Chapter 551

Jake hurtled toward the ground like a falling meteor, gravity’s pull on him amplified several times. The air howled as the ground rushed up toward him. Just before impact, he activated Ground Strike, slamming his fist into the asphalt with tremendous force.

His landing caused the asphalt to cave beneath him, forming a sizable crater. Jagged cracks radiated from the point of impact, zigzagging across the street in every direction. The collision also unleashed a powerful shockwave that rippled through the air, kicking up dust and scattering chunks of broken pavement.

Not far from where he landed, a cluster of green crystals jutted from the ground, their jagged spires rising as high as seven or eight feet. The shockwave crashed into them with tremendous force, making the entire formation vibrate violently. A low, resonant hum echoed through the air as the crystals absorbed the impact.

But they didn’t shatter. They did suffer heavy damage, though. Cracks spiderwebbed across their smooth emerald surfaces, some deep enough to expose faint pulses of green light within.

Jake rose to his feet without missing a beat and barreled toward the crystals. Each stride carried him across the fractured pavement, as loose debris crunched beneath his feet. But before he could fully close the distance to the crystal cluster, what looked like a bolt of lightning suddenly shot from one of the spires right toward him.

He ducked just in time, and it screamed over his shoulder, leaving the air crackling in its wake. An instant later, another crystal in the cluster launched a second bolt. This time, Jake wasn’t quite able to dodge it. The blast slammed into his shoulder, punching straight through the armor and carving out a smoking hole with melted edges.

A sensation of damage flared through his arm for a split second before a system notification popped up in front of him.

You have been hit for 35,565 points of Aether Damage.

HP: 735,435 / 771,000

Jake felt it immediately. The impact slammed into his shoulder with enough force to spin him halfway around, his armored feet scraping across the fractured asphalt. A sharp jolt raced through his arm, but he managed to keep his footing. He quickly recovered and accelerated toward the crystal cluster once more.

Another crystal discharged a bolt of crackling lightning at him, but this time he anticipated the attack. He sidestepped at the last possible moment, and the bolt streaked harmlessly past, blasting a smoking groove into the pavement behind him.

A heartbeat later, he reached his target and drove his smashfist into one of the crystals. He didn’t know how tough they were, so he put every ounce of his strength and momentum behind the punch, throwing his full weight into it. The instant his fist connected, the crystal shattered as though it were made of fragile glass. The deafening crack echoed through the air.

And it wasn’t just the one that got destroyed. The fractures raced through the adjoining crystals almost instantly. The violent vibrations from the first crystal spread through the entire cluster in a chain reaction, causing every connected spire to rupture. One after another, they exploded into thousands of razor-sharp emerald shards that burst outward in every direction like confetti.

Most of the sharp fragments glanced harmlessly off Jake’s armored body with a series of sharp metallic pings, while others embedded themselves in the surrounding pavement before dissolving into motes of green light.

Aether Crystal Cluster Destroyed. +55,150 XP

XP: 1,497,305 / 2,010,000

Jake assumed he had destroyed the entire crystal cluster with a single blow because the shockwave from his landing had already weakened it. And the fifth and final upgrade for Ground Strike, which was called Damage Boost, briefly increasing all the damage he dealt after using the ability, had surely also played a significant part in weakening the cluster.

Even so, he could tell the crystals weren’t especially durable. Judging by how easily the chain reaction had spread through them, he should be able to destroy intact clusters, undamaged by any previous attacks, with only a few well-placed punches.

Either way, he had earned a good chunk of XP for shattering the cluster. It was a good reward, and the mere fact that he had been rewarded for destroying the crystal cluster immediately reminded him of the Ravage Contamination back in Dead City. He remembered that he hadn’t received any experience for destroying the bio-plague itself, only for killing the monsters spawned by it.

Here, though, the situation was clearly different. He could earn XP by destroying the crystal formations as if they were counted as enemies.

He also couldn’t help but notice that the chip Mick had installed in his head hadn’t granted him any bonus XP as it had before. But that wasn’t really surprising. After all, Mick had warned him that it needed to be recharged once every twenty-four hours to remain operational, and it had been weeks since he had emerged from the Dark Void.

Since the chip had exhausted its stored power long ago and it was inactive now, it left all the benefits it normally provided, including the bonus experience, temporarily unavailable. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything he could do about it himself. The chip couldn’t be recharged without specialized equipment, so he would have to wait until he found Mick and had him power it up again. If Mick was still alive, that is.

Jake took a quick look around. In Dead City, every inch of the surface had been smothered by the organic plague, leaving not a single spot of the city free of it. Here, however, the situation was vastly different. While plenty of green crystals protruded from both the ground and the surrounding buildings, there were also large stretches untouched by the crystallization. Entire sections of cracked asphalt, abandoned sidewalks, and weathered concrete remained exposed.

From personal experience, though, Jake already knew those crystal clusters had a considerable effective range, so even areas free of crystals weren’t truly safe if there were clusters nearby. An open street offered little protection when a crystal several dozen yards away could still strike with deadly accuracy.

For a moment, he simply stood there, studying his surroundings. The air seemed permeated with a faint tingling electric energy that prickled against his armored skin, as though the entire district were charged with static.

A constant, low hum emanated from the crystal clusters scattered throughout the city, blending into an eerie background drone that never seemed to stop. Every now and then, one crystal or another discharged a short lightning bolt for seemingly no reason. The sharp crack echoed through the deserted streets before fading back into silence, briefly illuminating nearby buildings with flashes of green-white light.

Here and there, he also spotted patches of green spread across the ground. Compared to the towering crystal formations, however, they were far less common. They looked almost organic from a distance, as if some glowing substance had seeped across the pavement before hardening. One patch lay farther down the street, smeared across the middle of the cracked asphalt in an irregular streak that stood out against the gray surroundings.

Jake decided to investigate and ran toward the patch. It didn’t react to his approach in any way. As he drew closer, he gradually slowed until he came to a stop just two steps away. Even standing almost at its edge, it remained completely still, showing no signs that it had even noticed his presence.

It certainly looked dangerous, though. A thin green mist hovered directly above the patch, never rising more than a foot or two off the ground. Tiny bolts of emerald lightning flickered within it at irregular intervals, appearing and vanishing in the blink of an eye. The faint smell of ozone lingered in the air around it, and the mist itself seemed to writhe ever so slightly, as though it were alive.

Jake was certain stepping onto the green patch and into the mist wasn’t a good idea. But he was going to do it anyway.

He expected to take some damage, but he doubted it would be enough to kill him right away. Most likely, it wouldn’t even inflict serious injuries, provided he didn’t remain inside for too long. There was only one reliable way to find out how dangerous the patches really were. Testing this thing personally was much better than simply speculating.

He backed up a few steps to give himself room to build speed, then burst forward. His feet pounded against the cracked asphalt as he accelerated. He entered the mist at a full sprint, and the instant he crossed into it, he began taking damage, just as he’d expected.

Tiny bolts of lightning lashed out from every direction, assaulting his armored body in rapid succession. But the damage they inflicted was superficial, nowhere near as severe as the previous blast from the crystal had been.

Without slowing, he kept running and emerged from the other side of the mist a moment later. The crackling bolts ceased instantly, as though a switch had been flipped. When he glanced back over his shoulder, the patch had already returned to its dormant state, the mist hanging motionless above it once again.

So now he knew what the green patches were capable of. As long as he avoided stepping onto them, they remained inert. And even if he did trigger one, the damage it dealt was fairly minor, especially if he passed through quickly. Compared to the crystal clusters, the green patches were almost harmless. Or at least they were to him.

He quickly looked around to get his bearings. He had landed about half a block from where he had last seen the group of humans. The surrounding streets were still eerily empty, but the sharp crackle of gunfire echoed between the abandoned buildings, punctuated by the occasional dull boom of an explosion. The survivors were still fighting. Which meant they were still alive. And useful.

To reach them, he needed to sprint straight ahead until he reached the four-way intersection up ahead, then turn right. Judging by the direction of the gunfire, the battle hadn’t shifted much since he’d last seen them.

Jake wasted no more time. Leaning forward, he burst into a full-speed sprint, his feet pounding against the cracked asphalt as he tore down the deserted street toward the intersection.