True battle V

Jacob amped up his overclock to 10x for a mere moment before bringing it back down in that time he made a basic plan of action.

Step 1: gather information.

"How many are still in the wreckage?" He asked John as he emerged with a young woman.

"3 more sir, the others are getting them now!" John replied.

"How long?" Jacob asked in the same succinct style as before.

"I-I'm not sure sir, I was busy with my rescue and didn't look too closely".

Jacob nodded his head and turned to the beast.

The only good news was that with the appearance of the massive beast, many of the smaller ones had cowed away, allowing the warriors some respite.

Jacob turned to one of the warriors, a disturbing question on his lips.

"How intelligent would you say that beast is, the same as the others?" Jacob asked.

"A chimera holds higher intellect than many other beasts, but they are still a beast themselves sir" the warrior responded instantly despite looking slightly puzzled.

Jacob knew this may happen, if such a beast was well known then given the position of his host body, he should know about it. But Jacob didn't have a choice, he needed information for his plan to work.

"Change of plans, continue the rescue without me. I will draw the monster until we can retreat to the front line. Then we will use the thorn wall and numbers to deal with it." Jacob ordered.

Small gasps came from his men as they realised he would be pitting himself against the massive chimera. They hadn't expected such a course of action.

But from Jacob's perspective, the risk was mitigatable and potentially to his advantage. This was because he had noticed something about the body he was inhabiting over the last few minutes.

To put it simply it was better than his original. His new body moved quicker, responded more actively, and could exert more strength than his real body ever could.

With his improved agility, analysis, and overclock he was confident in being able to avoid the strikes of the chimera until he ran out of mana. He was under no illusion that he could actually beat the thing, especially with only one bullet. But surviving for a short duration should be possible.

Based on that the risk was mitigated. Then there were the rewards he would obtain from this particular plan.

First was that it would further endear him to the others in the group, which only held benefits for him. In addition, it would give him an excuse to avoid acting as the commander in the battle as he could claim exhaustion.

Even if he had done alright so far, he still knew next to nothing about commanding battles like this and didn't want to be exposed for his incompetence.

"Cover me until I break formation" Jacob ordered, giving his men no chance to object.

The beast was closer now, walking casually towards them, like a well-trained housecat walking to its food bowl rather than an apex predator.

Soon enough Jacob broke the formation, dashing to one of the houses on the other side of the street, dodging in and around the legs, bodies, and wild claws of various beasts.

He was running overclock at 8x, allowing him to perfectly avoid each of the tactless beast's attacks.

Sadly, even that proved too little as moments later a beast stumbled unexpectedly, allowing its claw to cut deeply into Jacob's left arm.

Still, Jacob had dealt with worse and simply girt his teeth and kept up his mad dash.

Thankfully he reached the building without another large wound, although his sides now sported many small cuts from close shaves.

Jacob had chosen this cabin for 2 reasons. First of all, it was relatively intact, most likely due to the inhabitants being able to evacuate quickly and therefore not drawing any beasts.

Secondly, it was 2 stories.

Jacob made it inside the doorway and got a quick glimpse inside, which let him know exacgtly why it was two stories tall.

The rooms he could see all appeared to be made of bunk beds in a barracks like style. The reason the building was evacuated so quickly was because its inhabitants were the warriors outside. It stood to reason that they would be the fastest to react to the threat and the first ones out the door in an emergency.

Jacob's plan was simple, he would draw the chimera here and use its massive size to its disadvantage!

That was it, not the most complex plan but he only had 10 seconds and little to no experience outside of dealing with supernatural creatures.

As for attracting the beast's attention…

Jacob turned around on the spot, aiming his handgun with certainty.

*BANG*

A shot resounded as the chimera's head jerked back.

A moment later it snapped to Jacob with a vastly different expression then before.

The casual cruelty had been replaced by a seething rage, while the chimera's right eye was nowhere to be seen, having been replaced with a bloody socket.

*ROOOOOOOAAAAARRRRRR*

The chimera's cry seemed to shake the very foundations of the house as dust fell from the room.

Once Jacob managed to stop his eyes from shaking from the sheer force of the roar, he became aware of a terrifying fact. The chimera was now sprinting at him.

Much faster than he had anticipated.