Chapter 328 - Too Hot To Drop

Quickly regaining his bearing, Afton pressing the searingly hot barrel of the Ash Maker into the tentacle holding him. It takes a bit of force, but he eventually managed to burn through it. He honestly doubted that'd still be the case if it hadn't been burned earlier.

Once free he leaps to the side while spraying more flames at Patient Zero, illuminating the cave as the monster turns into a literal pyre. Still, this only made it more dangerous to him, as its tentacle flail around and start swinging towards him, threatening to break, bruise, and now, burn.​​

While Patient Zero seemed incredibly tough, his weakness was indeed fire. Its deft control of its tentacles changed into a flailing mess as the flames enveloped it, only proving a danger if it got lucky or had a moment of clarity through its searing pain.

Afton continued firing a stream of napalm at it, but notices too late when the barrel literally melts apart. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that he seemed to have run out of gas aswell. Leaving with an empty, molten mess of a weapon.

Growling, he throws it at Patient Zero and retrieves his Anti-Material rifle, pulling the bolt and shoving in some explosive bullets.

He didn't need to aim or keep still for this, his 11 Strength plus [Grit] gave him more than enough muscle-power to easily use the Anti-Material rifle. If anyone else were to try using it like this they'd find their entire shoulder dislocated, multiple torn ligaments, and likely a concussion as well.

He raises the rifle and fires the explosive round into the burning pyre that is Patient Zero.

*BAANG!* *BOOOM!!*

A bout of hot wind blows past him as a large chunk of the burning pyre literally disintegrates in an instant. Whatever healing factor it has currently being restraint by the unrelenting flames.

*Clack*

Pulling the bolt again, he readies another bullet, using VATS to highlight Patient Zero's outline to figure out the position of its head before firing at it.

*BAANG!*

The head of Patient Zero is completely blown from its body, a spatter of green fluid covers the nearby wall, but the body doesn't stop dead yet. Still somehow standing and flailing around at random.

"Why. Won't. You. DIE!" Afton shouts, firing another shot, and another, another one. Until he completely runs out of explosive bullets. All that's left of Patient Zero is a pile of burning green mush, yet VATS still seems to claim that its alive. Even [Living Anatomy] registers its health as 20%...

Afton growls and slings the rifle onto his back and approaching the enemy. It was still burning, and writhed around as if it was still looking for him. Right now, it had no way to attack him, but that didn't mean it wouldn't eventually if he left it alive long enough.

He pulls out Lucky and fires all of its rounds into the heap, but once he checks again he finds that he'd done literally no damage at all. The bullets seeming to just sink into the amorphous green blob.

"Alright, let's try something else." Afton mutters, this time shooting it with That Gun and achieving similar results. Afterwards he tries the shotgun and Plasma pistol, with the latter doing a small amount of damage, though, nothing meaningful.

In all honesty, he was actually starting to enjoy trying different weapons on it... It was like a sort of stress ball, one that you shot at.

Elijah's Advanced LAER did more damage than the rest, but was still lacking... He'd have to waste all of its ammunition to kill it. Sonic Emitter even better, the shockwave seeming to destabilise it, but Afton had one last weapon to try.

He'd not killed anything with the Fallen Ranger Sequoia yet, but Patient Zero was as good a target as any. He raised the weapon and fires it once at the blob, his brows rising as the bullet literally causes the blob to deflate and eventually disappear into nothingness.

...

"The fuck?" Afton mutters, so surprised that he entirely ignores the notifications appearing in his peripheral.

He looks down at the weapon and examines it with his Pipboy, quickly finding the problem... If you could call it that.

[Fallen Ranger Sequoia]

Strength Req : 7

Dmg : 70

Crit dmg : 70

Crit mult : 1.5x

AP : 30

Weight : 4

Value : 20000

Special : Executes enemies below 15% Health

...

"Err, what? I don't remember this being here..." he mutters, spotting the special function on it... Had it always been there, or did he have to kill something to reveal it?...

He rubs his temples, feeling as if he was missing something here... Regardless though, he was pretty happy with it. Sure, below 15% Health against humans was basically useless, but against Deathclaws and other massive creatures? It was pretty fucking broken, Patient Zero being a prime example... Speaking of which, he glances at the notifications he ignored earlier.

[Challange Complete : Abominable]

[Abominable v3 Perk acquired]

[Abominable v3] : Increases damage done to Abominations by 10%

[Patient Zero slain, Perk Acquired : Cure for the Curious]

[Cure for the Curious] : Damage done to people afflicted with deadly diseases is increased by 30%

Afton snorts at this, if someone was afflicted with a deadly disease, would he need to fight them in the first place?... Though, he supposed that Patient Zero was indeed in that category, so maybe it isn't as useless as he thinks.

"No further movement detected, good job." Nyx breaks him from his thoughts, making him realise that he was still in a cave that leads to a burning canyon passage... Hopefully it wouldn't last too long, otherwise he might be stuck here for a while. At least now he could send robots in to fully clear up the fungus. This should be the end of it now that he thinks about it, unless some government facility still has samples hidden away somewhere... In which case he'd need to destroy them before it can spread.

Shaking his head, he begins walking towards the exit, happy at a job well done.