Chapter 32
Gate To The Stars
Part 2
Day Six
Date: 06/01/01
Location: Zone 6
Destination: To the City Gate
Mission Duration: Day 6
Remaining Time: 14 Hours
Objective: Reach the City Gate
Subject Names: Thomas, Samira Ali, Amanda Jefferson
Native: Khorcha (Guide)
Previous Success Rate: 85%
Expected Success Rate: 70%
Failed Subjects: 250
Successful Subjects: 10
Success Percentage: 4%
Experiment Results: 96% Failure
Experiment Outcome: Termination
Next Stage: Initiated
Objective: Monitoring
Stage Duration: 30 Days
Days Count-Down: 29
The rumble came again, harder than before. Dust rained down from the high ruins around us, and the very ground vibrated beneath our feet. Whatever fell wasn't some piece of rubble— it was like it was alive.
Khorcha's expression hardened. He gripped the edge of his spear or staff whatever it was tightly.
"It has noticed us," he said, his voice low and urgent.
"What has? Do you know what it is?" Amanda asked, fear breaking into her words.
Before he could answer, the world beneath us cracked.
CRRRRRAAAACK!!!
The road split apart like it was opening its jaw to devour us. I lost my balance, stumbling backward as chunks of pavement rose into the air for a heartbeat before collapsing into a dark, gaping pit.
From the depths, something enormous moved.
A massive serpentine shape that reminded me of the famous anaconda—scales made of broken stone plates, shaped like shells fused together by glowing green substance of unknown origin, shimmering with different colors and pulsing like heartbeats. Its head was wide, jaw unhinged, no eyes visible anywhere that could be seen, only vibrating cracks that jittered with hunger.
A sound escaped it that almost shook everything around us. It was not a roar…
but a deep, grinding scream of metal ripping through the earth.
Samira gasped, "What the hell is that?!"
Amanda froze with an open mouth—whatever she wanted to say was stuck in her throat, unable to escape it. I myself was in similar shock, unable to say anything, when Khorcha finally answered.
"We call it the Devourer Titan… One of the ruthless predators of Langkata that has mutated and become worse than before."
Before fear could totally freeze me, the System interrupted my thoughts and we all got its message:
{SYSTEM ALERT}
{URGENT MISSION: MONSTER DEVOURER TITAN DETECTED}
{The Laninus Titan known as the Devourer by the locals was extremely dangerous and carnivorous to begin with. After evolving, it became more ferocious and dangerously deadlier, and it's causing needless destruction. Defeating it takes a lot of courage and skills.}
{Difficulty: Extreme}
{Status: High-Threat Creature Detected
Primary Objective: Defeat the Devourer Titan}
{Reward}
• 1,000 Experience Points
• 500 Attribute Points (shared)
• Loot: Core Crystal — Titan Grade
{Penalty for Failure: Total Party Termination}
My throat dried instantly. But unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to laminate on the information that we were given or to plan for our fight and strategize, because the moment I heard the last words thankfully I was not reading the screen but was hearing it instead, the beast lunged at us. For its huge size, we were nothing more than insects to it.
As the Devourer lunged, with luck and reflex alone I jumped sideways
BOOOOM!!
What seemed to be a tail that is not as large as its upper body but large enough to make a paste of every living thing—smashed into the street where I had stood a second earlier. With the jump, I rolled aside just in time, but the shockwave tossed me like a rag doll.
Luckily, Khorcha barked, "Spread out! Do not let it predict your movement!"
As much as it was a good strategy, it was easier said than done when a building-sized monster was trying to make a pizza out of you and eat you.
Samira aimed her scanner. "Energy Pulse!" she shouted, pointing her scanner at the monster. I was not aware when she changed her scanner into a weapon that could discharge energy strong enough to harm a monster this big.
As soon as she pressed the trigger—
ZEEE—KRAACK!!
A blast of shimmering energy slammed into the creature's mid-section. Although it only lasted for a few seconds, the Titan reeled and cracking noises echoed as a few of its scales flickered.
I was really stunned, but before I could say anything Samira excitedly yelled:
"It's working!"
"No you're only irritating it!" Khorcha corrected.
The Titan screeched then dove underground like a shark into water.
The silence the enveloped us was deafening and totally not good.
"Where is it?" Amanda whispered, still shaking from the shock that shee experienced when suddenly a tremor moved fast beneath her feet.
"Amanda, MOVE!!" I shouted.
KRA-WHAM!!!
The monster burst upward right beneath her. Amanda leaped—barely—but the shock threw her into the side of a ruined vehicle, the impact was loud enough to attract the devourer, "Ahhh!" she cried, clutching her arm.
Without thinking, I sprinted to her, I didn't even know what I was going to do to help here I was just driven by pure instinct I couldn't tell if it was was stupid or brave I didn't know anymore.
The Titan twisted toward us.
As soon as I reached Amanda despite my intention to help her, I didn't realize that by doing so, I was putting both of us in even greater danger. The Devourer Titan shifted its massive body toward us the moment I touched her arm, as if the faintest vibration through the ground was enough to expose our location. Its stone-like plates groaned as they slid against each other, and the glowing veins beneath them pulsed faster—almost like it was excited that we were so close.
Amanda, stay low and don't move," I whispered, my voice trembling and my body shaking slightly. I couldn't tell if I was warning her or myself.
The Titan's head dipped. Its face was marked by cracks that made it resemble a serpent more than a worm. The cracks trembled like vibrating scars, and then, without notice..."
The Titan's head dipped, and the cracks on its face, now resembling a serpent more than a worm, trembled like vibrating scars, before it departed without notice."
FSSSHHHHHHH!!
A wave of compressed air blasted toward us when it snapped its jaw wide. I grabbed Amanda by the shoulder and pulled her down, rolling both of us behind the half-crushed vehicle she had hit earlier.
BOOOOM!!
The shockwave struck the metal, crumpling the frame inward like it was made of paper. A piece of the door flew past my head so close I felt the heat of it grazing my cheek.
Amanda groaned, struggling to form a coherent words probably from the pain she was feeling and trying her best not to show it, clutching her arm she said "I'm… I'm fine...just… dizzy."
"Stay here," I said, though my voice cracked as I said it.
The Titan shifted again, its massive tail carving a trench into the broken street. The entire ground shook so violently that even the dust seemed afraid to fall.
I got up slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements, and faced the beast. Every instinct in my body screamed at me to run as far away as possible, but something else inside me—something sharper, stronger—forced me to plant my feet and stay.
It wasn't courage.
It was responsibility.
This time, if I ran, Amanda wouldn't survive. None of us would.
The Devourer lunged again, mouth opening so wide its jaw unhinged past anything a living creature should have been capable of. Rows of blunt, grinding ridges lined its throat like a meat grinder instead of fangs.
I sprinted left—
The Titan crashed down where I had been standing.
KRRRRAAAASHHH!!
The street caved inward, a cloud of debris exploding upward. I shielded my face and kept moving, legs burning as I dashed behind what remained of a toppled pillar.
My heart hammered so loudly I swore the Titan could track the sound.
"Come on, Thomas… think…" I whispered to myself.
This thing wasn't like other monsters. It didn't rely on eyes. Or smell. Or even heat. It reacted to movement… to vibration… to impact.
The cracks on its body flared every time it listened—almost like primitive ears placed all throughout its armored skin. When it dove into the ground, it followed us like a shark sensing blood in the water.
But sharks had limitations.
And this thing had one too—
soft flesh beneath the stone plates.
I noticed it earlier when Samira hit it with her Energy Pulse. The impact didn't crack the armor completely, but it made the plates shift—and between them, I caught glimpses of tissue glowing faintly from within.
The plates weren't perfect. They were overlapping shields.
And every shield had a gap.
I exhaled slowly and stepped out again, trying to keep my movements light—too light, apparently. Because the moment my foot pressed against the ground in just the wrong way—
the Titan whipped its head toward me.
"Damn it—!"
It surged forward with terrifying speed. I barely dodged to the side before its head slammed into the pillar I had just been hiding behind.
WHOOOOOM!!!
The entire thing shattered, stone raining down around me.
The Titan twisted its massive neck, its glowing cracks brightening as if drawing in air. A low, vibrating growl rolled through its body.
It was hunting me.
And this time, I wasn't sure I could run fast enough.
"Qadab…" I muttered instinctively—but stopped myself.
Not yet.
Qadab was powerful, yes, but unstable. The last time I used it fully, I felt like my bones were humming from the inside out. If I used it too soon, I might collapse before the fight even turned in our favor.
I had to buy the others time.
I had to find a pattern.
The Titan swung its tail—
I ducked.
It crashed into the ground—
I sprinted forward this time, closing the distance.
If it moved fast underground but slower above… then the safest place was as close as possible. At least that's what I hoped.
The Devourer reared up, shaking loose debris from its body. The impact of its landing sent cracks spiderwebbing across the ground.
Its jaw snapped downward—
I rolled under it.
I felt the air pressure shift above me as its throat plates scraped against each other, the sound vibrating through my bones. I popped up directly beneath its arc, where the stone armor didn't fully cover its underside.
My fist shot forward on instinct.
THUD!!
It was like punching a wall. Pain jolted up my arm immediately, my hand going numb. I staggered back, shaking the sting off my knuckles.
The Titan hissed—not in pain, but anger.
That attack was nothing but a mosquito bite to it.
But it reacted.
A reaction was information.
Information was an advantage.
I circled to its left flank, watching the way the plates shifted as it moved. Every time it angled its body, the scales interlocked. But when it prepared to strike… the plates separated.
"There…" I whispered.
The gap widened when it twisted for a lunge.
I dashed forward.
"Thomas, don't!" Samira shouted from somewhere behind me.
But I was already mid-swing.
My fist connected "CRACK!!"
A shock ran through my arm as one of the smaller plates split slightly.
The Titan recoiled violently, its whole body jerking in a wave-like motion. It wasn't used to pain. Or maybe it was simply outraged that something as small as me dared to hurt it.
It slammed its head downward and
I jumped back, then It burrowed beneath the ground so I almost I froze.
The rumbling passed beneath my feet—
then cut off.
"Thomas, move!!" Amanda yelled.
I leaped right as I heard, KRA-WHOOOOM!!!
The Devourer erupted from the earth directly where I'd been standing. Dust and fragments blasted outward, a shockwave slamming into me and knocking the breath from my lungs.
I tumbled across the ground, coughing, ears ringing. But as I lifted my head, I saw it the gap I'd made earlier.
A thin fracture… glowing faintly from the strain of movement.
Its weak spot.
The Titan turned toward me, body coiling, preparing for a full-speed charge.
My muscles tensed.
Breath steadied.
Instinct sharpened like a blade.
"Alright… monster…" I whispered as my vision narrowed.
"You want me? Try it."
The Devourer lunged.
I sprinted straight toward it.
Its roar shook the ruins.
My heartbeat thudded in my ears.
And just before its jaws closed around me, I dove under its neck, twisting my body
"Qadab… strike!"
My fist ignited with burning force and slammed into the fractured shell plate
BOOOOOM!!!
The crack widened.
The Titan howled, rearing back in genuine pain this time.
I rolled away, chest heaving, vision trembling from the strain, but a fierce realization burned in my chest—
If I could hurt it, then I could damage it.
I could slow it down long enough for the others to strike.
And this was only the beginning the first real horror that we faced so far.
A/N
Hello everyone,
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