Ex-Human Morphus [A Mutant Evolution Apocalypse LitRPG]
Chapter 142

Chapter 142

His sudden appearance didn’t go completely unnoticed, though. While Cloak rendered him invisible when he stood still or moved slowly, abrupt movements disrupted his disguise, as his ability struggled to maintain the illusion of transparency. 

Enid had been watching the cruel scene unfold on her right. Her companion, Anton, struggled against Tyron, who stood behind him with his huge arm tightly wrapped around the captive’s neck, while Jose brought the knife to his face. However, when Jake suddenly landed a few feet in front of her, she caught the movement out of the corner of her eye and jerked her head to look in his direction.

As Jake rose to his feet, Cloak bent the light around him, blending him into the background as if he were part of the air itself. However, the ability couldn’t adjust fast enough to his sudden movement, allowing Enid to notice his shimmering form.

Most of the gangsters’ attention was focused on Anton and Jose, but the man in the red bandana standing behind Enid noticed her looking at something. Following her gaze, he turned his head and stared at Jake as well. To the two of them, his form seemed to dissolve into thin air, gradually making him appear transparent. 

“What the hell is that?” the bandit mumbled, puzzled by what he was seeing.

Jake didn’t wait for the Demons to realize what was happening. He sprouted three long tentacles from his back and immediately lashed out with one of them at the bandit wearing the red bandana. The blade at the end of the tentacle sliced across the Demon’s throat, tearing it up and causing a shower of blood to pour from the ragged wound. The man dropped his weapon as his hands went up to his throat.

As Jose leaned over the kneeling Anton, ready to cut his face, he caught sight of the commotion to his right. He quickly straightened and spun to face it, just as the severely injured gangster crumpled to the ground, his fingers growing weak around his torn throat, blood oozing freely between them.

“What the hell just happened?” Jose shouted at his men.

“Boss, there’s something near us!” one of the gangsters yelled, his voice trembling with fear.  

Jake was already in motion, closing in on his next target.  

“I can’t see anything,” Jose growled, jerking his head back and forth, struggling to comprehend where their assailant was.

“Boss, look ahead!” somebody warned. “It’s right in front of you!”

Jake was already on top of the group’s leader. His cloaking ability suddenly faltered and deactivated, making him completely visible. Jake wasn’t surprised by that. When he had tested the ability earlier, he had noticed that it tended to deactivate whenever he moved too quickly or made erratic movements, causing Cloak to malfunction or shut down entirely.  

The leader’s mouth fell open in shock as he stared at the obsidian-black monstrosity from hell that had suddenly materialized before him. Jake’s tentacles writhed through the air behind him, and he opened his jaws impossibly wide, exposing rows of large, jagged teeth.

“Fucking—”

He never finished what he was going to say. Jake leaned in, clamping down on the gangster’s face, his strong teeth easily breaking through the skull. With a sudden, powerful yank, he tore Jose’s face off. The gangster collapsed to the ground, his body twitching in death throes. Before the body even hit the floor, Jake was already on the move again, spitting the torn piece of flesh from his mouth.

With one of his tentacles, he stabbed a nearby bandit through the chest. Another bladed tentacle whipped through the air, slashing at another gangster’s face across both his eyes. The Demon screamed and dropped his weapon, his hands trying to pull a stim from a pouch on his belt. Before he could do that, Jake used the same tentacle to stab the gangster into the side of his neck, putting him out of his misery.

Jake closed in on another target, which turned out to be Tyron. The giant had let go of Anton and unslung his shotgun, which seemed tiny in his huge paws. However, he struggled to track Jake with his weapon. Before the large gangster could fire, Jake closed in on him, grabbed the weapon with his left hand, and yanked. The giant was surprisingly strong, and for a fraction of a second, Jake felt a bit of resistance as Tyron held on to the weapon with all his might. However, the bandit’s muscles were no match for Jake’s inhuman strength.

Wrenching the shotgun from the giant’s grip, he tossed it aside. Tyron just stared at him in sincere surprise, having not expected the obsidian-black mutant to be so much stronger than him. Before he could even snap out of it, Jake threw his right hand, which was transformed into a smashfist, at the center of his upper body. His massive fist easily smashed through, splintering ribs as it went. Jake withdrew his smashfist from the gaping hole he had created in the gangster’s chest, and Tyron crumpled to the floor, hitting it with a resounding thud. 

His tentacles detached from his body, but that was fine because only one gangster remained. After witnessing the other gang members die so easily at the hands of the obsidian-black mutant, he decided it was best to flee. Wheeling around, he burst into a run toward the exit from the building. Only he didn’t get far. Jake bent his knees and performed a mana-infused jump, easily covering the distance of a dozen yards to the fleeing bandit.

He collided with the man from behind, sending him crashing to the floor face-first. Jake sat atop the fallen Demon, straddling his prone form. The gangster struggled to break free, but he was powerless against Jake. He raised his smashfist and swung it downward. His huge fist struck the back of the bandit’s head, crushing the skull with ease.

All the enemies taken care of, Jake rose to his feet and turned to face the three captives. They remained frozen in place, their eyes wide with fear. Jake stared back at them with his large, unblinking eyes.

One of the three upgrades for his Feral Instincts allowed him to sense the emotional states or intentions of nearby humans and pick up on their potential hostility. So he could tell that all three survivors were in a state of shock, utterly astonished by the brutal scene that had unfolded before them, and they weren’t planning to do anything against him.

Even George, who, unlike Anton and Enid, didn’t have his hands bound behind his back, showed no signs of aggression. He was standing not far from his kneeling companions, watching Jake intently. Realizing the three of them weren’t going to give him any trouble, he relaxed and transformed his right smashfist back into a normal, human-like hand.

He looked at Anton, who flinched when he saw Jake fix his gaze on him. Jake simply watched. The long cut across Anton’s forehead, inflicted by George, was still oozing blood, though it wasn’t a severe injury. Jake then turned his attention to George. That man had betrayed his friends, revealing their hiding spot to Los Demonios. However, it was up to Anton and Enid to decide what to do with him.

He gestured for them to stand up. The two of them exchanged surprising glances.

“I think it wants us to get up,” Anton said.

“Yeah.”

The two slowly rose to their feet. Moving deliberately slowly and trying to appear non-threatening, he walked around them and positioned himself behind their backs. They were too scared to move. Jake stopped directly behind Anton and morphed his right hand into claws.

“What is it doing?” he whispered to Enid.

Turning her head to the right, she saw Jake bringing his claws close to Anton’s hands.

“Oh no,” she whispered, misinterpreting the situation.

Before she could say anything else, Jake used one of his talons to slice through the rope binding Anton’s wrists.

“Oh,” Enid said, realizing Jake’s intention was not to harm them but to set them free.

After slicing through Enid’s bindings, Jake moved in front of them again, morphing his claws back into normal, human-like fingers. He scanned the area and approached one of the dead bodies. Leaning down, he retrieved a healing autoinjector from a pouch on the dead man’s belt. He turned to the survivors and tossed the injector to Anton, who snatched it out of the air, surprise evident in his eyes.

“Th—Thanks,” he stammered, taken aback.

Jake surveyed the bodies of the dead gangsters he had just killed. Some might have mana consumables in their backpacks, but he didn’t feel like rummaging through them. Instead, he opted for a quicker approach. He closed his eyes and activated Mana Vision. No blue spots appeared nearby, indicating there were no mana items in the rucksacks of the dead bandits, so he had no reason to search through them.

Jake opened his eyes and took one final look at the three survivors. He nodded at Anton and Enid, who hesitated for a moment before nodding back. Turning away, he dashed for the building’s exit. Halfway across the vast room, he glanced back and noticed Anton and Enid grabbing some weapons lying on the floor. Instead of aiming them at him, however, they directed their guns at George, who was starting to sob.

“I’m sorry, guys,” he pleaded. “I really didn’t want to do this."

Jake didn’t hear what his companions replied to him because he had already reached the exit and dashed out of the building. He anticipated the sharp crack of gunfire, but it never came. Probably, Anton and Enid would simply let George go, despite his betrayal. After all, even despite the cruel world Earth had become, not all people had turned into heartless killers.

Without giving the matter another thought, Jake continued to run through the overgrown streets, his focus already back on his mutation research quest.