Gamma Protocol (043) (Patreon)

[043]

Number of known, categorized, and studied G-Class monsters: 104.
Number of known, categorized, and studied F-Class monsters: 412.
Number of known, categorized, and studied E-Class monsters: 1,750.
Number of known, categorized, and studied D-Class monsters: [Unknown]

I ran through the ravine, legs burning as the marauder-pack was closing in. The system was barely responsive, curled up and shivering from whatever it was that had just happened. I didn’t have a plan. If I were against one marauder, I felt confident I could handle them. Not a pack. Much less one led by a D-Class.

D-Class.

They were the epitome of what a human could ever hope to kill without specialized corporate-made weaponry. Usually through an inordinate amount of explosives or munitions, a very not-cost-effective endeavor. Which was also why corporations were only mandated to divulge details regarding the lower-classification monsters.

No, I couldn’t let myself think like that.

Monster-Fighting 101. What did I know? What could be deduced?

Bull-through types were monsters that relied on inertia, bulk, and high durability. Rock-hounds showed the capacity for minor regeneration, as did the marauder before it changed itself. They hunted in a pack, and presented some capacity to strategize. All of these traits were no doubt enhanced in the stonereaver.

My hypothesizing was interrupted as I leapt out of the way, a marauder’s gnashing snout closing in on the spot I’d been occupying a second prior. Two of them were hot on my heels, the ravine’s walls at either side preventing the rest of the pack from joining in, but not making it much easier for me either. The terrain presented very little room to maneuver, and the ground was severely uneven, enough so that I just could not move fast enough to gain distance.

I sent a kick its way, if just to slow it down, but without the prospect of carrying through on the attack and finish the monster off, I couldn’t over-commit and risk getting hit. What options did I have, though? I couldn’t head back to the production tower, not without making myself a target to whatever showed up to deal with the stonereaver and its pack.

And despite it all, even as I fought for every moment to stay level and running, my gaze kept flickering at the corner of my eye, at the little text-box that was shivering. Clearly, neither of us knew why it had felt pain out of my taking AP, but I could only theorize there was something more to the process.

Something about the cores being destroyed and consumed.

A flash of pain shot through my tail as one of the marauders’ bites found purchase, biting down and yanking, flinging my body against the ravine’s wall. I roared, gripping the edge and rolling out of the way of the second’s claws while the first shook its head violently. I’d been lucky my extra limb had not remained attached, otherwise it would’ve tossed me around like a doll.

No time for concerns of prospective futures, I rolled a second time, kicking upwards, snapping the marauder’s jaw shut. The rest of the pack was nearly there, and without any proper escape options, I chose to switch to the offensive, reaching up at its throat with my claws and tearing through.

Though it roared in pain, there was no blood, my digits feeling as if I were trying to tear through wet plaster. More and more of its flesh was flung out of the way, but I didn’t get to finish the job as the stonereaver barrelled through both its own pack-mate and me.

It was like getting hit by a fully loaded hauler. I was immediately airborne, body smacking against rocks, the ravine walls, and then the ground again. The world was spinning, but not enough to keep me from fighting to stand back up.

Except my right leg was bent at a weird angle.

Cursing out, I reached out to trigger a new mode, I couldn’t keep up without my self-healing.

Durability Mode (4):

 -4 AP / Second
* -1 Speed / Second *
* +5 Toughness / Second *

With only 133 AP, I would run dry if I kept it running for a mere 30 seconds. No escape options either, I straightened my leg, grimacing at how the bone underneath felt as if made out of bent rubber, and leapt at the stonereaver with my good leg. The entirety of my focus was on one single thing: corrosion and blades.

If activating a mode meant my body was more malleable, and that traits could become more prominent… I could only will the blisters and boils to coalesce upon my claws as I hammered against the cracked obsidian that was its armored hide.

Concussive touch doubled the force of my punches, the only way I could parry its attempts to bite me in half. Its head shook and twisted, snarling in ever growing anger with every failed attempt. Behind it, the pack sought to get around the monster to reach me, but the ravine’s walls were too tight on either side.

By the third blow something cracked, and for the first time the stonereaver flinched away in pain more than annoyance. The pack hesitated, and in that moment I realized my hands had changed. Wicked blades had grown out of my knuckles, made out of a seething, angry orange that filled the air around it with corrosive spores. And all I’d managed to do was crack its skin, barely a drop of sizzling monster blood out of its cheek.

I shut down the durability mode the instant I could put weight on my wounded leg. The silence stretched as the stonereaver looked at me, black fangs each the size of my human forearm arrayed as it snarled. Behind me was the pack, twelve-ish marauders.

When it lunged, I jumped upwards, the only direction I could escape to. Reaching up into my mouth, I activated webbing, applying it against my knuckles as best I could before I landed on the stonereaver’s back. I punched down, hard, as hard as I could, pummeling away and leaving behind a sticky mess of webbing and orange powder before it threw me off.

Using the ravine’s walls as temporary footing, I lurched past the stonereaver and got to running. Behind me, the monster of rock and dirt gave chase, its back letting out small puffs of blackened smoke and steam where my webbing had remained.

Unlike the marauders, the D-Class was large enough to catch up, and I was left dragging myself back into a punch-fest just to buy time. The sontereaver’s own body served as a blockade against the rest of the pack, not that it mattered. Punching this monster’s head wasn’t as hard as punching Bear’s attacks, but it was just as useless.

My mind kept racing, hyper aware of its every twitch, one wrong move away from being torn in half.

The moment the webbing on its back sloughed off of its body, I used both my hands to slam down on its head, causing it to stumble. I pushed forward and on to its back, reaching out at the patch the webbing had been covering. The cracked obsidian had eroded, revealing brown sports underneath.

I punched down, once, twice, then… my fist made it through.

The flash of elation as the monster howled in true pain was gone the next moment. The creature had opted to lift itself onto its hind legs and then fall backwards… with me still being elbow-deep into its ribs. Its hardened body crushed me against the dirt. It lacked the inertia and power of its first full-body blow, but it knocked the air out of me all the same.

Clenching down on to its rib, the stonereaver rolled over to get back up on all fours.

I’d clenched its rib from inside and would not let go. It dragged me up into the air, howling again as soon as my grip tightened properly, then proceeded to slam its body against the ravine walls to crush me against the stones.

But I didn’t let go.

I screamed, punching the monster with my free arm every time it pulled away from the rocks. The fear had burned away, nothing remained, no plans, no tricks, just anger and single-minded determination. I just punched harder, even as my back exploded in pain between every thrust. Its clay-like innards churned as I hammered away.

I roared in chorus with the stonereaver, the monster thrashing more violently.

If I was going to die, then I would take this thing down with me!

The system joined in.

Charisma 9.5 -> +10

U̸̜͒p̶̤̄g̢̬̓r̘̋͡ȃ̯́d̩̅͢e̡̤͊ ̩͗͜U̴̳ͮn̙̓͘l̴̺̅o͓̓͝c̰̾͟kͩ͏̞e̛̱̍d̯͛̕

There was barely any time to process what followed. Reality and dream muddled and mixed, the sky was green one moment, then my head was bashed against a rock the next. The dead desert around me shifted into lush jungles that whirled as my body was flung through rotten wood, then into dry, cracked dirt. Water choked the air out of my lungs as my chest caved in, I fought to breathe the hot searing air and my head spun from the thousand stars that looked upon me, the eye of the Fish God looking upon me as if my very existence was a mote of dust, my struggle an insignificant flicker of light in the abyss at the bottom of the ocean.

It was impossible to read or understand the words jumbling in front of my eyes. I could barely recognize what was real and what wasn’t, everything spun and jumbled together in half-forgotten memories and déjà vu. The only constant was the rib I refused to let go.

I roared at the system to do something.

ANYTHING!

The blizzard of words, symbols, and meanings came to a violent halt, a car-crash against a singular unbearable deafening sound. Screams, all around me, the crunching and grinding wail of cores. The cores of the monster all around me were wailing, a sound not unlike a nail grinding through a metal plate.

And the stonereaver’s core shouted louder than any other, vibrating so violently I could feel it at the very tip of my fingers. A part of me realized that the monster’s core was consuming itself from both ends just to keep this artificial empowered state going, just as it did all the others.

The other part of me was lucid enough to choose that moment to let go of the rib and push deeper, all the way to my shoulder, grasping the core and crush it between my fingers.

The stonereaver spasmed, freezing in place, wide eyes and maw open, breathless in an attempt to make a sound.

Then came the explosion.

The monster’s body burst outwards with a deafeningly loud ‘bang’. Heat and power washed over my body, arm searing in pain. The clay-like innards splattered in every direction, carrying with it fragments of the obsidian skin, embedding shrapnel in anything too close for comfort.

I didn’t even hesitate to take stock of the injuries, triggering adaptation mode again.

Durability Mode (1):

 -1 AP / Second
* -1 Speed / Second *
* +5 Toughness / Second *

The confusion over the “(1)” was pushed aside in favor of focusing on my survival. The marauders had not waited, the death of their boss a gong to rush at me with everything they had.

Slowly, with faltering steps, I parried their claws and snouts while backpedaling further down the ravine. The monsters had lost all semblance of coordination, a deep desperation pushing them against one another, clogging the ravine and getting in each other’s way.

I bought myself time, punching anything that got too close while my body patched itself back up. Every passing second made breathing and moving easier, my thoughts becoming clearer, sharper. My corrosion-covered knuckles might not have been capable of bringing down any of them, but they chipped away at their durability, bit by bit.

Until, finally, one of the marauders overcommitted to a failed bite, its head sizzled and boiling from so much orange poison that I’d applied. All it took was a double-fisted downward blow to finally turn its head into a hole.

E-class monster “Marauder” defeated!
+5 AP

Pick your Reward!
+10 AP / ‘P: Unbreakable Bones’ / Obsidian

I didn’t hesitate to take the extra 10 AP, buying me more precious seconds, giving my body the chance to heal, patch itself back up. The exhaustion did not abate, but I couldn’t stop now. I kept the slow retreat, attacking at every opportunity and slip-up, then the second marauder fell. Another 15 AP, I pressed on, sensing their desperation was born out of limited time. Their false gain of power was weaning out, slowly turning into a weakness they could not escape, their own bodies losing the ability to sustain life.

Achievement: Reach +200 Adaptative Toughness
Unlocked: Spongy Muscles
All blows against your flesh are slowed upon impact

Adaptive Toughness at 200! Cap reached!

The notification was immediately followed by another.

Achievement: Have x4 Active Achievements (x1 per stat) active at the same time
Unlocked: Master of None
You are malleable

The significance of the achievement was secondary to finishing the job.

An hour and fifteen dead marauders later, I was left panting, surrounded by the signs of battle but the corpses evaporating. Even though I was healed, my everything ached, and I felt as if I was barely hanging on to a thread before I collapsed.

AP: 092 / 150
Active Traits:
. . ∟Obsidian (F: 9 / 22) 

Frowning at the notification, I instead focused on the system itself. I couldn’t speak, not in my current form, but I tried to ask what had happened back there. All I got was a new notification before it hurried to tuck itself away, giving me a strong impression of needing rest just as badly as I did.

T̴̡͙̺̒͠͠o̴̦͎̺̾͐̒u̴͎̘͎̒͘͝c̵͚̻̼͋̿͘h̸̡͎̫͌̀̔ o̵͓͔̘͊͌̿f̵͓͕̝͛̓̐ 3̸̦͔͋͌͊4̵͉͍́̽?̵̫̺̻̿̒͝·̴̻͔̙̽͌$̵̪̠͔̚͝͝5̴͍̠͇͐̈́r̸̝̙̪͆͑͠t̸̫̺̪̀͒̓5̸͚͍͓͌͝͝2̵̘͕́͐͝4̸̡͓͔̒̐͆`̵̙̻͒̓̕͜: Destroy a core, but gain no rewards. Requires physical contact.
Uses left: 2.
Refreshes upon ?̵͍̺͉̿͘͘3̴̦̙̫͒͋͝4̵̡̘͛̿͐5̵̘̞̦͑͑̈́3̸̦͔͋͌͊4̵͉͍́̽?̵̫̺̻̿̒͝·̴̻͔̙̽͌$̵̪̠͔̚͝͝5̴͍̠͇͐̈́r̸̝̙̪͆͑͠t̸̫̺̪̀͒̓5̸͚͍͓͌͝͝2̵̘͕́͐͝4̸̡͓͔̒̐͆`̵̙̻͒̓̕͜+̴̡̠̞͊̔´̵̞̺̦̾͋̓ñ̵̞̺͇͑̕̕

Unusable on perfect cores, such as a meguca’s.