His tone was panicked. “W-What?! No! I didn’t–”
Of course he would play dumb.
When he was in the moment – when he wasn’t thinking straight, due to being aroused – he probably reasoned there was no way he’d ever get caught. And honestly, were it not for Harper’s heightened sense of smell, then he might have gotten away with it.
So, of course, he would play dumb when faced with death. Because he had just made the stupidest possible decision he could have ever made, and it caused me to question his intelligence.
But then again, couldn’t the same be said for all sexual predators? Clearly, people this stupid had always existed, and his one moment of indiscretion would be the end of him.
Because, apparently, the threat I posed was no more of a deterrent than jailtime was for other predators, which was a gross miscalculation on his part.
“I CAN SMELL IT!” I lied at full volume, though it wasn’t entirely untrue, since I had smelt the evidence indirectly.
“She let me!” he exclaimed defensively. “I didn’t force her to do anything, and I didn’t even touch–”
“Bastard!” Tony shouted. “She’s drugged, you asshole!”
“Garrett, you son of a bitch!” Randy hollered. “That’s my granddaughter!”
His eyes were as wide as saucers, his normally brown eyes pitch-black. “N-No! I didn’t do anything! It’s not like that, I swear–”
As fast as lightning, I bolted across the open space, and snagged my entire hand around his upper face, hearing his skull pop as I lifted him off his feet. He began shrieking in pain as I carried him by the head back down the dark hallway, slowly increasing the pressure as he kicked and screamed the whole way.
Once we got outside, I considered just continuing to squeeze to see if I could crush his skull in my hand, only for all my muscles to lock up when the air above me filled with a low rumble, my survival instincts chasing away my anger.
Suddenly on high-alert, and wanting to silence the shrieking banshee, I tossed him to the ground, his balding head smacking against the pavement and rendering him unconscious.
Cautiously backing up to the entrance, I scanned the skies for the source of the noise, finally seeing more than twenty jets flying over the hospital, heading in a straight line slightly to my left, in the same direction as where I had ended up chasing Harper’s military kidnappers.
Shit, what in the hell was going on?
Were they preparing to bomb the city or something?
I heard Randy and Tony run up behind me, only to stop too when they saw my defensive posture. I began to relax a little as they continued on in the distance, glad that they didn’t seem to be targeting this area, but fully aware they might be regrouping at a military base where they could come right back.
Shit, I wasn’t sure what to do if that happened.
I doubted I’d ever be able to outfly a jet, which meant my best option might be to just leave the city while I could. And I definitely could do that, but that also meant leaving Harper’s family behind, something I knew she would willingly do, though it wouldn’t be without emotional consequences for her.
Not to mention…
Dammit, when in the hell did I start caring about what happened to that stupid teenage girl?!
Stupid Connection stat!
I glanced down when Harper appeared by my side, noticing her examine Garrett’s unconscious form for a moment, before looking up at the sky too. She didn’t fully understand why I was planning on killing him, since she had yet to learn the intricacies of human depravity, which was something that wouldn’t magically change just because she was more intelligent.
And as far as I was concerned, I wasn’t about to explain it to her anytime soon, keeping her mostly shut out of my thoughts for now. She was still too young to know about such evils, even if what this bastard had done was minor compared to what could have happened.
However, neither of us were focused on the unconscious man now, with her having the same train of thought as myself, wondering if staying was worth the risk, and considering what to do about her family if we did decide to leave.
I didn’t ponder for long though, because there wasn’t much we could do right in this moment, and I had a lowlife to slaughter. There would be time to consider our options later, after this prick was thoroughly tortured and killed.
I just needed him to wake up.
Looking down at his prone body again, my vision unexpectedly lit up with white letters.
Alert!
Quest Assigned to Handler: Boss Battle
Quest Details: Defeat the enemy.
Quest ‘Boss Battle’ has begun.
Time Limit: 00:38:07:121
Reward: Dimensional Core
Reward Conditions: Defeat the enemy and excavate reward.
Failure Conditions: Avoidance or Death
Failure Penalty: Current location will be destroyed.
What in the hell?!
What. In. The. Hell?!
Our current location would be destroyed if I didn’t complete the quest?!
Suddenly, the air filled with a bombardment of explosions off in the distance, the unmistakable sound of those jets releasing missiles at an unknown target.
Even as I looked back up at the sky, I stared at the rapidly dropping timer, which had already dropped from 38 minutes to 37 minutes and some odd seconds. Harper looked up at me at the same time that I looked back down, both of us locking eyes for an infinitely long moment, as we both came to the same conclusion.
Whatever those jets were attacking must be extremely powerful, and…
We didn’t really have a choice.
Chapter 23: Boss Battle
For a moment, I hesitated while debating whether I should lose the satisfaction of torturing the depraved man by killing him while he was still unconscious, or leave him be and risk him escaping later. I couldn’t wait though. I had to make a decision now, considering this new quest had a time limit associated with it.
Finally, I turned back towards Randy and Tony.
“Those fighter jets are attacking something extremely dangerous,” I said evenly. “And, whatever it is, it’s heading in this direction. You need to get everyone loaded up in the truck and leave this place immediately, or else you’ll all die. We have less than half an hour before it destroys this entire hospital.”
Both men just looked with dumbfounded expressions.
“H-How do you know that?” Randy finally asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” I snapped, speaking more harshly now. “But I can promise you that if you don’t get everyone as far away from here as possible, then you’ll all be dead in half an hour! Do you understand?!”
With wide eyes, they both nodded hesitantly.
“Then go!” I shouted. “The clock’s ticking. You’re all dead in thirty minutes!”
Tony spun around without another word, but Randy hesitated for a moment, glancing at Garrett. “A-And what about him?” he asked.
“Don’t you worry about this bastard,” I sneered. “He’s a dead man no matter what. Now get Savannah and everyone else as far away from here as possible, RIGHT NOW!”
Randy gulped loudly, before retreating back into the building to do as I demanded.
I focused on Harper again, prompting her to climb onto my back in response to my telepathic command, only for me to reach down and grab my prey by the back of the neck. Then, with a powerful jump, I leapt into the air and took off, climbing high above the buildings.
Garrett’s necked popped in the process, causing me to wonder if I had accidentally killed him prematurely. However, then he shocked me by waking up, his hands weakly reaching up to my wrist in the back, before he registered what was going on and began screaming again.
I really wanted to take my time killing him, but the countdown timer in my vision was forcing me to prioritize. Which meant I needed to get it over with and take care of this more pressing situation as soon as possible, because there wa
s no way in hell I was going to let this asshole get away like Sarah had.
‘Close your eyes,’ I told Harper.
‘I want to see,’ she complained.
‘No,’ I replied firmly. ‘Now close your eyes or I’ll send you back home.’
She finally complied, even though we both knew we didn’t have the luxury of me attempting this quest alone – not with what was at stake.
Once her eyes were firmly shut, I pull Garrett up closer to my face, speaking over his frantic mumbling. “Had you had the sense to not take advantage of a drugged woman, then you might have lived to see another day. But now you’ll draw your last breath and then burn in hell.”
“No! Please! I didn’t mean–”
I released my grip while thrusting him downward, letting him fall face first toward the ground far below, him screaming the whole way until he splattered all over the street. In response to the noise, Harper tightened her grip around my neck, the sound bothering her despite her previous desire to watch and her earlier willingness to kill Sarah.
Her reaction wasn’t surprising to me though.
Even though she had killed before, I knew this kind of thing could still haunt her.
Once we were far enough away, I let her open her eyes, my renewed focus on the low cloud of dust in the distance.
It appeared that the jets were still circling around and firing at the unseen enemy, but there were only about half of them left. I was just beginning to focus on my thermal vision to see if I could get an idea of what we were up against, only for that to become unnecessary.
My breathing froze, my wings halting into a glide.
The moment that an attacking jet flew over the cloud on a flyby, a monstrous head with four red eyes suddenly appeared, its enormous jaw closing over the plane as if the piece of flying metal was little more than a child’s fruit snack. The ensuing explosion did nothing to harm the beast.
In my thermal vision, I could see that it was shaped almost like some kind of carnivorous dinosaur, like a T-rex or bloated dragon, except that it had two tails, and instead of wings it had these scythe-like blades appearing as if they could shoot out in front of its body to either decapitate or impale an enemy – or at least, an enemy as large as it!
For us, it would be like a knife cutting a fly, which might seem as if it gave us an advantage, but I had no doubt this monster was much faster at using its bladed weapons than a human would be with a knife.
If we got too close, we were sure to be killed in an instant.
Which meant, our only option was fire magic. Hopefully its size indicated that it had never dedicated any resources to Thermoacoustic, assuming it had the same kind of stats, because otherwise–
Suddenly a massive laser beam spewed from the behemoth’s mouth, dispersing the cloud of dust as it obliterated three jets without even directly hitting them. The heat was so intense that I could feel it from here, my wings uncontrollably pulling me upwards higher into the sky from the drastic shift in temperature.
Shit!
Shit, shit, shit!
This was no ‘boss battle’ – this was like the final boss!
Had I seriously jumped from a tutorial to the endgame?! And if it wasn’t the final boss, then what in the hell awaited us if we survived a fight with this behemoth?! Not to mention, where in the hell did it even come from?!
A glowing tower nearby caused me to wonder if it had come from there, though I didn’t see any indication of an opening. Not that it really mattered. I also realized that there were what appeared to be a squadron of helicopters in the distance, though the lack of quick mobility would likely make them easy targets for this enormous Night Stalker.
Not that I cared.
Right now we didn’t have the luxury to worry about such things. Instead, we needed to figure out how in the hell we would kill this behemoth.
‘The eyes,’ Harper suggested in my head.
I agreed with her assessment, but I felt like that would be risky due to those bladed appendages coming out of its back. Despite the monster’s size, it didn’t appear to be overly armored like myself, its skin not unlike Harpers, so then maybe I could aim for the base of those appendages in an attempt to cut them off with my Heat-Ray Pulse skill.
Harper spoke in my head again. ‘I can get its attention while you do that. And then, once it’s safe, I can go for the eyes,’ she repeated.
Honestly, I didn’t want her to get involved in this at all, but I doubted I could do this by myself, not to mention that this kind of situation was the entire reason why I had given her fire magic. I couldn’t baby her, as much as I wanted to at this point.
Because everything, including all our preparations, had been for her to be a viable team member who could help me in a fight. And now I was going to need her more than ever – certainly more than I had anticipated.
I just really didn’t like the idea that this atrocity could eat her in one bite.
‘Okay,’ I agreed in my thoughts. ‘But you need to watch out for its mouth. Don’t get so close that it can reach you, and try to stay behind its head as much as possible.’
When she indicated she understood, I shifted my focus toward the hallucination in my vision, noting that I was topped off at 57 resources, with Harper also being at her maximum of 38 points.
Quickly making some rough calculations, I considered that my current Heat-Ray Pulse skill being at Stage 3 would allow me to fire a whopping 1,000 shots, assuming I left a reserve for using my Heat-Particle Boost skill in order to dodge any unforeseen attacks. However, if I fired that first skill as a continuous blast, with it averaging about five shots a second, I would run through 1 resource every four seconds.
Given that I was dedicating 50 resources to the task, that would only be 200 seconds of firing time, or just over 3 minutes total.
Which wasn’t ideal.
I had 3 minutes to sever off the behemoth’s wing-scythes.
And really, it would be half that time if I fired both hands at once.
Shit, could we really do this alone?
Focusing on the last few remaining jets, a new idea unexpectedly dawned on me. If I could somehow communicate with the military, then maybe I could let them in on my plan. It didn’t appear as if their weapons had done a ton of damage thus far, but if I could chop off those blades, and Harper could blind it, then maybe the incoming squadron of helicopters could bomb the wounds on its back or something.
But how to speak to them?
Now coming up on the monster, I began climbing higher, glancing down for a moment only for my eyes to widen in surprise when I saw a three-person News Crew on one of the building roofs. One man was holding a camera, while another guy had a ton of luggage on his back, with a woman news reporter speaking into a handheld mic, the apocalyptic scene from a horror movie as her backdrop.
Shit, what were those idiots doing being so close?
I mean, the draconic Night Stalker was still probably half a mile away, but still! The Heat-Ray it could fire out of its mouth would obliterate them in an instant if they were unlucky enough to gain its Aggro. And for what? All for the sake of fame and money, I supposed.
‘Try talking to the military through them?’ Harper suggested.
I sighed as I considered that. I doubted that the people in charge of this operation were worried about watching the news, which meant any communication I attempted would get to them way too late, even if it was being broadcasted live.
But shit, what did I have to lose?
Angling towards them, I dove in their direction, folding my wings partially to maintain some control over my trajectory. Thus far, they had been so focused on the behemoth that they hadn’t noticed us. Once I was close enough, I dropped straight down from the sky, slamming into the gravel-covered roof, prompting the woman to scream.
“Shit!” the guy with the supplies shouted, stumbling and falling on his ass.
The man with the camera just homed in on me, his body freezing solid as if he
thought he was invisible behind his camera, like an ostrich sticking its head in the ground to hide.
I spoke up before they could become any more freaked out.
“I have a message for the human military,” I announced loudly.
The man on the ground and the woman with the mic both just stared at me in total shock.
The guy spoke up first. “It’s y-you,” he stuttered. “The talking Night Stalker! The one who saved all those people at the powerplant!”
Shit! They knew about that already?
I ignored him, focusing on the woman, seeing her wide eyes darting from Harper’s face, who’s chin was resting on my shoulder, back to mine. I had no idea how important that mic really was, but I didn’t want to waste my time talking if I wasn’t going to be heard.
“Are you recording live?” I demanded, speaking to her directly. “And do I need that microphone for them to hear me?”
She just nodded once, her body beginning to tremble, having that familiar deer in the headlight’s expression.
Not wanting to waste any time, I just assumed the answer was ‘yes’ to both questions, so I began approaching with my hand out. She didn’t budge from her spot, the camera man panning the shot with my movement, but it quickly became obvious that her paralysis was actually because she was frozen with fear. Once I was within ten feet, she whimpered and shoved out the microphone while ducking her head, her entire body trembling violently now.
I snatched it from her in a swift motion and stared into the lens pointing at me.
“To the human military. We are going to attempt to cripple, and then blind, this monster you’re already fighting against. If I can severe the two blades on its back, then I want you to bomb the shit out of it there, once we’re out of the way, where it will be wound–”
An unexpected wave of heat combined with an explosion prompted me to look up, seeing that the behemoth had just fired its laser at one of the jets, again missing slightly, but still causing it to explode nevertheless. The shot hit one of the black towers though, shattering a large chunk of the structure, the massive pieces falling to the city below, destroying several blocks like someone had dropped several hundred semitrucks onto the area.
Rise of the Night Stalkers Page 27