Chapter 381: Catching Up

Xavier’s boots cracked against wet bark as he launched himself off the branch, tucking into a roll that sent him skidding across the mossy undergrowth.

The forest was really dense here. There was knotted timber and bioluminescent fungi stretching in every direction, the distant crash of the seashore reduced to a muted hum beneath the canopy.

Somewhere above, the twin moons of Xylos cast their pale light through breaks in the leaves, painting the forest floor in irregular stripes of silver.

He could finally see Ethan’s silhouette again. He was just fifty meters ahead.

"Fuck!" Xavier cursed under his breath.

He broke into a sprint, ducking beneath a low-hanging branch that scraped across the back of his neck.

He was about to lose Ethan’s trace again.

"Lt. Hawn," Xavier called into their troops’ private communication channel installed into their hidden badge device.

His voice was clipped between breaths as he ordered, "Target’s heading northeast. Deploy intercept on the coastline perimeter—there’s no way he’ll cut through to the seashore directly. Funnel him."

[Copy, General. Beta Team is repositioning now.]

Xavier’s jaw tightened, trying to close the distance and end this chase with his own hands. But Xavier just couldn’t get close.

Every time he surged forward, Ethan seemed to widen the gap—it was not normal.

Then Ethan turned his head, barely a glance over his shoulder as he sensed Xavier’s presence. He flashed a smirk so casual, so unbothered, that it made Xavier’s blood boil.

"I’d save my strength if I were you!" Ethan called back cheerfully.

Xavier didn’t let his words trip his rhythm and continued to surge forward.

BOOM!

—The ground in front of him exploded.

Dirt and root fragments sprayed outward as something massive broke through the forest floor.

Xavier threw himself sideways on reflex alone.

His body twisted midair as a pair of serrated forelegs slashed through the space where his torso had been earlier.

The wind displacement alone was enough to ruffle his hair.

He caught a thick branch with one hand. His grip nearly failed to stick against the damp bark.

He swung his legs up to wrap around it, stabilizing himself three meters off the ground.

Below him, the thing unfurled itself.

It was huge—easily the size of a grown man, but compressed and dense.

Its body was plated in overlapping segments of hardened chitin that gleamed a dull, sickite1 gray under the moonlight.

That was the base creature—a Tatu1, one of the burrowing insectoids who mostly hid under the ground.

But seemingly grafted onto its front were the forelegs of a Kamakiri1.

Each limb was as long as Xavier was tall, edged with hooked barbs that still dripped with soil and sap from the ground.

A hybrid Lowborn.

It must be Ethan’s handiwork.

Xavier didn’t stay still as his free hand reached for the light pulse gun holstered at his thigh.

In the same motion, he unclipped a flash grenade from his belt and hurled it downward.

The grenade bounced once off the creature’s armored back and detonated—

SHRRRKK!

A burst of searing white light shone into the night sky. Alongside the light, there was a concussive force and pieces of metal that scattered around.

It made the hybrid lowborn flinch, its forelegs shielding its face.

Xavier fired, three quick bursts from the pulse gun. Each one struck the creature’s exposed flank.

The shots hit it, and the chitin cracked and smoked where the energy bolts landed.

But the creature shook it off, like a dog flinging water, and the cracks sealed over with a wet, biological squelch as the armor regenerated.

"Tch." Xavier reholstered the pulse gun and drew his portable plasma rifle instead.

The weapon was heavier, bulkier, and designed for anti-vehicular work rather than infantry combat.

But against something with that kind of regenerative plating, precision wasn’t the priority.

Penetration was.

He braced his back against the branch, aimed down the sights at the hybrid’s head, and squeezed the trigger.

BANG

The plasma bolt struck just below the creature’s left compound eye.

The bolt didn’t just hit it, but also detonated on contact. The superheated matter was spraying outward in a fan of orange-white sparks.

SKRRRIIIIIIII

The hybrid screeched, a sound like metal dragged across stone, and lurched backward.

Xavier had a grim smile.

Still, no hole punched through the skull.

Its armor was too thick for that.

But the creature’s right foreleg, the one it had raised to shield itself, was gone. It was severed cleanly at an elbow-like joint.

Black ichor came out from the stump in blobs.

Good enough.

BANG!

Xavier fired again and again, each shot targeted a joint or a seam in the plating, anywhere the chitin was thinner.

The hybrid tried to close the distance, its remaining foreleg slashing wildly at the tree trunk, but Xavier was already moving.

He dropped from the branch, rolling, coming up on one knee with the rifle shouldered.

BANG!

A fourth shot took out its other foreleg entirely.

By the time his troops arrived, he had already managed to take down the hybrid. It was still twitching, but it couldn’t stand anymore.

Two soldiers finished it with sustained plasma fire while the rest secured the perimeter.

[General.] Lt. Hawn’s voice crackled through the badge device. [We’ve boxed him in. Northeast sector, about four hundred meters from the coastline. But he’s... not trying to run away.]

But Xavier was already on the move. He covered the distance at a dead run.

He slung the plasma rifle across his back. His laser dagger was already drawn out and humming faintly in his grip.

The forest thinned as he approached the coast. The trees grew shorter, and the undergrowth gave way to sand-dusted rock and scrub brush.

He found Lt. Hawn and a six-man squad in a loose semicircle around a clearing.

Ethan was standing perfectly still in the center.

Not standing. But—

—Dismounting.

The thing Ethan hid materialized. First, it shimmered in the air, and then a smear of color appeared. Then the full outline of a creature came into view, and it made Xavier’s stomach turn.

Sclerites, hardened, chitinous, or calcareous plates that form part of the exoskeleton in arthropods (like insects and spiders)ArmadilloPraying Mantis