was vastly different. He extended four long scythe-blades from his back and used them like additional legs. His actual hands and feet didn’t even touch the wall. Instead, he stabbed the curved blades into the surface, scaling the building like a massive, four-legged spider.
Upon reaching the rooftop, Jake darted across it. Once he reached the edge, he perford a powerful mana-infused leap that propelled him upward and forward. He sailed across the gap between two high-rises and, a mont later, landed on the roof of a neighboring building. He quickly glanced over his shoulder to see Owen sailing through the air in a high arc as well.
So his counterpart was capable of this maneuver too. Not that Jake had really expected otherwise, but it was still a bit disappointing, because it ant he needed to find another way to give his pursuer the slip.
Without slowing, he reached the edge of the roof and hurled himself toward the next building in line. Sure enough, it was also abundantly covered in the organic layer, and as Jake sailed closer to it, sothing unexpected happened.
From one spot on the building erupted what looked like a whip-like tentacle. It was incredibly long and powerful, lashing out at Jake with lightning-fast speed. He twisted in midair but wasn’t able to completely dodge the blow. The tentacle glanced off the armor on his side, whipping him around and ruining his montum.
He was now plumting toward the street ten stories below. Reacting instantly, he twisted in the air again, firing a grappling hook toward a nearby building. The hook bit into the wall, and with a hard pull on the cord, he swung toward it. As soon as he slamd against it, he began to quickly scale it to the roof.
When he reached the top, he froze. At the center of the roof stood a huge humanoid mutant, its fra thick and brutish. It was another ravagespawn, but one detail made it stand out from any other Jake had ever encountered: instead of a left forearm, it had what resembled a cannon. Vents lined its sides, from which seeped wisps of bluish mist, hinting at the devastating power within.
The mutant turned to face Jake and raised its cannon toward him. He saw the blue glow inside the muzzle intensify. It took the weapon about a second to charge before it fired what looked like a blue sphere of pure energy.
He darted to the side, and the energy projectile streaked past in a burst of light. The mutant readjusted its aim, charging its cannon for another shot. Jake quickly glanced over his shoulder and saw Owen on the roof of the building he had initially tried to land on.
What was interesting was that the tentacle that had knocked him off course was now much shorter. It had clearly been sliced clean in half, and the part still attached to the building was chaotically whipping through the air as if in agony, spraying thick black goo from the severed stump. Owen had apparently managed to lash out at the tentacle mid-air with his claws, severing it in half.
And now, he was charging across the roof with a clear intent to leap onto the one Jake was on. This ti, Jake didn’t flee. An idea crossed his mind, and he darted aside just as the mutant fired at him, missing again. Its cannon charged once more, ready to fire another projectile, but the mutant hesitated, unable to lock onto the nimble target.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake watched Owen sailing through the air. Jake’s mind calculated everything perfectly. With flawless timing, he sprinted toward the mutant right as D landed nearby. Seizing the cannon, Jake swung its aim toward the other morphus.
A fraction of a second later, the weapon fired. D had only begun to push himself upright when the brilliant blue projectile slamd into his chest, knocking him back with incredible force.
The energy shot blasted a huge hole in D’s chest armor, and the force of the impact propelled him backward. He flew over the edge of the roof and disappeared from sight. Jake wasted no ti in using his chainsaw to sever the weapon from the monster’s upper arm.
As he glanced at the cannon now held in his hands, he noticed sothing interesting: while the weapon was separated from the mutant, it was still charging, though at a sowhat slower rate. It was clearly using the residual mana it had taken from the monster when it was still attached, sustaining its power buildup.
Gripping the large weapon in his hands, Jake quickly leaped toward the edge of the roof and glanced down. Ten stories below, D stood in the middle of the street, staring up at him. The hole in the middle of his chest armor was already knitting back together. But D made no attempt to scale the building again.
Then, Owen suddenly wheeled and darted away from the building, disappearing from sight within seconds.
Jake suspected that the shot had rattled D’s monster instincts just enough for his human self, Owen, to reclaim control, if only briefly. And Owen had clearly decided to flee while he was back at the helm of his body, unwilling to fight one of his kind.
So, it seed that Jake had survived his first encounter with the Devastator. Even more heartening was the thought that D’s human side didn’t truly want to be his enemy.
Suddenly, Jake felt the cannon in his hands grow hotter and vibrate more intensely as the hum emanating from it grew louder. The weapon was definitely preparing to fire on its own. Spinning toward the hulking mutant, he raised the cannon and aid monts before it erupted. A blinding sphere of blue energy tore a massive hole through the monster’s body, killing the mutant in an instant.
After that, the weapon fell silent, its heat fading, vibrations ceasing, and the last wisps of blue mist drifting away from its vents. Without a steady flow of mana, it was nothing more than dead weight. Jake let it fall from his hands and quickly scanned the rooftop.
Nurous bulbous growths were forming on the building, monstrous embryos in the making, but he still had so ti before they would transform into monsters. He moved to the center of the rooftop and took a mont to ponder.
Dead City was brimming with mysteries. Who, exactly, was Mad Mick, and how could he possibly know anything about Jake? What was Mick’s connection to D? And how had Owen transford into a morphus?
Jake glanced at the mutant he had just defeated. The helicopter he and Catalina had flown into the city had been brought down by a similar mutant. These weren’t just regular ravagespawn. Their bodies were rged with weapons, a fusion of flesh and steel.
They weren’t products of the Ravage Contamination, of that, Jake was certain. Sothing, or more accurately sobody, else had made them. But who, how, and for what purpose, Jake didn’t know yet.
A lot of questions without answers. However, Jake had a feeling all these questions were connected. They weren’t just isolated mysteries that had nothing to do with one another. Instead, he felt that solving just one would unravel the others.
But for now, there was a more pressing concern. He truly hoped he and D wouldn’t ultimately beco enemies. Neither of them wanted that to happen. But while hoping for the best, Jake had to prepare for the worst.
If D was ultimately unable to control his monster side and the two of them were forced to fight to the death, Jake intended to erge victorious. But to achieve that, he needed to use his strength as a Corruptor. Brute force alone wouldn’t work against the Devastator.
That ant designing new monsters tailored for such a fight. Ideas were already forming in his mind: the exact kinds of creatures that could tip the balance in his favor.
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