Jake was standing there, covered in blood and guts, his body drained of Mana and Stamina. He felt as if he was paper blowing in the wind, looking at the sky, and muttered, “Thank you, my brothers.”
Blood was still dripping from his eyes. He lost what strength he had left. As he collapsed, Erica caught him, saying,
“You did well, Jake. You saved us.” As she said this, a roaring noise went off over her head. She looked up to see the rusty bucket spitting flames from its nose. The quick burst of fire mowed down what was left of the escaping bugs as she looked in the direction the shuttle was facing.
“All be praised. The cavalry has arrived,” Erica said with a face full of sarcasm. She picked up Jake and communicated with Jess to follow her up to the roof of the closest building.
Erica came to the entrance to the building; the spinning door had long since broken, jamming on an angle with what looked to be a hole about the size of a humanoid. Erica looked over at Jess.
“Can you get through? I will pass him to you, then I wi–.”
Erica looked down the street as a screech rattled their eardrums. Thousands of bugs of all sizes were approaching their position.
“Get in there.” Matt was overhead and noticed the bugs coming out onto the street. Once he reached a certain part of his orbit, he began his attack run, coming in hot, loud, and fast. He opened up with everything he had left; fire erupted from the shuttle, and explosions rattled the bugs. The only ammo left that Matt could use were smoke grenades, and he couldn’t see a use for them at the moment.
With explosions going off behind her, Erica pushed Jake through the gap and started following him through. Just as she had got halfway through, she felt a searing pain in her left buttock. She screamed at Jess,
“Shoot this fucker.” Jess swung her rifle up and deep into her shoulder, squeezing the trigger, letting off a single round over the back of Erica and into the bug’s little head, blowing it to bits.
After that, Erica slipped through the gap, blood seeping out of the new hole she had, which started on one side of her buttocks, then exited on the other.
“This fucking hurts,” she roared. Jess picked up Jake and headed towards the stairs up to the roof, Erica limping behind her. They were halfway between floors when they heard glass shattering. Erica looked at Jake, then at Jess, and said,
“Get to the roof. I will only slow you down.” “I’m not leaving you behind, so just shut up and move.”
The two continued up the stairs, passing by the fifth floor. The chittering had gotten much closer. Erica turned and lobbed a grenade down the stairway. It bounced off the wall and down two levels before exploding. The building shook as the explosion took out the stairs from the second floor to the fourth, frying everything in the area. Erica was standing at the edge of the stairs, looking down the shaft. Thousands of bugs were below her. She swung her launcher over the guardrail and fired three rounds in quick succession before running up the stairs after Jess.
Some climbing later, Jess was around halfway up to the roof. Erica was a little further down, firing grenades down the now stairless shaft. She would fire three grenades around every five levels, blowing the stairs away, which was slowing the bugs down, giving them the precious time they needed to reach the roof. Five floors later, Erica was getting ready to repeat her actions when she suddenly yelled.
“Last one.” The grenade that she launched last was one of the ones Jake had made. As it flowed down the shaft, the bugs let it pass by them, some even moving out of its way. It fell further and further until finally…
Ting, ting!
Boom!
The entire building shook. Then, loud cracking sounds reverberated throughout the building from the ground floor up before it leaned slowly. Erica and Jess looked at each other before Jess yelled over the noise.
“We need to bust through the side of the building and hope Matt can pick us up before this building collapses on us.”
Jess busted through the door and found her way to the closest window. As she got closer, she pulled out her rifle and blew the window to bits. Climbing onto the ledge behind her, Erica was just entering the doorway. The building was now leaning over so far it was butting up against its neighbouring building. As the building was now leaning over so far, Erica had to use her strength to make handholds in the floor as she climbed to the window. Once she got there, she climbed outside the window. As she was about to say something about Matt not even noticing, a skyscraper falling over. The shuttle swooped down and hovered just in front of them. Jess reached out for the door switch. She almost dropped Jake as she reached.
“Fuck, I can’t reach it.”
“Let me give it a try,” Erica said. As Erica reached out for the switch and hit it, she tried to duck out of the way as the door swung open and knocked her back into the building. In the process, she accidentally fell onto a small, possibly a baby caterpillar, and squished it as she was slammed into a structural pillar. Erica started her climb once more back up to the shuttle, one punch at a time, till she had finally reached the window once more. Jake and Jess were already on the shuttle; they were just waiting for her. The shuttle slowly drifted away. Erica jumped with all her strength, only just catching the doorway with her hands. She just hung there helpless as she couldn’t pull herself up, and she couldn’t let go as the building had crumbled underneath her when she jumped. She was now just hanging there over a hundred meters up. Jess reached out her hand and grabbed onto Erica’s wrist, bracing her legs on either side of the door; she pulled with all her strength. Erica was now halfway in and out.
Stolen novel; please report.
“A bit of help would be great about now, Matt,” Jess yelled.
Matt switched off the dampeners, and, following Jess’s request, flipped the shuttle on its side. The two ladies tumbled across the floor and smashed into the opposite wall. Matt reactivated the dampeners and pushed the throttles forward, gaining altitude. They flew up and landed on top of a skyscraper that Matt had scouted out as a possible landing site. Once they landed, Matt extended the shield to cover the roof of the building. Then he ran back with a handful of potions, giving the two ladies enough to get back to full-on all their stats in time. Then he sauntered over to Jake, looking him over, and asked,
“What’s wrong with him?”
“We don’t know. He may have just used up all of his Mana and Stamina. Or there may be something else wrong with him,” Jess said as she approached them.
“I’ll just give him a health potion. If we don’t know what’s wrong with him, I don’t want to make him worse.”
Jess and Matt left the shuttle together, walking over to the edge of the building. Jess turned to Matt and said with some hesitation.
“I think you might be right. We should have just found a safe place to hide out till the end of the tutorial. Like we may be getting stronger, but our enemies just keep coming. You saw what happened back there; we nearly died to a building landing on us. I think when this tutorial is over, we should find a place far away from Jake. He seems to bring only more danger to us.”
“I don’t know, Jess. Maybe we shouldn’t.”
“What? You are the one who was saying from the start that we should leave, but now you don’t want to. What’s wrong with you?”
“It’s just that we’ll look at this.” Matt pointed at the shuttle and the place they were.
“Did you ever think that people like us could ever be able to fly around in a spaceship and even land on top of the highest building in this city?”
“I can’t stay with him.”
“Why not, Jess? You didn’t seem to have a problem earlier. Did something happen when you were down there that you’re not telling me?”
“Well, it’s odd to explain, but I will try. When we were in the fight and we were getting overrun, Jake changed. It wasn’t just an emotional change, but from what I saw, his body had a shimmering glow about it. He kind of looked like a demon from the old stories. And what was even odder than that, he could do things only two people on earth knew. One was my brother, and the other was me. He used my brother’s fighting style,” she exclaimed. Matt stood there for a minute, just looking out into the distance.
“So you’re saying he knows things he shouldn’t and also turns into a demon or something?”
“Yes, he is a demon. I know it.”
“Do you know how weird that sounds?” Jess just pointed around at their surroundings.
“Okay, I get your point. But what if he is? Has he ever done anything bad to us?” “Not yet,” Jess said.
“Maybe we should bring this up with Erica. You and her seem to get along, right? And if that dosen’t work, we will leave together. Hopefully, with something of value.”
“She may not be the best to ask, but okay?” The two of them headed back to the shuttle. Upon entering, they saw a sight that made them both blush. Erica was lying next to Jake with no clothing on, her arms wrapped around Jake’s naked body. Looking closer, Jess noticed that there was a strange blue glow coming from Erica’s body and where she had her hand, the glow was more intense. A moment later, after Matt was told to leave by Jess, Erica removed her hands from Jake and got dressed.
“What were you doing to him?” Jess asked. Erica looked embarrassed as she said, “Forming a kind of contract with him.”
“What kind of contract and why?”
“Well, that’s, let’s just say in my society, it is common for someone of my low standing to do this for someone like him. You saw him, didn’t you? You saw his power, the power is similar to the stories from history. He has the god’s power.” As Erica was saying this, a strange tattoo appeared below her left eye. It was in the shape of a heart with two chains crossing and a lock in the middle. Erica felt it appear, her mouth turning into a smile.
“It really worked. I was right; he is one.”
“One what?” Jess said.
“A chaos bringer. He has a power so similar, so I had to try it, and I’m not regretting my actions at all.” “What do you mean by chaos bringer?”
“That’s just what my history called them due to what followed them. Everywhere a chaos bringer went, the influential and powerful would suddenly have a rash of bad luck, of sorts.”
“So, his bad luck then. That’s settled it; I will be leaving as soon as we get back to earth.”
“That’s your decision to make; you must follow your path. My path is set now,” she declared, indicating her face.
“I don’t get it, Erica. If you knew he was likely to be one of those chaos bringers that you mentioned, why would you do that, from my point of view, it looked to be very intimate? It just doesn’t make sense.”
Erica blushed and looked over at Jake. “If only.” Erica walked out of the shuttle and sat on the edge of the building alone. “That poor man; he will never know friendship. No one will help him, and if people find out what I did, they will hunt us both down. He needs to get stronger, or we will both die.” Erica opened up her interface.
Universal Constant Interface Name: Erica Blake Race: Nordicless demon bound Grade: Temporarily reduced to TG original grade D grade Level: 100 Max cap for this grade 1500000 unused
Erica brought up the description of her race:
Nordicless: A race that can form contracts with others providing the other party with stat boosts. Can form soul-binding contracts these contracts, after integration, will be system-enforced and system-assisted.
Demon Bound: You have bound your soul to Jake Everval, the unique demon of the past. Jake will gain +50 to all levels and grades, and you will receive +10 to all levels and grades. You will also receive permanent soul damage if Jake dies.
New Skill
(Demon’s Servant Unique): You can provide assistance to Jake Everval without any luck debt transfer being paid by you.
New Skill
(Soulbound Demon Form Unique): Take on the form of a demon to eradicate Jake Everval’s enemies. Uses the connection between you and the demon of the past to copy any form that Jake Everval has taken.
New Skill
(Soulbound Common): Can detect the general detection of your master and can sense if your master is in danger.