Chapter 142

  His sudden appearance didn’t go pletely unnoticed, though. While Cloak rendered him invisible wheood still or moved slowly, abrupt movements disrupted his disguise, as his ability struggled to maintain the illusion of transparenbsp;

  Enid had been watg the cruel se unfold on her right. Her panion, Anton, struggled against Tyron, who stood behind him with his huge arm tightly ed around the captive’s neck, while Jose brought the ko his face. However, when Jake suddenly nded a few feet in front of her, she caught the movement out of the er of her eye and jerked her head to look in his dire.

  As Jake rose to his feet, Cloak bent the light around him, blending him into the background as if he were part of the air itself. However, the ability couldn’t adjust fast enough to his sudden movement, allowing Enid to notice his shimmering form.

  Most of the gangsters’ attention was focused on Anton and Jose, but the man in the red bandana standing behind Enid noticed her looking at something. Following her gaze, he turned his head and stared at Jake as well. To the two of them, his form seemed to dissolve into thin air, gradually making him appear transparent.

  “What the hell is that?” the bandit mumbled, puzzled by what he was seeing.

  Jake didn’t wait for the Demons to realize what was happening. He sprouted three loacles from his bad immediately shed out with one of them at the bandit wearing the red bandana. The bde at the end of the tentacle sliced across the Demon’s throat, tearing it up and causing a shower of blood to pour from the ragged wound. The man dropped his on as his hands went up to his throat.

  As Jose leaned over the kneeling Anton, ready to cut his face, he caught sight of the otion to his right. He quickly straightened and spun to face it, just as the severely injured gangster crumpled to the ground, his fingers growing weak around his torn throat, blood oozing freely between them.

  “What the hell just happened?” Jose shouted at his men.

  “Boss, there’s something near us!” one of the gangsters yelled, his voice trembling with fear.

  Jake was already in motion, closing in on his arget.

  “I ’t see anything,” Jose growled, jerking his head bad forth, struggling to prehend where their assaint was.

  “Boss, look ahead!” somebody warned. “It’s right in front of you!”

  Jake was already on top of the group’s leader. His cloaking ability suddenly faltered aivated, making him pletely visible. Jake wasn’t surprised by that. When he had tested the ability earlier, he had noticed that it teo deactivate whenever he moved too quickly or made erratients, causing Cloak to malfun or shut dowirely.

  The leader’s mouth fell open in shock as he stared at the obsidian-bck monstrosity from hell that had suddenly materialized before him. Jake’s tentacles writhed through the air behind him, and he opened his jaws impossibly wide, exposing rows e, jagged teeth.

  “Fug—”

  He never finished what he was going to say. Jake leaned in, g down on the gangster’s face, his stroh easily breaking through the skull. With a sudden, powerful yank, he tore Jose’s face off. The gangster colpsed to the ground, his body twitg ih throes. Before the body even hit the floor, Jake was already on the move again, spitting the torn piece of flesh from his mouth.

  With one of his tentacles, he stabbed a nearby bandit through the chest. Another bded tentacle whipped through the air, sshing at anangster’s face across both his eyes. The Demon screamed and dropped his on, his hands trying to pull a stim from a pou his belt. Before he could do that, Jake used the same tentacle to stab the gangster into the side of his neck, putting him out of his misery.

  Jake closed in on aarget, which turned out to be Tyron. The giant had let go of Anton and unslung his shotgun, which seemed tiny in his huge paws. However, he struggled to track Jake with his on. Before the rge gangster could fire, Jake closed in on him, grabbed the on with his left hand, and yahe giant was surprisingly strong, and for a fra of a sed, Jake felt a bit of resistance as Tyron held on to the on with all his might. However, the bandit’s muscles were no match for Jake’s inhuman strength.

  Wreng the shotgun from the giant’s grip, he tossed it aside. Tyron just stared at him in sincere surprise, having not expected the obsidian-bck mutant to be so much strohan him. Before he could even snap out of it, Jake threw his right hand, which was transformed into a smashfist, at the ter of his upper body. His massive fist easily smashed through, splintering ribs as it went. Jake withdrew his smashfist from the gaping hole he had created in the gangster’s chest, and Tyron crumpled to the floor, hitting it with a resounding thud.

  His tentacles detached from his body, but that was fine because only one gangster remained. After witnessing the ang members die so easily at the hands of the obsidian-bck mutant, he decided it was best to flee. Wheeling around, he burst into a run toward the exit from the building. Only he didn’t get far. Jake bent his knees and performed a mana-infused jump, easily c the distance of a dozen yards to the fleeing bandit.

  He collided with the man from behind, sending him crashing to the floor face-first. Jake sat atop the fallen Demon, straddling his prone form. The garuggled to break free, but he owerless against Jake. He raised his smashfist and swung it downward. His huge fist struck the back of the bandit’s head, crushing the skull with ease.

  All the eaken care of, Jake rose to his feet and turo face the three captives. They remained frozen iheir eyes wide with fear. Jake stared back at them with his rge, unblinking eyes.

  One of the three upgrades for his Feral Instincts allowed him to sehe emotional states or iions of nearby humans and pick up on their potential hostility. So he could tell that all three survivors were in a state of shock, utterly astonished by the brutal se that had unfolded before them, and they weren’t pnning to do anything against him.

  Even Gee, who, uon and Enid, didn’t have his hands bound behind his back, showed no signs of aggression. He was standing not far from his kneeling panions, watg Jake ily. Realizing the three of them weren’t going to give him any trouble, he rexed and transformed his right smashfist bato a normal, human-like hand.

  He looked at Anton, who flinched when he saw Jake fix his gaze on him. Jake simply watched. The long cut across Anton’s forehead, inflicted by Gee, was still oozing blood, though it wasn’t a severe injury. Jake then turned his attention to Gee. That man had betrayed his friends, revealing their hiding spot to Los Demonios. However, it to Anton and Enid to decide what to do with him.

  He gestured for them to stand up. The two of them exged surprising gnces.

  “I think it wants us to get up,” Anton said.

  “Yeah.”

  The two slowly rose to their feet. Moving deliberately slowly and trying to appear non-threatening, he walked around them and positioned himself behind their backs. They were too scared to move. Jake stopped directly behind Anton and morphed his right hand into cws.

  “What is it doing?” he whispered to Enid.

  Turning her head to the right, she saw Jake bringing his cws close to Anton’s hands.

  “Oh no,” she whispered, misinterpreting the situation.

  Before she could say anything else, Jake used one of his talons to slice through the rope binding Anton’s wrists.

  “Oh,” Enid said, realizing Jake’s iion was not to harm them but to set them free.

  After slig through Enid’s bindings, Jake moved in front of them again, morphing his cws bato normal, human-like fingers. He sed the area and approached one of the dead bodies. Leaning dowrieved a healing autoior from a pou the dead man’s belt. He turo the survivors and tossed the ior to Anton, who snatched it out of the air, surprise evident in his eyes.

  “Th—Thanks,” he stammered, taken aback.

  Jake surveyed the bodies of the dead gangsters he had just killed. Some might have mana ables in their backpacks, but he didn’t feel like rummaging through them. Instead, he opted for a quicker approach. He closed his eyes and activated Mana Vision. No blue spots appeared nearby, indig there were no mana items in the rucksacks of the dead bandits, so he had no reason to search through them.

  Jake opened his eyes and took one final look at the three survivors. He Anton and Enid, who hesitated for a moment before nodding back. Turning away, he dashed for the building’s exit. Halfway across the vast room, he gnced bad noticed Anton and Enid grabbing some ons lying on the floor. Instead of aiming them at him, however, they directed their guns at Gee, who was starting to sob.

  “I’m suys,” he pleaded. “I really didn’t want to do this."

  Jake didn’t hear what his panions replied to him because he had already reached the exit and dashed out of the building. He anticipated the sharp crack of gunfire, but it never came. Probably, Anton and Enid would simply let Geo, despite his betrayal. After all, evee the cruel world Earth had bee, not all people had turned into heartless killers.

  Without giving the matter ahought, Jake tio run through the rown streets, his focus already ba his mutation research quest.