The Flesh Dog sniffed the air, blowing white steam from its nose as it gradually showed its white teeth as if smiling at the scent of something that had caught its eye.
His eyes focused on Jack, who defiantly looked at him, and the Flesh Dog did not like that. Still, it felt that the situation was a bit unfavorable for its existence, so it acted cautiously after taking damage.
It suffered a lot of pain from the attacks it received at the beginning of its existence before it gained its current intelligence and quickly realized that even though it could heal itself, experiencing such suffering was not what it wanted.
The bloody Pneuma hovering around it began to whisper things to it that only it could understand, its reddened eyes seeming to glow with cunning as its body crouched down, alerting the humans in front of it.
"Ronald, your shield!" shouted Jack, causing Ronald to nod before manipulating his Pneuma shield in front of Jack.
"I'd lend you mine, but that Cyber Ghost destroyed it!" said Hans grimly as he looked sideways at the hunk of metal that was the shield he always wore on his left arm.
Just like Jack, he had grown fond of this object, but now it had been turned into a twisted piece of metal with no value. Hans then glared at the Flesh Dog with hatred.
It was not the same being, that was more than obvious, but someone had to bear his hatred at this moment. Hans strengthened his hands and his falchion, he also forced the enchantment on it, causing the lights on the weapon to turn black.
"But we have our weapons," said Seone, who also did the same as Jack and Hans, he strengthened his hands and forced the enchantment on his longsword, causing it to emit a dark glow.
"Now!" shouted Jack, and he and Hans and Seone rushed at the Flesh Dog, who let loose a paw at them.
The dog's nails glowed with a bloody light, but its attack was parried by Ronald's shield, wisdom flashed in the Flesh Dog's eyes, it'd stereotyped this situation, so the angle of its attack had been carefully measured.
Instead of hitting the shield squarely with its limb, it simply slid sharply over the shield, and with its paw resting on the ground, it was able to use its other limbs to propel itself forward with its jaws open.
Snarl!
"Holy shit!" Seone stepped ahead of the others, using his sword as a sort of stopper, and dodged the dog's bite by impaling his weapon into the flesh dog's mouth in a rather swift attack.
Push!
The tip of his weapon left several bleeding wounds in the animal, but it recovered easily. The creature's white teeth were close to Seone's, and the dog's jaws were not completely closed, so he could only rest one of his feet in the monster's mouth.
A claw went straight for him, but Jack's axe struck it, while Hans approached the side of the creature's head, trying to hurt its eyes, but as if all this was in its mind, the Flesh Dog acted.
A pulse of red energy erupted from its body, not only pushing back the three men near it but also briefly creating a protective cloak that shielded it from incoming attacks.
Swish! Swish!
Two similar sounds, two different projectiles. Both Lisa and Loki had taken up comfortable positions for their attacks, firing long-range shots in hopes of inflicting damage on the Flesh Dog, but it was able to dodge the projectiles.
Tania approached this time with Laria and Irina, the three of them taking over from the boys as they were warier of the enemy's growing capabilities. It was obvious that the Flesh Dog wasn't just smart, it had a good enough mind to plan.
Tania waved her big invisible hammer at one of the dog's paws, trying to wound it so that its movements would at least slow down a bit, while Irina held her invisible sword as if she were about to draw it quickly.
On the other side, Laria held one of the bottles Tania had given her and shook it vigorously before throwing it directly at the dog's head, who tried to avoid the bottle falling on it, but the hammer blow Tania had given it on the leg worked as intended.
The Flesh Dog thought they were going to use another poison bottle against it, but the bottle simply went over its head and fell on Irina, who had snuck up behind the animal at just the right moment to make her attack.
After dodging several attacks from the Flesh Dog's stinging tail, she drew her invisible sword, causing the air to distort. The sound of a small glass bottle shattering was unusually loud at that moment, and a crescent-shaped fireball erupted from Irina toward the dog's buttocks, burning it.
It turned out that her attack was aimed at the falling bottle, and using an advanced Pneuma technique that allowed the sword to create wind arcs at the cost of a certain amount of energy, Irina was able to orchestrate this combo attack.
Growl!
The Dog roared before turning to face Irina directly, but the distraction was used by the group, especially Jack and company, who had regrouped and charged the Flesh Dog again, weapons in hand.
Though Irina was too small for the creature, she kept her composure as she flashed a sneering smile at her opponent, her hands clenching her invisible sword, and was about to perform another advanced technique when the sound of a beeping sound alerted everyone.
Bib! Bib! Bib! Bib! Boom!
Alexis had finished scanning the records stored in this ruin. He was able to confirm that it was from the Second Era when humanity had reached unprecedented heights and even explored nearby space, as well as many secrets about Pneuma and its uses.
Too bad that there was nothing relevant about other secrets from that distant era, except for the very superficial mention of details such as someone trying to replicate the creation of a life form based entirely on pure Pneuma and technology, or that a distant world had been observed where colonization could be attempted.
Only information about the special way this facility had to protect itself from the intrusion of certain things that were just being cataloged in the Second Era.
Reports of events, phenomena, and situations indicated that the people of that era were just coming into contact with what they now called rarities, anomalies, and contamination zones.
As well as the key that activated a special function that could help them in this situation. But I had no idea what an 'Intelligent Core' was. Well, I understood the literal and technical meaning, but things were very different thousands of years ago than they are today.
Who knew? In these ruins, that thing could have disappeared long ago. Maybe a child picked it up decades ago and threw it down a well. Or maybe some lucky tourist bought the object on sale, lucky enough to be on the other side of the country, if we stretch our minds further, it could be in Serikos, the eastern continent.
So Alexis opted for the smarter option of supporting his companions in the fight against the Flesh Dog, taking advantage of the girls' combined attack to add some 'spice' to the mix with his bombs.
His green eyes, covered by his glasses, seemed to glow, his Pneuma manifested in several pairs of hands holding various types of explosives, and in his right hand the enchanted pistol, which he also overloaded.
This was no time to think about the integrity of the weapon, Jack told himself as he swung the weapon against one of the Flesh Dog's claws, severing a large chunk of flesh and causing the creature to scream even more in pain as it spurted blood.
"Growl! Grr!
With its wounded paw, the Flesh Dog leaned on the ground and opened its mouth in front of Jack, it did not try to bite him, the creature understood that it was in a great predicament and that the usual methods would not help it.
Then it will use the methods of the Cyber Ghost! The familiar red energy of the being that once was, Ecto-Pneuma, concentrated in its gaping maw. It was like one of those ancient ruin weapons Jack had seen once when his grandfather was hunting.
Hum! Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
The red light concentrated into a large sphere, emitting a faint buzzing sound that became sharper and sharper as it did so. Then it simply shattered, releasing a thin beam of energy that shot toward Jack.
His sixth sense had never given him such a strong warning signal as it did now, only once had he felt this way, his eyes shrinking to their full capacity as they adjusted to the piercing light coming towards him, piercing the air with a distinctive sound.
Swoon!
Memories of a traumatic event flashed through Jack's mind as he froze, unable to react, but a distortion in the space before him allowed him to live.
Swoosh! Snap!
The energy beam veered off to the side, piercing the metal and rock walls and reminding the others that they were underground. A few curious citizens of Tuskville spotted a crimson shooting star in the early morning sky.
"Jack, come on! Don't let a newbie save you again," Laria patted her friend's back, snapping him out of his stupor.
Jack had a cold sweat on his forehead and when he looked back he saw Ronald spitting blood and leaning against a wall, his chest heaving from lack of exhaustion.
Ronald had paid quite a price for fending off such an attack, his face was pale and his hands were shaking as he tried to keep himself from spitting up more blood. His head hurt like hell, he was seeing double, and his heart was beating hard, but he was not sorry for what he had done.
Ronald had lost so much tonight, and what was keeping him on his feet at this moment, squeezing every bit of concentration out of him, was pure hate.
A hatred so strong that it made him not care that he had less Pneuma than the Operators who had been trained from a young age to be part of the OMEN. It made him ignore the consequences of forcing the production of Pneuma.
He wanted to see the dog die!
Those hateful eyes resonated strongly with Jack, who tightened his grip on the axe until his hand was practically locked in the gesture. Laria looked at him with some concern, for she understood her boyfriend more than anyone else and what he was about to do.
"I can keep you alive even if there are only parts of your body left," Laria said before shooting at the Flesh Dog and joining the siege of the creature that had become more cunning and insidious.
The Flesh Dog's body now seemed to be covered in a crimson cuticle that seemed to mimic the Cyber Ghost's former body, but fortunately, it was much less resilient.
But it now allowed the dog to regenerate without worrying about rapidly losing its biomass, slowing the rate at which it was losing body parts to pesky humans.
Jack looked at the Flesh Dog and from the quivering corners of his lips appeared an exaggerated smile, a gesture no normal human could simulate, but Jack was no normal human.
He was an Operator with a secret technique.
Jack listened to those dormant instincts in his body, those instincts that begged him to act, that begged to be awakened again, to revive the glory of humanity that once ravaged this world in the distant past.
Jack chose the most useful of the 8 instincts he could hear, the one that served him best, and his personal favorite. Jack's Pneuma sent a series of pulses through his body, but they were different as if his being was playing a melody as old as humanity itself.
Jack knew he would suffer greatly when he awoke from the coma that would follow this action, but if he was alive, it was because they had won and Laria had saved him. He vowed right then and there that he would fuck his girlfriend so hard that the pain he was about to suffer would be worth it.
"Shit..." Seone, who couldn't quite avoid the Flesh Dog's claw and now had an ugly wound on his torso, felt an eerie sensation that he saw behind him and could barely make out the blurry figure moving.
Hans, on the other hand, was more exhausted than the others due to his deplorable physical condition, his eyes were burning, and his super reflexes shouldn't be forced in his eyes like that, but he was thankful that the blood pouring from his tear ducts didn't prevent him from seeing the scene unfolding in front of him.
"The bastard opened Pandora's box, but luckily I shed a lot of blood, so I won't have to cut off my arm for the ritual..." Hans muttered as he watched Jack running like a madman at full speed towards the Flesh Dog.
It was no less for that, for the melody in Jack's body was an ancient song, one of the first melodies that the humans emitted when they went hunting, a melody while they used their wooden and stone spears against this mega-fauna.
A melody to kill to. Jack unleashed the killer instinct from its deep slumber, making his body endure a strain that current humans could not bear, but the inhuman smile on his face indicated that Jack's will could withstand more than any pain he must feel right now.
"Die!" Jack jumped at the Flesh Dog with a scream, his Pneuma amplifying his entire body, causing a visual distortion around him, giving him a terrifying appearance.
Jack's sixth sense told him to kick the air, and he did, feeling something solid for support as he leaped several feet into the air, right in front of the Flesh Dog's face, which greeted him with its gaping maw.
Ronald had used his pneuma shield as a jumping platform for Jack, allowing this situation to play out. As the dog lunged its head at the flying human, something struck it in the cheek.
Thump!
The thud of a loud impact echoed, deflecting the dog's movement and allowing Jack to land quite close to its neck. With his axe held high, his entire body pushed to the limit, and his Pneuma erupting from within, Jack attacked.
Jack's axe met no resistance as it cut into the dog's flesh in a diagonal attack. It was only when it buried itself deeply, unable to go any further because of the collision with bone, that the cutting stopped.
Rawr!
Jack was left hanging from his weapon as the dog screamed in agony. The bloody Pneuma that covered the animal's skin seemed to stir, to rush at the human who had wounded it, but the creature forgot that Jack had not given all of himself.
And that he was not fighting alone.
"Transfer!" Jack controlled almost all of his Pneuma so that it flowed through his weapon and into the Flesh Dog's body, making the creature uncomfortable.
This was different from the poison that Tania occasionally threw at it, Jack's Pneuma was like poison to its body, and its skin even began to blister as if it were boiling.
"By blood we live, by blood we fight, by blood we will die," Hans began to say those strange words as he ran towards the Blood Dog, his falchion covered in a thick layer of pneuma, but also something else.
The blood that covered his body or was wasted on the ground drifted towards his weapon, condensing with the Pneuma. This was his family's technique, using the property of pneuma to concentrate one's blood to power a single attack.
Jack used his legs to push off and completely disengage from the Flesh Dog, just in time to see an arc of blood and Pneuma fly directly into the cut he had opened on the enemy.
Swosh!
It was ironic that such a creature would suffer from an attack based on energy and blood. The bloody bow cut directly into the wound, making it even worse.
"Don't forget us, mutt!" shouted Seone, who ran with Irina at his side, both swordsmen, both with secret techniques as well.
The muscles in Irina's arms and legs bulged a bit, giving her a somewhat ugly appearance as they throbbed from the intense energy built up in them. Her pneuma settled on her invisible sword, causing her entire being to emit a heavy aura.
Seone, on the other hand, had done his thing by removing the mental restriction his brain had placed on his body, and although he would probably end up being severely injured, it would be by his hand due to the backlash of what he had done, rather than being harmed by the Flesh Dog.
Swish! Swish!
The two swordsmen swung their swords, amputating the two front legs and causing the dog's body to fall to the ground. Then the air rippled as something heavy fell on the creature's skull.
Click!
Tania had been the one to attack the Flesh Dog earlier, just before Jack's attack, and now she had done it, using her Pneuma hammer to crush the creature's skull.
Her poisonous Pneuma stained the affected area black, but even so, the creature still had bloody Pneuma on its skin, mitigating the damage and even speeding its recovery.
The cuts made by Jack and Hans healed, the severed legs grew back, the poison was expelled from its body, and even the Pneuma injected into it was enveloped by its own bloody Pneuma and then consumed.
As Jack watched this enemy seem to have no end to its regeneration, something occurred to him. Why didn't the Flesh Dog use its stinger? Jack's mind was overwhelmed by the pain the killer instinct was inflicting on his body.
But he also suffered from the mental effects of awakening such an instinct in his body. Murderous thoughts, amplified by the surrounding atmosphere, were very distracting to Jack's concentration, and he used his will to keep them at bay.
Perhaps because of this, he only noticed now that the enemy did not use the weapon on its tail, and as he was about to give the warning, his body failed, and he fell to his knees, barely holding on with his axe as a staff.
Lisa and Loki, however, had been alert to this particular point, and when the dog's tail tried to use its sting secretly against a Laria who had stuck her scalpel into the creature's eyes, they helped her out of her predicament.
Swish! Swish!
The projectiles did not destroy the appendage, but it was enough to slow it down and make the Laria aware of the incoming attack and move away from the attack zone of the almost recovered creature.
Jack watched the scene with a racing heart, feeling a strong sense of helplessness at this moment. He could not even properly support his partner or companions in this situation, but albeit at a slower pace, the music to kill was still being played by his Pneuma.
Why was he on his knees? Because of his wounds? What did it matter!? If he stayed on his knees, something bad might happen, he might lose a dear friend, and the death of so many cops was already weighing on his conscience. Would he let his wounds bring him to his knees?
As he had done so many times in the past, Jack stood up. Trembling, but his Pneuma was still boiling, his body was still pushing the limits. So why not push it a little further?
Jack lifted his axe, slung it over his shoulder, and walked towards the Flesh Dog. Unlike before, when he had approached his enemy in an instant, this time he took his time.
It hurt to walk, but it was those twinges of pain that made him have a strange reverie. It was an old story his grandfather had told him when he was a brat, about how some people died on their feet to protect their own.
"I will die on my feet," Jack said as he walked past Emilia, who had cut off her arms to strengthen her Pneuma construct.
Emilia's Pneuma doppelganger prevented the dog from raising its head by grabbing hold of its throat and pulling downward. The blood covering the projection would not last long, but it allowed the others to attack constantly, protecting the others from attempts to free from the Flesh Dog.
Bullets, arrows, bombs, slashing, smashing, stabbing. Even if it was slower than before, the dog would regenerate. Even if it was more fragile than before, the cuticle of bloody Pneuma covering the monster's skin mitigated some of the damage.
But Jack simply allowed the Pneuma pulsing in his body to cover his being, with less intensity than before, but it enhanced his body beyond what humans could achieve.
It was a waste, except for a few techniques, and there was one in the arsenal that Jack never thought he would use because of how conditional it was. Just one advanced technique, discarded by all for being unnecessarily complicated.
Perfect for this moment!
Jack's footsteps echoed over the din of battle, the Flesh Dog's ears twitching at such a sound. Why did it stand out from the rest? It's one good eye focused on the impertinent human with the axe, not understanding why even in such a bad state...
Jack seemed to laugh.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Jack's laughter alerted his companions, who noticed the atmosphere around Jack.
"Are you doing this? You and your stuff..." Hans, staggering and barely able to lift his weapon, watched as Jack seemed to be loading his Pneuma.
Yes, loading it, but not in the usual way. What Jack was doing had a lot to do with the Operators of the past. In the search for a way to finally attack, there was an attempt to compress or compact the Pneuma while charging an attack.
However, although the current charged attacks are much faster, this technique is unusually tedious due to the meticulousness of the process. Wasting so much time during a fight was surely an invitation to death, so simpler and faster methods were chosen.
The method Jack was now using was slow and tedious, and the conditions were harsh. The person had to run around with Pneuma, split it up, and then fold it in such a way that even more energy could be compressed.
This was undoubtedly stupid in a fight against creatures that could kill you if you dared to slow down. Everyone could feel how Jack's Pneuma seemed to become 'sharp' for a moment before returning to its normal state.
By the time Jack arrived in front of the Flesh Dog, it had already loosened its grip on Emilia's projection and was looking at the human, who was still laughing in front of it, with its huge eyes.
His comrades were wounded in various ways, tired, with destroyed or exhausted weapons. Although no one mentioned it, the desperation in the atmosphere was more than palpable, but Jack was still laughing.
"Come," Jack didn't say much, just encouraged the Flesh Dog to come closer, and the creature did.
Jack's weapon vibrated from the excessive amount of Pneuma accumulating on the metal body. The axe would need major repairs after this attack, but he did not hesitate.
Jack sliced through the air with a diagonal attack, and for a moment, everything seemed to stop. Jack was not only especially charging his Pneuma, he was using a technique rarely used by those who possessed a Reinforcement-oriented pneuma.
Transmission of Pneuma through the air. Using the same air as an object you 'touched' and reinforcing it with your Pneuma was one of the few ways Reinforcement Operators could attack from a distance.
Jack stood, his eyes losing focus immediately after this attack. The physical and mental strain was too much for him. Being in a borderline state, he used a tedious technique and a complicated technique, so his body simply decided to shut down to protect itself.
Still, Jack remained standing. Unconscious, eyes open, but standing.
The wave of Pneuma that erupted from his axe pierced the air, and the Flesh Dog crashed directly into the attack. The bloody cuticle covering the dog's skin seemed to thicken at that point, indicating its readiness to withstand such a blow.
It was no use. For a moment, Jack's Pneuma mimicked the characteristic 'cut'. It was only a brief flash, but it allowed the Pneuma attack to break through the Flesh Dog's defenses and pierce its entire body.
In front of the unconscious Jack, the monster was split in two, spilling a sea of blood as its two halves fell away, revealing the Flesh Dog's interior, completely vulnerable.
"Just showing off," Hans muttered, dizzy from Pneuma's exhaustion and lack of blood.
He could have done something like that, any OMEN member could do it if they had the proper training and kept up with the rest, but they only did it in controlled situations.
Rarely was anyone known to actively use such an attack in a fight. Although it was a cool thing to see, Jack was very lucky, because according to Hans' recollection, the Flesh Dog they were fighting was only a puppy.
Yes, an intelligent and powerful puppy, but only an offshoot of what those monsters could achieve when they fed on human flesh to develop. But in front of everyone's eyes, strands of flesh flew from both halves and joined in the middle, threatening to repair the creature's wounds.
"I'm out of bombs," Alexis complained as he thought about how good it would be to activate the facility's countermeasures.
As if something heard his thoughts, a small object in Jack's pocket trembled before floating up and heading straight for the Flesh Dog. Everyone saw the small black marble suddenly emit a silvery glow.
A pulse of energy surged from the small marble and Jack abruptly woke up to see the strange situation in front of him. Something tugged at his sixth sense, he didn't know what exactly it was, but noticing that it didn't seem to be anything anomalous, he followed his intuition.
"Activate," Jack muttered, for others, it was just him moving his lips, but the marble reacted, sending a beam of light towards the obelisk in the middle of the ruins, activating it.
Zum! Zum! Zum!
The lines in such a construction were activated, emitting a buzzing sound each time a key node was illuminated. The obelisk seemed to have sensed the threat in the area, as it soon began to fragment strangely.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Pieces of the obelisk flew towards the Flesh Dog that was trying to regenerate, covering both halves with materials before no visible trace of the creature remained.
Everyone then heard a cold voice uttering words in an incomprehensible language, except for Alexis, who knew that language as it was the most common in the ruins, and the exact words were as follows:
"Extermination protocol against unknown creatures has been activated," after a loud bang, the pieces of the obelisk reassembled into this structure, and as if it had exhausted all available energy, the entire facility fell into darkness.
Only the black marble emitted a faint glow, then floated towards Jack and was placed back in his pocket.
"Well, that's not the strangest thing that's ever happened to me. Will you wake me up in a few days, please?" said Jack before he slipped back into unconsciousness, still standing, still with his axe in his hand.
When Jack opened his eyes again, he just stared at the unfamiliar ceiling as he felt the slight twinges of pain in his body. It was funny how the fact that he took more damage from his own hand than from the enemies.
"Ah, you're finally awake," Jack turned his head to see Laria sleeping on the edge of the bed.
Jack could see his girlfriend's disheveled hair and the dark circles under her eyes, and a warm feeling rose in his heart. With difficulty, he sat up and looked over to the corner next to him and saw his axe.
Although the material was still intact, the lines that made up all the enchantments and the Vetro Crystal embedded in the center of the weapon were completely discarded.
Fortunately, it was not a super complicated job and he could solve it himself. But what hurt him the most was the fact that he had wasted a pure Vetro Crystal and he only had two left to replace the ruined one.
"Ah, I want to sleep more," Jack yawned, but Laria, who was standing next to him, walked over and looked him directly in the eyes.
"You have two days sleeping, you have to write your report and we have to take the train to another mission, this one is much easier," Laria said and her gray eyes made Jack shiver a little.
"All right, all right," Jack raised his hands in surrender and then fell onto the bed with his eyes closed, but his sixth sense told him that Laria was still looking at him, and in a worse and worse mood.
"Wasn't the opening of the train station in this city a week ago?" Jack asked, still with his eyes closed, wanting all the comfort he could get before getting down to business.
He knew that Laria had already taken care of the worst of his body and that what he felt now was only the remaining pain, but he wanted to sleep a little longer, even though he knew that Laria wouldn't let him.
"You went ahead, the money is needed for the pensions of the families of the fallen officers," Laria said, and although her tone was somewhat cold, there was sadness when she said those words.
"Yes... they fought well, they are heroes," Jack said, pulling himself off the bed as he opened his eyes.
Because people like these policemen were what he fought for, what he always stood up for, no matter what.