Chapter 367
The hornets rained down on them, causing the three humans to succumb to panic. They scattered, firing at the massive creatures above them.
Felix and Rajan didn’t even bother to take aim. Instead, they simply pointed their weapons in the general direction of the swarm and unleashed a hail of bullets. Each burst of fire killed several hornets at once, causing their bodies to burst apart, but the total number of these nasty creatures barely seemed to dwindle.
Armed with fully automatic weapons, the duo managed to hold the hornets at bay for a short time. Meanwhile, Kira, wielding two revolvers, quickly found herself in serious trouble. She emptied her handguns in record time, taking down a few of the oversized pests, but it wasn’t nearly enough to stop the rest of them.
As she began to reload, the hornets swarmed around her, and a high-pitched scream escaped her lips, echoing through the air.
As for Jake, the swarm of massive hornets didn’t deter him at all. Each blast from his shotgun wiped out dozens of them in a single shot. As soon as he emptied his weapon, he would dig into his pockets for a handful of fresh shells and expertly shove them into the loading port of his shotgun.
Screams of panic, pain, and terror echoed all around him, but he ignored them completely, remaining unfazed by the chaos unfolding all around him. He stayed focused on the task of taking down the nasty pests, which swarmed above in such numbers that they completely obscured the stormwing from view.
He determined that the magically enhanced explosive slugs were significantly more effective against the hornet swarm compared to standard buckshot shells. Each slug detonated upon impact, wiping out not just the hornet it hit but also dozens of those around it as well.
It wasn’t long before the nasty pests began to land on him, attempting to stab his body with their curved stings. However, despite appearing human, beneath that façade was the armored shell of his mutant body, which the hornets’ stings couldn’t penetrate, no matter how hard they tried.
Jake mostly ignored the creatures crawling over him, only occasionally smashing some into a pulp with his fist when they became too much of a nuisance.
He remained focused on killing as many hornets as he could. Finally, he cleared out enough of them to see the stormwing again. Just as he aimed his shotgun at the elite mutant above, Kira’s scream rang out just behind him. Jake would have ignored it, but Rajan’s urgent shout suddenly reached his ears: “Mute, help her for fuck’s sake!”
Jake glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Kira rush past him, her arms protectively covering her head as hornets continuously dove at her. The other two team members were on the opposite side of the roof, making him the closest to Kira.
He spotted a lump the size of her fist swelling on the side of her neck where one of the hornets had stung her. A smaller swelling was forming on one of her hands from a sting she had received just moments before.
Kira seemed to completely lose her mind, overwhelmed by pain and panic. She kept racing across the roof, oblivious to the fact that she was getting dangerously close to the edge. It was obvious that without somebody to help her, she was about to fall from the ten-story roof all the way down to the street below.
Jake chose to focus on his objective instead. Turning away from Kira, he shifted his attention back to the stormwing, which hovered motionlessly in the air above. He took aim at the elite mutant and squeezed the trigger. However, the slug he fired struck one of the hornets that had flown by just before the stormwing, blowing the pest apart in a spray of green goo.
Kira’s horrifying scream cut through the air, quickly dwindling until it vanished entirely. Jake didn’t need to look in that direction to know what had just happened. Instead, he turned his head the other way to check on Felix and Rajan. Neither man seemed aware of Kira’s fate, as both were preoccupied with their own problems.
The remaining hornets swarmed around them, stinging repeatedly. The two men fought back, firing bursts from their weapons, but their efforts barely made a dent.
At one point, Rajan stumbled over his own foot and collapsed to the ground as hornets dove at him relentlessly. Screaming on end, he rolled from side to side, desperately trying to shake the hornets off, but his efforts were in vain.
Felix, too preoccupied with his own problems, couldn’t offer Rajan any help. Instead, he held his assault rifle by the barrel and swung it like a baseball bat, swatting away at the countless hordes of hornets buzzing around him.
Jake could see that finishing the mission was no longer the top priority for the two men. All they could think about at that moment was staying alive. It was then that Jake realized he no longer needed to maintain his disguise.
He knew that his primary focus had to be on ensuring Felix survived long enough to complete the mission and secure the legendary shotgun. The stormwing needed to be defeated as quickly as possible, so Jake dropped his disguise. Neither of the two men even noticed.
Turning his attention back to the stormwing, Jake launched his grappling hook at it. Snagging the winged creature, he delivered a powerful yank that sent it crashing to the ground, breaking its wings in the process.
He then pounced on the creature and smashed his fist into its head, turning it into a green pulp. Just like that, the battle was over. As soon as the stormwing was dead, all the remaining hornets dropped dead as well.
Jake rose to his feet and turned his attention to the two bandits. They both lay on the rooftop, each a short distance from the other. Though both were alive, they were barely hanging on. Jake’s only concern was Felix, so he made his way toward him.
As he walked past Rajan, he heard the man croak, “That you, Felix?”
Jake took a quick look at the bandit. His body bore numerous lumps from the hornet stings. His face was greatly disfigured, rendering him nearly blind. Jake brought his foot down hard on the bandit’s throat, breaking his neck and putting the human out of his misery.
He then made his way to Felix, who wasn’t in much better shape. His neck was greatly swollen, and he seemed to be struggling to breathe. He stared up at Jake but said nothing. In his eyes was only pain and nothing more.
Jake took Felix’s PDA from the inner pocket of his jacket and hacked into it. A system message informed him that the mission had been completed quickly enough to earn an extra reward: the legendary shotgun. Jake requested the airdrop to land on the rooftop and waited.
A few minutes later, a futuristic-looking aircraft arrived, dropping the airdrop with a parachute. Once it touched down, Jake entered the security code he received on Felix’s PDA into the control panel of the airdrop and retrieved the legendary shotgun from within.
He didn’t bother checking its stats, as he wasn’t interested in them.
Instead, he looked back at Felix. As it turned out, there was no need to finish him off, as the bandit had already succumbed to his injuries, suffocating to death. Jake reached the edge of the roof and jumped down to the street below. After landing, he made his way to the SUV the team had arrived in.
It was time to return to Base Rex and present the legendary shotgun to the leader.