Chapter 44

Wild Hunt 2

-:-

A Few Hours Later

Theo’s Hideout

Evening

Now that Theo has sworn to help Nichola with her ritual, Theo had no choice but to consider other ways of tackling this mission.

Stealth, while still an option, has become increasingly difficult due to the escalation of the Hellhole gangs.

With every notable criminal organization’s paranoia dialed up to eleven, their security levels were off the roof.

From the standard hidden cameras to summoned demons, the escalation has made the Hellhole district into a hodgepodge of military installations.

The last failed infiltration attempt of Theo into the Shigetsu Clan resulted in him running away from 3 Onis, 20 magic katana wielding Yakuzas and a hamster that was the size of a freaking minivan

Fortunately, Juno didn’t join them at that time, thus Theo didn’t hesitate on using his omnidirectional flame throwers to escape.

The idea of a full frontal assault was starting to become very tempting.

And besides, Theo couldn’t forget the 30 meter giants summoned by the criminals last month.

Those avatars of destruction were a sight to behold indeed.

Theo knew that he would eventually come to blows with such creatures, thus has spent the last month accelerating the completion of a couple of things that would act as countermeasures for such beasts.

First was the 20 meter Super Electromagnetic Cannon, or more commonly known as a Rail Gun.

If this thing was fired straight towards one of those monsters, they’re going to be losing a lot of weight.

This wasn’t how he intended to use the rail gun, but he had to be flexible.

And besides, he could still use it in a manner he initially planned, so he didn’t really lose anything by adding in an anti-giant function into it.

The second anti-giant weapon he had came in the form of his heavily modified F-22A Raptor.

He added some weapons built to destroy massive beings and structures.

One of such was the weapon Theo hated with passion: Nuclear Bombs.

At the moment, Theo had stockpiled a few low yield tactical nukes.

All of these nukes were left in an inactive state and could only be armed via Midas Alchemy.

Even if you shot it in the warhead with a 120mm smoothborne tank gun, it wont explode or release harmful radiation.

Theo prayed the day will never come when he has to unleash the nukes on anyone.

The last anti-large weapon he had was aimed beings like Onis and other beasts that didn’t exceed 5 meters in height.

It was a bronze power armor about 3 meters tall, with extremely thick experimental multi-layer shock absorbing heat resistant metal.

The metal was designed to disperse and defuse an impact instead of absorbing it like regular armor.

It was powered by 3 Archon Batteries the size of a normal human’s head and had a few thrusters on the back, side and front of the body armor in order to mitigate its painfully pathetic mobility.

Quite simply, it was Theo’s failed attempt to create a flying power armor similar to the hero Mechanicus

It was big, unwieldy and badass.

Theo dubbed it the ‘Terminator Armor’ and was created for excessively brutal close quarters engagements.

Its toughness was demonstrated when Theo fired the massive Rail Gun at it.

The Result: the Terminator Armor was squashed like a tin can and part of Theo’s hideout was completely destroyed.

The very idea that it was still in one piece and didn’t turn into dust after getting hit by such a massive shell was a clear sign that Theo was on to something when he bounded those metals in such an unorthodox manner.

The past 2 weeks of Theo’s life was spent repairing his hideout and his Terminator Armor.

Since he made sure that there was nothing in the area he fired the Rail Gun at, the time it took to repair the walls that could take direct hit from a nuke was fairly short.

Most of the 2 weeks was spent repairing the more complicated Terminator Armor.

And today was the day he finished his work.

The Terminator Armor was almost completely repaired.

Only a couple of minor details, such as installing the software, and he was done.

Theo decided to take a break after hours of intense transmutation induced concentration.

While he waited for the software installation to finish, he went to the refrigerator for some well deserve snacks…. And that’s when he felt something was off.

His instincts werent as sharp as Juno’s, but even he could feel the eyes of predators stalking him.

He shrugged and pretended to continue to the fridge ate something

All the while, he accessed every sensor installed in his hideout.

As expected, the video feeds had nothing.

However, the infrared sensors told him another story.

There were 10 that were slightly colder than the standard room temperature.

Moreover, these cold spots were moving.

He wasn’t sure what they were, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.

He calmly did some stretches and slowly put on his Z49 Scout Armor.

He then returned to the Terminator Armor and calmly entered it.

The many drones that assisted him bolted and welded the Terminator shut.

The only way to exit from the inside was via midas alchemy.

It was inefficient but such was expected of a prototype.

The helper drones also welded an M134 Minigun on the left arm while it placed a massive war hammer on the right hand.

Theo then piloted the Terminator Armor towards the area where he shot it with the rail gun.

In transit, he began some basic shakedown maneuvers.

Some practice swings, jet pack powered sprits and turns.

3 of the cold spots followed him while the 7 wandered around his armory.

“*sigh*…. It’s now or never!”

Theo fired off the minigun away from the cold spots in order to keep them complacent, then suddenly swung it at the 3 cold spots.

The sound of bullets hitting steel, a couple screams of pain and some blood splattering on the floor was drowned underneath the chorus of gunfire.

The 3 cold spots revealed 3 humanoids clad in fancy silver full plate armor.

The armor itself was terrifyingly tough as the 7.62x51mm NATO rounds could only make minor dents.

The ones that do penetrate were the typical weak spots of full plate armors such as the joints, neck and eye socket.

1 of the 3 died from a lucky shot through the eye slits of his helmet.

Another was hit in the knee, thus temporarily disabled.

The last one was able completely unharmed

Theo quickly realized that the intruders were not human, because the injured intruder was able to survive 3 seconds by deflecting via sword slashes a concentrated fire from the minigun.

However, one does not simply deflect the bullets of a gun that has a minimum output of 2000 rounds per minute

Eventually, the poor knight ate a face full of lead.

The 3rd knight was able to recover from the initial shock and closed in the distance with a furious slash, which was met by a powerful downward blow from Theo’s war hammer.

The war hammer might just be a big piece of steel with no special gimmicks, but it was heavy as hell.

Add the Terminator’s monstrous mechanical strength and the result was as you’d expect

Half of the knight’s body was flattened instantly.

“YOU BASTARD!” roared a young female voice as the 7 surviving intruders rushed towards Theo.

Technically, 6 were running towards him. 5 male and 1 female.

One of them was a creepy bald man with deformed features and he was simply brisk walking.

He was also the only one who wasn’t wearing armor.

The creepy man seemed to be enjoying the sight of his comrades being slaughtered.

Theo decided to ignore this disturbing fact

Since there was a large distance between them, this allowed Theo to fire unhindered as they approached.

Unfortunately, these guys were fairly skilled, well armored and now aware how powerful the Terminator Armor was.

They dodged, parried and blocked what they could while making full use of their heavy armor when all else fails

Despite Theo’s best efforts, none fell to his barrage.

As you’d expect of superhuman beings, they were able to close the nearly 1 square kilometer gap in less than 20 seconds.

The first one to enter melee range was the female.

“Duel me if you dare Inferior Being! I shall-!” roared the female before she blocked the war hammer, got shot in the shoulder, then squashed like a bug under the massive weight of the Terminator Armor.

Lesson: Thou shall not talk shit while in middle of combat. Shit might enter mouth.

“PRINCESS!” roared the knights as they entered the melee.

The ‘princess’ was not weak at all.

The fact that she took a blow from the Terminator and not go splat was a testament to this.

Yet she died way too quickly and pathetically

This made the knights cautious and didn’t commit into an all-out brawl.

Theo was fine with this, because he wasn’t focusing on them.

Every fiber of his being was focused on the creepy man, and those fibers were begging him not to let the man approach any further.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what needed to happen.

Theo waited until the creepy man was on the halfway point of his hideout, Theo unleashed his full might for the very first time.

All of his drones that had weapons on them suddenly sprang to life and quickly formed a firing squad

“GAME OVER!”

Hundreds of drones from the smaller flying drones that could only wield assault rifles to the large tank drones with 120mm smoothborne cannons unleashed hell on earth.

A tidal wave of munitions smashed through the backside of the intruders in vicious glory.

Everything in the path of the stream of bullets and explosions was torn to shreds.

The hellish barrage lasted only 10 seconds, but it felt like an entire world war just passed through.

In the middle of the devastation only 2 remained.

First was Theo whose Terminator Armor was simply too well protected to feel any damage.

Second was the creepy man who, to Theo’s dismay, didn’t have a single scratch on him.

Despite all of Theo’s drones firing at him in unison, a barely visible wall prevented any bullets to come within 2 meters of him.

“Good show young Lorne. Your arsenal is definitely impressive. Now allow me to test that mechanical giant of yours” said the creepy guy as he clapped in ovation.

The creepy guy slowly broke into a run.

All the while, his body began to grow larger.

At the end of barely 3 seconds of transformation, the creepy man was now a large humanoid bat that was slightly smaller than Theo’s Terminator Armor.

Despite the size difference, Theo felt no relief.

In fact, he was now more terrified than ever.

The Bat lunged at Theo with the speed that outstripped the other intruders.

In 5 short seconds, the two smashed into each other.

Theo’s Terminator was pushed back 5 meters and was slowly being inched back some more.

It was terrifying to admit but the Bat was stronger than Theo’s Terminator.

Theo smashed his war hammer into the Bat’s chin before violently shoving the minigun into its gut and opened fired.

It seemed that the anti-range barrier didn’t work at close quarters.

Annoyed by this, the Bat grabbed the left arm, crushed the minigun then blasted Theo 10 meters back with a kick to the chest plate.

The Bat lunged at the downed Terminator but was back fisted away.

Theo quickly got up via boosters then bashed the Bat in the head with his war hammer.

The Bat answered with a punch of its own.

For the next 10 seconds, the 2 went into a slugfest with blows of explosive power.

Despite matching the Bat blow for blow, Theo was not doing any damage no matter where or how hard he hit.

He didn’t want to say out loud, but this battle was hopeless

In the middle of their brawl, the bat suddenly talked

“While this is quite fun, I think we should conclude for now. We might attract the Superheroes with our level of noise”

Theo couldn’t even process what happened next.

The Bat’s claws plunged into the Terminator’s chest plate, stabbed Theo in the chest and pushed straight out the back.

As per usual, his Ankh belt automatically pumped large amounts of omnigel into his body

The Terminator’s body armor looked like it dissolved rather than pierced.

Before Theo could comprehend what happened, the Bat pinned Theo to the ground and said

“SLEEP”

And just like that, Theo ‘s consciousness faded to black.