1284: Forty Eight Percent

Forty Eight Percent

Upon swallowing one of the larger scales that still had some of the black strings attached to it the beast suddenly froze. Its body started twitching and thick veins began to pop up all along its neck and abdomen. 1

The worm-like black strings had come to life after coming into contact with a living organism and within a matter of seconds they had completely altered the original form of the creature.

Its body size tripled causing the skin to rip into shreds and dozens of long threads burst out from its eyes, thrashing about in a frenzy. It was foaming at the mouth and whining from the pain but even that stopped a moment later when it roared loud enough to create a shockwave that sent tremors through the entire region.

*ROAAAAAR~*

Barely a minute later the ground began to vibrate ever so lightly as hundreds of new shadow beasts poured in from every possible direction. This time there actually was an endless sea of them and not just an illusion.

The 'Greater Shadow Beast' had been killed by Hao Xuan but its bloodthirsty nature did not let it rest. It used the last of its power to summon every single shadow beast that was weaker than itself for one simple thing.

*GRRRR*

It clenched its jaw for one last time as its body suddenly expanded by over six times before finally exploding in a bloody mist. Hundreds of long strings shot out in every possible direction, piercing the flesh of all the nearby beasts and infecting them in the same way.

Every fourth or fifth beast exploded in the same manner to spread the infectious parasitic worms even further but the ones that didn't, they had their physical forms twisted beyond recognition.

Their bodies doubled or tripled in size while their maws began leaking the same paralytic fluid as the original Greater Shadow Beast.

Their minds were completely overtaken by the will of the Greater Beast that wanted nothing but revenge.

One by one they turned towards the direction Hao Xuan had run off to as if they could sense exactly where he was. When the first thousand or so beasts had gone through the physical alterations they came together to form the vanguard of this new beast army before setting off.

**

A few kilometers away Hao Xuan could feel the disturbance in the earth that was created when such a large number of creatures had begun charging in his direction.

He looked back hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was coming his way but his vision was still restricted to around 3-4 meters.

"Tsk. Baracus, wake up already!"

[Restart Available in 96 Seconds]

"I might not have 96 seconds god damnit! I'm running blind here, wake up right this second!"

[Bypass Security Porotcol]

{Yes or No}

"YES! Holy fuck, yes!"

[System Restart Initiated]

[Central Matrix Online]

Hao Xuan's vision flashed as the minimap popped back on. He shook his head upon seeing the path he was on and quickly corrected it by turning to the left.

"I knew I was off but not by this much. Can you hear me now?"

Followed by some static noise Baracus finally spoke up

"Affirma- *crackle* -tive. All systems normal."

"Good, run a scan and find out what's the hell is following me."

The minimap began to zoom out until the first few beasts could be seen teetering on the edge.

"Okay, that's not too bad," Hao Xuan breathed a sigh of relief which was cut short, "I can take care of them easily if they ever catch up to m- What the hell is THAT!?"

The minimap zoomed out once more to reveal an ocean of red dots.

"That's....how many are those?!"

"Seven thousand Six hundred and Forty-Four, and counting."

"Okay...okay that's still fine. They have to catch up to me first."

"They will catch up to the host in approximately 25 standard minutes. And-"

The minimap shifted upwards to reveal several larger dots scattered along his path.

"-There are some ahead. With some minor course adjustments the host can avoid 40% of the creatures ahead but be slowed by roughly 12%."

"Absolutely not! I'd rather run through the ones in front of me than risk getting caught by the ones behind me. Just keep the scan running and let me know if anything changes."

"That will consume an extra 7% of the available energy reserves."

"Do it. I can't be running blind. How far am I from the settlement?"

"Remaining Distance: 48%"

"That's confusing as fuck. How long will it take with my current speed?"

"3 Standard hours and 21 Minutes."

"So I will have to fight for at least 3 hours."

"Approximately, yes."

"Alright, I'll try to absorb some of the beasts on the way to recover some more energy for when the ones behind me catch up. Prepare a sword for me, I want to try this 'Sword Scripture' I remembered while breaking out of the illusion. I think it will be...helpful."

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