Chương 82: 81: The Hummingbird II

The colliding substances ricocheted through his bloodstream, amplifying each other until he exploded forward in one desperate burst. Kiri's wings hadn't even begun to react before a massive hand wrapped around her torso, another clamped her legs together, and she found herself lifted overhead. STRUCTURAL STRESS: 340% WARNING: BIPARTITE FORCE DETECTED He pulled. TENSILE FORCE: 5, 230 TONS... 20, 486 TONS...

Her ribs bowed inward as her spine arched beyond its natural limits, vertebrae groaning beneath the strain while the suit's kinetic scales blazed crimson, violet and white, desperately fighting to keep her body in one piece. RIBS: 94% STRUCTURAL LIMIT SPINE: 31° DEFLECTION PELVIS: 26 mm DISPLACEMENT The beast grinned wider, the pull steadily increasing as its massive arms spread apart.

"Rejoice..." it rumbled.

"You shall be the first to die by my hand." Its tusks curled into a grotesque smile.

"You may maintain that admirable decorum... for eternal." Even with her body threatening to split apart, Kiri frowned.

"…You mean eternity?" The warthog blinked.

"What?"

"Eternity." A vein bulged across its forehead.

"Be quiet." Its claws tightened.

"And die!" The force surged again, wrenching her body farther apart as the suit screamed beneath the mounting load. The malignant aura pouring from the beast was so intense it bled into her systems, scrambling sensors, drowning her HUD in static and forcing diagnostics offline. Trapped in its grip, she could barely respond. ZZZZZT! The beast flinched. It looked down to find Coconut clinging to its side, tiny paws wrapped around a palm-sized black device banded with thin cyan light.

Folding prongs had bitten deep into its flesh while rows of microscopic vents hissed blue sparks. The lights raced along its frame, rising to a shrill mechanical whine before the device dumped a savage surge straight into its nervous system. ZZZZZT! Its muscles spasmed and its grip loosened for the briefest instant.

"YOU WORTHLESS VERMIN!" Coconut squeaked triumphantly, sprang free, landed on all fours and scampered away through the grass at full speed before the enraged monster could swat him. The static cleared.

"Good boy, Coco!" SYSTEMS RESTORED. CONTROL LINK RE-ESTABLISHED. Her suit came alive again. It had already reached maximum storage. Air shimmered around her, nearby trees rattled violently, and warning icons flooded her visor as the accumulated energy became critically unstable. KINETIC STORAGE: 120. 4 TERAJOULES [COUNTERMEASURE] RELEASE Everything discharged in a single instant. A blinding flash engulfed the area. The forest folded outward in a perfect circle. Every branch bent away. Rocks burst apart.

The air itself cracked beneath the sudden release. Enough stored force to derail a speeding freight train a dozen times over detonated from the suit, locking every muscle in the beast's body. It screamed. A raw, animal howl tore through the forest as both hands snapped with a sickening series of cracks, fingers bending backward before the bones gave way entirely. Its grip exploded apart. Kiri slipped free.

[STATUS] EVASIVE MANEUVER - RECOMMENDED She shot away in a streak of gold and crimson, wings biting into the air as her suit stabilised. Smoke curled from the beast's shattered hands, every muscle trembling from the discharge that should've killed it. She stopped. Turned. Her wings folded tight. The return charge was even faster. IMPACT FORCE: 20, 000 TONS. BOOOOM! Her fist crashed into its jaw. Blood sprayed through the air as its head whipped back, the entire body lifting from the ground before tumbling away.

MANDIBLE: FRACTURED MAXILLA: COLLAPSED TEMPORAL BONE: DEPRESSED BRAINSTEM: TRAUMA DETECTED It rolled upright, mouth opening to roar. Her second punch buried itself in its throat. The roar became a choking gasp. She never stopped moving. The beast lunged with enough force to level buildings, but Kiri slipped around every swing, her wings catching the air to redirect momentum while her talons ripped through fur and flesh. A knee folded its stomach inward.

An elbow hammered the back of its neck, driving it face-first into the earth. Her foot pinned his shoulder. Her wings spread wide, catching the sun, casting her shadow over him like a grave.

"Who..." he rasped through broken teeth.

"Who are you?" The cyan lenses reflected his battered face.

"That isn't your place to know," she said calmly.

"You inferior creature." She raised one hand. The armour across her palm glowed as energy quietly accumulated. The beast looked up at her and laughed, the ragged sound spilling through broken teeth with the exhausted satisfaction of a man who had spent years chasing a single moment, only to discover it waiting at the end of his own ruin.

"I waited years," he whispered.

"Years... for this." Kiri remained silent, her shadow stretching over him as he slowly closed his eyes, leaving the meadow still for the briefest moment. THOOM! A compressed kinetic blast erupted from point-blank range, invisible until it struck. The force punched cleanly through the creature's skull, bursting out the back in a violent spray as bone and brain matter exploded across the scorched earth. Its head snapped forward under the impact before the massive body collapsed once more. Her glowing palm lowered.

The colours flowing across her suit gradually cooled from battle-orange into gold, crimson and soft violet while the creature's chest continued rising beneath her boot, every strained breath accompanied by a rattling wheeze. Her comm crackled inside the helmet.

"Kiri." Zeinai's calm voice came through the suit's encrypted channel, distant beneath a layer of static.

"He's still alive." His fingers twitched. Bones cracked back into place beneath layers of muscle that swelled and shifted as years of hatred refused to let the body die. Kiri moved first. The beast exploded upward, its massive arm sweeping through empty air where she'd stood only a heartbeat earlier. [RECOMMENDATION] ENGAGE OFFENSIVE PROTOCOL [STATUS] WAITING ON PILOT She was already behind him. The PBM-9 Singularity rested in one hand, its heavy barrel humming while the heat sinks glowed with restrained power.

The M-20 Gryphon settled into the other, smart munitions spinning impatiently inside the chamber. She fired. WHOOOM. The Singularity released a low harmonic note that made the air itself tremble before a beam of polarised gravitons struck the beast's shoulder, crushing flesh, muscle and bone inward as though an invisible hand had crumpled them like paper. GRAVITON SHEAR HUMERUS: FRACTURED If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

SCAPULA: COLLAPSED The Gryphon answered with short, disciplined bursts. BRRT! BRRT! BRRT! Each smart round bent around its guard before detonating deep inside its body. THUMP! THUMP! THOOM! The explosions rippled through flesh and bone from within, tearing open fist-sized cavities as the beast threw back its head with a guttural RAAAAGH!, its roar echoing across the meadow. ROUND 1: PENETRATION CONFIRMED ROUND 2: INTERNAL DETONATION ROUND 3: INTERCOSTAL HIT The cavities tore open...

and began closing almost immediately. WOUND CLOSURE: 0. 9 s TARGET RESILIENCE: EXCEEDS PARAMETERS Dark demon essence seeped from the wounds, hissing where it touched the grass as reality shimmered around him, struggling to contain something it had never been meant to accommodate. He answered with another punch. Kiri blinked into a gold-and-crimson streak, darting hundreds of metres sideways before the blow could reach her. THOOOOM. SHOCKWAVE: 0.

8 MEGATONS RADIUS: 100 m GROUND PRESSURE: 12, 000 PSI The meadow flattened beneath the blast. Trees bowed, grass was hammered into the earth and even the grave marker shuddered. Kiri's eyes flicked across the readings.

"… Quite enough." If the residual pressure from a missed strike was already that destructive, she had absolutely no intention of discovering what a direct hit felt like. She hovered again, wings spread. The beast charged after her, hooves pounding the earth. Another punch. THOOOOM. SHOCKWAVE: 0. 9 MEGATONS... 1. 1 MEGATONS... She slipped between them with infuriating agility, darting, rolling and changing direction so abruptly she seemed to flicker across the sky like a hummingbird refusing to be caught.

Every swipe carved through empty air.

"STAND STILL!" the beast roared, each missed strike feeding its fury. Kiri's visor flickered. Her eyes narrowed behind the lenses. It's getting stronger? Another shockwave tore past. She vanished from its path again, every near miss, every expanding pressure wave and every failed strike pouring more kinetic energy into her suit.... The chase swept into a peaceful meadow where wildflowers nodded beside a clear stream.

Trout held themselves effortlessly against the current while smaller fish flashed beneath smooth stones. Coconut had already forgotten the battle, crouching at the bank with twitching tail and absolute focus as he stalked the fish below before he lunged face-first into the water. The sight almost distracted her. BOOM! A punch clipped her ribs. She tumbled out of the sky, carving a trench hundreds of metres long before crashing to a halt. The beast lunged to seize her. It froze. Pain exploded through its spine.

"GRAAAAH!" A curved bronze dagger jutted between its shoulder blades. Behind it, Coconut tugged furiously on the hilt with his teeth. SCHLK! The blade came free. The weasel squeaked triumphantly and bolted.

"You LITTLE...!" The beast gave chase. KZZT - CHAK! Black static fractured across the air around Coconut before collapsing inward. He was gone. Cheap Syndicate teleporters worked poorly on humans without Apis but almost flawlessly on tiny animals. Kiri had pinned one beneath Coconut's fur weeks ago, configured to trigger automatically if his panic response spiked beyond a certain threshold. It had worked perfectly. The monster barely had time to register what had happened. THOOM!

A compressed kinetic blast punched into its abdomen, rupturing through flesh, muscle and bone before blasting out its back in a violent spray. The colossal warthog folded over with a guttural groan that instantly swelled into a furious roar, then wrenched a massive boulder from the earth and hurled it like a softball. Kiri spun. SHRRRKKK! Her wings sliced cleanly through the stone, splitting it perfectly in half as both pieces thundered harmlessly past her. The Gryphon barked. EMP rounds severed nerves.

Smart munitions bored fist-sized cavities through muscle and bone, tearing away entire sections of flesh. Her weapons were built to consume bodies faster than regeneration could restore them, reducing even gifted healers piece by piece until nothing remained to repair. They should've worked. They didn't. His body wasn't regenerating. His malice was.

Every wound filled with seething demon essence before flesh ever had the chance, knitting him back together with hatred instead of biology, and there was far more of that than blood left inside him. CUMULATIVE WOUNDS: 14 ESTIMATED BLOOD LOSS: 47 L TARGET STATUS: MOBILE Kiri's visor tracked the phenomenon in silence. EMOTIONAL ENERGY OUTPUT: RISING MALICE DENSITY: ESCALATING He was becoming stronger.

Every surge of rage, every ounce of hatred, every thought consumed by vengeance fed the essence rebuilding him, increasing its output with each passing second. The essence spilling from his body ignited, climbing his ruined frame in molten gold, crimson and light-devouring black. The heat alone scorched the meadow bare, curling grass into ash without a single flame touching it.

He grunted as his throat reshaped itself, forgetting how to speak, yet the laugh still emerged, a deep volcanic rumble that shook the earth beneath his feet. He had found it. The power the dealer had promised. The HUD rotated a wireframe of the beast. [CLASS: WARTHOG VARIANT] [ESSENCE LEAK: 12%] [CORE TEMP: 2800°C] [MUSCLE DENSITY: +340%] The readings climbed. The model recalibrated. It was compressing, packing the same monstrous mass into something denser, faster and stronger.

[WARNING: STRENGTH SPIKE DETECTED] [ESTIMATED PEAK: 16, 700, 000 TONS] [RECOMMENDATION: MAINTAIN DISTANCE] Kiri's thumb rested over the output limiter. [CURRENT APIS OUTPUT: 1%] She could push it higher. She didn't. Unlike a Magpie, even the smallest increase risked Apis poisoning. Every enhancement had to be measured carefully, every percentage weighed against the damage it would inflict on her own body. The beast's wireframe pulsed once before every damage indicator disappeared.

[STATUS: TARGET HAS REACHED CRITICAL MASS] [RECOMMENDATION: EVACUATE] She left the limiter untouched.

"Not yet," she whispered. — The beast opened its eyes. Nothing human remained. Orange light burned where irises and pupils should've been. It saw her. It charged. Kiri's hand flashed to her belt, flicking a white-and-silver disc into the air. It unfolded into a flat drone, spun once to acquire its target, then shot forward fast enough to crack the atmosphere. Contact. Detonation. FWAAAAAA. It wasn't an explosion.

It was momentum made absolute, a shaped vector charge that hurled its target away as though an unseen god had flicked it with a fingertip. The beast rocketed three hundred metres across the meadow, ploughing through the forest before crashing into a fresh crater. Kiri was already waiting. She landed on its rim as the monster hauled itself upright.

Its chest was visibly caved in where the vector charge had struck, ribs bent inward beneath torn flesh, but they immediately began forcing themselves back into place with loud, sickening cracks as demon essence flooded the wound. The flames no longer flickered. They flowed beneath its skin like molten rock, every movement carrying a crushing certainty, as though resistance itself had become meaningless. The Gryphon switched magazines. Tungsten-core penetrators. She fired once. TING.

The slug struck square between its eyes. Its head shifted barely six inches. The flattened round bounced harmlessly away. The weapon clicked empty. No readings changed. No damage registered. The beast slowly looked back at her, tusks gleaming beneath the impossible density of its flesh. Her hand settled on the Singularity. It wouldn't matter. A weapon capable of folding space wasn't going to fare much better against something that no longer obeyed ordinary physics. She should've brought heavier ordnance.

The beast raised one hand. A sluggish sphere of molten essence condensed in its palm before it hurled it forward. It struck nothing. Kiri had already disappeared.... The molten projectile struck the ridge behind her, reducing stone to glowing slag as a wave of superheated air rolled across the meadow. Kiri dropped behind the blast, the Gryphon already barking, EMP rounds punching into its flank. It didn't even flinch. Another sphere came.

She slipped aside as it burst against the ground, molten earth erupting into the air. Another followed, then another, forcing her through a relentless dance while trees ignited behind her, bark peeling away as trunks blackened into pillars of flame. She holstered the Gryphon. A silver cylinder left her belt, unfolding into a wall of crystallised cold that met the next projectile head-on, flash-freezing it into brittle glass. KRAAASH!

She burst through the cloud of hissing steam, drove both boots into its chest and kicked off before its arms could close around her. SHRRRK! The articulated talons beneath her boots raked downward across its torso, peeling open thick flesh and carving through ribs with a shower of blood and splintered bone, pinning the collapsing chest in place for the briefest instant before the shattered cage began forcing itself back together. CRACK! CRACK! CRRUNCH!

The beast threw back its head with a furious roar, molten essence surging through the wound as broken ribs ground against one another and knit themselves back into place beneath the torn flesh. Her hand found another device. A crimson sphere. She tossed it beneath the creature. It detonated into a web of invisible monomolecular filaments, wrapping around its limbs, throat and torso before tightening with enough force to carve through armour, flesh and bone. They bit. Then stopped.

The demon essence simply consumed them. The wires dissolved into black ichor while the shallow cuts they'd managed to make sealed with audible cracks, hatred restoring the body faster than the filaments could separate it. The beast laughed.

CORE TEMP: 3, 760°C - RISING PROJECTED PEAK: INDETERMINATE RECOMMENDATION: EVACUATE Her cooling systems screamed as cryo-fluid flooded the suit, frost creeping across the inside of her visor while the surrounding air shimmered into plasma and the ground beneath the beast liquefied into expanding rings of molten stone. Blades wouldn't work. Bullets wouldn't work. So she bought herself time. She darted around the monster, her left hand flashing to her belt. FWIP! FWIP! FWIP!

Three tennis ball-sized spheres arced through the air. Bright cyan and almost transparent, each contained swirling bands of blue and turquoise fluid that churned like miniature storms beneath their glassy shells.

"Iceeggs." PAK! PAK! PAK! They detonated the instant they touched its body. KRRRSHHHH! Crystal ice erupted across the beast, racing over its limbs, chest, neck and skull in branching sheets of translucent amber-like frost. Despite the inferno raging beneath its flesh, the absolute-zero surge bit straight through, flash-freezing nerves and creeping into the brain itself. The warthog let out a strained, guttural GGRRRAAAHHH!

, its movements seizing as the freezing shock raced through its nervous system while the demonic flames hissed and recoiled beneath the impossible cold, their growth slowing. Against anything else… It would've been a death sentence. Blood continued pouring from the gaping wounds she'd carved through its torso, carrying the suppressant deeper into its circulatory system with every heartbeat.

The injuries themselves weren't meant to kill it, only to force the compound through more of its body at once, greatly inconveniencing its regeneration. It wasn't meant to defeat it. Only delay it.... Kiri's thoughts aligned. It was regenerating through emotion. Every surge of rage, hatred and obsession fed the essence rebuilding it. Her hands flew through the pouches on her belt, snapping vials together with the speed of a chemist racing a countdown.

It almost reminded her of those cooking competitions where chefs scrambled to finish before the timer buzzed. She found the ampoule she needed. Affect Suppressant. Designed to temporarily silence the brain's emotional centres, it dulled fear, rage, grief, excitement and hatred without affecting intelligence or conscious thought, blocking the neurological pathways responsible for emotional amplification. It had been developed specifically for entities sustained by emotional output or psychic resonance.

The cost was slower reactions, reduced motivation and blunted survival instincts. Perfect. She withdrew her only Hukan round. Virtually indestructible. No impact would deform it, allowing it to punch straight through the creature's skull before rupturing internally. She injected the suppressant into the round's hollow chamber, sealed it, and calmly chambered it into the Gryphon. One shot. That was all she needed. Kiri's hand rose to the clasp beneath her collar. She'd been holding back. She wasn't going to anymore.

Her wings flared and she shot skyward, climbing higher and faster until her body became nothing more than a spear pointed toward the heavens. Looking down, she watched the creature tear itself free of the frozen prison and slowly rise once again. Her visor isolated a single point. The crown of its skull. The Hukan round would survive the impact. The problem wasn't the bullet. It was the force behind it. Too little and it wouldn't penetrate deeply enough to release the suppressant where it mattered.

Too much and the indestructible round would punch straight through its head, continue through the earth beneath it, and disappear thousands of kilometres into the planet. Hukan was difficult enough to obtain even for Talons. She wasn't wasting her only round. The suit solved the equation. TRAJECTORY: LOCKED PENETRATION DEPTH: 41. 8 CM MOMENTUM LIMITER: ENGAGED PROBABILITY OF COMPLETE DELIVERY: 99. 8% She squeezed the trigger. BANG!