The rest of the mission went on without much incident.
I reached the former research outpost and shot past it after I discovered chewed-up skulls and half-skeletons.
The gamma monsters hadn't been merciful. There were a handful of monsters still lingering at the site, but I chose not to engage to save myself time. I became intangible with Angel Evade and sped past them and hundreds of Griffins, seals, and mutated penguins. I took my time circling the desert, documenting every strange monstrosity I came across. Some stuck to rocky areas, others thrived in lowlands, but the sheer diversity of the mutated beasts baffled me.
I counted Mamoths, ancient reanimated dinosaurs, half-man half-snake dinosaurs, and packs of roving eight-limbed wolves. Each subsequent creature had more scales, strength, and green pigmentation than the last.
At the site of the gamma reactor explosion, I came across my first truly threatening adversary. They were humanoid with a bulbous head and tentacles sprouting from their neck and faces. They gave off ungodly amounts of gamma radiation that seemed to be climbing in front of me.
Dozens of other creatures hung back out of fear or instinct.
Eventually, the ballsiest of them decided to say F it and attack.
It was the biggest Griffin I'd ever seen. It rained down Vibranium feathers from above and unleashed a directional roar that caused a whiteout.
I was unsure if even I could've tanked the attack without using my Protection Runes.
The strange squid things not only endured it without flinching but also fired their tentacles like sniper bullets, elongating without end until they touched the Griffin.
The result was immediate. It faltered, losing a large portion of its Gamma energy. The rest of the tentacles swarmed it, draining every last drop of energy from its body.
They seemed to have benefited from the meal as their bodies visibly rippled, but it was not so much that they grew in size.
Only partial bones and primordial slosh were left over when they were done with it.
My eyes widened at the ridiculous strength, and I wondered if it would be wise to enter the hole that they were guarding.
A round of scans made my mood go from bad to worse.
Juvenile Gamma Devourer
Formed from the amalgamation of human DNA, Kraken DNA,
Weaknesses: Extreme heat. Starvation.
Strengths: Massively superhuman strength, massively explosive speed, vibranium skin, radioactive fury, gamma absorption, and massively superhuman regeneration. Blood of the Old.
These were only the kids?
I looked down into the hole with some trepidation.
I didn't like that final line. My gut told me Quellitrax's fingerprints were all over this, but I should've gotten a warning if he was trying to claim my soul again.
Right?
If these were the kids, there was bound to be an adult or two down there, and they were likely all feeding on the Hulk. What else was powerful enough to birth these monstrosities? My new eyes didn't let me see through walls or stone, but the energy wafting out of the whole was unmistakable. There was something supremely powerful down there, and if it was indeed the Hulk, we couldn't afford to wait until Friday.
One of two things could happen eventually.
The Hulk would run out of energy, giving birth to an evolving devourer with a lower consciousness that would rage out of control. Or the Hulk would remain true to his comic roots as an endless fount of rage and gamma energy, supercharge this beast beyond all known levels, and proceed to duke it out with the monster.
Either way, the continent was fucked.
I had to find out, and so I stalked my way to the crevasse and tried to slip by them. They noticed me immediately somehow, striking out with their tentacles. They slipped through me, causing my pursuers some measure of surprise before they redoubled their efforts.
Their bodies got a shimmering energy signature that was familiar. Although it was not distinctly magic, I recognized spatial manipulation when I saw it.
Rather than let them tag me, I stopped dicking around and started phasing through walls, barreling straight at the biggest energy signature I'd ever sensed.
I cut loose, drawing on Density Cloak, which is my fastest Cloak form by far. It granted a 50% boost to all skills and removed half of the debuffs those same skills organically cost. It also added a 25% boost to strength, speed, and endurance.
Stack that baby onto Density decrease, and my speed jumped another 60% instead of 40, and I suffered a 20% drop in strength instead of 40%.
Add Osiris on top of that for the 75% boost and Gust's 55% boost, and I was over three times faster than my base.
I breezed through an increasingly complicated network of tunnels and caves until I found an open chamber with two dozen more Juvenile monsters and six adult ones, all hanging from the suckers of a positively Lovecraftian monstrosity.
Its skin was Ink-black, its 12 eyes were red and discolored, and its enormous, truck-sized tentacles tightly wrapped around the constantly shrinking and expanding body of Bruce Banner. He looked at me, reaching out with his arms, and I felt my stomach tightened.
Fully stretched out, the monster would've been several stories tall.
"YoU'vE FiNaLlY CoME."
Oh, fuck me. I hate being right.
"You're one of Quellitrax's aren't you?"
"fATheR ForEToLD yOUr ArRiVaL," it said. "ThE FeASt CaN TrULy Begin."
Two of its many eyes shone, and I instantly felt the edges of my sensory domain shrink. I couldn't sense past the borders of the chamber, and I instantly knew I wouldn't be able to phase out either.
"You know that gets really fucking annoying," I said as I stretched out my limbs, preparing myself for a fight. "What is your name? I owe you that much before I kill you."
A keening sound came from the monster. "UlYeTrIx, 905th descendent of the Old One."
I surmised that he was talking about Cthulhu.
"Not fan of your old man?" I questioned.
Its twelve eyes narrowed, and he gave a command. "TaKE hIM."
The adult monsters nearly caught me off guard with the speed of their attacks despite having on my full-speed stack. I dodged the first tentacle, earning a Time Sage and Demon Evade bonus. I summoned Severance alongside Rebellion and went to work. My swords flashed out, unleashing multiple wind blades, sword slashes, and parries at the storm of tentacles. I removed quite a few, but they were already visibly regenerating even though we were in slowed time.
I switched Rebellion for Osiris just as the bonus ended. Then, I dashed to the left as the tentacles sped up. They followed after aggressively, carving rivulets of stone up and down the chamber, but I didn't remain idle while I moved. I dropped dozens of sticky bombs charged with both angel and demon energy, all with protective runic shields.
By the time I looped around the arena twice, the monsters had crushed a few of them, but it was already too late. I flipped mid-air, dodging another twin-pronged Tentacle stab. I activated Time-Sage, earning me three seconds of slowed time. At the same time, I hit the detonation switch and the first of the five Bursts I'd accumulated in Invictus during the fight. The world went bright, and everything turned purple.
Ulyetrix reacted faster than I imagined. His tentacle lashed out at me, moving blisteringly fast despite the slowed time, and I immediately activated Devil Trigger.
Multi-colored demonic energy poured out of me, cloaking my body and enhancing all of my parameters by 300%, bringing my effective speed to 1800 with all of my bonuses stacked.
The monsters stopped moving entirely, and the explosion slowed some of them, but they still moved fast enough to cause me to worry. Surprisingly, Ulyetrix's tentacle still traveled faster than the blast.
PUSH. FIRE
I let out two rapid commands, tossing the tentacle back with gravity control and setting it on fire.
Ulyetrix recoiled in pain, but that didn't matter much now. My window for escape had elapsed. The Purple Fire explosion consumed everything.
My vision went dark, and when I came to, I was lying on a bald spot in the middle of a purple inferno, staring up at the afternoon sky. My Vibranium suit was ruined, and my energy bars were half-filled.
Reading through my notification, I saw a few things that alarmed and excited me. I had wiped out all of the juvenile and adult devourers with the explosion. The Juveniles netted me 3000 per pop, and the grown ones, 5000.
I was walking away from the encounter with 84,000 Red Orbs.
Bruce Banner was also thankfully alive as he was missing from the Red Orb breakdown. Unfortunately, so was Ulyetrix.
As for how I was alive and relatively unharmed, I'd triggered my rebirth skill.
"Figures," I cracked my neck. It was the only way I could've survived my hair-brained plan.
I'd hoped the explosion would've distracted him long enough to let down the space lock so that I could get off all five Burst and escape. One look at Ulyetrix, and I knew I could not take him alone.
With Jean, I might've stood a chance, but alone? Yeah, I was fucked.
Creating a strike team just became a priority.
But before I started shortlisting fighters, I reminded myself that jumping the gun was just as bad as being underprepared.
There was no shortage of powerful people. Between them, I was sure we could hold it back long enough to deliver a coup de grace, which undoubtedly had to be a bomb powered by my purple fire.
If its earlier behavior was any indication, it was likely very hurt by my fire. I was coming to discover that likely no one was immune from my Nephilim magic. It was often explosive, and it had the potential to hurt me as much as my opponents, but I'd bet good money that no demon was immune to it.
Besides, the professor only produced four serums, so I'd stick to four soldiers. I was on the fence about enhancing Rin. I figured he'd grow more from absorbing the gamma energy in the snow and the creatures we'd fight.
Excluding him, my top picks were Wolverine—because he was durable enough to take the enhancement, Mordo because of how much more powerful he could become, and Pietro because heaven knew I needed a speedster by my side to run interference. It would also be tremendously helpful if he could actually deal damage without being scared; he'd be unable to bounce back from an injury.
As for what Fury would think about my new super soldiers, I planned to own it but remain perfectly vague.
I was about done with the Antarctician desert; all that was left was to check out the array location, which, incidentally, wasn't too far away from the site of the reactor explosion. I had to see if they'd sped up their plans since Isha's capture.
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