Chapter 316
Thilo gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands. In the rear-view mirror, he could see the morphus standing motionlessly in the middle of the street. The pitch-black figure gradually faded into the distance as he raced away in his powerful muscle car.
“Hell yeah! Eat dirt, you motherfucker,” Thilo yelled at the morphus, which was now barely visible in his mirror. “Not as fast after all, aint’cha?”
Still, while it was clear the morphus wasn’t going to give chase, Thilo couldn’t help but press harder on the accelerator. Even though the mutant wouldn’t be able to catch up if it suddenly changed its mind and gave chase, he couldn’t bring himself to ease off the gas pedal.
“Ugly dumb motherfucker,” he snarled through clenched teeth. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. His eyes flickered between the grassy road ahead and the vanishing figure of the mutant in the rear-view mirror.
At some point, after he jumped into his car and sped off, he heard a thud against the outer side of the passenger door. However, when he glanced that way, he saw nothing suspicious and almost immediately forgot about it.
Whatever the sound was didn’t trouble him at all. The only thing he truly feared was the morphus, but the mutant had been left far behind. There was nothing to worry about now.
Thilo let out a laugh devoid of joy, a strained, nervous chuckle. Upon hearing its unnatural tone, he cut the laugh short.
“Fucking asshole,” he said, thinking about the morphus. “Unkillable, apex predator, my ass. Not so apex if you couldn’t even stop me from escaping… from a tactical retreat, ain’t’cha? Fucking freak. Fuck you. Fuck you! You’re nothing! Nothing!”
After working himself into a frenzy, he began yelling, striking his hands against the leather-wrapped steering wheel.
Thilo wasn’t genuinely angry or mad. It was just an act to conceal how he truly felt. He was terrified. Though he had put considerable distance between himself and the morphus, he still couldn’t stop his knees from trembling uncontrollably.
The moment the morphus suddenly burst into a sprint toward him was the most terrifying moment of his life. Thankfully, despite being nearly overwhelmed by fear, he had the presence of mind to turn and run.
Getting into the car immediately would have been a terrible mistake, as the morphus could stick to nearly any surface fast. Had the mutant jumped onto the hood, anchoring itself there, he wouldn’t have been able to shake it off.
So Thilo chose to flee instead, planning to use a chrono spell he had at his disposal. This spell’s purpose was to transfer the caster to any moment of their choice within the previous several seconds. While being transferred, the caster became phased out of material space, rendering them immune to damage. The speed of the transfer was incredibly high as well.
It was definitely a very useful spell that could save your life at a crucial moment. Thilo had found it long ago but had never used it. Additionally, it was an exceptionally rare spell. He had never encountered another like it and had never heard of anyone else discovering one.
Since all spells were one-use only, and knowing how rare and useful this particular spell was, he planned to use it only in a truly critical moment. When the morphus caught up to him, causing him to collapse to the ground, it was the exact moment he had been saving the spell for.
Just before the morphus attacked him, he cast the spell and was almost instantly transported to his car, where he had stood just seconds prior. Without pausing to look back at the creature, he then immediately climbed into his car and sped away.
However, even though he had escaped with his life, the fear that weakened his legs still lingered. Until the very last moment, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to get away. Only now, as he could no longer see the morphus in his rear-view mirror, did he finally start to relax.
Despite being scared shitless of the morphus, he wasn’t willing to admit it—not even to himself. He forced out a laugh and was relieved it sounded less strained than before.
“I did it,” he whispered to himself. “I fucking did it.”
It was well known that nobody ever survived an encounter with the morphus. Every team that had engaged the pitch-black mutant had been killed. No one had ever escaped with their life. The only time a person encountered the morphus and lived to tell the tale was when the mutant willingly let him go to pass its message to the gang leader.
So Thilo was the very first person to encounter the morphus, get attacked by it, and escape with his life. This was a remarkable achievement. Such a feat could earn him respect from his peers and perhaps even a promotion from his superiors.
Then another thought occurred to him. What if his bosses sent him after the morphus again, considering he had survived his first encounter with the creature? His mood instantly plummeted. He definitely didn’t want to deal with the morphus ever again. This time, his mission was simply to deliver a message to the mutant. But what if the next time he was tasked with killing it?
Thilo shook his head, trying to rid himself of the gloomy thoughts. Skullface wouldn’t send him or any other regular members of the organization after the freak. The gang leader had long realized that soldiers like him couldn’t do shit against the morphus, which was why he stopped sending them after it and invented something he called a “scalpel.” Whatever it was, it should deal with the freak once and for all, considering how proud Skullface was of it.
Those who lay in wait for his arrival, concealed in the ambush, were ordinary soldiers, though. The reason for that was that Skullface refrained from employing his “scalpel” during this operation, as it wasn’t yet fully ready.
However, this was all part of his meticulous strategy. Skullface harbored no illusions that the morphus would accept his invitation to join the gang at face value—it was merely a ploy to lend credibility to his proposition.
Nevertheless, a well-armed team stood ready at the ambush site, prepared for the possibility that the morphus might be stupid enough to follow Thilo right into the trap.
Also, even though Skullface didn’t truly believe the morphus could be frightened into leaving the city, he thought it worthwhile to make an attempt to drive the mutant away.
Thilo was pulled out of his thoughts by a quiet hissing sound and a sharp, acrid scent. He realized that the strange sound and the odor must have been present for a while, but he had been so agitated and preoccupied with his brooding that he only became aware of them now.
He glanced in the rear-view mirror once again. There was no trace of the freak, but something else caught his eye: a hole in the ceiling with melted edges.
“What the hell?!”
He saw something move above and jerked his head to look up. Just as he did, he caught a glimpse of a huge, pitch-black arachnid clinging to the ceiling right above him. It had more legs than a regular spider, and its dark, textured skin and a pair of blue eyes resembled those of the morphus.
Before he could do anything, the enormous spider dropped from the ceiling, twisting gracefully in midair before landing squarely on his face. Its long, multi-jointed legs constricted tightly around his head.
The terror he had experienced earlier surged back in an instant.