12 11. New Mutations
By the time we arrived at Slifer City, everything in sight from the city gates was in ruins. Bodies were squished, while more were crushed beneath destroyed homes and inns. We needed to catch up with the Sentry.
I gestured Seraph to piggyback ride my back and as she got into position and held onto me tight, I leapt up into the air. After covering a huge distance with the jump, I landed, and so I leapt again. The old me would never be capable of this, but with 3500 strength this wasn't too difficult.
After keeping at this for a while, we soon noticed the Berserk Sentry mid-jump. It looked akin to a brown gigantic tortoise, a tortoise the size of two mountains on top of each other. It's shell was covered with long pointy protrusions, as if someone had attached muddy hills onto it.
And when we finally arrived beside it, I noticed that it had 6 legs at that. It was blowing fire at the trees and at the inns in front of it, and whacking things aside with its thick but short tail needlessly.
Getting under its belly didn't sound as easy anymore. If this humongous thing felt something was down there and even as much as squatted, I would be squished meat. We needed to find a different way.
Seraph jumped up from my back and summoned hundreds of fire arrows from thin air which then shot at the giant's head. It turned, pissed, and looked at us.
I pulled out my Cloud Daggers and leapt high, caught one of the pointy hills on its back and climbed up, up and then jumped from one to another until I was on the one closest to its neck.
Meanwhile Seraph fought fire with fire. Waves of flames crashed against waves of flames. Her output of fire almost matched the giant's, which was nothing short of terrifying.
I held out both the daggers, covering them in a sharp layer of translucent green energy and then shoved them both into the back of its neck. The Sentry faltered, and Seraph shot thousands of fire arrows straight into its eyes.
The giant tried to shake off the daggers piercing its neck, but I held onto them. Seraph shot another wave of flames as it tried to dislodge me, I got hit by them too, but we had trained for situations like these. My body was already encased in a sheet of grey even before her attack hit. My Iron Skin could withstand most of her spells upto a certain degree.
The beast turned to focus on her again and I summoned storm winds to envelop my arms. Tornado Fists. It was a spell that exponentially increased my punching power.
BAM!! Both of my fists came down upon the stuck daggers and they completely sunk into its neck. I didn't know Sentry biology, but one of the daggers probably went all the way to one of its carotid arteries since the fight got much easier after it and the giant kept using lesser and lesser power to fight off Seraph's incessant arrows and waves of flames.
Soon the beast's legs gave way and it didn't get back up after that.
We waited for a few minutes after that but it didn't stir.
"We did it, didn't we?" Seraph looked up at me, sweaty, exhausted but mad with joy.
"The damned beast sure was difficult, although not as difficult as it should have been thanks to your incessant torture. I guess although it spouted fire, it's scales weren't immune to it," I said as I dug my hands into one of the pierced holes, pulled up an artery, tore it and began drinking through it.
The giant's blood tasted surprisingly sweet. And before I knew it, my stomach felt full of it.
'Kaiju, how much did I drink?'
'1 gallon.'
'Identifying the fauna...
Specie: Sentry
Extracting DNA information...
Extracted.'
And I blacked out.
When I next woke up, we were in a carriage, my head on Seraph's lap and she was watching me worriedly.
"Well this sure feels nostalgic," I chuckled.
It had been a while since I fell unconscious after consuming blood, but I guess a Sentry's blood was really something.
'Kaiju, status.'
'The Sentry blood is still being processed. The System is incapable of performing any other tasks currently.'
Damn, that was new.
The processing finished only after we submitted our report and returned to our home. It finished only after causing me to black out again.
When I woke up this time, there was just a single difference I noticed. Or rather, two.
The palms of my hands now had a wide hole in each, and were lined with sharp teeth with a tongue in both. That was pretty demonic.
'Kaiju, status.'
'Taeyang Kim
Specie: 30% Human, 70% Kaiju
Strength: 7600
Agility: 3000
Physical Condition: Exhausted
Mental Condition: Exhausted
Magic Affinity: Wind
Spells: Wind Bullets (I), Tornado Fists (I), Tornado Kick (I), Wind Sheath (B), Feather Steps (B), Breezy Blades (I).
Abilities: Self-healing, Iron Skin, Beast claws, Berserker mode.
Kaijufication almost complete.'
I looked back at my palms. Just 30% human? Ha. There was no way this could be reversible.
'Kaiju, have you collected the information on the Sentry.'
'Affirmative. Should I display?'
'No, no need. I don't wanna see it. This is too much.'
It was a good thing that I didn't completely transform into a beast. But if I kept this up, there was no saying that I wouldn't turn into looking like one of those giant ones, or into a cursed version of one of the other species.
I can't go back. I just can't. Living the rest of my life in a lab as a human experiment was unavoidable now. This was obviously irreversible. I can't live that life.
