Chapter 345
Jake stood on the edge of a high-rise, gazing down at the base he planned to attack next. It didn’t differ much from the previous two he had liberated, allowing Catalina and Melissa to take charge of them.
The base down below had four guard towers, each at a corner of the base and topped with a turret. Inside, some of the guards patrolled the walls, while the others watched workers tending to various machines and devices.
Jake knew it wouldn’t take him much effort to raze the base down below. He could achieve it all on his own. Still, he decided to bring along his crawlers and wingclaws as well.
After parting ways with Melissa, he mentally summoned his minions, directing them to join him. While he knew he could take the base all on his own, having his creatures by his side would give him some advantages.
He had arrived at this base as soon as he left Melissa, so he was sure the word about his army of monsters hadn’t spread yet. Sure, there were no survivors to spread the word, but the attackers might have been keeping in touch with their superiors. Still, even if the leaders of the gang were now aware of him having an army of his own creatures, regular bases likely weren’t aware of that yet.
So if he attacked the base with all the combat units he had, the defenders would surely be caught off guard. While their attention was diverted by the sudden appearance of his forces, he could deal with the turrets. By the time he was done with them, all that would be left to do was to take care of the remaining bandits.
After one last glance at the base below, Jake stepped off the roof and dropped several floors to the street. As he raced toward the base, he mentally dispatched his creatures, instructing them to eliminate anyone wearing anything red while sparing the others.
The swarm of monsters surged over the perimeter walls, with crawlers scaling them and wingclaws soaring above. Almost instantly, panicked screams erupted from within the walls, accompanied by the sharp sound of turrets firing at the invaders.
The attack proved to be even simpler than Jake had anticipated. The turrets ignored him entirely, concentrating their fire on the monsters. While some of his creatures were cut down by the relentless barrage, their rapid movements and constant change in direction caused most of the bullets to miss their targets.
Since none of the turrets paid him any mind, it took Jake little time and effort to climb atop each of the four guard towers and destroy their turrets. Once that was accomplished, he joined his creatures inside the base to deal with the rest of the bandits.
The battle didn’t last long. The ground was now littered with the dead bodies of the bandits, the earth abundantly soaked with blood. None of the regular survivors forced to labor at the base had been hurt in the attack, though.
However, they cowered in fear behind various machines and contraptions, peering out in sheer horror at the colossal spiders scuttling around and the wingclaws soaring above the base. Even though his creatures didn’t show any aggression toward the survivors, the latter were obviously terrified.
So Jake ordered his minions to leave the base, hide somewhere nearby, and wait for further instructions.
The crawlers scaled the walls and disappeared from sight, followed by the wingclaws as they soared overhead. Jake walked to the gates and opened them. After that, he turned around and returned to the center of the base, stepping over the dead bodies. Retrieving the electrolarynx from his inventory, he pressed it to his mandible.
He now had to consider what would happen next after the gang was gone. For the time being, the regular survivors were his allies, but it was impossible to predict their actions after Los Demonios was eliminated. What if they turned on him then? They clearly disliked the monsters he had created and might eventually attempt to eradicate both the creatures and their creator.
So he had to be prepared for that eventuality, which was why he wasn’t willing to let survivors have any more fortresses like the two they already had. He didn’t decide to put an end to Los Demonios just to create another well-developed organization hell-bent on hunting him down.
But sure enough, he had no intention of explaining himself to anyone. Retrieving the electrolarynx, he stated, “Leave now. I won’t say it again.”
The man interpreted it as a threat and hurried away. Putting away the device, Jake moved on to the next machine.
Soon, all the survivors had left. Not long after, Jake finished destroying the base. The contraptions were transformed into a jumble of mangled and torn metal, and all the walls and guard towers were reduced to rubble. The only structure still standing was HQ. He had damaged it to some extent but hadn’t completely demolished it yet.
He entered the security room and hacked into the computer. After that, he dialed the number for the main base and pressed call. After a few rings, a man with a face tattooed like a skull appeared on the central monitor.
For a moment, Jake and Skullface simply stared at each other. Skullface clearly hadn’t anticipated receiving a call from him. As for Jake, it was the very first time he had seen his mortal enemy, so he silently examined his face for a moment.
“You’re even uglier than I am,” Jake finally stated.
Skullface turned red as his eyebrows knitted together. The gang leader opened his mouth, then shut it again. For a few seconds, he seemed on the verge of exploding with rage.
However, he managed to steady himself and even cracked a smile, though the expression in his eyes was far from joyful.
“Well, looks like we finally meet face to face,” Skullface remarked.
“If you’d wanted, you could’ve always come at me personally,” Jake said. “But instead, you kept sending your people to be slaughtered. People fear you, but you’re nothing but a gutless coward yourself, aren’t you?”
Skullface appeared at a loss for words.
“What… How dare you…” Skullface stuttered, clearly taken aback. Clearly, nobody had ever spoken to him like this before. It took him a moment to steady himself, and then he started snarling like a wild animal, “Listen to me, you—”
“No, you listen to me, you shitface,” Jake interrupted. “I only called to tell you this: I just annihilated one of your secondary bases. Look behind me and see for yourself what’s left of it.”
It was only at that moment that Skullface noticed what lay behind Jake, or rather, the absence of anything behind him. Jake had destroyed several walls, effectively razing half the building. Behind him stretched an empty expanse, cluttered with debris from the former walls, guard towers, and twisted remnants of what had once been various machines.
Skullface silently gaped at the scene, so shocked by the extent of the destruction that he couldn’t utter a word.
“That was just one of your secondary bases,” Jake said. “As soon as I’m done talking to you, I’ll move on to another one. I’ll keep destroying everything you’ve built. Each of your bases will be destroyed one by one. And when I’m done with them, I’ll drop by your main base, where you’ve been hiding from me. I know where it is, so you can expect me very soon.”
Skullface turned livid with rage.
“You’d better stop right now,” he screamed like a madman, saliva flying from his lips. “You’d better leave my property alone, or I’ll—”
“Or what?” Jake interrupted him again. “What will you do? Send another Miller in a mech suit after me? Sic another team in power suits on me? What exactly will you do? What?”
Jake observed his enemy, but there was no immediate reply.
“There’s nothing you can do to me,” Jake said. “Whatever you might come up with next will be useless. I can handle anything you throw at me with ease.”
A tense silence enveloped the room until Skullface finally regained his composure. His voice, now a low growl, cut through the air like a knife, “Don’t you dare meddle with my operations, you hear me?”
“Try and stop me, motherfucker.”
Having said everything he wanted to, Jake slammed his smashfist into the monitor, shattering it into thousands of pieces. He then proceeded to demolish what remained of the building. After that, he summoned his creatures and immediately set off for the next base. It would be all over very soon now.
Hey guys! Thank you for reading! I've recently started to work on another story. It's called Venator Arcanus and it's a Power Fantasy LitRPG. You can check it out here if you're interested: