Chapter 112

With a quick slash of his sword, Jake severed an arm of one of the slashers that had just charged him. Dumbfounded, the mutant just stared at the dark blood pouring from the stump of its arm, which had just been severed at the elbow. Before the mutant could recover, Jake lunged toward it, thrusting his sword into the slasher’s chest. The blade plunged deeply into its body, bursting out of its back in an explosion of gore.

Enemy killed. +250 XP

Two more slashers charged at him from different directions. He yanked his sword free, and the now-dead mutant collapsed to the floor. Jake quickly spun to face one of the two slashers, swinging one of his blades to block the mutant’s sword. He then kicked hard at the slasher’s chest, causing the mutant to stumble backward. Immediately, he ducked as the second slasher swung its sword at him and struck out with his left blade. Its tip cut diagonally across the mutant’s upper body, drawing blood.

In his expanded peripheral vision, he saw the other slasher lunging at him. Jake lurched at the mutant in front of him, plunging the tip of his left sword into its throat. At the same time, he gave a mental command to grow a tentacle from his back. It sprouted from his flesh in less than a second, and he immediately lashed it out at the slasher approaching him from the side. The blade at the end of the tentacle sank into one of its eyeballs, turning it into a pulp, and then penetrated its brain, killing the mutant instantly. Jake then yanked his blade from the other slasher’s throat and immediately swung both his swords in a scissoring manner, beheading the creature.

Multiple enemies killed. +500 XP

He heard a disgusting wet sound and spun in that direction. He saw one of the nearby replication pods unfurl like a weird fleshy blossom. A fully-formed mutant emerged from within. The new mutant was completely devoid of skin, and Jake immediately recognized it as a chaser. It was the most dangerous monster he’d encountered so far. He retracted his blades as the chaser burst into a run toward him. Upon reaching him, the chaser immediately unleashed its special ability, the Flurry of Swings.

However, having evolved into Stage 2, Jake was now much faster and more agile than he’d been the last time he dealt with this type of ex-human. The chaser lashed out at him over and over again with remarkable speed, but Jake managed to block each strike with his own claws. At one point, he spotted an opening and kicked the chaser in the chest, stunning it for a fraction of a second. He immediately took advantage of that, lashing out with one clawed hand and ripping a huge chunk of flesh out of its throat. Blood pouring like a faucet, the chaser took a couple of shaky steps toward him before collapsing to the floor, dead.

Enemy killed. +350 XP

The chaser was incredibly fast and agile, and its body was remarkably resilient to damage. However, even this type of mutant no longer posed much of a challenge to Jake. It’d taken him less than thirty seconds to deal with this extremely dangerous opponent.

A flash of danger suddenly registered in his mind. It was his Feral Instincts warning him of a nearby threat. Having learned to trust it, he immediately jumped to the side. And none too soon as a long, whip-like tentacle lashed out at the empty spot where he’d just been. Glancing back, Jake saw a whipper that must just have emerged from one of the pods suspended from the ceiling. The mutant retracted its tentacle and struck out at Jake once more. This time, he was ready. As the tentacle neared him, he countered by striking it with a sword he’d extended from one wrist a second before, severing the tentacle in half.

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He then sprinted toward the whipper, retracting the blade again. He found using his claws instead of swords to handle powerful mutants like shamblers and whippers to be more effective. Launching a fierce barrage of slashes at the whipper, he tore through its organic protective layer with ease.

After all the recent upgrades, dealing with powerful and well-protected enemies like shamblers and whippers had become a pretty easy task for him. In just a few seconds, he dismantled most of the whipper’s protective layer. Every strike he landed on the monster left a long bleeding gash in its flesh now. It wasn’t long before the enormous monster was profusely bleeding from the multiple wounds he’d inflicted on it with his claws.

Enemy killed. +75 XP

Once the huge body of the whipper collapsed to the ground with a resounding thud, Jake quickly looked around. He’d killed all the strong mutants in the room, and only a handful of weak walkers and leapers remained there. There were also several replication pods hanging from the roof, which could produce dangerous mutants like slashers or whippers at any moment. However, Jake wasn’t willing to destroy them just yet, because he needed to inspect them first. To complete his mutation research quest, he still needed to find one more pod that was creating a mutant he hadn’t analyzed yet.

A few walkers launched themselves at him, surrounding him from multiple directions. He sidestepped, easily evading an attack from one of them. Another walker attempted a strike, but Jake leaped backward, effortlessly avoiding the mutant’s claws that scraped the air in front of him. The walkers failed to land a single hit on him—his speed and agility greatly outmatched theirs.

It took Jake only a few seconds to deal with the walkers attacking him. His claws had become so powerful he could kill a walker or a leaper with a single quick slash.

Multiple enemies killed. +60 XP

It was just a routine fight for him. Neither powerful and sturdy ex-humans like shamblers and whippers nor fast and agile ones like slashers and chasers posed any kind of threat to him anymore. He could dispatch large groups consisting of all types of mutants without even receiving a single scratch now.

A sudden flash of a red bulb in his mind alerted him to impending danger. It was his Feral Instincts skill at work again. It always kicked in when there was some sort of danger he wasn’t aware of. This instinct usually kicked in when a mutant managed to sneak up on him from his blind spot, which was directly behind his back, and was preparing to strike.

Jake quickly jumped to the side and spun around to confront whatever had approached him from behind. To his surprise, he found no enemy near him. While there were a few walkers lingering in the vast room, they were too far from him to have triggered his Feral Instincts warnings. Something else must’ve set off his instinct, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Or maybe the skill had simply malfunctioned? However, he immediately brushed off that ridiculous idea.

Once again, the same sense of danger flashed through his mind. Feral Instincts kept warning him about some kind of imminent threat, but he had no idea what or where it was. Not sure what was happening, Jake began to retreat. The skill kept altering him to something, but he couldn’t pinpoint the source of the threat. In his peripheral vision, he could see several remaining walkers, but since he was aware of their presence nearby, he knew that they weren’t the cause of the warnings from his Feral Instincts.

Taking one small step back after another, Jake continued to look around, striving to identify the threat his skill was repeatedly warning him about. However, he failed to notice anything out of place.

What the hell is going on? he thought.

And in the next instant, he suddenly received the answer to his question.