Chapter 191

  Jake returo the evolution subcss seleenu and focused oator—the st, but not the least, form he hadn’t examined yet. As he trated on the subcss, a new vision filled his mind.

  He saw himself standing on the parched, cracked earth beyond the city boundaries. Some distance behind him, the t buildings of the city loomed. The wastend was marred by cracks of various sizes running in all dires—some as thin as a pencil line while others being a few meters wide.

  At first g might seem that the se was unfolding in the exact same pce where the Corruptor had appeared in the final moments of the previous vision. However, it was difficult to tell for certain, as the wasteending endlessly beyond the city’s boundaries looked the same in every dire.

  The Devastator remaiill, his eyes fixed on the line of the horizon. He seemed to be staring at something specific, but at first, Jake struggled to uand what his terpart was focused on. He decided to use this moment of inactivity to examihe appearance of this evolution form.

  The Corruptor from the previous vision looked exactly like Jake—the slightly hunched back, a face resembling a snout, and arms that were somewhat lohan those of a human. The Ravager from the first vision appeared as a mutated, two-legged prehistoric reptile. In trast, the Devastator looked distinctly different from the previous two forms.

  As Jake examihe motionless mutant, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the Devastator’s figure starkly resembled that of an ordinary human. The mutant was tall, well over six feet, and his body appeared ripped. While his skin itch-bd textured, the overall shape of his body resembled that of a heavyweight athlete.

  The Devastator’s face was anything but human, though. While it wasn’t elongated like Jake’s, it resembled a human’s in general shape. However, the mouth was te and filled with jagged, triangur teeth, just like his. His eyes were alse and of a solid greenish-blue color akin to his current form’s.

  The Devastator tio stand still, staring at the same spot above the horizon line. Jake finally dised what his terpart was so ily focused on—several bck dots against the sky, which was obscured by gray clouds. As they drew closer, the dots grew in size, aually, Jake could see that they were helicopters.

  As they approached the city, with the Devastator standing before the post-apocalyptic megapolis like a guardian proteg it, more details sprang into view. He noticed that while the approag aircraft possessed a futuristic design, they starkly trasted with the helicopters used by Los Demonios. These were clearly military-grade, equipped with various on systems in their arsenal.

  Behind the bat helicopters, a few more dots appeared on the horizon. As they drew closer, Jake saw that they were tanks. Much like the helicopters, they looked as if they were straight out of a sci-fi movie. They cked traditional tracks and instead hovered about two feet above the wastend, gliding effortlessly over the desote ndscape.

  The hover tanks trailed behind, moving signifitly slower than the bat helicopters. Still, they were surprisingly fast for such heavy vehicles.

  It wasn’t long before one of the bat helicopters reached the Devastator, slowing to a trolled hover with all its ons trai the mutant. However, the Devastator seemed pletely uurbed. For a moment, the pilot and the pitch-bck mutant locked eyes. Then, without warning, the bat helicopter unleashed a torrent of gunfire.

  The Devastator sprang into a, the transition from standing still to a full sprint almost instantaneous. The mutant barreled across the wastend so quickly that his feet seemed to barely touch the parched earth. High-powered rounds rained down around him, the helicopter struggling to track him with its front autoon.

  Suddenly, the Devastator propelled himself into a surprisingly forceful leap. Defying gravity, he soared toward the bat helicopter h high above. Jake initially assumed the mutant’s pn was to tto the chopper, break the cockpit with a punch, and drag the pilot out to send him plummeting to the ground. Yet, it quickly became apparent that the Devastator had somethiirely different in mind.

  The Devastator streaked through the air, approag the bat helicopter with such speed that he blurred. This was why Jake didn’t immediately notice the ge taking pce mid-flight. Only wheransformation was nearly plete did he realize the Devastator had morphed himself into some kind of streamlined object, which resembled a missile.

  He shot through the bat helicopter’s fusege, entering from one side and bursting from the other, mangling the rotor bdes in the process. He must have struething critical because, almost immediately, the futuristic chopper erupted into an explosion, an e fireball expanding in every dire.

  As the Devastator fell back to the ground, he reverted to his usual human-like form. He nded hard, going down to one knee as the burning debris rained down all around him. For a moment, he remained in that position, staring at the other bat helicopters, seemingly calg the best strategy to take them out. After witnessing the chaos he had just unleashed, Jake doubted the bat helicopters stood a ce against him, despite their superiority in numbers.

  The Devastator ged his tactic. While he could have replicated the successful maneuver he used to take down the previous chopper, pig off the bat helicopters one by one, he chose io unleash some of his more dangerous abilities to make his assault more effit.

  Jake watched as his terpart began to transform once more, additional yers of armored flesh rapidly f around him. The process took just a few seds, and when it was plete, the Devastator looked entirely different. He now resembled a stone golem, his massive body supported by arms and legs as thick as logs. He had signifitly increased in size, adding numerous yers of additional prote to his already formidable form.

  The bat helicopters closed in on him from all sides. Remaining on one khe Devastator cast a quice at his attackers before ing his arms tightly around his body. In an instant, stone-like yers erupted around him, eng him from every dire. Within just two seds, the transformation was plete, reshaping the mutant into a formless mass of pitch-bck rock.

  The bat helicopters bombarded him all at once, unleashing a barrage of missiles. Explosioed upon impact, chipping away at the stone-like armor surrounding him. Yet, despite the ferocity of the assault, they were uo cause enough damage to breach the yers and reach the mutant cealed within. Jake suspected that it took an immense amount of mana te such a powerful protective barrier in such a short amount of time.

  The devastating onsught sted several seds until the bat helicopters exhausted their missile supply. The moment it happehe Devastator unched his terattack. He burst from the protective shell, shattering it from within. Remaining in his golem form, the mutant ched his massive fists and started to pummel the grouh him.

  Each of his powerful strikes sent shockwaves rippling outward, ing the air around them. The bat helicopters found themselves well within the range of the mutant’s ability. The choppers scrambled to escape, but they were too slow.

  The shockwaves geed by the mutant’s ground punches interfered with the helicopters’ eleics, causing them to act up. One by one, pilots lost trol of their aircraft, sending them spiraling to the ground. The failing helicopters dropped from the sky, crashing into the hard earth, smashing their rotor bdes, wreg their engines, and twisting their fuseges beynition.

  It wasn’t long before not a single chopper remained in the sky. As the Devastator rose to his feet, an energy bolt smmed into his chest, creating a rge hole in his body. The hover tanks had finally advanced close enough to unleash their firepower on him.

  The mutant wasted no time charging at the tanks. He executed a powerful, long leap and nded heavily oank, smming it into the ground and leaving deep dents in its surface. Almost immediately, he jumped to aank, attag it with powerful fists that crushed the armor as effortlessly as if it were mere tin.

  Jake watched as the Devastator dashed from oank to another, pung them and tearing off pieces of armor. Oank was damaged beyond funality, he quickly turned his attention to the . They fired energy bolts at him, but each shot missed, as he moved too quickly for them to get a clear aim.

  Before long, every tank was taken down, much like the helicopters. But the battle was far from over—a hreat suddenly appeared. As if summoned by the sounds of bat, i-like creatures started to emerge from one of the rger fissures in the ground, even the smallest of which were the size e dogs.

  They looked suspiciously simir to the creatures created by the Corruptor from Jake’s previous vision. It was hard to tell if they were the same creatures, but the resembnce was undeniable. Once again, Jake thought the sery of this battle se looked very simir to the final moments of his earlier vision, where the Corruptor, trolling an enormous tipede, scuttled across the parched earth toward a massive crack that led to one of his irs. The fissure from which the i-like creatures were now emerging seemed almost identical to that earlier one.

  Jake couldn’t shake the thought that the cra this vision might actually lead to the Corruptor’s ir. If that were the case, what did it all mean? Until now, he had regarded these visions as mere movie trailers, hinting at what to anticipate from each of the three evolution forms in their final progression stages. But what if these glimpses held a more profound meaning? Could they be glimpses of actual future events yet to unfold?

  He khat his transformation into a morphus was aremely rare occurrence. Yet si had happeo him, there remained a possibility that another survivor could undergo the same transformation. What if, iure, he crossed paths with another morphus? And what if that mutant followed a different evolution path? Would they bee friends or foes?

  However, Jake decided to pohe possible implications of that ter. For now, he wao trate oion unfolding in the vision. He saw the Devastator suddenly sprint toward the creatures emerging from the massive fissure in the ground. As he ran, the mutant activated another of his abilities, transf himself into a massive boulder rolling toward the swarm of monsters.

  He smashed into the middle of them, scattering some of them like bowling pins and fttening the others. In the sed, the Devastator transformed once agaiing to his inal human-like form. However, even in this shape, he was incredibly powerful. He morphed his hands into cws and tore apart one monster after another. Once all of them were dealt with, he jumped into the crack from which the i-like creatures had been emerging and disappeared from sight.

  That was where the vision cluded. A message appeared, asking if he wao select this subcss. There was n about the inpatibility of this subcss with Morph Disguise, which meant that, uhe Ravager form, Devastator was indeed patible with the ability. Sinly Ravager— which looked nothing like a human—was inpatible, it meant that this ability only worked with forms that resembled normal humans.

  Anyway, now that he had familiarized himself with all three subcsses and learned what each had to offer, it was time to choose which evolutionary path to take.