Chapter 1320: Stronger than a Demon tier
The junkyard seemed to be endless.
No matter which direction Logan looked in, it was all just plastered in junk, making him even wonder if that might just be the type of planet he was on. Finding a teleporter seemed as likely as finding a needle in a haystack, not that he had the time to leisurely search through it.
He was busy running away from the dog type beasts. Logan was doing his best to conserve the energy of his blasters since he didn"t have an endless supply of backup crystals with him. While trying to find a way out, he would only fire when those beasts came so close that he had to defend himself.
Unfortunately, even after half an hour of running around, Logan didn"t really get anywhere and the number of his pursuers hadn"t decreased at all. His AI was still scanning the area, but nothing useful had come of it, up until now.
"Those beasts seem to be on the same level as Intermediate tier beasts, so I can finish them with a single blast in a vital spot, but I"m down to three replacement crystals." Logan thought. "Did Eno just want to see me survive the onslaught of beasts, simulating how people might come after me for his knowledge, is there something about it that I have yet to grasp?"
"Could there be someone behind those dog-like beasts? Something like a pack leader? Do I have to defeat that guy, to make the others stop?"
If he continued to waste energy on these smaller beasts, then when meeting with the stronger one, a.s.suming there actually was one, he would eventually lose out. Logan tried to find another beast, but to no avail.
The cycle continued and Logan knew something had to change. He had only ten blasts left in his blaster before he had to recharge it. Then he would have to start fighting the beasts with his bare hands. Trying the same thing and getting no result Logan decided to run away from where the beasts were located.
They were quite fast, and eventually three stayed on his tail. One of them was running across the top of the junk pile, and when it caught up to Logan in his speed suit and was side by side, it leapt up in the air going for the attack.
"Here I thought you were smarter, you should have learned from your brethren that once you"re in the air, it just makes it easier to hit you." Logan thought.
With a headshot the beast was dead, but that"s when Logan noticed that the other two had stopped following him. To be more precise, both of them stood on top of the junk piles and just looked at him.
"That"s strange they have been following me for a while, so why stop now?" Logan wondered. "Is this the end of their territory? Will I get somewhere else if I go in that direction?"
At first he kept his eye on them, taking a few careful steps back, yet they continued to just stare at him. Taking it one step further, he showed his back to them, taking a few more steps, before quickly turning around, having expected them to follow, but nothing of that sort had happened.
In fact, one of them seemed to have gone back, whereas the sole remaining one was looking from Logan to his partner, as if trying to decide who to follow. In the end, he decided against Logan.
As such, Logan walked through the junkyard but all of the pieces of sc.r.a.p that were around seemed to be useless. He couldn"t really make anything from them unless he activated his soul weapon, and that seemed like a waste.
After unsuccessfully searching for about an hour, Logan was starting to wonder why he hadn"t seen anything else. He had been sure to encounter another type of monster, but after scanning for signs of life, the AI had found nothing at all.
He decided that he had no choice, but to turn around, and head back to where the hounds were.
"I must have missed something."
Upon returning, he was unable to see the hounds, but stepping one foot into the area he was in before, and the piles of junk started to move again, realigning the dogs. Immediately they started to go after him.
"Let"s test this!" Logan thought, turning back and running around. Then when they reached the same point as last time they stopped again.
"This is the only place with beasts that I"ve been able to find nearby, and those dogs, for whatever reason they stop there each time. I know that this isn"t the territory of something else, so they must have some reason for not wanting to move too far away... are they protecting something? Richard had to have a reason for putting me here in the teleporter and not the rest of the planet. Something has to be there." Logan concluded.
Running in again, Logan quickly blasted the guard dogs, and dealt with them quickly. Running through going deeper into the area he was in before, he was met with even more dogs. Now there was a group of five surrounding him. He fired off his blasters and a few shots missed while one managed to hit.
For the first time, they had gotten up close, so he immediately swung out his arm, allowing the dog to bite it. The metal casing around it fell off, revealing Logan"s Dalki hand.
The next second Logan used his great strength to swing the dog into the others, hitting them away, but at the same time his blasters had run out. On top of that when he looked back up, as quick as he dealt with five of them, he could see another five, and more coming from a distance.
"I"ve never seen this many beasts in a single area before, and I already killed so many of them. How are there so many?!" Logan thought.
Desperately thinking that perhaps there was another teleporter somewhere in the area, Logan ran in again. He was down to his last remaining backup crystal and he would rather keep it from his suits. As such, he resorted to using his Dalki arm, yet the numbers of the dogs attacking him grew to twenty. Logan changed the spiders from a speed suit, into a defensive suit.
It was sort of blocking most of the attacks, and with his arm he could deal with them in a couple of hits. They were no match against a Dalki, but even then the numbers weren"t decreasing and somehow they were increasing the further in he got.
""Even with the Dalki arm, I"m going to tire out eventually. They"ll be able to get through to my armour. It doesn"t look like there are stronger beasts than those! Do I just have to fight an army of them? Will it even stop if I kill a thousand of them?! You could have told me something more, Eno!" Logan was frustrated and taking out his frustration he continued to defeat the dogs.
It certainly was a tough battle, but it seemed more like a battle of endurance rather than strength. What was more frustrating for Logan was that even though he was racking his head trying to figure out how to solve this, he just lacked vital information about what the ancient vampire wanted from him.
"Fine, you want to test me out on my strength then so be it!" Logan thought, as he dived right into one of the junk piles and immediately pressed his hand against it, activating his soul weapon, he soon could control all the metallic components turning giving them minds similar to machines.
For a lack of time, he forewent turning them into spiders first and instead he started to turn the surrounding junk into three giant snakes.
"Get rid of them!" Logan shouted, and the giant snakes quickly followed their master"s command. With their sheer size they were easily able to take out what felt like the endless wave of dogs.
Now with some guards on his side, Logan had some breathing s.p.a.ce. He started to go to all the piles of rubbish in the nearby area and created more giant snakes out of them. His MC cells would soon run out without any beast crystals to utilise their power but that"s when Logan discovered something.
All of the dogs seemed to originate from one particular trash pile, and they also seemed reluctant to leave it, despite the incoming snakes.
"So I was right, they"re really protecting something and whatever it is, it has to be in there!"
Ordering a couple of the giant trash snakes he had created, they started to attack and Logan himself got involved fighting them as well. Eventually all of those surviving the trash pile were destroyed.
Using his ability again, instead of creating something from it, he decided to move it to the side, and that"s when Logan could see it. Something looked to be growing out of the ground, similar to a giant hand but what struck his eye was what it was holding, a crystal.
It didn"t seem like a beast crystal, yet at the same time it did. Staring into its pattern it looked like a crystal made from s.p.a.ce itself.
Walking up to it, Logan touched it out of curiosity. Just to be safe, he touched it with his Dalki hand, but nothing happened. Carefully, he started to yank the crystal out from the ground. Surprisingly, it had been rooted more strongly than he had antic.i.p.ated, forcing him to use all of his strength.
In an instant, howls from all over were heard at the same time.
"What is going on?" Logan asked.
"What you have in your hand, is one of the secrets of the world, knowledge that the humans once had lost."
Tuning back around, Logan could see an Eno Clone standing behind the strange hand. Logan wondered how and when he had gotten there, or if he had been hiding the whole time.
It was hard to tell if it was the same or a different clone.
"What is it?" Logan asked, more interested in the crystal than the antics of the old man.
"This is what you would call a "Nest Crystal". It"s something even more valuable than a Demon tier crystal. It"s the lifeblood of certain planets and it"s what it used to create beasts."
The clone then held out his hand, offering it to Logan.
"You have successfully pa.s.sed the test. Are you ready to learn more about this world?"