Manuke FPS Chapter 106

Published at 24th of October 2020 10:14:06 PM

I was currently inside the guardian room on the 25th floor of the Wolf Fang Labyrinth, and it was a particularly large room. It gave off a boss-room vibe, with it being entirely flooded, and judging from the map, 3/4th of the room was lakes with the last remaining having transversal submerged land. And from the lake area, I spotted a dot on my radar. The water was not so deep as the dark silhouette could be seen underneath the surface from where I stood. 

A large creature then emerged from the water but I was already prepared with the A12, with the intent to shoot it once it broke the surface. The first parts of the monster that appeared were its eyes and nose. From this distance, about 1 meter, it seemed weird. The eyes had vertical pupils that gazed straight at me… Was this a crocodile? Most of its body was still underwater, I knew that for a fact, as the distance between us was only 10 meters. 

He who strikes first will be the winner!

Lining up the crosshairs to the space between the monster’s eyes and nose, I fired. While the A12 was a shotgun, it was an automatic shotgun, so I held down the trigger as it kept firing. Despite it having a drum mag, it had a capacity of 32 shells, of which I expended in all of a few seconds. Thanks to the speed, the shells landed one after another on the guardian’s face without a noticeable gap. 

Frag-12 rounds caused a small explosion on impact. However, I noticed that, on the first shot, it hit some sort of white film-like membrane; and due to the amount of explosions, it’s head was veiled in smoke. 

I pulled out another magazine from my waist pouch after I emptied the drum and reloaded. The guardian retreated back into the water with a low roar. There was no doubt that this wasn’t over yet, its dot still present on my radar. Did it think that it was safe to run underwater? 

I took out two M67 frag grenades from my jacket, pulled their pins, and tossed them around where the dot was on my map. Even if it was submerged underwater, the frags, tossed with the help of the power suit, landed and exploded next to the guardian. Two explosions echoed underneath the water, followed by two geysers of water jettisoning up. They then fell down and the guardian broke through through the surface. 

The crocodile jumped. 

I saw a similar movement during a show in the wetland preservation park when I went on a tour in Australia. A person would hang a piece of meat from a road and over the river. Attracted by the meat, the crocodiles living in the river would jump to catch it. Just like that, the guardian’s upper half rushed towards me, threatening to fall on top of me.

I quickly did a backward quickslide to evade the hulking giant. Its body was 6 meters long after all, its scales on its face were roughed up, but the rounds didn’t do much damage after all.

The black keratin scales seemed to possess a considerable level of protection. I thought that the damage from the grenades would’ve been enough to damage it, but I saw blood dripping from its sides. Could it be that its underside wasn’t as thickly armored? The monster in question gazed at me, and I gazed back. Its emerald vertical pupils were filled with anger as it opened its maw, showing off its massive fangs. 

“GuRUuuuuuuuuu!”

The low pitched roar of the monster reverberated through the room, while at the same time, it charged at me with a speed I never expected such a large monster to possess. 

“That’s fast!”

While I evaded being bit, I started firing from the hip from its face to its side as I slid away. The sun of gunfire followed by the slugs’ explosions filled hte room. But even if all my slugs landed on target, after the first few, the explosions sounded like it was landing in water. 

Aqua wall..

The guardian’s belly was covered by a wall of water, blocking my rounds from landing a direct hit. The monster might’ve not been able to speak, but the wall formed almost instantly. 

It would’ve be easy after all – the guardian opened its mouth, and directed it at me. This was a movement I often saw during a monster subjugation, which meant a magic projectile was coming. I raised the ballistic shield, fixing it on the terrain before crouching behind it to use it as cover. 

“GuuuRAAAAAAAA!”

At the same time, the projectile landed on the shield and it wasn’t just a simple waterball; it was a freaking water tornado. Its momentum was great as it pushed the shield backward even after I fixed it into the ground. The durability value displayed in my goggles depleted quickly, only stopping at 20%.

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This was no good. Discarding the shield, I raised my shotgun and took aim, using the opening when it stopped moving to use its magic and aimed for its eye. Perhaps noticing my where I was aiming, the guardian quickly covered its eye with a nictitating membrane. I still fired anyways. 

Three rounds later, probably after it felt like it couldn’t bear anymore, the monster turns its face away and raised another wall of water to protect its head. I was already running after firing those rounds, trying to protect itself and raising a water wall was well within my prediction – it was, after all, my real goal. 

I dashed forward with a slide jump to the front, then chained it with a strafe jump along the water wall; from there, I arrived right in front of the disoriented guardian. My real aim was its nostrils! Moving with such quickness, the monster couldn’t react in time. Its slit pupils widened underneath the membrane, startled by the movement. At that point, I’d already fired three rounds into each nostril. Following the sound of the explosions, the guardian roared in pain, then thrashed about, waving its keratin reinforced tail around as it tried to retreat back into the water. 

But there was no way I’d let it do that so easily. I opened up the TSS and took out a special weapon from my inventory. 

Particles of light appeared and converged into the shape of a box in front of me. The Supply Box opened on its to reveal green disk-shaped items. I took out 5 of them and tossed them into the water after turning the knobs on their tops. After scattering the disks about, I opened up my inventory and took out a dozen TH3 incendiary grenades.  

The monster’s blip stayed in the underwater area, seemingly to buy time. Probably to heal itself underwater, maybe, but did it really think I’d let that happen? Lastly, while distancing myself, I took out a Gift Box as I ran. 

Now it was time to finish this. I tossed the incendiary grenades into the water where the blip was. They were thermite grenades and didn’t need oxygen to combust, thus they could be used underwater. Even with their narrow area of effect, they could produce heat up to 2000c. 

The grenades exploded underwater in a bright red light, the surrounding water boiled violently and vapor rose to the surface. The guardian tried to flee, but the thermite grenades impeded its escape. I didn’t know how good the power suit’s heat resistance was, so I prepared this gift box, and climbed up onto it in order to keep myself from being in the hot water too long. 

If the guardian refused to come out, I’d just chuck more thermite in. 

The dot on the map began to move towards me now. Its body, redding in what seemed like boiling burn wounds, jumped towards me again. 

“Gurryyyaaa!” 

Was that an angry roar, or a pained scream? Either way, it moved onto the transversable terrain, but I was trying to lure it towards the areas where I tossed the green disks, and then it was on. The green disks I tossed, M15 Anti-Tank mines, were triggered as the monster’s belly pressed into them. A chain explosion erupted with enough force to propel its massive body upward. 

The M15 Anti-Tank mine, a pressure-sensitive mine used by the US Military, was a disk-shaped item with a 30cm round diameter. In VMB, the top knob was a safety device meant to make it easier to install by turning it. A normal human’s weight wouldn’t trigger it, as it required something over 150kg to land on top of it to trigger. For game balance purposes, the explosion radius was suppressed to down to 3m, but as a result, the sensing range was improved slightly to make it detonate even if the object fell near the mine. The guardian, which was launched into the air by the explosion, sunk back into the boiling water. I held my shotgun at the ready, preparing for the monster to emerge once more from the water, but the dot on the map stopped moving before it disappeared. 

I killed it… Didn’t I? The body still remained underwater, so I wasn’t sure about it. Then, from the other side of the room, I heard a loud clicking sound that meant the lock had been undone. As it turned out, I succeeded in slaying the guardian.

Chapter end