Jake flew across the street before crashing into the concrete wall of the building behind him with a thud. The impact was brutal, but his armored body absorbed the worst of it, shielding him from serious harm.
–14,355 HP
HP: 261,969 / 350,000
The punch thrown by the ironlash that sent him hurtling across the street was devastating, that much was certain. Although he felt no pain, he could tell that his obsidian-like armored body had sustained serious damage under the impact. A jagged spiderweb of cracks spread from the spot where the ravager’s colossal fist had collided with his chest.
Jumping to his feet from the ground, Jake quickly assessed the situation. Was it time to retreat and let his body heal before returning to the fight, or could he afford to keep going a little longer? He stared ahead as four ravagespawn approached, moving in a casual manner, their pace slow and almost indifferent.
He focused on one of the first three that looked identical.
Allseer (Ravagespawn) – Level 155
HP: 74%
He had inflicted some damage on one of them, but the other two allseers still had full health.
An allseer had a humanoid figure with a triangular head covered in numerous twitching eyes, each blinking in eerie patterns. Long, skeletal fingers ended in cruel claws that gleamed in the light. Its skin was stretched over wiry muscle. Of all the types of ravagers Jake had encountered so far, the allseer was the weakest.
He then shifted his gaze to the one who had just punched him, the ironlash.
Ironlash (Ravagespawn) – Level 170
HP: 89%
It was a massive, muscular humanoid, towering over the allseers. Its enormous fists seemed powerful enough to pulverize boulders. It had a long, muscular tail that ended in a deadly spiked ball, like a living morning star.
In this fight, Jake had focused mostly on the ironlash, since it was a far more powerful and dangerous opponent than the other three. He managed to hit it several times, yet the creature proved surprisingly resilient to damage. Even after delivering a flurry of haymakers with his smashfists, Jake found he had done little to break through its defenses.
These creatures were called Spawn of the Ravage. He knew that the survivors referred to them as either ravagers or ravagespawn. They were the result of the mysterious Ravage Contamination, which had been rapidly spreading through the city over the past several days.
He had first encountered the Ravage Contamination before heading to the Los Demonios main base. At that time, the virus, or whatever it was, had affected only a small section of the city. Back then, the Ravage Contamination merely altered the environment without causing any visible damage to it.
However, the situation had quickly changed. The virus now affected a much larger portion of the city, creating so?called nests that spawned new types of mutants nonstop. The spawn of the Ravage were far more powerful than regular mutants. Even Jake struggled to deal with the ravagers, and for the city’s human survivors, direct confrontation was suicide. Most chose to strike at the nests and their guardians from afar or steer clear of them altogether.
It had been several days since he had wiped Los Demonios from existence. He spent the first few days working on his main lair located in a tall ten?story building, making some adjustments to it and redesigning key areas. During this time, he evolved the Mana Core from Rank VII to Rank VIII. He also devoted some time to developing new creatures. One of them, which he named the Oculus Vine, was a success. Some of the others, not so much.
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He had spent several days fighting regular mutants, completing various challenges and doing quests, leveling up fifteen times from 150 to 165 and earning a total of 75 points. There were still several skills in the Genetic Development Interface that he had yet to learn, but these skills were quite demanding in terms of attribute requirements. Because of that, Jake allocated all the points he had earned exclusively to his attributes.
He had invested 31 SP in Magick, raising the stat from 269 to 300; 25 SP in Body, improving it from 225 to 250; and 19 SP in Mind, increasing it from 188 to 207. Thanks to these upgrades, his body could now store up to 400,000 MP, his total Health Points had climbed to 350,000, and he was able to command an army of 318 units at any given time.
As for today, he decided to dedicate the entire day to dealing with the Ravage Contamination, or at least trying to. This bizarre, organic plague, or whatever it was, was consuming the city at an alarming rate. The infestation now covered about sixty percent of the city area, swallowing entire buildings and forming so?called nests that constantly created ravagespawn.
What frustrated Jake the most was that, despite being vastly stronger than ordinary mutants, ravagers gave no more XP than their weaker counterparts. To make matters worse, he soon found that the ravagespawn were useless for expanding his lair, as the ravagers couldn’t be processed into biomass for some inexplicable reason.
So the arrival of the Ravage Contamination brought him no benefits, only disadvantages. So far, it hadn’t reached his main lair, but at the rate it was spreading, the plague would get there within a couple of weeks, or even maybe in just a few days. Jake knew he had to find a way to wipe it out before his main lair was swallowed up by the infestation.
The four ravagers pressed forward, closing the distance. Just as Jake prepared to rush toward them, a sudden mental alert pulsed through his mind, telling him that someone, or something, had just breached his main lair.
It came as no surprise that the unwelcome visitor had found a way inside his domain. The front entrance had been left open deliberately, a silent trap meant to draw wandering mutants inside, where his minions lay in wait to capture them and extract any useful genetic materials from them before converting their bodies into biomass.
Near that threshold slithered an oculus vine, one of Jake’s recent and most successful creatures he had developed over the past few days. Strategically placed oculus vines watched over every corner of his lair, alerting him telepathically the moment an intruder crossed the threshold. Acting much like living surveillance cameras, these strange creatures allowed him to connect to any of them at will, giving him a clear view of anything unfolding within his domain.
So Jake decided to step back from the fight for a moment and see what was happening in his lair. He suspected it was just another mutant, perhaps a chaser or slasher, making its way inside. Encounters like this weren’t new. Powerful mutants had breached his lair before, and his minions had always dealt with them without much trouble.
He was confident they would handle this intruder just as easily as before. Still, it seemed like a good idea to take a respite from the exhausting fight and let his body recover while he watched events unfold inside his lair. The four ravagespawn advanced slowly, their movements deliberate and menacing. Jake stepped back toward the building behind him, spun around, and began to scale its wall.
At one point, he paused and glanced over his shoulder, noticing that the four ravagers had stopped following him. It wasn’t because ravagers were incapable of climbing vertical surfaces, but rather because they had never strayed far from their nests. That habitual tether made slipping away from them pretty easy.
Jake scaled several stories before coming to a halt. He turned so that his back was firmly pressed against the wall, clinging to the concrete with the tips of his fingers and toes. He then employed Cloak, rendering himself invisible. After that, he established a mental link with the oculus vine that had detected an intruder.
His vision shifted, replaced by the view from the creature’s solitary eye. In an instant, he realized his initial assumption had been wrong. This wasn’t a mutant invading his lair as he’d first believed. Instead, two humans had just waltzed into his domain!
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