My Tribrid System: More than a Monster-Chapter 80: Low on Energy

Chapter 78

"RAY! The nape! The fucking nape is where the Aberrant’s heart lies.

Tear the damned nape open and you kill the fucker!" Van screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing through the clearing and causing the Aberrant to freeze in visible shock.

****

Bruce had just landed several metres away from the monster when Van’s warning reached him, causing him to pause for a brief moment as the tactical information processed.

Even the Aberrant stood paralyzed, slowly tilting its head to stare at Van with a gaze that promised a slow, agonizing death.

A murderous glint flashed past its single eye, lingering as it focused entirely on the human who had just exposed its most guarded secret.

The Aberrant began glaring at Van for more seconds than it could count, its nostrils flaring with primal rage.

It began to turn, muscles coiling as it prepared to charge and pulverize the human who had dared to speak.

However, before it could even begin its stride, Bruce reacted with predatory speed, appearing in front of the Aberrant before the monster could even blink.

"... So, that is your weak point, eh? Hahahaha~"

The werewolf sounded almost manic, cackling with a dark, guttural humor that matched the monstrous form he inhabited.

Bang—!

The werewolf leaped off the ground with tremendous force, propelling himself directly toward the Aberrant’s face.

"Get away from me!" The Aberrant roared in a fit of pique, swinging a massive claw in a wide arc intended to swat the beast out of the air.

With an effortless, acrobatic spin, Bruce avoided the lethally sharp claws and landed firmly on the creature’s broad shoulder.

His singular focus was now fixed on reaching the space behind the Aberrant’s head—the nape—to end this nightmare once and for all.

"Behind you, Ray!" Van shouted another warning at the top of his lungs.

In that fleeting moment of focus on the nape, the Aberrant took advantage of the werewolf’s slight hesitation.

It violently shunted its shoulder upward to throw Bruce off balance.

Simultaneously, its second set of claws, which were now gleaming with a faint, ominous light, rocketed toward the werewolf’s skull, ready to split it in two.

The werewolf spun in mid-air like a broken spear, his reflexes overriding the instinct to fall.

"Rending!"

A dozen jagged slashes of dark energy burst from his claws, slamming into the incoming hand.

The force was enough to deflect the blow and shatter several of the Aberrant’s fingers, sending shards of bone and blue blood flying.

’Damn it! I really don’t have much energy left to expend. Two minutes at most before I lose this transformation,’ Bruce thought worriedly, feeling the drain on his core.

’I need to help somehow. I can’t just stand around here like a spectator,’ Chloe mused, her eyes darting frantically around the battlefield.

She searched for anything—a weapon, a distraction, or a piece of debris—that she could use to assist the werewolf in taking down the gargantuan threat.

The Aberrant, sensing the werewolf’s waning strength, wasn’t about to remain a stationary target.

With blazing speed, it twirled around with the grace of a dark ballerina.

The sudden, centrifugal force immediately threw Bruce off its body, sending him hurling through the air toward a nearby ruin.

He lost control of his trajectory, smashing through the skeletal remains of a half-destroyed building.

The impact caused the entire structure to groan and finally crumble down, burying him in a tomb of dust and stone.

The Aberrant growled low in its throat, turning its hateful gaze back toward Van.

It took one heavy, menacing step forward, intent on silencing the boy forever.

When...

Swooosh—!

A heavy, whistling sound cut through the air, causing the monster to turn its head just in time to be whacked squarely in the face by a massive, reinforced wall fragment from the collapsed building.

The wall shattered into dust as it collided with the Aberrant’s snout. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

A fresh trail of blood trickled through the air, but the physical damage was negligible to the monster. It was the insult of the strike that mattered.

"Awhooooooo!"

Bruce’s howl shattered the silence as he pounced from the wreckage like a starving predator.

He was a blur of brown and silver, blitzing past the stunned humans and vaulting high into the air.

His claws were out on full display, gleaming with the last of his energy as he swung them down, bashing them into the Aberrant’s face faster than it could react.

Even though Aberrants typically grew stronger as they were injured, this one seemed to have hit its threshold.

For some reason, its movements were finally growing sluggish, as if the weight of its wounds was finally starting to override its primal rage.

The creature was sent reeling backwards for a few agonizing moments, giving Bruce just enough time to swiftly maneuver behind the Aberrant.

He coiled his muscles and jumped upward with full force, the sheer pressure of his take-off causing the ground beneath him to split wide open in a web of cracks.

He was airborne.

With a primal howl that echoed through the ruins, he landed squarely on the Aberrant’s back.

His claws dug into the hard, rocky surface of the creature’s plating, sinking a few inches deep into the calcified hide.

It was all the purchase he needed; he pushed off with explosive power, speeding toward the Aberrant’s exposed nape.

"Get off me!" The Abberant bellowed angrily, its voice a discordant rasp of fury as it swung its elbow backward at maximum speed to swat him away.

Bruce caught sight of the incoming limb from the corner of his eye.

The movement gave him a desperate idea—he leaped off the Aberrant’s back mid-climb, enabling him to dodge the bone-crushing elbow by the skin of his teeth.

While suspended mid-air, his claws began to shine with a brilliant, predatory light.

With a savage swing, a dozen lines of jagged energy burst out, crashing rapidly onto the nape of the monster.

Each ethereal slash dug three inches deep into the tough flesh.

It wasn’t even a metre of depth, but it was significant—thick, blue blood could be seen seeping out in tiny droplets for the first time.

Progress!

Yet, the victory felt hollow as the werewolf felt his energy draining at an alarming rate.

If something didn’t change soon, the transformation would fail, leaving him unable to continue the fight.

Bruce was in a state of free-fall, about to hit the ground, when all of a sudden, an invisible force slammed into his back.

Instead of falling, he was propelled forward with a sudden surge of momentum—hurled directly toward the Aberrant’s back once again.

Quickly glancing back, he spotted Chloe.

Her hands were outstretched in the air, trembling with the effort of her telekinetic push, and a thin trail of blood was trickling down from her nose as she pushed past her limits.

Bruce subtly nodded, acknowledging the assist.

He decided to capitalize on the boost by kicking the air behind him with tremendous force, causing a deafening bang to split the atmosphere.

He shot forward like a loose arrow at breakneck speed, a silver blur of vengeance.

"I fucking hate you!" the Aberrant bellowed, its voice reaching a fever pitch as it twirled around sharply.

Its hand was cocked back, and with every ounce of strength remaining in its massive frame, it swung a desperate counter-punch forward.

BANG—!

’Shoot.’

Bruce’s heart sank.

It was too late; he was moving too fast to change his trajectory in time.

The only thing he could manage was a frantic lean to the side, but it wasn’t nearly enough to clear the path of the strike.

BAM—!

The punch landed with the staggering force of a high-speed bullet train.

Right in front of the horrified eyes of the onlookers, the sheer power of the impact was so great that half of Bruce’s torso appeared to cave in, with blood splattering into the air in a gruesome mist.

The residual force of the hit didn’t just stop him; it sent him flying backward with sickening velocity.

He crashed into the ground and skipped across the jagged earth like a stone on water before coming to a wet, unmoving thud several metres away.