Chapter 640 - Victory?

The Supermutant gives a grunt as it barely dodges the creature's large claw, but the grunts quickly change into screams of fear and terror as arms push their way out of the creature's stomach and grab the mutant.

It thrashes at the creature with its Proton Axe in an attempt to free itself, but the wounds it gives aren't nearly enough to dissuade the monster.

Afton was sure it'd be absorbed 'Blob-style', but when the clawed hands start raking themselves across the Supermutants flesh, leaving bloody marks, he was sure he was mistaken. Why bother injuring the target if you were going to eat it anyway?

Bloody splatters as the many claws disembowel the Supermutant, they tear its intestines out before cutting its throat and dropping it to the floor, where the main body starts marching towards the group again.

"You see what I mean!?" Afton says to Marcus at the others open fire on the monster, the bullets doing basically nothing as they sink into its flesh.

"How do we kill it!?" Marcus quickly asks but Afton just shakes his head, "No idea!... You guys should get outta here, I'll figure out a way to deal with it... Finish everything on the upper floors and get Usanagi outside... Now!"

Marcus nods and grabs his men, taking them to the upper floors and leaving Afton alone against the creature. "Hey look, I know you're probably mad I killed your master, but, he kinda deserved it. You know?" he says as it approaches. He dodges the slow swipe of its large claw, but once he's close enough the arms sprout from its body again, trying to grab him.

"Wait what's that?" he mutters while cutting off the offending limbs. Looking closer, it looks as if the limbs were attached to bodies of their own that lived inside the creature? No, that couldn't be right?

Afton gets in close as its larger arms try to claw him, using his Chainsword to cut straight them. Its arms fall to the ground in a heap, cut from the shoulder. It tries to step on its arms to reabsorb them but Afton just flicks them away with a plant whip and approaches to bait the other arms again.

Again, they reach for him, and again, he could see the bulge of the bodies connected to the arms... He gives a tentative stab at where their head should be located, which actually causes a pair of arms to go limp!

Could it be that the creature's it absorbed were still individual and just living in some sort of hive-state?

He chews his lip at the thought and thrusts his plant arm out, allowing incredibly strong roots to wrap and restrain its body. He knew they wouldn't hold it for long, especially considering what it did to the reinforced door earlier, but he only needed a moment.

*Slash!*

He slashes the creature's stomach deep enough to reach its spine, this disembowels it and allows all its intestines, to pool out... As well as more Test subjects, similar to the uncombined version of this creature... Was it just an incubator to reform the dead ones?... Urgh!

He stabs each of the 'newborns' in the face, cutting their brains as you were supposed to do in any zombie movie. They slump lifelessly as their brains are destroyed, but the creature just steps onto them and absorbs their bodies again, rendering all his work useless.

It tears out of its restraints as its wounds heal and march towards him, growling at his lack of results, he leaps up and slashes its head completely in half, destroying its brain and hopefully killing it???

The two flappy pieces of flesh and bone that used to compose its head get absorbed into the body, where another head is quickly grown...

*Slash!*

Another head comes off.

*Slash!*

Again, yet another head appears!

*Slash!*

Afton slashes and tears at the creature until his arms ache and he's out of breath... Once done, he steps back from the temporarily immobile creature and scowls, why would it not die!? His attacks had almost no effects whatsoever!? Aside from missing a couple eyes, it looked completely unhar-med... Hang out, it only had three pairs of eyes life, not counting the ones of its current head...

*Slash!*

*Cut!*

*Stab!*

The eyes disappear from its body as the head reforms... The last head, he hoped. Apparently the body was just a vessel for the creatures to control when the pilot is killed. And now, there was only one 'pilot' left.

*Chop!*

He cuts into the skull and the creature's body jolts as if struck by lightning, its flesh decomposing at a visible rate as it falls backwards. Afton doesn't forget to fill a vial with the substance so Dala can analyse it back at home. The creature quickly becomes a soupy mess of former-flesh, finally dying.

"I better get a level up for this, fuck." he mutters as he examines the puddle of flesh for any movement. After confirming that it's dead, he heads back into the chamber where Macka was, hoping to use his body to study Psykers... Or maybe how to duplicate his ability to manipulate organic matter.

However, as he enters the room, he quickly notices something wrong... Macka's body was gone...

Suddenly his danger sense flares, he whips around just in time to catch Macka who's thrusting his palms towards Afton's face, probably hoping to use is ability. "Haha! I win, Afton!"

Afton scowls, "Really!? You may survive a shot to the head, but I'm flying you straight into the sun once I got what I need from you." he retorts.

Macka laughs and shakes his head, "You think this suit of armour can stop me!? Laughable!" he exclaims as he grabs the blade formed from Afton's plant arm.

"ARRGH!" Afton exclaims as he drops the man, a massive migraine assaulting him and stripping his senses... He grabs his head to try and endure the pain, but Macka's laughter quickly cuts through his resistance like a knife.