Reborn: Apocalypse - Volume 2

Abruptly, his blade struck forward at an incredibly fast speed. It was a jarringly fast upward slash that caused the air to ripple. The attack was merely a blur, even in his eyes, due to its extremely fast speed.

"Not bad." Micheal smiled as he gauged the power of the attack.

Sitting in front of him was a small, metal chair. A visible gash was present on the chair, spanning its front side. While he hadn"t managed to cut through it, he had left a sizable mark on it. Previously, he"d only been able to seriously damage the furniture of the First Layer using Advanced Tier Sword Energy. His breakthrough had seriously boosted his raw physical power.

He was currently standing in a private room situated very close to the headquarters of the G.o.dfather Organization. A large bed, a dresser, a few windows, and an attached bathroom spread out around him.

"Something is definitely up." His thoughts turned back towards why he was here in the first place, a small frown appearing on his face.

There was no reason for Head Cameron to not have spread out the Golden Morenkai hunting method and the Dragon Building Liquid methods. The man was a very well-known altruist, it was very unlike him to act so slowly. Spreading this information as quickly as possible would serve as a huge boon to humanity as a whole and doubtlessly save many lives.

With that thought in mind, he"d decided to rush here as quickly as possible. Tomorrow, he would drop by and visit the G.o.dfather Organization Headquarters. Boss s.h.i.+gun"s report about him should prove more than enough for him to get his foot in the door. He would handle everything that cropped up after, moment to moment.

He yawned, glancing out the window. The evening sky had fully faded to night. His body was exhausted from both the rapid travel and the Ki Tier breakthrough. It was time to rest.

He put his stuff up and prepared to bed. In no time at all, he was resting comfortably, tucked under the sheets.

"They should be making solid progress. They might already be done." As he was drifting off to rest, Micheal"s thoughts turned drowsy.

s.h.i.+n and Sophia should have at least made contact with General Pedro by this point. With the medicine he gave her, it should be quite easy to win over the General. He couldn"t foresee any possible issues cropping up. He had waited a month and a half to see s.h.i.+n again, he could wait one or two more days.

Micheal"s reasoning was mostly correct. He had left behind very few trails. The ones most d.a.m.ning would take weeks to fully trace and track down. By that point, they would already be fully prepared.

Unfortunately, even with his years of experience, some things simply could not be accounted for.

Director Prime was a freakish, obsessive genius, similar to the Vile King in some ways.

Sophia had travelled with him on the Great Bridge, but made practically no impact. Any report on his travels there would only contain her as a sidenote. Even then, there would be so little information to work with, it was practically an impossibility to do anything despite knowing she existed.

Indeed, as Prime found, it was impossible to find her, or him, at first.

The only thing he had was a hunch, after reading over thousands of reports using his time-stopping powers.

One thing led to another, and Prime developed a plan to scan the territory of the G.o.dfather Organization, purely based off that hunch.

The complete lack of knowledge and trails that Prime found had also led him to form one conclusion.

"Heron" knew Prime was looking for him, and had known Prime would come looking for him well beforehand. As a result of that, "Heron" had made countermeasures against the Director.

Once he recognized that fact, the Director planned, and planned, and planned some more.

And that was how he ended up with his plan to search for "Emissary Crane." He believed that Heron would somehow find a way to throw off his efforts once more. But his comrade, Crane? That was an untested field.

In the end, Prime had been incredibly dissatisfied with the setup. The plan wasn"t perfect, nor was there a guaranteed chance of success. It relied a good deal upon luck. But it was the best he could come up with. A vaunted genius who could stop time to think things over a thousand times, reduced to gambling with fate.

But as things would have it… life in the 7 Layers was never fair. The single, minor clue Micheal left behind, one he"d donned a new ident.i.ty and battle style for, hidden away amid thousands of reports…

His actions that couldn"t even really be called a mistake started a chain that ended in an unfortunate roll of fate.

Regardless, Micheal slipped into the embrace of night, his consciousness slipping into blissfully unaware sleep.

.. .. .. .. .. ..

The powerful aura wasn"t from Micheal.

Instead, it originated from General Pedro.

The man had woken up, his eyes blazing with delirium as he tried to get to his feet. Blood seeped out of his chest from the injury he"d sustained, but the man stood all the same, refusing to back down. His outraged yell arose from when he saw the savior of his wife and daughter being brutally attacked.

After a few seconds, however, his injuries overwhelmed him once more. Number 6"s surprise strike had been brutally accurate, injuring him just enough to keep him useless. His powerful yell had exhausted his consciousness and he collapsed back down to the rooftop, his aura vanis.h.i.+ng as he hit the ground with a thud.

The small bud of hope that had formed in Sophia"s heart died.

"Oho? Did you think that was your boyfriend, sweetie? I"ll admit that surprised me." Number 10 turned her focus back to Sophia. She had been startled by General Pedro"s abrupt revival, going so far as to prepare for a second attack.

s.h.i.+n was still kneeling on the ground, clutching at his arm. He was just now starting to get over his horror, coming back to his senses. The injury was horrifying in scope and the first time he had ever been seriously injured. Going into total shock as a result was only natural.

The energy on Number 6"s spear had scattered and helped seal the injury off, acting like a burn. Blood was starting to stop flowing from it, thankfully before s.h.i.+n fainted from blood loss.

"No…" As that last bud of hope died, Sophia looked back at Number 10.

"You hate this, don"t you? I can see it in your eyes." Number 10"s face wasn"t visible, yet Sophia could practically hear the sneer she wore. She was even giving Sophia the cla.s.sic villain"s speech, as if the woman had walked out of a fairy tale. Number 10"s body s.h.i.+vered as she reached out again, this time clutching onto Sophia"s throat.

"You will die for what your boyfriend did to my little man." Her voice was a quiet whisper.

Slowly, her hand began to close in on Sophia"s throat, choking her.

"I must save my sister! I cannot die here!" Sophia struggled against Number 10, but was unable to free her hands or loosen the woman"s grip. She tried to activate her Fairy Eyes but failed, her mental state broken.

"Micheal! Micheal, please! Micheal help!" Her scream was silent, heard only in her head as she begged for help. This was the part where the hero should come to the rescue, if this really was a fairy tale.

By this point, she was desperately trying to gasp for air as oxygen in her blood began to run out. Off to the side and out of sight, Number 6 watched all of this dispa.s.sionately, a hand raised as if he was deciding whether to act or not.

"I… cannot die… here…" Her vision began to grow blurry as her lungs burned.

"Goodbye." Number 10"s voice was cold as she clenched down hard.

Blood pounded in Sophia"s ears. She could hear s.h.i.+n"s agonized moans, Number 10"s sneering laugh. A small breeze brushed onto the roof, rustling the vines that extruded off of Number 10"s body.

As she tasted the scent of blood in the air and her consciousness began to waver, Sophia realized something.

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Micheal wasn"t coming.

She was alone.

"…"

"…"

"…"

Something in Sophia"s mind snapped.

All of a sudden, Sophia felt as if her entire body had been electrified. Every cell she possessed seem to tingle, her senses expanding. She felt as if her mind was operating faster, as if her body was more responsive.

In that moment, several things seemed to fall into place and come clear to Sophia.

Sophia opened her eyes, staring back into what she could see of Number 10"s glaring visage.

Sophia then bit down hard on her own tongue.

"Hmm?" Number 10 blinked in surprise.

Blood gushed from the wound, filling Sophia"s mouth in a matter of seconds. It had a raw, tangy scent that was unpleasant but filled Sophia with a sense of confidence.

A split second later, Sophia welled up the blood and then spat it out, right into Number 10"s eyes.

"Aggh!" Instinctively, Number 10 let go of Sophia"s throat and jerked her hand up to her face. For a split second, the woman raised up her mask, revealing a gorgeous, brown-skinned face with features that looked as if they had been carved by a greek artist. A delicate looking nose, high cheekbones, dainty lips. The only things staining it were the two splotches of blood that were spattered on her eyes.

Despite her shock, Number 10 didn"t lessen her vines" grip on Sophia"s arms and legs.

However, removing her mask and letting go of Sophia"s throat was more than enough.

Sophia used that instant of freedom to viciously headb.u.t.t the woman in the face.

Number 10"s delicate nose broke, spattering blood on Sophia"s face as she fell back. The woman let out a shriek of agony as she fell, covering her face in a defensive posture. The coc.o.o.n of vines that had wrapped around Sophia flailed about, sending her flying backwards.

Sophia winced slightly, feeling pain sweep over her forehead as she tumbled in the air. Despite attacking Number 10"s vulnerable nose, it felt almost as if she was trying to headb.u.t.t a brick wall. She succeeded, but it was extremely painful. All of the A Rankers had extremely tough physical bodies, built up by high Endurance stats.

"Kill her, Spear Tiger!" Number 10 screamed out loud as she quickly recovered, the vines around her expanding in the air as she jumped back up. The last Sophia saw of her face was her gus.h.i.+ng blood as the A Ranker donned her mask, covering up the b.l.o.o.d.y injury.

"Interesting." Number 6 muttered slowly as he lifted up his spear and pointed it at Sophia.

Before he could act, however, and as Sophia was breathing in air with a vengeance, she jerked her head up and stared at Number 6.

Her eyes began to glow.

Sophia"s eyes didn"t glow pink this time, or any color that she consciously controlled.

Instead, they glowed a deep, blood-colored red.

The air around her dropped in temperature drastically. Small particles of frozen water tinkled as they fell from the air, iced over in mid-air.

Number 6 grunted as the Aura Nullification Necklace he wore activated, light fluttering from it. Despite that, the man froze, still affected by her powers.

When Number 10 saw this, she yelled out loud and charged over at Sophia without hesitation. The various vines around her twisted, shooting forward.

Before she got far, however, Sophia"s eyes flicked onto Number 10. She then began to consciously split her attention, most of it centered on Number 6, but a portion of it focused on Number 10.

She wasn"t aware that she could do this, but in the heat of the moment, she forced her body and mind to cooperate.

Blood began to drip down her cheeks, trickling out of her eyeb.a.l.l.s.

Number 10 froze in her tracks, stuttering to a halt as she stopped moving.

A sudden, tense silence swept over the rooftop as Sophia"s Fairy Eyes Ability managed to restrain both Number 6 and Number 10, despite Number 6"s Defensive Artifact. Sophia"s Ability and raw determination were just enough to overwhelm the Artifact"s defenses, though not enough to give her free reign.

Several seconds pa.s.sed. These seconds pa.s.sed into a minute, and then into a couple of minutes. Blood continued to trickle down from her eyes.

Sophia"s body began to s.h.i.+ver and her chest heaved. She was still recovering from all of her injuries, and yet she was now forcing herself to go beyond its limits. Her body felt incredibly alive, she was able to sense every single part of her with startling clarity, but certain things could not be changed.

"D-d, she"s a demon!" Number 10 was the first of the duo to s.h.i.+ver free from Sophia"s Fairy Eyes. Most of Sophia"s focus was on the more dangerous of the two, Number 6. With the Defensive Artifact he wore, the best Sophia could do was force him into a stalemate where neither of them could move.

Number 10"s heart was currently running aflux with fear as she stared at Sophia.

Sophia had gained a horrifying visage. Her eyes were flas.h.i.+ng with red light while trails of tears dripped down them. Her body was trembling and her face had donned a twisted frown.

"I-I-I…" Number 10 stuttered as she took a few steps forward. Sophia"s eyes flickered to glance at her, but was unable to stir up any effort to stop her. Number 6 was demanding her full attention.

"I"ll kill…" Before Number 10 could finish her sentence…

s.h.i.+n ran up and punched her in the face.

"You won"t harm a hair on her body!" s.h.i.+n"s breathing was haggard as he moved, his face pale with blood loss. He had recovered from his shock, just barely, but enough to see Sophia was in trouble and lash out as soon as he could.

Sophia could have kissed the man when she saw this, a wave of relief sweeping through her. She pushed that aside as she continued to focus on Number 6, feeling her concentration start to wane. Slowly, the warrior was breaking free from her control.

Her Soul stat was simply far too low in comparison to theirs.

"s.h.i.+n… Get… help…" She managed as she felt herself about to lose control.

And, with an almost audible crack, Sophia"s body swayed as Number 6 broke free from her control. She was left gasping and wheezing as her mind fluttered, the mental backlash barely containable.

s.h.i.+n looked as if he wanted to say something. Before he could do anything at all, however…

"General Pedro!" A slew of voices broke out over the rooftop as several of the armed guards from down below rushed out through the entry shed. More than a dozen of them quickly filed out, pulling out guns and various other weapons as they saw the scene of battle.

"Sub-Executive s.h.i.+n!" Almost at the same time, a loud yell echoed in the air as a blond haired man dressed in a long white overcoat appeared on a neighboring skysc.r.a.per. The man held a large, electric sword in his hand that glowed with energy and gave off the appearance of a powerful fighter.

s.h.i.+n recognized him instantly. Electricor, one of the 6 powerful Executives that helped lead the G.o.dfather Organization.

"10. We need to leave, now." Number 6 made a waving motion with his hand as he stored his spear. His other hand clutched at his head, as if Sophia"s Fairy Eyes had left him with a blinding headache.

Immediately, several gla.s.s doors appeared on the rooftop.

One sp.a.w.ned next to Number 9"s dead body. Number 6"s arm reached through this one and then stored Number 9"s corpse, s.n.a.t.c.hing up his Storage Ring in the process. He then jumped backwards through one that appeared right behind him.

Number 10 took one last glare at Sophia, her eyes spitting hatred so venomous it could practically be felt as she jumped through a gla.s.s door that had sp.a.w.ned next to her.

"Count your days, wh.o.r.e." Number 10 left Sophia with one last, hate-fueled message as the Numbers members vanished from the rooftop.

Sophia smiled softly. She blinked as she looked around the roof.

The world around her turned black as she then collapsed, falling into the sweet embrace of darkness. The last thing she remembered was s.h.i.+n"s worried yell and then dive to catch her.

.