Chapter 458

Chapter 458

The poor guy, huh?

Jake thought. It felt strange. Nobody had called him that in a long time, not since he had become a morphus.

The voice coming from the small drone’s speakers was male, and D actually reacted to it. He turned his head to look at the drone. The small device didn’t turn toward him, as there was no need. It had a 360-degree camera mounted on top, allowing the operator watching the feed to see all the surrounding areas at once.

“There you go,” the voice emanated from the drone’s speakers again. “There’s no reason to fight our guest here. He seems alright, and who knows, maybe we can even become friends with him. Don’t you think so, Owen?”

D, or Owen, as it seemed to be his real name, kept staring at the drone. He didn’t let Jake go yet, but at least he no longer seemed intent on tearing him apart. While it was hard to tell what was going on in his head, it seemed that his human and monster sides were once again fighting for dominance. If the voice produced by Jake’s electrolarynx had set D off, then the stranger’s voice seemed to have the opposite, soothing, effect on the morphus.

“Come on, Owen,” the stranger urged gently. “Be friendly to our guest here. Let him go. I’m certain that befriending him will bring benefits to everyone involved: you, him, and me. So why won’t you let him go?”

D still didn’t move. He kept staring at the drone with his huge, emotional eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, Jake suddenly caught a glimpse of movement. He looked in that direction and saw one of the ravagespawn, which had been developing all this time, come within striking distance of D. The stranger must have only then noticed the threat because he began to warn D: “Owen, there’s…”

Before he could even finish his sentence, D suddenly pulled his tentacles away from Jake and jumped to his feet. No longer pinned to the ground, Jake wasted no time and leapt to his feet as well.

D had already spun toward the threat and thrown a powerful punch at it. His huge fist crashed into the middle of the monster’s face with such force that it punched right through, causing the head to explode, sending pieces of flesh flying in every direction.

Jake quickly retreated to a safe distance from D but didn’t leave. He kept watching his counterpart face the numerous ravagespawn that had surrounded him from every direction. The small drone darted through the air and came to a motionless hover beside Jake, hovering at shoulder level.

“He’s really not as bad as he might seem,” the stranger’s voice crackled through the drone’s speakers once more. “Once you two spend some time together, you’ll find common ground. I’m sure you’ll get along just fine. But first, I’m gonna need to talk to him, convince him not to treat you as an enemy. That might take a little while, though. It’s not easy to control him. His instincts can be… a bit overwhelming. Or maybe not just a bit, but quite a lot.”

Jake wondered who that person was. Was it Mad Mick? Since his electrolarynx was destroyed, he couldn’t just ask. He figured if it wasn’t Mad Mick, then he had no idea who else it could be. Could there be another party in Dead City that he wasn’t aware of yet?

“But when he manages to keep his instincts under control, he’s actually quite an easy-going guy,” the voice continued. “As for you, my friend, I can see that you’re not quite the same as him. You’re definitely different. You have remarkable control over your instincts. That’s quite fascinating, yes, yes, it is. I can’t wait to get to… Well, we’ll talk about it more when we meet face-to-face. It’ll be better that way.”

Jake kept staring at D, who was fighting the horde of ravagespawn. As he watched D slay one monster after another, Jake suddenly realized that D had actually gone easy on him. There were so many ravagespawn surrounding him, yet he tore through them without so much as breaking a sweat.

None of the monsters paid Jake any attention at all, focusing entirely on his counterpart, who constantly moved from one enemy to the next as soon as he killed the previous one. Jake continued to watch D battle the ravagespawn, eager to learn what tactics the other morphus usually employed and what abilities he relied on in the heat of battle.

D was incredibly powerful. Even his regular punches tore right through the monsters, dealing devastating amounts of damage to them.

At one point, when a towering insect-like monster appeared, looking like a mix of a mantis and a centipede, D jumped toward it, employing one of his abilities. In mid-air, he transformed into something resembling a missile that rushed through the air like a projectile fired from a cannon. He blasted straight through the creature’s upper body, leaving a massive hole in its torso. Just before hitting the ground, D returned to his usual human-like form.

“I’m Mick, by the way,” the voice spoke again. “Some call me Mad Mick. This nickname was given by a group known as the Spartans. I believe you’ve already met their leader, the Commander. Quite the character, wouldn’t you say? Hard and unyielding, but not without some redeeming qualities. He genuinely cares for his people and is determined to lead them out of this cursed city. But the methods he chooses to reach his goal are quite… questionable. He’s a firm believer that the ends justify the means,

any

means.”

D kept fighting the ravagespawn, but there were still too many surrounding him. He glanced around, then dropped to one knee and started hammering the ground with his massive fists. Each blow made the earth tremble, sending ripples through the organic layer. The nearby ravagespawn staggered, struggling to keep their balance.

After several more strikes, D rose to his feet. Most of the monsters around him were now disoriented. Without wasting a second, he lunged at the nearest one as his hands morphed into claws. But those weren’t regular claws. Instead, they were larger, longer, and much nastier-looking.

He lashed out at the first monster, and his claws sliced through its body, splitting it into several pieces that tumbled to the ground. D immediately leaped toward the next one to give it the same treatment. Unsteady and disoriented, the ravagespawn couldn’t even defend themselves properly.

As Jake watched D tear through the monsters, he once again thought that his counterpart definitely went easy on him earlier.

“I’m not actually crazy, no matter what the Spartans say,” Mick added. “Or maybe I am… but just a tiny little bit. Who knows? Not my call to make. What I do know is that I’m nowhere near as insane as the Commander thinks. He’s convinced otherwise because… Oh, look, it seems Owen’s almost done there.”

D stood among the dead monsters he had just torn apart. Making sure there were no immediate threats, he turned to face Jake, the lethal claws retracting and reshaping into normal, human-looking hands. Now that D had satisfied the battle lust his inner beast had craved, it seemed content to relinquish control back to D’s human self.

But for how long?

For a moment, they just stared at each other.

Then D did something surprising: he raised a hand and gave Jake a small, dismissive wave, urging him to leave. He clearly didn’t want to fight Jake again, silently urging him to leave while he still had the strength to keep his inner beast restrained.

“You’d better do as he says,” Mick’s voice crackled from the drone once more. “But do come back at a later time. By the time you return, I will have made sure to convince D not to treat you like an enemy. He doesn’t truly deem you one, but he has a hard time keeping his instincts in check. Luckily, I have a way with him. I’m sure I’ll be able to find a way to prevent his instincts from flaring when he sees you. Go now. But come back to this spot later, will you? I know a lot about you. I’ve been waiting to meet you face-to-face for a while now. We have things to discuss.”

What?

Jake thought as he glanced at the drone. He wanted to ask what Mick meant, what he could possibly know about him, considering they had never met before, but of course, without his electrolarynx, he couldn’t utter a word.

Giving D one more glance, Jake spun and bolted away. It wasn’t long before he heard the sound of pounding footsteps behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw D sprinting after him. Damn. It definitely hadn’t taken long for his monster side to take over again. Perhaps it was the sight of a running prey that had stirred it.

“Owen, no,” Mick shouted. “Let him go, buddy. He’s just…”

This time, the human’s voice did nothing to calm D. Jake watched him seize the small drone and crush it in his massive fist, twisting it into a heap of metal and cutting Mick off mid-sentence. Then D let the mangled remains fall from his hand and resumed the chase.

Jake knew he had to make a decision: continue to flee or face D and fight? He made his choice.