Chapter 161: Dominance
Hugo immediately got up from where he was sitting and ran towards the edge of the wall, the one facing the city.
He activated his Ascended ability and transformed his mouth into that of Echo Echo.
"Warning to all citizens and soldiers! This is Captain Hugo of the Irregular Company. This is not a drill, a powerful corrupted abomination is heading this way! Evacuate everyone immediately!"
Terror spread across the city, with every man and woman within the walls of Erebus Field leaving their houses, with panicked expressions on their faces.
The soldiers of the first evacuation army were startled at first, but quickly recognized the severity of the situation. This was the age of the nightmare spell, after all and so, they could not afford to lose their focus.
They began escorting the citizens into the vehicles, and in a few moments, Captain Davis appeared beside him with a startled expression on his face.
The man was clearly nervous, but he stayed as composed as he could.
"How powerful are we talking? Is it a tyrant?"
Hugo shook his head.
"It's a terror. One that could parasitize people and use them as vessels, no less. I will go deal with it myself."
"Are you insane? You can't defeat a corrupted terror on your own! And if what you're saying is true, than your legion would be fuel for it!"
"Don't you think I know that?! I've been thinking about how I can kill it for the longest time now and using the legion is obviously not an option. All of my minions are helping the evacuation efforts and it'll remain that way. In the meantime, I'll try to hold the terror as best as I can."
Master Davis was hesitant about this whole plan, but he knew there was nothing that can be done.
The few saints that had been deployed into Antarctica were all busy. Saint Tyris was holding off the Winter Beast and Saint Bloodwave was protecting the nightwalkers from the terrifying dwellers.
So he had to put his hope in Hugo, no matter if he believed in him or not.
With a reluctant expression, Davis nodded.
"Alright, you go do that. I'll try to evacuate everyone in the meantime..." He gritted his teeth "I know this may sound selfish... But if you decide to escape from it, make sure to run the opposite direction of Falcon Scott."
Hugo understood his reasoning perfectly. After all, he would be handing Malware millions of humans if he did so.
"Don't worry, I'm not planning on letting it get past me."
With those words, the two of them shook hands one final time and turned to run in opposite directions.
Hugo stood beside his shadow avatar and Zed, then with a reluctant expression, he said:
"I'm sorry guys, but it'll be only me this time."
He took off the [Crown of Falsehood], relinquishing control over his remaining generals in his legion. They would not go berserk, as they already had specific jobs imprinted onto them, which was to help the people evacuate.
At the same time, his shadow returned to its normal intangible state, and Zed returned to his soul sea.
He even dismissed his spirit body, who was with the House of Night right now. That would surely give them a freak... But Hugo would worry about that if he lived.
As of now, his mind was clear and there was nothing influencing him.
Selena looked at him with a confused expression but she slowly began to understand his reasoning.
"You made sure to fight Malware alone so that he wouldn't be able to parasitize your minions, your echo or your shadow... That is good thinking, but I don't think that would be enough!"
She had a worried look on her face, as usual.
"That's the thing, Selena. Before this bastard came for me, I was planning to go seek him out myself after the people of Erebus Field were evacuated... So while this is bad timing, it aligns perfectly with what I want."
"I don't care about the people of this measly city! I care about you! If you go fight against that creature of corruption, you would most certainly die!"
"... I have already died once, what's the harm in doing it a second time?"
With that, Hugo leaped off the walls of Erebus Field.
His Omnitrix glowed with a brilliant azure light, bringing light to the dark sky of Antarctica.
Hugo activated his dormant ability, alongside his Ascended one, creating a new fusion alien.
This one had never been tested before, so he did not know how it would go...
His limbs extended and his arms ended with sharp and polished claws.
His torso became more athletic and sprouted blue and black fur. A helmet formed on his body, reminiscent to that of XLR8.
His legs formed little balls which were faster than any legs.
The transformation ended as fast as it begun, granting Hugo the blessing of speed...
A speed unlike any other, one that fused the raw speed of XLR8 and the agility of Fasttrack, creating the ultimate speedster Alien.
He landed on the ground with a heavy thud, and as he did, his eyes locked into the approaching army.
Malware had extended his long list of victims, this time it seems he has taken nightmare creatures as well.
Hugo let out a breath and got on all four, getting into a running position.
Time suddenly slowed down and his body was saturated by soul essence, so much so that he started vibrating from the speed.
Then, he set off, leaving behind a shockwave like that of a missile.
Hugo moved like an omen of death, unleashing his wrath on the inhuman members of Malware's legion.
In moments, hundreds upon hundreds of Monsterous ghastly bodies fell to the ground, lifeless and broken, as if cut from a string.
Strangely, they exploded the moment their lives was taken...
But before Hugo could think about it too deeply, a sea of tendrils suddenly rose from all directions, chasing after him like a hungry predator.
As all prey do, Hugo ran.
He ran through the great army, dodging the tendrils of red and black.
Malware was a corrupted terror and so, he could move at a Transcendent speed, which was at the subsonic level.
Hugo was faster than subsonic in his current form, but not by much, so each of the tendrils could indeed catch him... And he dreaded what would happen if they did.
As he ran, Hugo made sure to pass the human victims of Malware and trip them into the ground, rendering them useless in the battle. The human vessels could unleash tendrils, but they did not possess the full power of a corrupted abomination.
Malware's vessels were strange, however Hugo had a brief understanding of how they worked.
All of Malware's vessels could be his real body, however only one can manifest his full Corrupted terror body at one time.
In theory, to kill Malware you'll need to cut off his connection to all the vessels and destroy his main body... But to do that, Hugo would need to kill everyone here.
He was not willing to do such a gruesome act of terror.
Just as he was about to knock over another vessel, Hugo was suddenly startled by the crimson light in front of him.
He was suddenly launched backwards and sent flying through the air.
After rolling over a few times, he raised his head and looked at what had attacked him...
The vessel that he was about to knock out had shifted its head into that of Malware... And soon, the entire body was consumed by black liquid, which was then riddled with crimson lines.
The orange glow that served as Malware's eyes stared at Hugo menacingly, and somehow, Hugo knew it was laughing at him despite the fact that Malware had no mouth.
Hugo shot forward once again, using his superspeed to get close to Malware and deliver a devastating barrage of punches to his lower abdomen.
Each hit impacted with Malware's flesh, tearing a hole through him and destroyed his body.
And yet...
Malware did not seem bothered at all.
In fact, the terrifying creature did not even bother to dodge or evade any of the punches, instead it melted into a liquid state and fell on top of his body.
Hugo was quick to react, however some of Malware's liquid fell on his hand. It was only a drop, but that was all it needed.
Red and black goo began to spread through Hugo's body, similar to how he did to others in his symbiote form.
He felt a creeping chill seep into his soul and for some reason... The Omnitrix failsafe was not working... Almost as if it did not see Malware as a threat at all.
Realizing he needed to save his own skin this time, Hugo turned around and ran once again.
He ran away from Malware, and at the same time, he used his incredible speed to move fast enough to burn the filth off him.
It worked at first until more of it kept spreading across his body like a plague, never ending and never stopping.
It all began from the arm, so Hugo raised his clawed hands and brought it down on the source of the infection, severing his arm in a split second.
'Must think.... Think....'
His mind right now was capable of processing much more than that of others, yet it still felt pain just the same. With his arm cut he turned back and was shocked at what he was seeing.
There behind him, his severed arm was completely dark and red now, and it slowly grew and grew until it became an identical copy of Hugo... It was stuck in his speedster form, not his original but that did not make it any less terrifying. If anything, it made it worse.
'He can do that?!'
Before he could even do anything else, a kick to the chest broke his upper torso and sent him flying once again.
The dark copy of him ran towards his airborne body and leaped to the sky and caught him before he could go anywhere.
A wave of punches rained down on his head, nearly breaking his skull, until eventually the dark clone slammed him into the ground.
Gritting his teeth, Hugo finally recovered enough to do something.
He grabbed the clone by the leg and slid down under it. Before it could understand what Hugo had done, he was already behind, pulling on its tail.
Hugo managed to get up and ran at the last moment, while holding on to the clone's tail.
He dragged the dark clone through Antarctica, causing its head and body to slam against the cold ground and be turned into a bloody mess.
'It can bleed...'
That meant that this clone, whether it was an independent being controlled by Malware, or another one of his vessels, possessed weakness, just like Hugo did.
He kept dragging it around and eventually, he felt it stop resisting and turn limp.
The dark liquid peeled off and melted like dead skin, until Hugo's original severed arm was revealed...
Moments later the hand exploded into a bloody mess, leaving nothing behind it.
Injured and battered Hugo looked towards Malware's direction with fury and murder burning beneath his visor.
He slammed his Omnitrix and a blue light engulfed the world.
In the next moments, a towering mountain rose to the ground.