Chapter 123

  There was a window to the left, in the er of the room, fag the alley. The gss was missing, and when Jake leaned out, he saw that the pickup truck ositioned directly below him from that vantage point.

  “Where?” the shooter barked at the driver. “Where is ‘here’ exactly?”

  His gaze was fixed on the cab ahead. A quice upward would reveal Jake leaning out of the window frame, peering down at him.

  “I dunno,” the driver shouted in respohe blip’s right at our position.”

  It seemed that their ser offered no hints about whether the target was located above or below them.

  The shnced around, only noting the walls of the buildings on both sides of the truck. In the instant, he must have realized where Jake was because he suddenly jerked his head upward just as Jake leaped from the window above, hurtling down towards him.

  The shooter’s mouth opened in an “O” as he was about to shout. However, before he could utter a sound, Jake nded on top of him, sending him sprawling onto the floor of the truck bed. The vehicle swayed with the force of the impact, produg a pintive creak. Two or three ribs in the guy’s chest snapped, causing him to cry out in pain. Jake positioned himself atop the Demon who whined and squirmed beh him.

  Jake morphed his right hand into cws and immediately shed out with them at the guy’s exposed throat. His victim’s eyes went wide as blood began to flow from the gash. However, Jake had made sure not to dig his cws too deeply into the bandit’s flesh, because he least one of these guys to remain alive. If he acted quickly enough, he would be able to ralize the driver a back to the shooter before he bled to death.

  “What the fuck?” the driver cursed.

  In his wide field of vision, Jake saw the driver gnce back at him through the rear window. He turned his head, and for a sed, their gazes locked, Jake’s rge blue eyes devoid of aion while the driver’s widened in horror. Then, Jake spun toward the cab and jumped, nding on the roof. To his credit, despite his fear, the driver didn’t succumb to panid his reflexes remained sharp. He reacted immediately, not giving Jake a ce to do anything else. The pickup truck’s engine growled as the vehicle surged backward out of the alley.

  Jake flipped over the windshield, rolled across the hood, and finally nded on the sidewalk. The truck screeched to a halt in the middle of the street. As he looked up, Jake met the driver’s gaze through the windshield. Judging by his expression, the bandit wasn’t in the least surprised to see Jake unscathed. Just as the driver shifted the vehicle into drive, Jake leaped to his feet and performed a mana-infused jump toward the pickup truck, morphing his other hand into cws as he soared through the air.

  Before the vehicle could even move from the spot, he nded on its hood, dropping to a croud immediately sinking his cws into the surface of the hood. His toughealons sliced easily through the metal, and Jake immediately tched onto it, anch himself. The truck lurched forward, making a sharp turn before accelerating dowreet. However, now that Jake was securely anchored to the hood, it wasn’t easy for the driver to shake him off. He tio guide the vehicle dowreet, ing his o look around Jake, whose body obstructed most of his view.

  Realizing it was futile to try to dislodge the obsidian-bck mutant and too dangerous to drive without being able to see the road, the driver smmed on the brakes. The sudden stop caused Jake’s body to lurch forward, but his cws gripping the hood kept him firmly in pce, preventing him from being tossed off the vehicle.

  As Jake released his left cwed hand from the hood, the driver drew a strange-looking handgun from its holster at his hip. The on resembled a revolver, but its der was triangur-shaped, a stark trast to ventional round chambers. Each of its three sides clearly tained a single round. Two glowing sigils adorhe barrel of the rge on.

  The driver poihe on at him and fired through the windshield, pung a hole in it. Jake jerked his head to the side, instinctively raising his left hand. The bullet hit him in the palm. Jake expected the round to explode, but something else happened instead. His palm and two cwed fingers—pinky and ring finger—began to crystallize, turning into ice. Part of his palm became encrusted, transf his obsidian-bck flesh into a gssy, sparkling surface akin to ice. Then the process suddenly halted, leaving two of his fingers and part of his palm resembling frozen crystals. Jake realized he could no longer feel or move his pinky and ring finger.

  For a moment, her Jake nor the driver moved, both stunned by the ued turn of events. Jake had never been shot with such a on before. Without even cheg his BattleLog, he knew he had just suffered from age. The driver, oher hand, clearly expected his on to inflict much more age on Jake than it had. He had obviously used this revolver many times before on other ex-humans, and the damage it inflicted on them must have been far more devastating. He probably anticipated that Jake’s entire arm would turn into istead of just two fingers.

  Then the driver snapped out of it. He pulled the hammer back with his thumb, the der rotating with a loud click, and immediately fired again. The bullet hit Jake in the left palm again, but uhe previous shot, this one exploded. It didn’t deal much damage to his hand, but his two frozen fingers exploded into a million tiny, sparkling shards that flew in every dire.

  The driver’s thumb cocked back the revolver’s hammer with a practiced motion honed by tless days of survival in this harsh world. He readjusted his aim and fired the final round from his revolver. Jake jerked his head to the side, and instead of embedding itself into his forehead, the bullet grazed the left side of his head. It immediately blew up, destroying Jake’s left eye.

  The sudden loss of half his vision filled him with rage. The shocked expression on the driver’s face revealed just how surprised he was that Jake was still alive. He began to hastily reload his revolver as Jake morphed what remained of his left hand into a smashfist. Despite the damage to his hand, the smashfist remained rge and powerful. He hurled it toward the windshield, easily shattering it. The driver screamed as shards of gss peppered him, cutting his skin and embedding themselves in his face.

  Jake reached ihe cab and wrehe revolver from the driver’s grip, actally breaking the guy’s index finger in the process. He ched the revolver in his huge hand, turning it into a twisted useless pieetal. He opened his hand, allowing the destroyed on to fall. He then pced his palm on the driver’s scalp, ing the three remaining fingers of his enrged left hand around the man’s head. The driver gripped Jake’s lower arm, desperately trying to pull it away, but he owerless against his inhuman strength.

  Jake applied pressure, and the bandit’s ium crumpled inward almost effortlessly. Since he was still holding the driver’s head, Jake focused on accessing his memories, utilizing his Mind Reader ability. For two or three seds, it seemed to work, and images of the driver’s most ret memories began to flood Jake’s mind.

  Ign the dying driver’s body thrashing about ih throes, Jake quickly fast-forwarded through his memories, searg for something useful. One se caught his attention: the driver had stopped the pickup truck, and both he and the shooter opened fire on a group of ex-humans. While Jake couldn’t see the guy iruck bed, it was obvious he erating the mounted mae gun.

  As for the driver, he was using his revolver, aiming it at one of the walkers approag the idling truck. The first round he fired hit the walker ter mass, turning most of its upper body into ice. The sed round he fired was explosive, and it shattered the frozen part of the mutant’s body into a million tiny fragments, killing the mutant instantly.

  That was what the driver expected to happen when he fired his revolver at Jake. Only as it turned out, his on wasn’t nearly as effective against him as it was against regur mutants, which was why the driver had been taken aback.

  Then the memories were suddenly repced by darkness as the driver finally died. Jake pulled his hand away from the dead bandit, whose head now looked like a crushed overripe melon.

  He jumped down from the hood to the ground, walked along the side of the truck, and leaped into the bed. The shooter was still alive, his right hand ed around his wouhroat, blood seeping through his fingers. His other hand cwed at the rucksack that was just out of rea the opposite side of the truck bed. Jake crouched down, straddling the man, and grabbed hold of his head, activating Mind Reader.

  The guy’s most ret memories flooded Jake’s mind. He didn’t learn anythihough. Before entering him, the two octs of the truck had been driving around the city in search of him. While Jake was already aware of that, using Mind Reader was still useful because each activatiressed the ability toward the rank, which would improve its effectiveness.

  Releasing the Demon’s head, he reached for his rucksack. Morphing his cws into a normal hand, he began to rummage through the bag’s tents. Although it held a myriad of survival supplies, Jake was solely focused on log the guy’s PDA. Sihe shooter was dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, the rucksack was likely the only pce it could be stored.

  It didn’t take him long to find it. He dug the device out of the bag and took hold of the dying human’s right hand, which cked the strength to resist. Jake pressed the man’s thumb to the PDA’s s, and the device got unlocked. Now, it was time to finally uhe reason these guys were after him.