Chapter 11 Part 2

Atop the power pylon, Finnian hauled himself up to the station’s roof using his remaining hand and leg, a mix of climbing and leaping. He seized Gavin by the throat—the man who’d led the cold-blooded sniping against him—and slammed him facedown onto the surface.

Finnian nearly laughed in disbelief at his former subordinate. “True love runs deeper than gold, eh, Gavin? There’s a monster the size of a house floating up there, covered in those malformed polyps, and all you can think about is me? You’re still hell-bent on killing me?”

He wasn’t the type for long-winded speeches before a fight. As he leaned down to whisper, he leveled his lightweight handgun at Gavin’s limb joints, pressing the muzzle firmly against flesh.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Gavin unleashed a piercing scream, but somehow retained his wits amid the agony. “Stop—stop, Finnian! I’m begging you. For the sake of all the times I busted my ass for you!”

Finnian didn’t flinch. He hurled a few shock grenades off the eaves, blasting the Zane Gang thugs back to the ground as they tried to rush up. Then he jammed the gun barrel against Gavin’s chest.

“The life you sold out for me? I already paid that debt back in the Desert Wasteland.”

Bang!

A crisp gunshot.

Finnian was a soft-hearted man at times, but never toward traitors.

He bid farewell to the past with decisive efficiency—no lingering words for an old comrade, no petty revenge by mirroring the exact torments once inflicted on him, letting Gavin bleed out in suffering.

The once-glorious history that had ended in disgrace was over. Done.

The final shot served as its full stop, and with that, he would press onward without a backward glance.

The last bullet punched into Gavin’s skull, forever eliminating any chance of survival or vengeful return.

Finnian tossed aside the handgun, snatched up Gavin’s kinetic machine gun, and leaped from the roof into the fray of Zane Gang thugs. Even with one hand and one leg crippled by G8273, it didn’t hinder his ability to fight solo.

Above the abandoned power station, the two inhuman entities continued their deathmatch over the path of evolution, each desperate to slay the rival.

Down on the ground, humans clashed in the melee too—but not for survival, only for profit.

Shellfire and stray bullets hammered the scarred battlefield once more.

Dustin did his utmost to drag Old Neil clear of several stray rounds, scrambling and rolling farther away.

The thunder of incoming shells swallowed the night wind’s murmur—and with it, the faint pop of a silenced gunshot—

A stray bullet pierced through several sedans, lancing straight toward the back of Old Neil’s head.

A chill raced up Dustin’s neck. Almost on reflex, he threw himself forward.

Thud.

Dustin, who had pinned Old Neil down in the dive, seemed to hear the dull thunk of a metal slug burrowing into a skull.

Yet no pain came. When he pushed himself up to a sitting position, Old Neil’s voice reached him—shocked, with a hint of wry amusement. “You alright? I figured cops like you couldn’t wait to see a sin-stained old bastard like me rot in hell.”

“I’d love that,” Dustin replied on autopilot, his hand subconsciously groping the back of his skull. “But I’ve still got truths to uncover—at least sixteen missing people to save. If you croak now, how the hell am I… fuck.”

He spat the curse numbly, devoid of inflection.

Beneath his index finger, an obvious hole prodded at his fingertip.

His mind blank, he rubbed it repeatedly. Then the pad of his finger brushed something new.

First a blunt, flat circle. Then, bit by bit, the object was pushed out from the entry wound.

The next second, it clinked to the ground. The bullet rolled across the dirt.

“…” Old Neil watched Dustin’s expression shift from mild surprise to wide-eyed shock. “You—you’ve got some kind of immortality?!”

Dustin was dumbfounded. He still remembered to haul Old Neil onward, running farther as he babbled blankly, “I don’t know… I really don’t know…”

But when the fourth drumbeat thundered in his ears,

his feet stumbled on the suddenly yielding ground, even as his thoughts sharpened to crystal clarity:

Known: His good partner, the Dean, was no human—and those drumbeats of his could make any normal person bleed from every orifice, their flesh twisting into abomination.

Question: Why had Old Neil, who stayed right beside him at the same distance from the battlefield, suffered nosebleeds and bleeding ears… while Dustin remained utterly unaffected? Why had the bullet that drilled into the back of his skull been expelled intact, unable to claim his life?

Dustin’s chest heaved violently several times. His footsteps halted.

He glanced back at the skies over the abandoned power station, then at Old Neil. “—Run! Get the hell out of here yourself!”

“What?” Old Neil still clung to some old-school code of honor and reciprocity. Dustin had saved his hide multiple times; now he had to return the favor. “You’re not coming with me?”

“Uh—” A conflicted groan escaped Dustin. But as he eyed the chunks of bloody flesh beginning to rain from the sky, his resolve hardened anew. “I’ve gotta head back—you go! Hurry up!”

He shoved Old Neil hard, forcing the man into a run, then wheeled around and charged straight into the blood-drenched battlefield.

Those plummeting flesh chunks surely belonged not only to Hastur, but also to G8273, who was being corrupted and sprouting meat under the influence.

Even if they fought to a draw, this war of attrition could only end in mutual destruction—what else?

Dustin spewed a stream of frantic, incoherent curses as he ran, his mind razor-sharp:

He had to break up this fight destined for double death.

How? Drive out the evil god? No dice—he had no clue how to banish Hastur. The police intel didn’t cover exorcisms.

Then drive out G8273?

A complete plan coalesced in his head.

He sprinted into the abandoned power station—thank God he still ran fieldwork daily after graduation; his stamina hadn’t flagged—and nearly collided with Finnian, who had just finished off the last traitor.

“—You! You’re the one who came with H.J., right?!”

“?” Finnian raised his gun, pausing a beat to register that H.J. meant the Dean. “What is it?”

“I’ve got a plan,” Dustin rattled off at top speed. “First, trigger a magnetic storm to fry G8273’s outflowing data and force him back to his main host room.”

“Then we blow the signal tower here. Keep him from crawling back along the signal.”

“…?” Finnian arched a brow at Dustin. “Didn’t you just complain on the phone about how thuggish these gangbangers are for wrecking signal towers? And now the righteous detective wants to blow one up himself?”

Dustin stared at him stone-faced, wiping bloody grime from his face. “You in or not?”

“Of course I’m in. I’ve still got a debt to repay.” Finnian chucked the electromagnetic cannon gun to Dustin. “I’ll handle the magnetic storm—might need to strip more of these electromagnetic rifles… You go blow the tower.”

Something this meaningful? Perfect for the detective to handle personally. Amusement plain on his face, Finnian dragged his mangled leg toward the pile of corpses.

Meanwhile, high in the night sky,

the system alerts before Hastur’s eyes had changed. No more endless spam of [HP Cleared: You Are Dead!].

Had he the leisure to pull up his status panel, he’d see his stats had undergone a total upheaval.

—Unfortunately, neither combatant had the spare moment.

They fought like two beasts that had just sprouted limbs but had no idea how to control them. Lacking any real technique, they tore and gnawed at each other’s limbs and flesh with a feral obsession to kill.

A trace of retreat flickered in Hastur’s muddled consciousness, his inner voice letting out a trembling wail.

It was the helpless cry of a beast glimpsing its own doom.

Even amid G8273’s razor-focused calculations, a garbled line of logic bubbled up unbidden:

He would fall here alongside his foe.#

But they couldn’t stop. They couldn’t hesitate.

Any sign of backing off would be a dagger handed straight to the enemy, who would plunge it without mercy into his rival’s heart.

As they grappled, the words of their first exchange after meeting rose unbidden in both their minds:

“I thought we wouldn’t meet this soon.”

They truly shouldn’t have crossed paths so early. It was dragging them toward a grim fate.

And just as they watched powerlessly, sliding step by inexorable step toward that end—

“Boom—”

The magnetic storm’s blue barrier swallowed the entire power station in an instant.

Hastur’s movements faltered for a moment.

He growled low in his throat, a mumbling rumble like delirious mutterings, his gaze piercing the searing blue light to lock onto his opponent—suddenly reduced from solid form back to a ghostly projection.

Farther off—

“Boom…”

An orange-red fireball erupted from the signal tower’s direction.

Somewhat outside Dustin’s plan, G8273 wasn’t immediately shunted back to whatever distant server room he called home. His spectral form hung in place for a few seconds, then he shot Hastur a grin—cheerful and brimming with predatory glee.

G8273 had no humanoid shape, so Hastur couldn’t pick a smile out of that tangle of code.

Jolted by the magnetic storm, Hastur simply kept raising the tips of his tentacles, determined to tear off a few more ragged chunks before his enemy blinked out.

G8273 brushed off the superficial damage. For the pair of them, it was like trading a couple sneaky kicks to the ass after a brawl—insult more than injury, all about blowing off steam.

Drawing closer even as Hastur ripped at him, G8273 thrust his one remaining humanoid limb—the left arm—into Hastur’s yellow robe.

He pulled out an old-fashioned phone, nimbly tapped in a string of numbers, and jammed it into the inky tentacles straining to shred him: “Hit me up sometime.”

The final wisp of green light faded into the breeze.

Hastur’s sanity trickled back. He glanced down at the “limb” he’d wrenched free from his foe at the last second.

Calling it a limb was generous; it was just that snippet of code, locked into an arm’s outline by his mental pollution.

God only knew if G8273 had decided the pollution Hastur dumped on him was too tricky to purge right away and smartly amputated it himself to keep it from spreading.

Beside him on the rooftop, Finnian vaulted up nimbly on one arm.

He eyed the spot where G8273 had vanished, then turned to Hastur, his face twisting into something faintly odd:

“—Do you non-humans always swap contact info after a scrap, right down to the ‘hit me up’?”

Hastur’s face remained blank as his tentacles coiled tight, crushing the old-fashioned phone with a sharp crack. It had seemed like a flirtatious parting gift, but really, it was a tracker—primed for the next hunt.