Chapter 159 - True Infected
Once the beast had been defeated, the power that was surging through Jack's body started to die down. With that, his muscles relaxed and went back to normal and his teeth along with his hair started to shrink back to.
Jack had no clue what had just happened to him. He had never felt power like that before and it was a first for him.
"Thank you for looking out for me Boss."
Jack had actually made a mistake thinking that Ray was the one who supplied him with power in his time of need but Ray had done nothing. Everything that Jack had done had come from himself. Luckily for Jack the others didn't notice any changes on Jack while he was fighting.
The cave was far too dark and their light crystals would only light up so much of the room. They were also too focused on the Kangaclaw to even notice any changes in Jack's appearance.
Badger and Sloth continued to update Ray on the whole situation. The defeat of the advanced beast didn't come as a surprise for Ray. Ray knew Jack was special. Before Ray had evolved into a Draco Ray would perhaps have put him and Jack on an equal playing field.
Dan was currently examining the beast's body. He had never seen an infected beast before so it was a first for him. He then noticed something strange on one of the beast's legs. Dan knelt down and lifted it.
It appeared to be a steel chain that was fastened to its leg. Dan started to follow the chain and noticed that it went beyond the giant iron door.
"Hey look at this!" Dan shouted
"A Chain?" Martha said.
"Perhaps it was placed here as a guard?" Ann followed the chain and noticed it was tied to a giant steel peg that had been hammered deep into the ground.
"The question is, who would be strong enough to capture one of these?" Badger said.
As they were all standing there looking at the dead beast on the floor. They could all suddenly hear the sound of footsteps. They remained silent to try their best to locate where the steps were coming from but it was hard to tell with the echoes bouncing off the cave.
However, each of them had a good idea as they all turned to look beyond the Iron door. Darkness completely covered the other side of the door making it nearly impossible to make out anything. But they saw a single flame walking, coming towards them slowly.
They watched in tense silence, as the Shadowy human figure came into view. It was the true infected they had been looking for holding a torch in its hand. Even though the person was stood still the shadows continued to move around the man's body as if they had a mind of their own.
Dan stood back in fear, he remembered the suffocating feeling he felt when it was in the room that time and it wasn't even targeting his life.
Jack stepped forward but Ann placed her hand out in front of Jack signalling him to stop.
"Greetings, I see there are some faces here I don't recognise." The infected man had a deep voice that sounded distorted and unnatural.
The others immediately readied their weapons. Ann knew this was bad, out of the two teams they were the weaker of the two. Not only that but if they were to meet the infected, she hoped it would be further in the cave where Sir K's team would be able to meet them.
But they hadn't even gone through the Iron door yet, so it was unlikely Sir K's team would get here anytime soon. Ann then secretly reached down into her quiver and pulled out a small green crystal. It was the pinging crystal. She flicked the crystal with one hand signalling all the others who held the crystal.
At the same time, Badger had informed Ray of the entire situation.
*****
Sir K had given several different pinging crystals to each team, this way he would know if the guards outside needed help or if it was related to something else. The crystal ringing indicated that Ann's team were in trouble.
"We have to move now!" Sir K said.
Sir K and the others doubled their pace and were heading for the quickest route to where Ann was.
****
The true infected stood only a few feet away from Ann and the others. A word hadn't been spoken for a while now and Ann was Afraid any second now it would attack.
"Why are you down here?"
The infected laughed.
"I'm here to give you a gift," The shadow man pointed at the group. "You wish to find a way to kill us, don't you? Well, why don't you try it right now!"
"My pleasure," Jack said as he gripped his Giant sword but once again Ann stopped Jack from going forward. All she wanted to do right now was buy as much time as possible.
"Jack don't fall for it, it's clearly a trap," Martha said.
"This isn't a trap as I said, it's a gift."
"We don't want your disgusting gift!" Badger shouted.
"Wait a moment." Ann said, "Maybe we should listen to him, tell us what exactly is this gift of yours?"
The infected man started to laugh once again.
"Humans are always the same looking for the easy way out."
But then something unexpected had occurred. Jack was suddenly down on one knee and he could barely stand. He was sweating madly and it felt like all of his energy was being taken away from him. He wasn't the only one, Dan was the next to suffer the same fate, next was Badger and sloth and finally even Martha.
"You! What are you doing to them!" Ann cried.
The infected didn't say anything back because even it was shocked about what was happening.
Then suddenly, a piercing feeling was felt through the Infected's chest. As the infected looked down it could see a hand holding his black heart.
The infected managed to turn its head to look at who had defeated him.
"I'm sorry Father, you shall suffer no more."