Chapter 123
There was a window to the left, in the corner of the room, facing the alley. The glass was missing, and when Jake leaned out, he saw that the pickup truck was positioned 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 quick glance upward would reveal Jake leaning out of the window frame, peering down at him.
“I dunno,” the driver shouted in response. “The blip’s right at our position.”
It seemed that their scanner offered no hints about whether the target was located above or below them.
The shooter glanced around, only noting the walls of the buildings on both sides of the truck. In the next 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 landed on top of him, sending him sprawling onto the floor of the truck bed. The vehicle swayed with the force of the impact, producing a plaintive 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 beneath him.
Jake morphed his right hand into claws and immediately lashed 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 claws too deeply into the bandit’s flesh, because he needed at least one of these guys to remain alive. If he acted quickly enough, he would be able to neutralize the driver and get 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 glance back at him through the rear window. He turned his head, and for a second, their gazes locked, Jake’s large blue eyes devoid of any emotion while the driver’s widened in horror. Then, Jake spun toward the cab and jumped, landing on the roof. To his credit, despite his fear, the driver didn’t succumb to panic, and his reflexes remained sharp. He reacted immediately, not giving Jake a chance 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 landed 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 claws as he soared through the air.
Before the vehicle could even move from the spot, he landed on its hood, dropping to a crouch and immediately sinking his claws into the surface of the hood. His toughened talons sliced easily through the metal, and Jake immediately latched onto it, anchoring himself. The truck lurched forward, making a sharp turn before accelerating down the street. However, now that Jake was securely anchored to the hood, it wasn’t easy for the driver to shake him off. He continued to guide the vehicle down the street, craning his neck to look around Jake, whose body obstructed most of his view.
Realizing it was futile to try to dislodge the obsidian-black mutant and too dangerous to drive without being able to see the road, the driver slammed on the brakes. The sudden stop caused Jake’s body to lurch forward, but his claws gripping the hood kept him firmly in place, preventing him from being tossed off the vehicle.
As Jake released his left clawed hand from the hood, the driver drew a strange-looking handgun from its holster at his hip. The weapon resembled a revolver, but its cylinder was triangular-shaped, a stark contrast to conventional round chambers. Each of its three sides clearly contained a single round. Two glowing sigils adorned the barrel of the large weapon.
The driver pointed the weapon at him and fired through the windshield, punching 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 clawed fingers—pinky and ring finger—began to crystallize, turning into ice. Part of his palm became encrusted, transforming his obsidian-black flesh into a glassy, 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.
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For a moment, neither Jake nor the driver moved, both stunned by the unexpected turn of events. Jake had never been shot with such a weapon before. Without even checking his BattleLog, he knew he had just suffered from Cryo Damage. The driver, on the other hand, clearly expected his weapon to inflict much more Cryo Damage 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 ice instead of just two fingers.
Then the driver snapped out of it. He pulled the hammer back with his thumb, the cylinder rotating with a loud click, and immediately fired again. The bullet hit Jake in the left palm again, but unlike the 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 direction.
The driver’s thumb cocked back the revolver’s hammer with a practiced motion honed by countless 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 large and powerful. He hurled it toward the windshield, easily shattering it. The driver screamed as shards of glass peppered him, cutting his skin and embedding themselves in his face.
Jake reached inside the cab and wrenched the revolver from the driver’s grip, accidentally breaking the guy’s index finger in the process. He clenched the revolver in his huge hand, turning it into a twisted useless piece of metal. He opened his hand, allowing the destroyed weapon to fall. He then placed his palm on the driver’s scalp, wrapping the three remaining fingers of his enlarged left hand around the man’s head. The driver gripped Jake’s lower arm, desperately trying to pull it away, but he was powerless against his inhuman strength.
Jake applied pressure, and the bandit’s cranium 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 seconds, it seemed to work, and images of the driver’s most recent memories began to flood Jake’s mind.
Ignoring the dying driver’s body thrashing about in death throes, Jake quickly fast-forwarded through his memories, searching for something useful. One scene 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 in the truck bed, it was obvious he was operating the mounted machine gun.
As for the driver, he was using his revolver, aiming it at one of the walkers approaching the idling truck. The first round he fired hit the walker center mass, turning most of its upper body into ice. The second 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 weapon wasn’t nearly as effective against him as it was against regular mutants, which was why the driver had been taken aback.
Then the memories were suddenly replaced 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 wrapped around his wounded throat, blood seeping through his fingers. His other hand clawed at the rucksack that was just out of reach on 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 recent memories flooded Jake’s mind. He didn’t learn anything new, though. Before encountering him, the two occupants 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 activation progressed the ability toward the next rank, which would improve its effectiveness.
Releasing the Demon’s head, he reached for his rucksack. Morphing his claws into a normal hand, he began to rummage through the bag’s contents. Although it held a myriad of survival supplies, Jake was solely focused on locating the guy’s PDA. Since the shooter was dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, the rucksack was likely the only place 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 lacked the strength to resist. Jake pressed the man’s thumb to the PDA’s screen, and the device got unlocked. Now, it was time to finally uncover the reason these guys were after him.