Chapter 138 - Dungeon Crawl (Patreon)

Ceres left the complaining Halyon behind, heading to one of the entrances. He breathed deeply, allowing the long-repressed sense of hunger to finally let loose and overtake him.

The black goo seeped out of every pore again, forming the black-scale armour around him.

The range of his vision now allowed him to see into the city. He could even absorb emotions at a wider range as well ever since he absorbed the slovesa core. However, as the area was deserted on the ground level, Ceres could not absorb as much as he would have liked to have.

“Not a problem, there are plenty of enemies to absorb fear from…” Ceres’s inner killer rage also slightly rose to the surface, becoming stronger than ever before. Ceres tried to keep a lid on it as much as possible, otherwise, he might end up killing the target too.

Ceres headed down to an alleyway, looking at the floor beneath his feet. He tracked a few enemy guards who were guarding what seemed like a shaft entrance, so it allowed him to find the entrance easily. He ripped the door hiding the elevator, before tearing up the floor of the elevator and leaping down the long shaft.

At the bottom of the shaft, two mercenary guards were chatting away happily, despite being called to guard the entrance. “I mean, be real, they say it’s an emergency protocol, that the enemy would attack us, but we blew up their headquarters. How would they even have the time or manpower to find us or even attack us.”

“That’s what I’m saying. If the Queen’s Guards tried to attack us while their headquarters is up in flames, they must have something wrong in their head. Either way, anyone trying to come in now while we’re at the highest state of alert must be a lunatic.”

Suddenly a loud crash and a deafening shockwave blew the air out of the shaft, with a follow-up gust of dust almost knocking the two guards over. Despite the surprise, they were well-trained and immediately shot into the shaft with a burst fire, covering every possible hiding angle in the shaft’s entrance. It was natural training for such mercenary outfits to shoot first and ask questions later as ambushes were common in the criminal world.

Instead of hearing the satisfying sizzling sound that their energy beams would normally produce when it hits human flesh, no sound was heard at all, as though it had been absorbed into a black hole. A human figure stood up in the middle of the shaft, slightly covered by the dust cloud.

The two guards stared in horror as they saw the black-scale armour, looking like a sort of alien warrior human hybrid. With Ceres’s black mask and a crescent blood stroke across it, it felt like some demon had crawled out of a wormhole.

They yelled in fear and began to empty their entire battery into Ceres, but the energy beams were easily absorbed by his new black goo’s slovesa core, which allowed him to absorb electromagnetic radiation.

It was the first time he had used it since the temple, so he had already expected to be somewhat immune to such low-power energy shots, though there was still an upper limit to how much he could absorb.

With a quick leap, he lunged towards the two guards, immediately cutting their necks off with his sharpened arms that had formed spearheads.

Ceres had already donned the same personality that he relied on to kill the Chosen, otherwise, he might not be able to act decisively at this moment.

“No time for disguises, time to go on a rampage,” Ceres recalled the floor plan, planning the most optimal route before rushing now the passageway.

Just as he reached the first main corridor, he immediately saw a barricade with four automated kinetic turrets facing him, along with five soldiers aiming at him.

A barrage of bullets almost punctured him as Ceres quickly dodged out of the way, hiding out of the line of sight of the barricade.

[Who the hell are you? Surrender now and you won’t die!] A voice on a loudspeaker echoed down the corridor.

Ceres cursed, blaming himself for relying on his ability to sense emotions too much. It meant he would miss out on traps and turrets, or automated robots. “Great job Ceres, well done.”

The four kinetic turrets would be an extreme pain in the ass. He was not sure of their performance, but most likely he would not be able to dodge any of them. Ceres looked around for another path, but this corridor seemed to be the only way through.

“Oh right, the grenades.” Ceres quickly checked the grenades Julia and Saater had handed to him, hoping to find something to solve the situation. Ceres felt like he had finally returned to his good old self - if he could not solve it, find a bigger bomb.

However, time was of the essence, he could see the target already being escorted out from his lab. “Ah fuck it, no time to check.” Ceres armed a random selection of grenades before tossing them towards the barricade with his full strength.

The turrets immediately tracked the grenades and tried to shoot them down, but Ceres’s full-strength throw was faster than the tracking. The grenade struck against the barricade, blowing up with sheer force from the kinetic energy as well as the explosive materials within.

[Shit, is that a cannon?!] One of the guards yelled, attempting to peek his head out, but a sudden wave of panic stemming from Ceres hit them, causing them to all falter.

“RUN!” A few of the less disciplined guards immediately broke ranks, retreating fast. Ceres immediately took the chance to dash towards the barricade, throwing one more grenade to scare away the remainder of the guards.

In a flurry of movements, Ceres effectively destroyed all the turrets and the barricades with his spear hand. Ripping out one of the remaining functional machine gun from the turret along with the ammo chain, Ceres lifted it up with one hand.

With his strength, the turret’s gun was like a rifle to him, allowing him to move equally fast. Running down through the corridors, he broke through the other defences using his turret gun to mow down the guards who came to stop him.

“What the hell are we fighting? Is it a droid?”

“No, it’s more like a tank. Fall back!”

The mercenaries began retreating, slowly building up to a sizable force. “Hold this line! No more retreat! It’s just one enemy!” The dozens of mercenaries lined up, aiming their rifles and turrets at the main hallway, where Ceres was expected to come.

They waited with bated breath, their eyes focused on the main hallway. Suddenly, from the corner, a smoke grenade rolled out into the hallway. “Shit, he’s here! FIRE EVERYTHING!”

A hail of fury in the form of bullets, rockets and grenades blew up the hallway. However, through the smoke, a dozen grenades were suddenly flung at high speed towards them.

“DUCK!”

In the main research lab of Dr Theria, Kitana was escorting Dr Theria out along with four other mercenaries. She had already been slightly suspicious of Dr Theria when he called for an evacuation without the patients, though she also partially agreed it would be hard to escape with the feral violent patients impeding them.

The rumble of explosions echoed through the lab, causing her to turn around. “What’s the situation now? How many squads are attacking our base? Five? Ten?” Kitana asked the leader of the mercenaries who was next to her.

“Erm.. it’s only two. The second attacker has been successfully stalled at the north exit, but the western exit has been completely overrun and it seems to be only one attacker. There are reports of it being an alien-human hybrid though…”

“WHAT?! Show me!” Kitana grabbed the leader’s multi-terminal despite his complaints, checking the camera feed.

She saw the black armour and recalled the fight she had in the research lab against the lost ‘Drone C’. It was the same person. She did not recognize the mask, but her Keeper exosuit reacted to it immediately, confirming the relationship.

Before Kitana could walk off, Dr Theria suddenly grabbed her arm. “Your main job is to protect me, where are you going off to?”

“That attacker is a major criminal and target the enforcers need to capture.”

“I think you’re misunderstanding something here Kitana – if I die, there will be no more place for you in the enforcers. Send your drones if you must, but you will stay here with me.”

Kitana finally came to her senses, nodding while the two drones in the armoury remotely activated, before heading towards Ceres. Dr Theria gave a light smile: “Don’t worry, I have a little surprise for him and any other intruders…”

Ceres finished mowing down the final blockade before he threw away the heavily damaged turret gun, which had almost turned into slag metal. “Really good rifle, I should design one for my strength next time.”

He had used almost every grenade within reach, annihilating the mercenaries whose standardized personal shields could barely withstand the sheer force with which Ceres threw the grenades! “I’m like a walking artillery now at this rate.” Ceres considered the possibility that he could design an exosuit that was just meant to store as many grenades as possible for him to throw.

He double-checked his location, noting he was only a few rooms away. The target seemed to be going deeper and deeper into an unseen room. Ceres had not seen any humans there throughout his observations, so he surmised it must be a sort of escape tunnel or bunker room.

Ceres finally recalled something and pulled up his multi-terminal. “Halyon, tell me you’re making some progress.”

“Well, I’m not a superhuman like you, and the mawsie metal is not exactly invincible. I can’t get past the turrets.”

“Use the grenades.”

“I already did! I couldn’t even throw it that far!”

Ceres sighed, only having himself to rely on. “Okay, retreat first. I’ll go after the target alone.”

“Sweet, good luck.” Halyon quickly ended the communication, no doubt immediately retreating.

Through Ceres’s vision, he could see that there were a few remaining mercenary guards left behind, while the target was getting further and further away. He could also see plenty of patients with worms in their bodies locked down in their beds.

Ceres rushed towards the target as fast as he could. He knew there were already a few important rooms that he might have missed out on. There would be time later to come back and sort everything out. “Well if there was a self-destruct mechanism, that would just be too bad…”

Ceres’s only target was the Brood Host himself, everything else was secondary!

Before he could move forward, however, a sudden sniper shot almost grazed his face as he barely twisted his body to dodge. He tried to use his H.T. mode, but he could not see any enemy at the front. “Robots? Aren’t combat robots banned in the Loeric Empire?!”

However, the sniper shots kept coming in extremely fast, one of the bullets even hitting Ceres right in the arm and almost cracking his black armour. While it was repaired quickly, Ceres could already feel an energy drain from the black goo in order to repair the armour. There was a limit to how much he could repair.

He quickly hid behind a corner to avoid the sniper, trying to buy time to think. But from behind, another drone managed to sneak up on him, charging him from behind with a short sword, catching Ceres off guard.

“Shit!” Ceres couldn’t dodge the attack, the hit landing directly on his waist and chipping away part of the black goo armour. Ceres immediately created some distance, but was restricted by the shots from the same drone’s pistol shots! The level of coordination seemed to remind him of something.

Ceres felt a sense of deja-vu. “A Keeper? Here?” He was surprised that the enforcers were involved, but now was not the time to think about the political implications. It was too late to worry about being exposed! Ceres quickly dodged as fast as he could, trying to out-manoeuvre the drone.

However, the drone managed to keep up with him, as well as the sniper who continuously restricted his movements, forcing Ceres to fight the drones. Ceres was shocked that a single Keeper could give him so much trouble. He did not even know where the Keeper was! “No wonder they are considered such big shots, they are a walking disaster in themselves!”

For all he knew, the Keeper’s main body might be kilometres away based on what Halyon said previously, so fighting these drones were useless unless he could capture them.

“Indeed, capturing them might be the best way to find out how to counter them in the future!” Ceres decided to fight head-on, attempting to capture at least one of the drones. With his sharpened arms like a spearhead, he clashed with the sword-wielding drone, exchanging moves.

Ceres quickly improved during the fight. During his time in the temple, he had never really fought against such coordinated attacks, so he relished this combat experience. Using the vast combat practice he had against the slovesa, he quickly overpowered the sword-wielding drone, forcing it on the back foot.

In a secret escape tunnel, Kitana cursed as she mentally controlled the drone from afar. It was as though she was controlling three bodies at the same time with three unique visions, but she had been training for this for more than a few years.

“This ‘Drone-C’ is ridiculous!” Kitana muttered as she strained to keep up with Ceres’s increasing combat ability. “Who the hell designed him?” She suspected that it was a rouge weapon released by the Keepers and that they were now tasked to retrieve it, but at this rate, she would not have enough firepower to do so.

“Collapse the tunnel once we’re through,” Kitana ordered the leader of the mercenaries, who quickly nodded in agreement. Despite some of his soldiers still left behind in the complex, he had also seen the capabilities of Ceres on the camera feed, knowing he would not be able to defeat him at all.

He was even more convinced of a Keeper’s strength after seeing the young Kitana fight so well against such a monster. “Truly a clash of monsters…”

Ceres took a long time, but he finally managed to push the sword-wielding drone to the brink, having already damaged most of his limbs. However, before Ceres could fully immobilise him, the drone suddenly self-destructed.

The sudden explosion flung Ceres back and caused him to smash into the wall, choking blood out. The sniper drone did not continue fighting against Ceres, instead retreating towards Kitana.

Kitana knew that she would not have the chance to fully capture Ceres, but she was obviously going to tell the enforcers that ‘Drone-C’ was here in Rockhold.

As long as she had her current mission of protecting Dr Theria, she would not dare try to capture Ceres yet alone as well. Being forced to use a drone’s self-destruct was a mark of defeat for her as well. The sniper drone and a few other soldiers quickly retreated into the escape tunnel, before the entire tunnel’s entrance was caved in.

Ceres groaned as he tried to get up, but he couldn’t. The one-man army fight he had so far had really drained him, and there was not enough energy to go around. However, he was not so worried about the target escaping, but more focused on what he had found in the drone at the very last moment.

“Just before the drone self-destructed, I saw a short flash of emotion in the drone…. Was that of the Keeper?” Ceres suspected that the drone may very well be an integration of black goo and electronics without the need for a human pilot. Does this mean that his own black goo could directly enhance the exosuit that he used?

However, despite the gains in understanding, he still failed the mission and lost the target. He could still see a dimming image of the target and his guards deeper underground, but they soon went out of range, their destination unknown.

It felt like a major loss to Ceres overall. His only backer, Cardenia, might have been bombed to hell, and he lost a critical target that may very well be the culprit behind both the worm plague and the bombing.

“How did they know we were coming…” Ceres heaved heavily as he slumped on the floor, no longer trying to get up. He could feel his body recovering automatically, but it was at a slow rate as there were not many enemies left in the complex.

He tried to recall the sequence of events that led up to the bombing. It felt like the bomb came out of nowhere, and it was suspiciously just at the same moment when Julia called the Queen…

Ceres suddenly remembered that he was supposed to find a traitor in the Queen’s Guards as well, on top of the overall investigation. He thought that if he captured the main target, he might have gotten a clue overall.

“The damn mole! Someone in the Queen’s Guard knew that we were about to attack their main base, and the moment we called for backup, they sabotaged our home base to force our manpower to retreat!”

“It’s a bit too late to figure that out.” A voice wafted in over from where the Keeper Drones came from. It was the leader of the mercenaries. Wearing a similar stealth exosuit, the leader hoisted a pistol and aimed it squarely at Ceres.

Ceres coughed up a chunk of black blood, slowly regenerating. With no further words, the leader pulled the trigger, but Ceres could sense the intent in advance, allowing him to summon the remainder of his energy to dodge out of the way.

He could not understand why the leader even returned when he was already escaping the lab. “The Queen’s Guards would be here any time soon, are you really going to give your life up just like that?”

“Heh, I have my own ways of survival… and it’s part of professional etiquette to finish a job.” Before the leader could continue, echoes of screams and yelling could be heard nearby. “Huh, that’s weird, no one else should be alive…”

The leader received a specific mission to kill off anyone else left in the lab who was following them, but realization struck his face as the screams got even closer. “No, no, no! You can’t ditch me like this!” Instead of finishing off Ceres, he broke into a mad run towards the escape path.

“So much for professional etiquette” Ceres coughed as he tried to stand. He could already see what was happening – the person in charge of the lab has released the patients.

He could see the patients fighting amongst themselves, with close to two hundred of them battling it out amongst themselves, fuelled by rage and whatever the hell the worm was pumping into them.