Chapter 315
The bandit stood next to the open driver’s door. Jake knew he wouldn’t be able to reach the man before he slid behind the wheel. That was fine, though. As soon as the car shot forward, he would jump toward it. Once he landed on the hood, he would shatter the windshield with his smashfist and pull the brash human out of the vehicle. But if the bandit tried to turn around to race in the direction he had come from, he would use his grappling hook to latch onto the speeding car.
However, to his surprise, the bandit didn’t slide behind the steering wheel. Instead, he did something very stupid. Whirling around, he bolted away. Jake could hardly believe his eyes.
Did the bandit really think he could outrun him? It would have been smarter to get into the car. Sure, it wouldn’t have helped much, but he would definitely have had a better chance of escaping in the car than on foot.
Jake had a feeling there was a reason the bandit chose to run instead of getting back into his car. As he pursued the man, quickly closing the distance, he tried to figure out what was really going on.
A thought crossed his mind: perhaps there was a bomb in the car, or it was infused with explosive magic. If that were the case, it made sense for the bandit to run, knowing Jake would give chase and pass the vehicle.
However, if that were true, Jake would have picked up on it while scanning the bandit’s memories moments earlier. He found no signs of magic coming from the car either. Still, just to be safe, he gave the vehicle a wide berth as he dashed by. The car didn’t explode, which wasn’t all that surprising.
Jake straightened his course and accelerated again. The bandit ahead sprinted at full speed, not looking back or firing at him. It seemed he either wanted to put distance between himself and the car or was naïve enough to think he could outrun Jake. Jake pressed on, still uncertain of the bandit’s true intentions.
Another thought crossed his mind: perhaps the high-rise buildings lining both sides of the street housed more bandits, ready to shove their weapons out of the windows and open fire on him.
But it didn’t add up. The bandit had crossed paths with Jake in a random part of the city, so there was no way they could have known he would pass this street. Even if there were another ambush here, Jake should have picked up on it when viewing the bandit’s memories.
In his wide field of vision, he detected no movement on either side. His Feral Instincts would also have alerted him if someone had aimed at him without him being aware of that. He also knew the exact location of the ambush Skullface had set up for him, and it definitely wasn’t here.
He was getting close to his prey. Just as he was about to reach the bandit, the human suddenly glanced over his shoulder. Upon seeing Jake almost on top of him, the human’s face contorted in horror. He looked almost out of his mind with terror.
So perhaps he had run away not because he had some devious scheme in mind, but simply out of fear. When he saw Jake burst into a run toward him, he must have become so scared that he lost his wits. Instead of taking a smart course of action and sliding back inside the car, he fled, driven solely by instinct.
Just as their eyes locked, Jake jumped. Gasping in panic, the bandit spun around, drawing his heavy-caliber pistol. But before he could aim it at Jake, he collided with the human, sending him sprawling to the ground. The pistol slipped from his grasp, disappearing into the tall grass.
Jake landed on top of the bandit, knocking the wind out of his lungs. He rose to his knees, straddling the trembling figure beneath him. Transforming his left hand into claws, Jake lifted it high, poised to strike down at the bandit.
That’s when the bandit’s expression shifted. Fear still lingered in his eyes, but a spark of determination glinted within them, and the corners of his lips turned upward slightly.
“Gotcha,” he sneered, gazing up at Jake. “Fuck you, freak.”
Jake slashed at the bandit’s face, but the human was no longer there. In a fraction of a second before he attacked, the bandit transformed into a barely visible blue mist, causing Jake’s claws to harmlessly swipe through the space where the human’s head had just been.
The blue mist slipped away from beneath him, moving at a surprisingly fast speed. Jake glanced over his shoulder and saw the mist dart back to the vehicle. It halted at the open driver’s door. In an instant, the blue mist vanished, replaced by the bandit, who stood with his back to Jake, staring ahead as he had before he spun around to run away. It was as if he had never even moved from the spot.
What the hell? Jake thought. The bandit had obviously used some sort of magic, but Jake had never encountered anything like it. The spell had transported him to the spot where the bandit had stood just seconds before, and it happened so fast—in just about a second.
Without looking back, the human slid behind the wheel, and in the next moment, the muscle car shot forward. Jake jumped to his feet and wheeled around. However, he didn’t bother to give chase. He was about a hundred yards away from the vehicle, and the gap quickly widened as the muscle car sped away, accelerating at an extremely quick pace. There was no way he could catch up to the speeding vehicle.
But he didn’t need to. His spider remained in the same spot where Jake had left it, hidden by the tall grass. The muscle car was quickly nearing the location where the crawler lurked. Jake established a vision link with the crawler and saw the world through the small creature’s eyes.
He then gave the spider a mental command to cling to the car. The crawler performed a perfectly timed jump at the vehicle just as it sped by. Colliding with the passenger door, the spider clung to it firmly. Jake instructed the spider to move toward the back of the car and then head to the roof. The crawler scuttled across the passenger side of the vehicle and then made its way up.
When it reached the roof, Jake instructed the crawler to breach the metal with its acid. The spider focused on the spot below and released acid onto the roof. The corrosive liquid swiftly ate through the metal, creating a hole that expanded rapidly.
Once the hole was wide enough for his spider to slip through, Jake instructed it to enter. The crawler obeyed, maneuvering its way through the opening and clinging to the ceiling of the car’s interior.
Jake parted his jaws, forming a nightmarish grin.
Gotcha, he thought.