The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary

"Hahahah! Didn't you puny humans claimed that power was everything and such trickery was a sign of weakness?!" Kiva could already feel his body parts slowing down a little, and that was enough for Wolte's gun systems to place a shot at him, making Kiva fall to the ground.

Gan Yang's suicide attack was to ensure he petrified Kiva so that he could stop dodging their attack. Since the Ravenous Lord had yet to acclimate himself to his new body, it was relatively easy for Gan Yang to get onto him without Kiva noticing.

The rest of Gan Yang's crew decidedly tried to finish up their Captain's job after Wolte had pierced Kiva's wings. They were sure they could 'avenge' their captain as Gan Yang's petrification poison was working its way through Kiva's entire body.

However, the short laughter Kiva let out caused Wolte to have some unsuspecting concerns. True enough, like any type of evolved boss, Kiva was not done yet. The petrification poison had worked initially but as they soon found out Kiva merely shed off the affected part of the abomination body and grew an entirely new one. The petrified pieces of his previous body became the protection it needed to counter against the deadly poisonous strikes of the Royal Snake soldiers.

After which, he brandished his Mantis Blades and cut off the Royal Snake soldiers while shaking the rest of the petrified body parts away, revealing a brand new body. How were they supposed to know that as long as he had his 'bag of tricks' on him, he could indefinitely summon new chimaeras to replace his body, allowing him to become pseudo immortal.

Kiva took the chance to take flight and was once more fast enough to make Wolte's guns appear as nothing but decoration. The Ravenous Lord sheathed the Mantis Blades and revealed a massive spinning drill by putting both of his arms together, allowing it to merge as one.

With a bit of chanting, he imbued his large drill and did a flyover before aiming at the ship's stern. "Traitor Wolte! Accept your undeniable fate! I do not know where you are hiding in this ship but may this be the last time we meet!" Kiva yelled as he pushed all his strength into his insectoid wings and hoped to pierce the entire ship.

His once timid demeanour seemed to have disappeared with the ascension of his new powers as he attempted to destroy the most powerful weapon in Moloch's disposal.

"Nope, you don't!" Wolte replied and in an instant like a bubble that had burst, the ship disappeared into thin air, leaving only the dead and injured bodies of the Royal Snake Army floating in the sea. Wolte had reverted into his slug form and his buddy Mr Derpy provided him with a magical foam that allowed him to breathe underwater.

Seeing that the ship suddenly disappeared, Kiva was unsure what to do for a moment. Then he looked back to the scientists who were still at the front for the safe zone. To his surprise, no Royal Guards or demon soldiers were keeping them occupied.

It was as if they were all friends and foes watching what was happening to King Baal and Jin. Apparently, the human and Moloch were somehow still able to hold their weight against King Baal, keeping him a little entertained.

"Tsk! And here I thought I was making a brilliant show for them to watch! Damn it! Baal, even if you succeed… Just you wait till the Agents from the Church of the Afterlife come for you!" Kiva grumbled to himself as he flew back at top speed planning to ambush the researchers that had made him into a laughing stock previously.

"Oh, here he comes," Weslie said as the System had alerted them of his incoming assault and Ayse casually looked back.

"He's really grown to become a nuisance. Not only did he remove one of our (surprisingly) greatest assets on the battlefield, but now he wants to take revenge against us? He should deserve punishment and learn his place." Ayse commented.

"Ah, but you cannot deny his art in transmutation. I believe Derek would love to have a discussion about that with him. Who knows, perhaps it might lead to some improvement in our giant monster's ability to grow more crops."

"That is true. If Derek learns how to effectively fuse animals with non-living stuff like metal, it might be possible he could help Rei create the organic robot cockpit interface which we've talked about." Ayse agreed as she prepared a bolt of lightning to shoot at Kiva.

"You cannot be serious!" Weslie was shocked but kept her pneumatic rifle and brought out a steampunk tower shield.

"Why not? If that stupid bat could assist Derek and Rei to make the cockpit, it would be akin to moving our bodies in a clunky metal body easily. Without all those stupid controls. It will be pretty helpful against an armada of space robots and ships to get that Titan Brain. -Huh, I wonder if we can also modify the Stalingrad into a spaceship…" Ayse immediately lost herself in thought, and Weslie quickly moved to her front and blocked the incoming dive assault from Kiva.

The tower shield immediately ledged itself to the ground and an energy battery activated the energy shield to protect the two researchers. It was using the very same shield generator concept they had used for the protection of the anti air companies just that it was a smaller build. In fact, this was the first prototype Ayse had created with Weslie only that this steampunk tower shield had lived through many iterations.

Abomination Kiva tried to break the defence of the tower shield, but hot air was sprayed out against the assaulter, scalding his face and arms.

A function which was slightly unconventional since the air exhaust pipes were meant solely to cool down the heat emitted from the shield generator.

Weslie had only thought of the pipes to face upwards, but one of Ayse's comments during the creation process had led to it facing the enemies. "If you can scald them or even distract them from your shield, it will allow you to attack. Then it will actually serve the purpose of defending oneself too."

It was effective.

Kiva stopped the attack and flew backwards because the hot air had gotten not only on his face but also in his mouth, throat and lungs as he tried to breathe.

"Now!" Weslie called as she unhinged the tower shield and kicked it at the bottom right corner, causing it to topple backwards. Weslie kneeled down to support the rest of the tower shield's weight. With a weight differentiation sensor, the tower shield immediately popped up two hinges from the middle edges of the shield and in turn, assisted Weslie from bearing the full weight of the shield.

At the same time, the falling of the tower shield revealed to Kiva that Ayse was preparing a fully charged arc lance with the thunderbolt she had cast on her hand previously. "With pleasure!" Ayse shouted as she already pushed the trigger on her arc induction lance rifle towards the distracted abomination.

"Oh Shit!"