Chapter 418

Chapter 418

The heavy-caliber round he had just fired found its mark, punching through a wraith’s skull and erupting from the back in a spray of gore. With the practiced motion, he thumbed back the hammer. Before the remaining mutants could even realize what was happening, he shot dead another wraith.

Slashers and chasers whirled in place, scanning the area for the source of the attack. Before they could notice him standing at the top of the escalator, he took aim and fired again. The round from his high-caliber weapon drilled into the face of a slasher, causing its head to snap back with a spray of dark blood. It was at this moment that the remaining mutants finally caught sight of him. With bared teeth and claws, they surged across the atrium with a collective snarl.

Maintaining his position at the top step, Jake fired two more times. His first shot dropped a chaser mid-stride, its body collapsing into a heap at the base of the escalator. The second shot found another slasher, piercing through its skull before it could even touch the first step. Each shot Jake fired was precise, the bullets finding the exact center of each skull, dealing critical damage that ended the monsters’ lives instantly.

The last of the mutants swarmed toward the escalator, scrambling up the steps in a chaotic mass. Their bodies jostled and collided, clogging the path in a tangle of limbs and snarls. Jake seized the moment. His revolver was running low, only three rounds remained, so he killed three more mutants, then flipped open the cylinder and shook the spent casings free. With a thought, he summoned new rounds from his inventory. He had discovered some time ago that, when withdrawing items from his inventory, he could control exactly where they would materialize. Using that ability now, he made the shells appear directly in the empty chambers of the cylinder.

The remaining mutants charged up the escalator. Jake pointed the revolver at them and opened fire once more. In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of Ragnar, who had managed to stand on shaky legs and was now slowly backing up. His eyes were wide, fixed in terror on the ascending mutants. Despite there being just a few of them left, the fear in his expression suggested he doubted Jake’s ability to handle the remaining mutants. Ragnar himself hadn’t fired a single shot yet. His hands trembled around his weapon, and he seemed ready to spin around and dash away at the slightest sign of the mutants overwhelming Jake.

Jake, however, was not about to let the remaining mutants reach him. He continued firing his revolver, each shot precise and deadly. One by one, the mutants fell, their bodies crashing against the stone steps before tumbling down. None managed to reach the top step. The final bullet from his revolver found its mark, ending the life of another regular mutant in a spray of dark blood.

He reloaded his weapon and turned his gaze to the last mutant standing: the armored brawler. This creature was significantly slower than the agile slashers and swift chasers, its massive bulk making each step a laborious effort. Its heavy armor and cumbersome form struggled to navigate the narrow steps, giving Jake a momentary advantage.

Since most of the mutant’s body was encased in thick armored plates, Jake carefully aimed his next eight shots at the vulnerable gaps between these plates, drilling the rounds into the exposed flesh of the creature. Despite the blood now seeping from numerous wounds, the mutant remained defiantly alive. Letting out a maddened roar, it accelerated with a sudden burst of speed, precariously climbing the stairs, nearly stumbling over the dead bodies that littered the steps.

It was then that Ragnar, who had been observing the fight from a safe distance, suddenly decided to join the fray. His assault rifle chattered to life on full auto. However, most of the shots he fired merely pinged off the monster’s armor, sending sparks flying but doing little to slow the creature’s advance.

Jake reloaded his gun. The first three bullets he put into his sidearm were enchanted, imbued with a slowdown effect to hinder a target’s movements. The remaining rounds pulsed with explosive energy, each shot set to detonate on impact with devastating force.

As the armored brawler reached the midpoint of the steps, Jake fired the first three rounds into its bulky frame. The enchanted bullets, glowing with a faint blue aura, took effect instantly, the magic visibly slowing the monster’s movements as if it were moving through thick syrup.

Seizing the moment, Jake leaped down the steps. Just as the brawler opened its mouth to emit a menacing growl, Jake jammed the muzzle of his sidearm deep into the monster’s gaping maw, squeezing the trigger five times in rapid succession. The explosive bullets obliterated the monster’s head from within, sending fragments of bone and metal flying.

The now headless brawler, its body still twitching with residual energy, remained upright for a moment before toppling backward, tumbling down the steps with a series of metallic clangs until it finally came to rest on the floor below.

Jake reloaded his weapon and descended the remaining steps in two swift leaps. He approached the fountain and issued a mental command to check whether the Electro had a challenge to offer. Instantly, new information surfaced in his mind.

A challenge is available!

See the details: Y/N

He confirmed with a mental “Yes,” prompting the challenge details to appear in his mind.

Challenge: Elite Enemy Fight

Objective: Defeat a randomly selected elite enemy. Complete the challenge within 15 minutes to receive an additional reward.

Note: You must remain within a designated area during this challenge. If you leave it, you’ll have thirty seconds to return. If you fail to make it back in time, the challenge will end in failure.

Difficulty: Hard

Recommended Stats: Evolution Stage 3 “Apex Manifestation”, Level 165, Body 250

Reward: 250,000 XP

Extra Reward: Shardflare (Epic Ability)

Accept: Y/N

Jake thought for a moment. The challenge description revealed that the goal was to defeat an elite monster, but it didn’t specify what type of mutant it would be. He was left in the dark about its level and the special abilities it might possess. Still, with his own level at 168 and his

Body

attribute at 250, he met the recommended requirements for this challenge. That at least made it clear that the elite monster wouldn’t be significantly more powerful than him.

Ragnar stepped forward to stand beside him, gazing up at the anomaly and squinting in an effort to sharpen his focus and see the phenomenon more clearly. Jake glanced at the human and said, “You better get out of here.”

The human blinked in confusion, glancing at Jake as if he’d misheard. “What? Leave? Why would I do that?”

Jake’s expression gave nothing away. “Go. While you still can.”

For a moment, Ragnar’s eyes lingered on him, then a trace of understanding flickered across Ragnar’s face.

“Hold on,” he said incredulously. “You want to close the anomaly without me so you can claim all the XP for yourself.”

“You catch on quicker than I thought.”

Ragnar’s expression hardened, his eyes narrowing. He seemed on the verge of firing back with a sharp remark but managed to stifle the impulse. Taking a couple of seconds to steady himself, he spoke in a tight, controlled tone. “You can’t do that. That’s not fair.”

“And why not? I’d say I’ve earned the right to claim the XP myself.”

Ragnar’s brow furrowed. “And what makes you think that?”

“Guess you’re not as clever as I gave you credit for.” Jake swept his arm toward the heap of mutant corpses piled at the foot of the escalator. “I wiped them out on my own. You hardly did anything besides firing off a few bursts that didn’t accomplish anything.”

Ragnar stared, momentarily speechless, taken aback by the change in Jake’s tone and bearing. Before he could muster a retort, Jake leaned in slightly, his voice firm. “I did the heavy lifting, which means the XP reward is mine, every last bit of it.”

Ragnar bristled. “I’m the one who led you here! You didn’t even know this anomaly was here until I told you!”

“On the way here, I took care of a group of walkers and let you claim all the loot for yourself. Consider it your reward for leading me to this place.”

“That’s not fair! You should’ve warned me about that beforehand! If I’d known you wanted to take my share of the XP for closing the anomaly in exchange for the loot, I wouldn’t have touched it!”

“Oh, please. Do I need to remind you that only minutes ago, you were ready to run instead of facing the mutants? And when the fight started, you stayed hidden while I did all the hard work.”

“I did help you in the end!”

“Sure, once most of the monsters were already wiped out. And let’s be honest, your shots didn’t even scratch the brawler. I’m the one who dealt all the real damage.”

Ragnar didn’t immediately reply, but the stubborn glint in his eyes made it clear he was far from done and was determined to keep arguing. Jake, however, was growing tired of the dispute. All he wanted was for the human to leave the atrium before he accepted the challenge and summoned the elite monster. His reasons were anything but noble, though. He simply didn’t want humans to discover that anomalies were more than just strange and dangerous phenomena, at least to him.

On the other hand, Ragnar had no idea that the person before him was actually the morphus in human disguise, so even if he witnessed the anomaly summoning the elite monster, he wouldn’t be able to grasp why it happened. Instead, he would be left scratching his head, trying to understand why an anomaly had suddenly spawned a monster, something it wasn’t supposed to do and had never happened before with any other anomalies.

So figuring there was little risk in letting humans glimpse the deeper, more enigmatic nature of anomalies, Jake shifted his gaze from the human, whose lips had just parted to speak, to the anomaly. With a thought, he accepted the challenge.