Chapter 386

  Kato sprinted through another level of the mines before deciding to take a short break and catch his breath.

  He stood at one side of the cavern he had entered moments earlier, facing the opposite way from where he had come. He had just sent the guards to the bottom level of the mines, where the battle against the morphus and his army of monsters raged on.

  The enslaved survivors toiling to extract mana consumables from the rock in the cavern occasionally exchanged hopeful glances. They didn’t yet know exactly what was going on, but they must have assumed the resistance fighters were battling Los Demonios and were surely rooting for the former, hoping they would soon be freed.

  Now that there were no guards on this level, the workers grew bolder. Some even stopped working to talk to one another. Kato didn’t really care about that. He knew that dealing with the morphus was the most important task at the moment.

  He noticed that some of the workers standing near the rocky walls of the cavern occasionally stole glances in his direction. He was now the only guard on this level of the mines, so it wasn’t hard to guess what they must be thinking.

  Again, Kato didn’t give it much thought. While the workers outnumbered him almost two dozen to one, all they wielded were mere pickaxes, while he held an assault rifle in his hand. He would slay anyone who dared to make any aggressive move before they could get within striking range. If necessary, he was ready to kill them all without a hint of remorse. After all, they were all expendable.

  To their credit, none of the workers were bold enough to charge at him. They were either smarter than that or not desperate enough. They probably decided it was much safer to wait for the resistance fighters to come to their rescue.

  Kato continued to stand in the same spot, staring across the cavern at the tunnel on the opposite side that led to the bottom level of the mines. He could hear the sounds of battle: the cacophony of gunfire and the soul-chilling screams of dying people. His men were obviously losing the fight.

  Kato noticed that none of the workers bothered to do their jobs at this point. Their glances darted between the tunnel from which the sounds of battle came and him standing on the opposite side of the cavern. They must have realized something big was happening, not just another routine attack from the resistance fighters.

  The workers still hadn’t gathered enough nerve to make a move against him. Kato didn’t care either way. All he could think about was where the hell Ryan was. Skullface had told him the cyborg would soon be there, but a few minutes had passed since then. What was taking him so long?

  Ryan was certainly taking his sweet time getting to the mines. Kato knew that before getting turned into a cyborg, Ryan had been a defiant one. However, now that he was transformed, a microchip embedded in his brain controlled his actions, making it impossible for Ryan to do as he pleased.

  At least, that was what the microchip was supposed to do: turn Ryan into an obedient tool, following every command Skullface gave him.

  However, it was hard to tell how well the microchip was actually performing its functions. After all, Ryan was the very first successful cyborg they had managed to create, so there were no precedents to compare his actions and determine how well he was actually functioning.

  Ryan was obviously on his own now, making his way to Kato’s location, and the bastard must be fighting against the microchip’s controlling impulses.

  These thoughts did little to calm Kato’s mind. He knew that if Ryan didn’t show up right now, everything would be lost. The battle on the bottom level raged on, but the diminishing amount of gunfire indicated that the number of his men still fighting was dwindling by the second.

  The morphus and his army of monsters could appear at any moment. Just as he thought that, a pitch-black figure emerged from the tunnel, illuminated by the bluish light of the mana crystals embedded in the rocky walls and ceiling.

  Kato’s heart sank. It was the morphus. It had finally shown up. But it was alone. While its monsters finished off the remnants of his men on the bottom level of the mines, their master must have decided to push forward, confident that his minions could complete the job below without his help.

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  The morphus scanned the area, briefly glancing at the workers, who stood like statues, staring back at the mutant. Then, it looked ahead, locking its gaze onto Kato. Meeting the emotionless stare of its large blue eyes, Kato felt weak in the knees. Paralyzed by fear, he couldn’t move. His instincts screamed at him to turn and run, but his body refused to move.

  Suddenly, he felt someone rudely shove him aside. He staggered but managed to keep his balance. A mix of anger and fear surged within him as he glanced at whoever had just pushed him. Relief washed over him when he saw Ryan pass by without even looking his way. The cyborg had finally arrived, and just in time!

  Kato watched as Ryan took a few wide strides into the cavern before coming to a stop. Dressed in a long trench coat that covered him from neck to feet, Ryan stood motionless for a moment, staring at the morphus on the other side of the cavern. Then, he shrugged off his trench coat, letting it slide down his body to pool around his feet before stepping out of it.

  He now stood completely “naked”, if that term could even be applied to a cyborg like him. While Ryan still retained some human features, very little of his humanity remained. His body was now a blend of armor and synthetic muscle, giving him the strength to crush concrete.

  His augmented form was a seamless fusion of human and machine, designed for both power and speed. Beneath the high-tech alloy that replaced his skin lay advanced technology, granting him extraordinary capabilities and significantly enhancing his reflexes.

  Ryan suddenly burst into a run toward the morphus, and the mutant sprinted toward him as well. As they closed the distance, the cyborg threw a punch at the enemy with impossible speed.

  To Kato’s surprise, the morphus managed to dodge the blow and immediately countered with a punch of its own, striking the middle of the cyborg’s body and sending him flying a few yards back.

  Kato couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. Ryan was incredibly fast and agile, but the morphus’s reflexes were even better. This was not how he had envisioned the start of this fight.

  Ryan jumped to his feet and immediately charged the morphus again. For a minute or so, they traded blows. The morphus evaded most of Ryan’s punches, while the mutant’s attacks repeatedly hit their mark, sending the cyborg hurtling backward.

  Still, Ryan didn’t appear to be damaged yet. He was quite resistant to damage.

  At one point, the morphus delivered a crushing blow that sent the cyborg flying across the entire cavern, crashing into the wall. This time, something must have been damaged within the cyborg’s body, as he failed to get back on his feet as quickly as before.

  Once on his feet, Ryan extended one arm toward the morphus. In the next instant, his hand opened like a flower, revealing a gun hidden within his arm. Just as the morphus sprinted toward him, Ryan opened fire, sending red energy shots streaking through the air.

  The morphus kept running, successfully dodging some of the projectiles. Those that struck the mutant burned pockmarks in its armor, but that was the extent of the damage it sustained.

  After reaching the cyborg, the mutant punched him in the torso, sending him crashing into the wall behind. Ryan collapsed to the ground again, but before he could rise, the mutant seized his augmented arm, where the energy gun was hidden, and twisted it backward with a screech of protesting metal.

  Stepping on the back of the cyborg to keep Ryan pinned down, the mutant pulled with all its strength. After a moment of resistance, the cyborg’s arm was ripped away.

  That’s when Kato realized he needed to run. All hope was lost. The cyborg was the only thing that could supposedly stop the morphus, but despite his strength and agility, Ryan had lost the battle in under two minutes. Sure, he wasn’t quite dead yet, but after sustaining serious damage and losing an arm, it wouldn’t take much for the morphus to finish him off.

  Kato turned and bolted away. He raced up through the levels of the mines, moving as fast as he could. The guards he passed cast him puzzled glances, but he didn’t slow down to explain what was happening.

  All he wanted was to reach the elevator that led to Level A as quickly as possible. He prayed that Skullface wouldn’t deactivate the elevator system just yet. Otherwise, he would be trapped in the mines with the morphus and his army of monsters. He just needed Skullface to keep the elevator system online long enough for him to escape. After that, he could shut it down for all he cared. He didn’t give a damn what happened to the guards and workers left behind in the mines.

  Finally, he reached the top floor of the mines and entered the corridor leading to the elevator. Just one final stretch, and he would be out of the woods. He kept running down the corridor, getting closer and closer to the elevator.

  When he was halfway down, some kind of sixth sense made him look over his shoulder. What he saw made his heart skip a beat. Behind him was the morphus, sprinting after him at an impossible speed! The mutant moved so silently that Kato hadn’t even realized it was chasing him until now.

  He cried out in surprise and fear. He kept running, trying to pour on more speed, but he was already at his limit. The elevator was just about thirty yards ahead of him: so close, yet so far away! He kept running, praying he would reach the elevator before the morphus caught up with him.

  Please don’t let him get me, please don’t let him get me, he prayed frantically, racing for his life as his breath grew shallow and his strength slipped away.