Silva looked around the slightly trashed penthouse suite that Falcon brought him to. The place was extremely windy since most of the windows were broken. On the bright side, the view was incredible. Or it would have been had the city not been turned into a monster buffet.
"How do you like my nest? " Falcon asked, quite proud of the place he had been living in for the past few days.
"It's not bad. You can fly, meaning that the open design allows you to escape from any direction. It's well thought out. " Falcon tried to hide his embarrassed expression since the windows were smashed when he was practicing with his lasers. "Let's get serious. We need a simple but adaptable plan to deal with the bird so, tell me all your abilities. "
"Okay then, my body skill is Falcon transformation. You've already seen it so I won't go into details. My soul skill is the laser eyes which you've also seen. The lasers can be shot as a single powerful beam or short, rapid fire bursts. My world skill is phantom path. It allows me to phase through all forms of matter in my way for a short time. I don't use it much since I also phase through the air and the ground. I can't really fly if my wings have no friction with the air. " Falcon gave a quick and sufficient explanation of exactly what his abilities were. "What about you, Ares? What are your abilities? "
"My soul skill is domain. Which allows me to sense everything within the range of about ten meters. My body skill is environmental adaptation, which allows me to adapt to my environment. It's a passive skill so I can't control when and how it triggers. My world skill is inventory. I can store any inanimate object within a separate space. As you can see, all my abilities are for utility. "
"If that's the case then how are we going to beat that bird. You could try to distract it so that I can hit it but that won't work. No offense but it'll probably kill you before I can charge up a strong enough laser to kill it. "
"The plan is simple. You carry me as high as you can above the crab lake, call the bird, then drop me as soon as it appears. I'll handle the rest."
"I don't see how that's even possible. It makes no sense. You want to fight that thing in the sky as you fall. I have wings and lasers and the best I could do was run away. You'll die before you hit the ground. "
"If I die, you can use the few seconds I bought you to fly out of the city. At least my sacrifice won't be in vain. Now, you rest up. I'll go out to prepare for tomorrow. I'll see you a little late in the morning. " Silva walked away leaving Falcon with a dumbfounded look on his face.
Silva walked through the alleys of the ruined city with his domain fully deployed. The sun was close to setting but it wouldn't be dark for at least another hour. Silva's plan couldn't start until it was pitch black but it didn't stop him from gathering some resources in the meantime.
It took quite a bit of effort of effort but Silva finally found what he was looking for, a butchery. The place was almost impossible to find since most people bought meat from supermarkets but he remembered that his dad once brought home really fresh meat. Silva was looking for this place, not for the meat, but for the blades used to cut it.
The place was even more destroyed than every other building nearby. The raw flesh must have attracted a crazy number of monsters. Silva walked in confidently and killed all the giant roaches that had turned the place into a nest. 'These roaches are really thorough. This will explain why there's no rotting flesh. '
Silva fell silent as he suddenly remembered his family. He had pushed all thoughts about them to the back of his mind. Thinking about how he couldn't even give them a proper burial darkened his mood. He really wanted to go back to that to swimming pool. Even if it was to just avenge them by killing the monster that killed them.
Logic won. Of course it did. Silva has always had a logical mind. He rarely made emotional decisions but it was even more so now that his brain had been altered by his body skill. 'I can't risk my life for something as pointless as emotional closure. Besides, it's been so long since that day. There's probably nothing left. I need to honor them by surviving. '
'I really need to stop talking to myself. ' Silva said to himself as he walked out of the butchery and into the night. He had a lot of stuff to do tonight.
Falcon woke up early the next morning only to find that Silva had returned late at night. He also noticed that Silva was sleeping on a rag on the floor despite their being an empty coach nearby. It was only after a few hours passed that Silva woke up and the duo headed for the crab lake.
They rested on a roof of one of the buildings for a few minutes to prepare mentally before the plan begun. The day was particularly cloudy which was even better than Silva had hoped. The duo flew high enough to pass the cloud cover then Falcon unleashed the same cry that attracted the monstrous bird. They hovered in place for a minute before they heard the familiar sound of a jet engine.
Falcon let Silva fall and just like they had agreed, Falcon used the cloud cover to discreetly leave the city. Silva was falling to his death. His body was adapting to his new environment but he knew that it would take too long to complete whatever adaptation it was trying to perform. His only hope was flying towards him like a missile. The bird probably saw him as nothing more than a free meal.
The bird entered the newly improved 15 meter range domain. It took a lot of effort and risk to improve his domain to this range but it all had a purpose. The bird was indeed fast but inside Silva's domain, it had walked into an inescapable trap. Silva used his whole domain as a door to open his inventory.
In an instant, a giant ball of white webs appeared in the sky. Last night, Silva had visited the monstrous spider and stole enough webs to fill his inventory all for this moment. The man and the bird were stuck inside a giant web that tangled them even tighter as the bird struggled. Silva braced for impact since he knew that even though the web drastically slowed their fall, they would still hit the water with a great amount of force.
The impact was rough but also much gentler than Silva had expected. The web was now sinking. The pace of its immersion was made worse by the futile struggles of the monstrous bird. As for the one who caused everything, he was calmly observing everything. His brown eyes displaying a hint of satisfaction as his plan unfolded much better than expected.
The web was now fully submerged and Silva was in the middle of a new adaptation. Fish scales rapidly formed across his body. An extra lens formed over his eyes allowing him to see better. Starting from behind his ear and down the sides of his neck, gills formed. If one saw him now, they would think of a fishman. Even the webbed hands and feet greatly resembled one.
Silva swam forward, using his inventory to store away the web blocking his path. Soon he got a clear view of his opponent, a hummingbird. 'So the jet engine I heard must have been its wings flapping. It also makes sense that Falcon kept missing since hummingbirds can turn on a dime.'
Silva pulled out a knife from his inventory, planning to end the hummingbird quickly but he paused and watched it closely. His domain had sensed strange turbulence surrounding the bird. Silva could see that the bird was drowning but his domain was blaring warning signs for him to dodge.
The hummingbird's feathers glowed in strange pattern before all the light shifted to its lance like beak. Silva swam to the side with all his might allowing him to barely dodge the attack. A large circular hole had been ripped through the web. The hummingbird, having freed itself, tried to swim to the surface.
Silva appeared next to the bird like a phantom. The knives in his hands stabbing into the bird's wings. The bird managed to surface and desperately tried to leave the water but Silva wouldn't let it. Using his aquatic adaptation to the fullest, he leaped a few meters out of the water. A machete he obtained from the butchery appeared in his hand as he plummeted on the bird. The blade cleaved into the bird's skull. The swing was amateurish at best but the sharp blade made up for it.