[REND] 18.2 - Rambo Wolf Gal

I sprinted to the side of the docks, recalling my swimming skills, which were just so-so. And by so-so, I meant that I had difficulties if t

I sprinted to the side of the docks, recalling my swimming skills, which were just so-so. And by so-so, I meant that I had difficulties if the water was deeper than my very unimpressive height.  

I was never a fan of swimming. I didn’t even touch any body of water while we were in Bali a couple of years back, whether it was a pool or the sea. Were the pool parties during high school the last time that I was underwater? I was mostly flapping around the shallow end of the pool back then.

As I plunged several feet into the ocean, I was worried that I’d drown.

What if I couldn’t swim in this new body? Would this body from another dimension even float? I couldn’t even remove my boots-whatever because they were stuck to my body.

I just skipped over this very crucial part of the infiltration while planning it.

But my worries were erased the moment I started to swim. Each arm stroke and kick was so powerful that my body surged forward in bursts. My shoes weren’t a problem at all. Problem was, even though I zipped through water, I wasn’t very coordinated. I couldn’t do that freestyle swimming thing of raising my head out of water every time I raised my left arm. Or was it supposed to be with the right arm?

No matter. I could hold my breath. My lungs didn’t ask for air as I swam like mad in the direction of the 2Ms base, keeping the concrete side of the docks to my left.

I heard the rumble of an engine muffled by the water. My skin could feel unnatural vibrations. That stupid speedboat was coming after me. Hopefully, Overdrive managed to escape.

The noise of rattling gunfire was subdued by the water. I also heard the zipping bullets aimed at me. I pushed my body out of the water, took a huge gulp of air, and dove down several feet. Movies had taught me that water was an effective shield against bullets. And there was some truth to this. I remembered a science teacher telling us that just a few feet of water could shatter bullets upon impact because at those speeds, the water couldn’t be pushed out of the way fast enough and might as well be solid.

I wasn’t scared by getting shot at—bullets could barely do anything to me. But I didn’t want to get injured, even if slightly, because the predator brain of this transformation would want to eat whoever would shoot me. That’d just delay me.

What was that? Through all the noise of shooting and the boat closing in, I picked up a sound that I was sure I should worry about. Some sort of hissing. But I couldn’t put my claw on what it—

KABOOM!

I got slapped by a huge force deeper into the water. I fumbled in the depths, trying to get my bearings. The bastards fired a rocket at me!

Firstly, that was fucking cool! It made me really feel like I was in an action movie. Secondly, and more importantly, I wanted to eat the insolent weakling who dared do that to me! I didn’t attempt to hold back the urge to consume—just get this over with and continue my mission.

I played suspenseful music in my head while swimming to the speedboat, pretending that I was a shark going after prey. The dudes on the boat must be thinking that they could get me with that rocket. I could hear laughter and cheering. They slowed their boat, probably to look for any piece of me remaining.

Dun, dun, dun, dun… I swam upward and broke the water surface. Claws latched onto the side of the boat like grappling hooks thrown by pirates onto their target ship. I also liked pirate movies, the few of them that existed. I was a pirate werewolf, boarding a vessel about to be plundered!

Okay, that sounded cheesy and immature.

“Behind us!” yelled the guy who first spotted me. He opened fire.

I protected my body using my face because I was badass. Some bullets tore the skin on my cheeks. Others ricocheted off my indestructible fangs and hit the guy who had fired at me. He didn’t make a sound as he fell. I grabbed his head and brought it to my mouth. By then, the three other guys on the boat started screaming and shooting at me as well. The pinpricks all over my body made me madder.

Why were they disturbing me while eating? Didn’t they have any manners? They were next after I finished with Speedboat Guy One. I chomped his head, crushing the skull and squeezing out his brain. I chewed mushy grey matter and brittle bone shards while getting shot at. Then I swallowed it and faced the other Speedboat Guys.

“Holy shit! We’re going to die!” One of them jumped out of the boat. I had to get him later because he had been marked as food for shooting me. Dammit.

“Eat this, Adumbrae!” Hulking Speedboat Guy, with a heavily scarred face, pointed an arm encased in metal at me. Parts of it opened up and spikes shot out, embedding into my skin.

Krzzt, krzzt, krrzzzzt!

Electricity coursed through wires connected to the spikes and shocked me. My muscles spasmed uncontrollably, and my limbs threatened to lock in place. It only made me angrier.

“RHRAAGGH!” This piece of shit was in a hurry to end his life! While still being electrocuted, I yanked off the spikes and lunged at Hulking Speedboat Guy.

He threw a punch with his humongous, armored fist. I caught his hand with my mouth and chomped on it, fangs crunching metal, wires, and bones. He only grunted as he swung his normal fist at me. I caught it with my hand. With one mighty tug, I severed his arm from his body. That was what made him scream.

“Ahhh!” The last guy also leaped out of the speedboat, copying the previous guy.

I chased after him and caught his leg. He slammed against the side of the boat and rolled sideways to the back, since we were still moving forward. Somehow, his body got caught up in the motor blades of the boat.

“Help! Help! Yargghhh!” Spraying blood mixed with the frothing water.

The bizarre turn of events momentarily shocked some sanity back into my raging mind. That… was funny. I knew he was dead because I no longer craved to eat him. I let go of his leg and returned to finish off Hulking Speedboat Guy. He had some fight in him left, managing to pull out a grenade from his vest with his very wrecked aug-arm.

“I’m taking you down with me!” he yelled before pulling the grenade’s pin with his teeth.

I grabbed the grenade. I had a few seconds before this exploded, right? There were some scenes in war movies where the guys could stop a grenade from exploding by holding a part of it. I wasn’t sure how to do that, so I just threw the grenade in the direction of Swimmer Speedboat Guy.  

It exploded a second later in the water and killed Swimmer Speedboat Guy.

Maybe?

The urge to chase after him did fade, but I wasn’t sure if that was because he died or he was becoming insignificant.

Like, I didn’t care much to eat Hulking Speedboat Guy now, despite him electrocuting me.

Did the gap in our strength affect my cravings? Hulking Speedboat Guy was weak, slowly dying from blood loss. It was actually surprising that he was still conscious after I ripped off his normal arm. In comparison, I had gotten much stronger. My clothes started growing real fur as they melded with my skin. My body became more muscular, with about half a foot added to my height. And, my god, I had six-pack abs etched in stone!

I was a furry Amazon warrior!

Hulking Speedboat Guy looked up at me. “Guess this is what I get working for monsters…”

I nodded. That was a very cool line. I didn’t like that he was taking the focus of the scene away from me.

“What are you waiting for, you monster? Finish—!”

I stepped on his head and broke it like a watermelon. I didn’t allow his coolness to continue because this was my show.

Where to next?

There were three boats parked by the 2Ms’ base. Parked? I suppose that term could also apply to boats and not just cars. Oh, yeah. Airplanes could park too. Could air balloons—?

Cut that out!

I forced my brain to focus on the boats. The first one looked like a large fishing boat with a crane. A ‘trawler’ was what they were called, I think, dragging wide nets behind them. The second one was a fancy, mid-sized yacht. The last was a tug boat. Which one was the boat from Red Island?

The tug boat was too small to be transporting a lot of cargo, so scratch that. The yacht was quite large, but I doubted it could carry crates of monsters; a waste to use a yacht for such a job. Could be that the yacht ferried clients of the 2Ms to and from Red Island.

The clear winner was the trawler. Plenty of room for cargo, and it could use the crane for moving stuff.

Question was… are important stuff on it?

I stared at the speedboat’s dashboard. We had stopped, and I didn’t know how to make it move again. I fiddled with the wheel and controls for a couple of seconds before smashing it in frustration. Enough delays! I jumped into the water and swam with all my might toward the fishing boat. The docks were too expansive to search for important shit. I’d try my luck with the boat first.

While swimming toward the fake fishing trawler, I wondered if the scientists on Red Island could help me with my situation. Could they stop Spooky Erind? They were supposed to deal only with artificial Adumbrae, those that they induced to transform, but their processes might apply to a ‘natural’ Adumbrae like me.

However, after attacking their base, the 2Ms wouldn’t help me, duh. I wouldn’t approach them, anyway. I could kidnap scientists and force them to work for me. That meant I had to reach Red Island first. Hoping to find a clue on board the boat.

With claws on my hands and my feet—yep, my feet started to become more beastly—climbing the side of the boat was easy-peasy. Would the holes that I poked in its metal hull sink it? Probably not. Dario wanted to put a tracker on this thing to find Red Island. His plan wouldn’t work if I accidentally sank this boat.

What if I ran into that bastard? Could I eat—footsteps!

Many footsteps. People were rushing to the side of the boat. I got spotted.

I rushed the climb and swung over the railings. Speed was the key. These fuckers should be humans because it was unlikely that half a dozen Adumbrae guards were waiting to jump on me. I was met with six guys wearing full body armor, their faces covered with masks and googles, training their guns on me.

The right thing to do was charge at them before they could shoot. But I hesitated because I sensed something odd with them—they didn’t have any scent. Their clothes, their guns, all of that stuff had their own smell. But the human smell of these guys was… not there.

Something earthy covered that mysterious absence.

And I couldn’t hear their beating hearts. I couldn’t sense any blood flow. It was as if they weren’t alive.

“Graoogh…” What the hell? Was this an Adumbrae power?

They let loose a hail of lead.

I crossed my arms. The bullets were painful, but not really. Some of them managed to wound me—scratch, more like—but most bounced harmlessly off my skin, leaving only reddish marks. Negligible. I dove into the middle of the pack of whatevers and punched the first one.

He broke apart. Literally, he shattered as if he were some clay pot wearing armor. It made me think of the terracotta warriors of China. With a sweeping kick, I hit the rest of the squad, shattering them all in the same manner.

My nose radar detected a new scent. I gazed up at the show-off jackass standing with crossed arms on top of the crate. He wore a dark blue bodysuit that showed off his muscles. He had his long blonde hair flowing in the ocean breeze, as if he were in a shampoo commercial. He haughtily looked down on me, raising his squarish chin.

Did he make these clay forms? This had to be the suckiest power I had encountered so far. If this was all he got, then he was toast.

Smug Corpse—he was going to be a hundred percent dead soon—jumped off the crane and landed about ten yards from me. His bare feet crunched the surface of the deck.

Why the fuck is he barefoot? Did he spurt clay out of his soles?

“Those are not my creations,” said Smug Corpse, pointing at the pieces of the clay soldiers. Then, he looked around. “Finlay! If you’re listening, send your useless dolls elsewhere. They’re not of help here!”  

Was he talking to another Adumbrae? Apparently, Smug Corpse wanted a duel with me.

Smug Corpse looked at me and bowed. “I suppose introductions are in order. My name is Nemenzo, and I am the end of you.”

Oh, wow. That was a good line.

“Groarghh… Raahh arhh…” I can’t talk with this mouth. I liked his theatrics, which was why I wasn’t attacking him yet. Let us see if we can get a good fight scene here. All matches I had so far had been against fodder.

“Ah, I see your predicament, you furry beast,” said Smug Corpse. “I’ll simply assume that you have manners and likewise introduced yourself. I, Nemenzo, am tasked with guarding this ship.”

He stretched his hands to the sides. They crackled with purple lightning like those displays at science fairs. The burst of energies became wilder. It’d be a difficult fight if electricity were his power—that was a weakness of Adumbrae if the voltage was high enough. I expected him to shoot lightning at me, as if he were a wizard. My leg muscles were raring to jump out of the way.

Instead, the purple energies solidified into two rapidly rotating plates the size of frisbees. Burning air filled my nose. I got the hint that getting hit by those things was bad.

“To make our match longer,” said Nemenzo, “I’m going to tell you about my power. I will throw these energy discs at you. I expect you to avoid them. However, they will follow you. Do you understand that, you brute? The energy discs will continually follow you until you are reduced to dozens of cubes.”

He flung the discs at me.

(Author's Notes: This is the first (sort of) appearance of our favorite enemy from the previous version. For the information of new readers, that clay guy (not yet shown) is incredibly annoying. This other Adumbrae is a new character, though. Let's see how they'll do against Erind. The next chapter will also be Erind. The one after that will probably be one of the hero wannabes, so we can see what they're doing.

Elaborating on the plans for a new book, an adventure/fantasy story will be easier to write than REND, so it won't affect REND's release rate. We'll still have 3x chapter per week. It's on me to become faster at writing. Another thing is that a story with litrpg elements (even if they're light-ish) can easily draw readers on RR/SH. REND will help the new story get on its feet. In turn, the new story will funnel readers to REND, who otherwise wouldn't try it. They'll feed into each other. This is my big-brained plan to grow REND while also tapping the litrpg market.

The new story will be a first-person female lead. And she'll be a zombie in a fantasy world (lol). She'll have a strong narrative voice like Erind, unhinged at times, but will be different. It'll be stale if I just copied Erind. There'll be no stats; rather, it'll be just skills. You can view it as a magic system instead of a litrpg system, for those of you who don't particularly like litrpg. And as I've mentioned, it'll be added to the tiers. We'll have a test chapter one this month, probably.

Thank you so much for your support!)