Chapter 117

  After taking care of the dunner, Jake turoward the cockpit, his mouth and sharp teeth smeared with gore. He jumped into the cockpit, startling the pilot.

  “What the hell?” he excimed, turning to look over his shoulder at Jake, who was looming right behind him.

  Jake briefly ghrough the cockpit gss and saw they were flying over ay street lined with the skeletal remains of skyscrapers oher side. He then shifted his full attention to the pilot. Remembering the Mind Reader ability he’d acquired not long ago, he decided it was time to put it to the test.

  He reached out with one hand toward the pilot, who instinctively jerked his head to the side. However, there was nowhere for him to escape Jake’s grasp. He pced his cwed hand on the man’s scalp, g down on it. With a thought, he activated Mind Reader. Instantly, a torrent of the pilot’s ret memories flooded his mind.

  Jake experiehe world through the pilot’s eyes, watg as he expertly navigated the helicopter, weaviwee skyscrapers. The pilot was calm yet tense, speaking to the other oct of the chopper. However, Jake couldn’t quite make out the words—they faded into muffled echoes as if he were uer.

  Jake then realized what the pilot was doing: he was following a bck figure jumping from one rooftop to ahe pilot pursued the bck mutant without any trouble. For a moment, Jake marveled at the unfolding se of the ret chase from the pilot’s perspective, watg himself dash across the rooftops with the helicopter trailing closely behind.

  Jake then realized he could delve deeper into the pilot’s memories. However, as he ventured further back, everything grew hazy, aails slipped away like sand through his fingers. As he pushed deeper, the images deteriorated into pletely indistinct shapes. Eventually, a dark blurry spot eclipsed his visioirely. Jake realized he could only access a few minutes of a person’s memories, but he was fident that advang Mind Reader to a higher rank and acquiring new upgrades would improve this ability.

  Suddenly, a sense of unease fshed through his mind. It was Feral Instincts alerting him to immi danger. He immediately pulled back from the pilot’s memories auro the moment. He saw the pilot draistol from its holster at his hip and point it at him. While still gripping the pilot’s head with one hand, Jake grasped the pistol with the other before the pilot could squeeze the trigger. He yahe handgun from the human’s grip and tossed it aside. He the go of the pilot’s head and sshed him across his throat with his cws.

  The human’s eyes went wide as blood poured from the nasty gash in his throat. In the moment, the pilot’s eyes gzed over, and his body slumped against the trols, sending the helicopter into a dangerous spin. Immediately, arms bred throughout the cockpit, drowning out the whir of the rotors.

  He quickly surveyed the trols, hoping his Enhanced Intelligence would help him figure them out in time to prevent the chopper from crashing. To his astonishment, the dashboard was a plex array of holographic lights, sensors, and indicators. It looked more like the trol panel of a spaceship from a sci-fi movie than the dashboard of a ventional helicopter from the real world.

  Suddenly, the chopper shuddered violently as its tail struck the side of a nearby building, sending a jolt through his body. Jake decided to bail out. He didn’t have enough time to figure out the trols, and he didn’t know if he could survive a helicopter crash or how badly he could be hurt. It was far better to leap from the falling helicopter before it smashed into the streets below.

  He pushed himself out of the cockpit toward the open drasping at the walls for support. Below, the street y desote, choking with weeds and grass, littered with the remnants of rusted car frames. Jake steadied himself in the open side door as the helicopter tis chaotic spin. He gripped the edges of the doorway, feeling the vibrations reverberate through his body. The arms beeped and wailed, drowning out everything as the world outside swirled into a dizzying blur.

  As the helicopter tio spin around and rapidly lose altitude, it drifted across the street. Each full turn of the helicopter sent the buildings oher side swinging closer. Jake waited for the right moment, and wheructure the chopper was going to crash into came into view again, he pushed off with all his strength, ung himself into the air, perf a powerful mana-infused leap. As soon as he impacted the rough surface of the building, he dug his cws into the crete. With a sharp scrape against the weathered wall, he anchored himself, his talons digging deep into the structure like fishhooks.

  Then, a few meters below him, the chopper crashed into the building with a thunderous roar, the rotating rotor bdes smashing into numerous fragments upon hitting the unfiving crete and stone. A foot-long piece of bde shot free and buried itself ione wall just inches beside his head. He dangled precariously, his eyes locked on the chopper as it plummeted toward the ground several floors below.

  The crashed helicopter y on its side on the sidewalk, the broken stubs of the rotor bdes still whirling above the wrecked fusege. The chopper didn’t catch fire—at least, nht away. Jake noticed strange blue bolts crag and shooting from the damaged ehen, without a warning, the helicopter suddenly exploded.

  Fmes erupted, and smoke billowed upward, swirling into the air. Burning debris flew up and then rained down, with some of the rger pieces s high enough to nearly touch his dangli. Jake hung from the wall, gripping it with one cwed hand, his eyes fixed on the burning wreckage below as thoughts raced through his mind.

  He’d just taken the lives of two humans, yet his inner beast remained suspiciously silent. It felt strahen, he uood what that silence meant: he was now in plete trol, not just of his body but of his emotions and desires as well. While he’d often referred to his dark urges as his inner beast, he’d always known, deep down, that they were his own desires—not some mysterious being living inside him. He’d simply been unwilling to accept that truth.

  After the transformation, he’d bee a monster, both physically aally. At first, he was afraid to aowledge it, which was why he’d had to e up with the “inner beast” excuse. But now, he was finally able to embrace his monster side. He could no longer pretend to be anything else, and there was no point in trying. Whether he liked it or not, he was a monster.

  Evolving into Stage 2 had likely pyed a role in his ability to accept his beast side. While his human and monster sides had felt like two separate identities before, after evolving into Stage 2, they must’ve merged into one, reshaping Jake into what he was now. He’d gained much better self-trol as well. Even though he’d just killed two survivors, it hadn’t triggered a thirst for more human blood as it had in the past when he’d fought survivors.

  Jake’s thoughts drifted back to the two octs of the chopper he’d just killed. He’d had no beef with them. He’d given them plenty of opportuo leave him alone, but they hadn’t taken them, opting io tinue pursuing him. While they’d had no idea how dangerous he was, that didn’t grant them immunity from the sequences of their choices. They’d made their decision and paid the price.

  Giving the matter no more thought, he recalled what he’d learned from the pilot’s memories. Not much, really. He’d failed to glean anything useful while delving into the pilot’s memories. He still didn’t know what they’d been searg for while flying around the city, nor did he uand where or how they’d acquired such a powerful futuristic helicopter. The gang they beloo, Los Demonios, must’ve had access to a signifit amount of equipment, but where they were getting it from remained a mystery to him.

  At its current stage ression, the ability wasn’t particurly useful, but he knew he could improve it by advang it to higher ranks and acquiring upgrades. Curious about how much Mind Reader had progressed after he used it on the pilot, Jake called up its stats.

  Mind Reader: Rank I (20%) (Upgrades: 0 of 4) (Unon)

  A single brief use of the ability had adva by 20%, which wasn’t bad at all. O reached 100%, he would be able to upgrade it to Rank II, making it more powerful and useful—potentially letting him delve into a target’s memories beyond just a few minutes as well as improving their crity.

  Suddenly, he heard something. He immediately turned his attention to his surroundings. Feral Instincts were silent, so he wasn’t in any kind of danger, but he sed the street below anyway. He saw a group of survivors oher side of the street, watg the burning wreckage of the chopper. Jake couldn’t tell if they had just discovered it or had seen it plummet from the sky. The wind carried their voices to him, but they were too far away for him to make out what was said.

  One of the survivors looked up at the sky as if w what had caused the chopper to crash. That’s wheiced Jake dangling from the building wall oher side of the street. The man pointed a finger in Jake’s dire, and the rest of the survivors turheir attention toward him.

  Jake looked around. Right below him, a piece of rebar protruded from the wall. He released his grip on the wall, allowing his body to drop. He caught the rebar piece, halting his dest. Then, with a quick powerful motion, he hoisted himself up onto the rebar, perg atop it and maintaining perfect bance.

  He looked around one more time and noticed a shattered window on his right. Turning toward it, he propelled off the rebar and unched into ay room beyond, disappearing from the sight of the survivors before they could grasp what he truly was.