Chapter 554: Chapter 554 Mutated Menaces
There was no response from anyone to Avery’s question.
Not that he was expecting on to begin with.
He had spoken aloud more in shock than anything else. That was just how abhorrent the creature that had just appeared before them.
The thing had bulging grayish green skin, and a body that was horribly misshapen.
To Avery, it seemed like a mockery to life. Something that should never have existed.
One of its arms was several times thicker than the other, giving it a lopsided balance, and its head had shrunken into its toros and had seven eyes and three mouths.
Honestly, if not for the encounter with the horrific entity during the expedition led by Zefield, this thing would have been the most sickening creature Avery had ever seen.
For what felt like a very long couple of seconds, Avery and his team just stared at the monster in astonishment.
The moment of peace was broken though as the monster suddenly let out a grating screeching noise and charged towards them.
Avery was the first to react, grabbing his laser rifle and aiming it at the beast.
Fourteen other people at the front of the group followed suit, but the rest of the team were unable to fire without hitting their allies.
Instead, they started spreading out to secure the area. There was no telling if they were only up against one of these creatures.
A barrage of lasers slammed into the monstrosity, searing small holes into its flesh.
Yet, the blasts were far less effective than anyone expected, only leaving surface wounds and not slowing the thing down at all.
It seemed to possess an unbelievably tough hide, and if it could even feel pain, the lasers were not causing enough to dissuade it from its rampage.
Avery held up his hand and signaled for the others to stop firing.
Then, he rushed off to meet the monster’s charge.
He was confident in his physical abilities, and if lasers would not work, then he would beat the thing to a pulp until it stopped moving or died.
When he reached its range, the creature swung its oversized arms at him with far greater speed than expected.
Avery barely had time to duck out of the way as its first went flying over him.
A cacophonous sound rang out as the monster’s first slammed into the corridor’s wall and tore right through it.
The sturdy material was crumpled like wet paper, and a chuck of it went flying through several more walls before coming to a stop.
It was at this point that Avery realized that he might have been in over his head.
This thing was a lot stronger than he thought, and even he would not come out unscathed if he got hit by one of its attacks.
Still, he had already closed the distance, and retreat was hardly an option.
If he did not keep the creature in check, it could run rampant through the ranks of his team.
Avery pushed forward, dodging another attack from the oversized arm as he put himself in range to throw a punch of his own.
However, before he could get a hit in, the monster opened its mouths and its tongues that were lined with barbed spikes shot out at him.
This was a strange and disgusting form of attack, but one that proved very dangerous.
To avoid being pierced, Avery was forced to contort his body in ways he did not know were possible and rely on the full extent of his agility.
Eventually, he did manage to get into an advantageous position, and with every bit of stringent his enhanced body could muster, he threw a blindingly fast punch.
His gauntlet sunk deep into the creature’s thick skin, and it was not long before he connected with its skeletal structure.
Normally, this was where he would expect to feel the bone shatter, but instead it held strong even as his exosuit’s impact generator activated.
He was certain that he had fractured the bone, but it had not burst apart into hundreds of pieces as Avery had been expecting.
At the very least, the force of the blow sent the creature flying backwards.
Still, its flight did not last long, as the monster reached out with its massive arm and tore through the hallway’s wall to slow itself down.
It had only been pushed back around six meters before coming to a stop, and it seemed even more motivated to rip everything in its path apart than before.
Avery was about to jump back and give his team the order to use ever weapon at their disposal to take the beast down, when he heard a scream from behind him.
Instinctively, he almost turned around to see what was going on, but he did not dare take his eyes off of the enemy in front of him.
"Power armor squad, take the lead and protect your peers! Everyone else, you have full weapons permission! Bring these things down no matter what it takes!" Avery shouted.
He did not have time to give out any other commands, as the first monster threw itself back at him.
Its attacks became more vicious than before, and it was clear that the thing was intent on tearing Avery apart.
For his part, Avery kept up with the genetic monstrosity well and continuously delivered devastating strikes to its body.
Every hit that connected left dents in its skin and damaged its internals.
A sickly light-yellow fluid poured out of it in places where Avery had done the most damage. He assumed that this was the creature’s blood, though he could not be entirely sure. Whatever this thing was, it was certainly no natural entity.
’I really wish people wouldn’t do sh*t like this. What sort of sick and twisted bastard could create these monsters.’ Avery thought as he delivered a devastating punch into the center of his opponent’s malformed body.
He felt like he had ruptured something important this time, as the yellow liquid Avery believed to be the thing’s blood began pouring out of its three mouths.
Still, it did not show any signs of stopping despite its injuries, and Avery was unsure how long he would need to keep going to deal enough damage to put the mutated freak down.
He was starting to wish that he had a sharp hardlight weapon like Ezra’s glaive on him. That would have made this a lot easier.
Of course, Avery was normally satisfied with his own fighting style as it usually proved to be quite effective.
The problem right now as how ineffective lasers and physical force was against these things.
The structure and density of its body made the creature difficult to injure with most weapons.
So far, Avery could only think of plasma or hardlight weaponry as being likely to be effective. Both of which were expensive and difficult to use. Making them fairly rare.
He did have a single plasma grenade on him just in case he needed it for some reason.
Except using it in a confined space with a raging monster as his adversary could end badly in a number of ways.
As tough as his body had become, he did not doubt that burning plasma would still eat through him with almost no resistance.
’I might not be able to hold it back much longer though.’ Avery thought while ducking under another heavy swing from his opponent’s giant arm and deflecting its much thinner one that ended in sharp claws.
Not too far away, he could see another mutated creature that had eight limbs crawling along the ceiling like a spider towards him.
It was a lot smaller than the first one that had shown itself, but no less grotesque.
Seeing the second one basically confirmed what Avery had already been considering.
He had noticed that the monster he was fighting possessed some qualities similar to a human.
Certainly, everything about it was misshapen and mutated, but some resemblance to the former person it had once been remained.
As for the new one rapidly closing in on him, it retained features reminiscent of a Baccigan like Grito.
’I knew that the Odium Syndicate was morally bankrupt, but I never thought that they’d go this far. These types of experiments shouldn’t be allowed to occur anywhere.’
Avery felt a boiling rage rising inside of him.
He would not consider himself a saint or anything like that. His chosen profession involved no small amount of violence.
Yet, seeing the ghastly way that the Odium Syndicate had disfigured people for their own twisted goals infuriated him to no end.
There were some lines that he believed should never be crossed, and they had gone far past several of them.
"Don’t worry, I’ll put you out of your misery soon." Avery muttered, more for himself than the mutated individuals that clearly could no longer understand him.
With renewed purpose, he knocked the brute in front of him away and took aim at the unfortunate Baccigan with his gauntlet’s laser emitters.
He had them set to full output and started firing.
His second adversary was a lot smaller, and he hoped more susceptible to lasers.
One hit proved his theory to be correct, as he nearly blasted one of its legs off with a single hit.
However, the mutated Baccigan seemed to be a little more intelligent, and it started evading the attacks instead of just tanking them.
Naturally, the first monster did not stay down for long and was lunging back at Avery relentlessly just a couple of seconds after he knocked it away.
With the fight having turned into a two on one, Avery was pushed a lot harder than before.
His two enemies complemented each other well, and made it difficult for him to keep both of them at bay.
It was not long before he was caught off guard and the original monster suspired him with something it had kept hidden.
A tail-like appendage suddenly sprung out from its back, and sharp spine on the end of it stabbed into his waist through one of the weak points in his exosuit.
Had it just been the puncture wound, it would not have been much of a problem.
Unfortunately, Avery felt some sort of liquid injected into his body, and a burning sensation soon started to spread throughout the area where he had been hit.
If he had still been a normal human, the venom would have quickly immobilized him and left him unable to react to what happened next.
Having been waiting for its chance, the slippery mutated Baccigan leapt towards Avery, its mouth full of razor-sharp teeth opening wide enough to swallow the upper half of his torso in one go.
