Chương 18: Humunculus and Thief

Nyx quickly went over the section of earth which appeared similar to a man-made dent on the mountain wall. Scooping up a few healing stones that had dropped into his inventory. He unearthed what looked like an old vase colored entirely in light brown.

"Or more like its paint had eroded over the years, leaving only the hardened clay it was made out of." The vase was extremely light in weight. Which did make him feel a little disappointed internally. But one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, or a vase by its weight. He unsealed the wrap over its mouth, flipped it over. A small paper scroll scratched against the clay container before flopping to the ground. For now, he just put it inside his inventory, since outside he could hear an intense battle going on.

And once the Green Ghost Fleet weakened whatever they were dealing with sufficiently, they'd certainly send their man after him. Large explosions of dynamite were crumbling more and more of the rocky mountain wall. Making huge amounts of spirit stones burst forth. Some were broken, while others remained relatively intact. He mainly picked and bagged not only the intact ones, but ones that almost glistened with elemental energy. Quality over quantity was the key here.

But he still poured as much of the intact normal pieces into his stash as he could. Since they could be sold to the market later. And just when Nyx was losing himself in gathering more and more loot, he heard something rapidly approaching his location, as the rustles of something hard running through the bushes and rocks reached his ears. Immediately growing alarmed, he quickly ran for the nearest bush and hid inside it, while simultaneously taking out the M416.

As he watched, a silhouette burst from behind where he'd previously been collecting spirit stones.

"The hell's that?" A human, no, the creature very much appeared to be an undead zombie. The issue was, it seemed to contain a beating heart, as his night vision goggles showed heat emanating from it. Something the typical zombies didn't radiate. Its appearance also seemed extremely similar to modern humans. And its body parts were stitched together.

The creature had a partially female physique, and after emerging it just stood in place, only its head looking left and right, twisting to both sides in a way that shouldn't even be possible for any actual human. Nyx's eyes slowly widened in realization.

"This thing is made of someone's skill…" It was like Frankenstein's homunculus that he'd previously read about back in school. An artificial lifeform made up of multiple people? He wasn't too sure—he'd read it so far back that he could barely recall any of its specifics. But the gist of the descriptions he remembered did match the thing in front of him. It had the tough masculine legs and arms of a male while also containing breasts like a female. Though its head was certainly taken from a female.

Not finding him for a while, the creature's eyes turned red. And the moment it did, it turned towards him. The creature immediately burst forward, rapidly closing the distance between it and him. Nyx promptly pointed his gun's barrel towards it and pulled the trigger. The creature began to zigzag around like those zombie wolves as the first few bullets struck its arms and torso. It didn't work—within seconds the homunculus slammed into him, sending him crashing back-first into the hard ground.

The creature climbed up his chest, ready to bite. Nyx quickly swapped his assault rifle for the Triple Action Thunder, pointed the muzzle straight at its face point blank, and pulled the trigger. A crisp bang, and the head of the homunculus sitting atop his chest burst into a slurry of blood and gore. Its body immediately went limp as it fell forward, smothering Nyx beneath its ample female parts. He shoved the corpse aside and stood back up.

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"Shit, guess today's not my lucky day–!" The sound of something rapidly approaching from behind him was instantly followed by a kick to his back, as Nyx shot forward, slamming headfirst into the tree in front of him. Blood started to drip down from his torn-up shoulders and tamples. Biting through the pain of the broken bones in his left arm, Nyx slightly turned around, leaning back against the tree trunk to check who'd struck him. And right there, standing under the moonlight, stood another stitched-up corpse.

With a feminine face and masculine build. Its face differed from the first one he'd put down.

"There's more than one?" he asked dubiously, as the creature began walking towards him. He gritted his teeth, pulled out the Triple Action Thunder, and fired. The crisp bangs rang out several times. But to no avail, as all shots were dodged effortlessly. And unlike the first one, this one's pupils gleamed green instead. Nyx swapped the Triple Action for a Glock 20 and emptied the full magazine, gunshots lighting up the dark woods.

When the gunpowder cleared, the creature he'd been targeting remained in place, unflinching, still advancing towards him. Finding no other way, he retrieved the one serum he'd been holding onto so far—the Speed Serum—and quickly injected the whole thing into his left arm. His body started to grow heated as his heart rate spiked. His breathing became sharp and rapid; his surroundings started slowing down.

Time itself seemed to slow as he felt a renewed burst of energy within himself, threatening to burst out of his very flesh. Although seconds ago he'd felt like he'd die from the pain of being slammed into the tree trunk alone, now the energy coursing through his veins spiked his adrenaline through the roof. He found his lips widening into an uncharacteristic, maniacal grin. Wiping away the blood still dripping down his lips, he stood up again.

His pupils gleamed with an even brighter shade of green than the humunculis. Several more rustling sounds followed, and the number of homunculi in front of him grew from one to ten, as nine more joined. …. A giant dark-furred wolf swept across the ground, sending the various large sandbags flying everywhere. The frontline gunmen had already been called back by Julius. But still, the heavy sandbags nonetheless crashed towards their vehicle, as well as many of his subordinates who were still getting to their cars.

And as the many people ran for their lives, nearly thirty ran in the opposite direction. They marched towards the wolf, power shotguns in hand, firing at it directly while running circles around it. And when the wolf's claws severed their torsos in a single pounce, the others barely registered it, barely flinched or stopped to show grief. They were truly as monstrous as the monster they were fighting. Yes, they were not human, but homunculi! They were creations of the unique skill of Julius, Puppet Master!

And although it was him controlling them, his crew looked at his vice captain, Irfan, with sparkling eyes, firmly believing it was actually the effects of his skill. Julius didn't mind. It was always best that his subordinates knew as little about him as possible. He'd much rather have them view his vice captain as this super-strong figure who still followed and obeyed him without a single complaint, because the leader had a far more mysterious and powerful ability than the other way around.

The creation of his puppets required ingredients, mainly freshly dead bodies. He'd recently obtained a ton of them after the heavenly demon had butchered his subordinates in broad daylight. But as his accursed luck would have it, they were still not enough. He'd crafted more than forty lesser homunculi, and thanks to the thief up the mountain, he'd had to send a large portion of them away to prevent him from escaping. And that in turn had made his dolls' offensive against the opponent in front of him much harder.

[Zombie Fenrir — lvl 70] A level seventy creature. It was his first time seeing one. He didn't know where on earth, or how on earth, this massive thing had spawned. But despite the insane amount of cannon shots currently being fired from his own main battle tank, his vice captain's Gatling gun, and even his puppets' frontal assaults, they were barely penetrating the beast beyond its surface. Wounds were forming, but they were also closing back up just as quickly.

"Damn it, would I have to upgrade the main battle tank in the middle of this hell?" He had the money. But he wasn't sure about the timing. He'd planned to run some experiments with his vehicle using the spirit stones. But in this dire situation, holding off on upgrading it while this giant-ass wolf was literally thirsting to eat them alive wasn't very wise. He knew that.

"But, but!" Clara watched him with that helpless, anxious eyes of hers as he thought more deeply about this. And suddenly, he felt his link to one of his lesser homunculi up the mountain just disappear.

"What's happening?" he asked dubiously. He looked back towards the mountain through his tank's rear camera.

"How'd he kill one so quic—?!!" He felt another of his puppets' signals disappear. Then another, then another. Within a single minute, all eleven of his homunculi's connections to him faded to nothingness. Then, the sound of an anonymous vehicle's radio connecting to his tank pulled him out of his dazed state.

"Hello, hello, mic testing, is this the vehicle of Julius Caesar? The captain of the Green Ghost Fleet?"