Caleb actually liked his system well enough. Even if it was a little too quiet, and even if it never handed out particularly generous rewards.
At the very least, it did its job. It had even kept him supplied with anime while he was locked up.
But the thing giving Caleb a headache had finally arrived.
His Hex Claw could not lock onto Mundo.
Even when Vi and Zac managed to pin the monster down, any limbs they cut off always grew back almost instantly.
The high-heat laser could not even burn through his muscles, and that absurd regeneration speed had Caleb cursing more than once.
Even with three people up front desperately holding Mundo back and keeping his attention on them, Caleb had still nearly gotten hit several times.
"Four Hextech users can't take down one lunatic hopped up on the wrong meds?"
Caleb muttered a curse under his breath, then hurriedly deployed his Hextech shield to block a flying meat cleaver.
The blade itself was stopped, but the force behind it had not weakened one bit.
The heavy knife smashed into Caleb hard enough to send him rolling across the ground several times.
If Caleb was already having this much trouble from the outer edge of the fight, then the other three, who were tangled up with Mundo at close range, had it even worse.
Vi's iron fists had taken no telling how many hits from that briefcase of his.
Zac's body had already been blasted into pieces. Every so often, he had to step out of the fight just to gather back up the slime that had fallen off him.
Ekko somehow had the safest position and the most dangerous one at the same time.
Time had already rewound around him several times, and every single rewind meant the same thing, someone had just died.
Every time someone suffered a fatal hit, Ekko had to reverse time in that entire area.
The Hextech Gemstone began to flicker, a sign that he was reaching his limit.
"Fall back!"
Caleb shouted the order and sliced both of Mundo's hands off again.
Ekko grabbed Caleb around the waist, the hoverboard on his back activating at once before dropping under his feet.
Zac used his arms like a slingshot and launched himself and Vi high into the air.
Left behind where he stood, Mundo's body suddenly swelled larger, and two new hands rapidly grew out from his arms.
…
"What the hell did this guy take?"
Caleb was furious, pacing back and forth in the office.
"His recovery ability is too strong, and his core is too hard to destroy."
Zac gave his own assessment from the side.
To be accurate, Zac was much easier to deal with than Mundo.
After all, Zac was basically just living slime. If someone could manage to separate all the goo and destroy it piece by piece, the actual difficulty was not that high.
What made Mundo such a nightmare was that practically limitless regeneration.
Vi had shattered his bones more than once, and Ekko's sword had pierced his throat several times.
Caleb, who had dealt the most damage of all, had punched holes through his torso and cut off multiple limbs.
It had all been completely useless.
Nobody knew how many chem-drugs were sloshing around inside that body, but every time, he repaired himself in an instant.
Anyone too slow to dodge got punished.
Ekko, who stayed closer in, would get sent flying by a single swing of Mundo's briefcase.
Caleb, staying farther out, would get battered all over the place by the cleavers Mundo threw at him.
There was no chance of outlasting him. Caleb had already seen the hospital's supply stock for himself.
To put it simply, the amount of energy that would be released by all the concoctions Mundo had swallowed was enough to blow both Zaun and Piltover completely off the map.
His only real weakness might have been that his brain did not work too well.
And after going back, there was an excellent chance he would just keep mixing more chemicals and chugging them down by the gallon.
This was brutal.
Caleb covered his face and sank into thought.
"Let's call it here for today."
His voice was thick with exhaustion.
All of them were filthy and covered in dust. They had spent the whole afternoon getting nothing done except eating dirt.
"That's it. Break up, all of you." Caleb rubbed his temples and waved them off.
Nobody argued. One by one, they headed out.
Before leaving, Zac had even left Caleb with a little present.
Yes, he had brought back one of Mundo's hands, the one Caleb's laser had cut off.
A huge purple hand, rough-skinned and powerful, all five fingers strong.
Even lying on the floor, it was still twitching and grabbing around. Caleb suspected it could strangle him all by itself.
It was a good thing he had brought the Hextech shield today, or he might not have made it out alive.
Granted, he had originally made that shield to block the Super Mega Death Rocket that Jinx might have fired someday.
But at least it worked on other projectiles too.
Otherwise, with Mundo's aim and all those blades he kept throwing, Caleb figured he would have gotten a firsthand look at Zaun's advanced prosthetics industry by now.
"What are you doing here?"
A shriek came from outside.
"What is it?" Caleb opened his eyes.
Jinx kicked a short figure through the doorway.
"You are?" Zac looked shocked from outside the door.
"Saito Takeda." Jinx kicked the man twice more in disdain, a delighted grin spreading across her face.
"I remember you. You're the one who stuffed me into a container for experiments!"
Zac's voice rose on its own. Even an idiot could have heard how furious he was.
"Those two! Were they your people too?!" Zac grabbed the man off the floor in one hand.
"I found you! You were supposed to be mine to use!"
Whether he had lost his mind or not, the man screamed right back at him.
"Zac."
Caleb spoke up, stopping the green giant before he could act.
"If you do it in here, the office will be a pain to clean."
He wore a look of clear disgust.
"You decide."
Zac was angry, but his respect for the new Governor still outweighed his temper.
Anger, jealousy, malice, hatred.
Those were exactly the feelings Zac's "parents" had taught him to avoid as much as possible.
"Hang him outside. Feed him hunger feed."
Caleb stuck to the same routine as before.
"Dump cold water on him now and then."
"This time, don't cut off his limbs. Leave the bastard alive and let's see which idiot tries to break him out."
Outside the door, Vi's expression shifted several times in a row, spectacularly.
If she had had someone like Caleb advising her back then, maybe her plan to save Vander would have been a lot more thorough.
"Got it."
Jinx slammed the man to the floor and skillfully started winding him up with rope.
"You all head back to the Firelights. We'll handle this dirty work." Caleb waved them off.
Zac caught sight of Renni, still hanging there from a few days ago, and quietly left without a word.
Ekko gave Caleb a wave, then vanished first.
He and Heimerdinger still had infrastructure problems to deal with.
"So, how did your little purple monster problem turn out?"
Jinx looked genuinely interested and completely failed to notice the miserable expression on Caleb's face.
"Don't even ask. Four against one and two of us still almost died. If Ekko hadn't been there, you'd probably be looking at a disabled version of me."
Caleb sighed and looked over at the bound Chem-Baron.
"Pff..."
Just as Caleb was about to take a drink of water to steady himself, he spat it right back out.
"What exactly are you doing?"
He stared at the Chem-Baron tied up tight in front of him, except the rope pattern Jinx had used was somehow weirdly playful.
"Isn't this what you told me to do?" Jinx shrugged. "So I made it more advanced."
"That's not the issue. I'm asking whether this looks remotely normal."
Caleb was on the verge of laughing.
The Chem-Baron was sprawled on the floor, all four limbs sticking up in the air, while Jinx dragged him around.
"You really know a lot, huh."
Caleb hurriedly waved a hand, trying to banish the painful image from his mind.
"Bye-bye!"
Jinx's voice lifted brightly, making it obvious she was in an excellent mood.
Caleb looked over at the twitching hand still flopping around in the corner and decided he was taking the thing to the topside.