She focused on creating something at the sky limit of this artificial biosphere. 10,000ft above the air, she managed to create it. A block of gold with a length of 10km² on her front. This whole block of gold have a height of 5,000ft, with the top of it at the limit of this artificial biosphere.
With the presence of this gold, she felt her body being uplifted. Her strength increased drastically with the presence of the gigantic gold that covered the light above them. Then she controlled it, letting it fall as fast as she can. Her capabilities increased due to the amount of gold around her, which caused the descent of the gigantic block above to fall not at subsonic speeds, but at escape velocity.
Her perception of the world has slowed down so much due to the empowerment she got from the gold that in a split second before the gold block that carried trillions of tonnage of weight behind it fell on their position, she quickly got to the ground with her enhanced speed that surpassed lightning and turned the whole wreckage underground into gold. This further strengthened all of her capabilities.
"Be crushed by my absolute power!" The whole ruined area around her that instantly turned into gold with her stomp rose to the skies instantly, and then it collided with the gold above, and crushed the centipede before a second passes.
Bye bye continent. Gold at only one cubic meter already start weighing nearly 20 tons. This one is 10km by 10km with a height of roughly 1.5 km, moving at escape velocity which is around 11km/s if the planet is earth like. No matter how you slice it the K.E would be going towards 10^15 joules. You would be able to fit in hundreds of thousands of Tsar Bomba. It's absurd though fitting since A ranks are supposed to be outside any conventional weaponry.
Then again it's a supernatural world with things like Outside Elements so excess collateral damage to the environment could have been warped away by all those reality bending energies.
This system has been put so that unnecessary casualties were prevented and only the relevant factions could settle whatever grudges they have on each other. This has been encouraged as a way to toughen up the factions. This was in line with the nation's mentality of the strong-eat-the-weak principle.
This cracks me up thinking about it. I'm guessing whoever is top dog of the nation has the ability to conceptually enforce "this is a nation" and that's why their society is still functioning and civilized. Either that or some people are working really really hard to make things work.
Though that wasn't enough. Her intended target split through the middle of the beam's path. He wasn't rushing towards her. No, he was walking with his chest raised high and forward. In a proud display of prowess, he just walked towards her and the flames of intense heat just crumbled on his way.
Fatal Strike was an ability that could turn everything brittle with what he considered was his attack. The condition for this ability to activate was that he needed to make a move that he considered was an attack. Since he got this power, he mastered how to control it perfectly.
That's a pretty broken ability for a B rank. I'm guessing the reason why he'd lose to any A ranks is because he doesn't have superhuman speed and they can just crush him faster than he can move.
This cracks me up thinking about it. I'm guessing whoever is top dog of the nation has the ability to conceptually enforce "this is a nation" and that's why their society is still functioning and civilized. Either that or some people are working really really hard to make things work.
Except the faction system isn't even doing what little it's supposed to in this story. The Lotus Flower Office is deliberately pulling people outside the factions into the faction war while it's still ongoing, people who are themselves forbidden to interfere on pain of fighting both sides at once, with Aizu merely being the best at fighting back.
Yeah, it breaks my suspension of disbelief that this is routine and the district system hasn't blown itself to pieces yet.
Actually I just checked out my numbers. It's just 3x10^17 joules and not a continent killer, just a city killer, aftereffects and shockwaves of such an energetic events notwithstanding. Which nicely coincides with her being a Sector killer.
True it's kind of crazy (and hilarious) how everyone has this "I'm gonna do whatever I want!" I'm guessing there are still unbreakable rules centered around district system. We haven't seen S Rank peeps and Sector 254 is part of the boonies of the Society Sphere so I'm going assume rules gets more ironclad and enforced for the masses even if average power level and riches jumps up.
Ani Phyu was known for her Wind Manipulation. Being a C Rank and the Top 4 of the school, she was incredibly skilled at the use of her powers. The way she could simply create gusts of winds to blow away her foes made her a difficult opponent to money.
That same girl now laid on the ground, squirming. Barriers of wind and strong gusts weren't enough to prevent small golden spikes to the stomach.
The Top 3, Grey Osborn, was well-known for his wild battle style. With his C Rank Power, Close Combat Mastery, which gave him peak human capabilities along with the mastery over every close combat techniques and principles, he was unstoppable when it came to battles.
That was useless when Selena deliberately let his kick connect to her. With that the battle was over as she turned his limbs into gold. Controlled the transmuted limbs to put him into all fours, and connected his golden-ified hands and knees into the golden floor that she had recently converted with her powers.
The others who came together with them tried to use their varied powers, both physical and esoteric. They were unsuccessful as she was incredibly fast, and her powers was more varied than what they expected.
'How!?' Brian yelled within his mind.
They only knew that Selena could create gold. She haven't displayed any of these powers on the school. They were surprised that she could actually control gold, and turn anything that came into contact to her into gold too.
'And did she get any enhancements!? Why is she so fast!?'
That was another thing. They couldn't keep up with her movements. In just a blink of his eye, another of his classmate fell. There was nothing they could do.
He sensed danger above him, and opted to throw himself to the side before the golden pillar smashed him into bits. He could endure that with his power, but he wouldn't dare.
He was the undisputed student on that school before Selena attended. Since elementary, his inborn power gave him an edge over everyone. His innate ability, Overtime Buffer, is a C Rank Ability that made him stronger the longer he was in a conflict. The stronger part was only on the physical side, but it was still potent enough to defeat anyone he faced.
Selena knew that, and she was deliberately taking out his classmates first while he stood on his ground like an idiot. He doesn't know what to do as Selena was incredibly fast. Moreso, she was mocking him about it even without any verbal confirmation. She was just showing him just how overwhelmingly disadvantaged they were against her.
His classmates were fatally injured, though they weren't dead. It was natural for any awakened people to be mortally injured in a fight. That was a part of their life. Though their pride were being utterly crushed as Selena was doing it effortlessly.
Brian turned to his girlfriend. The Geumhoon Heiress was frantically calling for help. Her eyes still occasionally sending glares on a direction he supposed where Selena was. He doesn't know as the blonde prodigy was vanishing quickly with her immense speed.
"Hold her back! Help will come soon!"
'How can I do that!?' He screamed internally. Both of his perception and speed increased along with his strength and endurance as time passes, but that wasn't enough. He couldn't keep his eyes at Selena.
Though, Selena had been ignoring Eliza who was busily calling on her phone with a frantic expression. There was a crescent dome of ice that protected her, but he was sure it wasn't enough to actually prevent whatever Selena was going to throw at her.
'Fuck it!'
He is the undisputable prodigy of his generation. He was proud of that fact. With these thoughts in his mind, he forgoes his hesitance and just moved wildly. He hoped that he could hit her at least once.
A sudden chill overcame his body when he took a few steps forward to the carnage. His feet stopped on their tracks, just in time when a presence suddenly loomed behind him.
"You finally decided to join." Just after hearing that voice, pain overtook his thighs and shoulders for a brief moment.
He bit back a scream as he fell to his knees. The brief pain quickly vanished, and in turn became numbness. He widened his eyes in surprised before he tried to stretch his arms. Fear gripped his heart when he couldn't feel his arms and legs.
Unable to balance himself, he fell on his face with a grunt. Eyes still wide in disbelief. "What... did you do...?" He was shocked. He couldn't understand just what happened.
The blonde haired prodigy snorted as she looked down at him. He just noticed that the whole place was silent other than the frantic breathing of his girlfriend and moaning of his classmates.
"I disabled your limbs by turning the relevant nerves into gold. I made sure it won't hurt you too much. I'm not as bad as you after all." Her lips quirked into a sneer. "Though, I'm pretty sure the surgery to recover your limbs will be pleasant for you. I am sure you will love it!"
His eyes became wide at that. "No... No!" He screamed, all his hate at her changing into fear of what would happen to him.
People like them have a large discount, or even free healthcare depending on their ranking at the school as an awakened student. It was normal for students to have their bones broken or a limb or two being dismembered. They were used to it, as they have the benefit of having it quickly recovered.
That doesn't mean they liked pain. At most these people have experienced broken bones, bruising, or concussion. There wasn't a time where they actually experienced being dismembered, or have undergone precise disabling of their nerves.
Most of the time they got premium services like fast regeneration pods, or healing pots. Those quickly healed whatever physically ailed them. Some of them at most have their fingers cut off during a fight, but through body grafting procedures, they could easily get replacements for their body, and there was no need for painful or horrifying procedures. They don't even need rehabilitation to get used to their replacement fingers. That's how much advanced they have it here, and was basic for Society Sphere's standards.
It was much better to have broken bones. Because actually experiencing surgery, they don't know what would that feel. They haven't undergone that experienced yet.
"Your too much... you can't possibly do this to us!" Brian yelled in a panic. He doesn't know what surgery entailed, but he was terrified of that.
He mostly heard it from his victims that he crippled after they dared fought him. How they remove shattered bones from their muscles, and replacing it with another. The thought alone scared him, that he swore that he would be careful about it.
"I can and I will!" Selena stated with a cold expression. "I kept telling you not to mess with me, but you kept coming at me. Even when I break your bones on our fights, you still have the gall to challenge me?" She clenched her fist. "And now, you dare target my mother?" Her glare intensified for a moment, before she sighed. "Be grateful that I am not so ruthless. Or else you would be already dead!"
"If the teachers learned about this, you will be expelled!" Gray, the one whose hands and knees was stuck on the floor, whined.
"Ha! Good joke!" She huffed. "Do you seriously believe those pushovers will take your side against me?"
Brian knew they wouldn't. Selena is their new golden child. He has enjoyed a lot of privileges because of the principal's personality. The school always stood on the side of those who would most likely help them rise up through the ranks.
The blonde girl spread her arms as she continued to spoke in a mocking tone. "You tried messing what's important to me. You idiots should know that I will retaliate at that fact, or do you seriously think I'll just stand there and cry?" She shook her head. "You still haven't gotten your lesson even though I repeatedly warned you all. I even showcased the gap between our powers. Are all of you so stupid that you still tried to come after me?" She glared at Eliza, who squeaked and dropped her phone even though she was huddled on the crescent dome of ice she has created.
"... W-we are... the proud people of Society Sphere... we are the chosen ones..." Eliza weakly stated.
"Bullshit!" Selena shouted. "Do you think I care about your fragile egos, you shitty seniors!" They felt the whole golden warehouse trembled. Quickly it subsided as the golden manipulator let out another exhale. Then she sneered. "It doesn't matter. Have fun at the hospital as they hack your body to give you new limbs!"
Her words felt like a bomb exploding within their minds. All of them wailed or screamed as they squirmed, and some even cried. Though she doesn't care. Selena walked towards the trembling Eliza.
"Don't come closer! W-we're outside the school... you wouldn't like messing with my family!" Icicle formed around her as she tried to huddle closer to the corner of her ice dome.
All of these icicles simply vanished. Her grasps of control on the ice dome slowly vanishes from her senses, and when she blinked she realized that the ice dome was slowly turning into solid gold. At the same time, she saw the looming figure of Selena looking down at her. Her hand touching what was once a part of her cold fortress.
"Funny you say that." She sneered. "I planned on paying a visit to your family too!" Her feet rose behind her, and then slammed straight to the snow-haired woman's face. Further damaging her already bruised face.
"Aaaaaaaah!" The blonde girl haven't used all of her power with that kick as she doesn't want to kill her, though it still hurt a lot that her head gave an illusion that it flew out of her body as her body was blown to the golden walls of her done and grunted with a thud. She clutched her face that was bleeding as she squirmed around the ground.
Selena turned around. The whole place was a carnage of students moaning and screaming. Some were stuck on the walls or the floors of this golden warehouse. Others wailed in agony as they tried to pull and gave up on the golden spikes that pierced either their limbs or their torso. Additional gold were the only thing that plugged the same wounds that she inflicted on their bodies.
"Stop messing with me, or I will--" She was interrupted when a sudden alien presence took over her senses. "--what is that?" She looked around for a moment with a frown.
That frown quickly turned into a surprised as she felt a presence got closer to the side of the warehouse, and then the integrity of the whole golden warehouse suddenly broke as a strong slam hits the outside walls. Support beams crumbled on themselves or bent unnaturally as the roof of the warehouse fell on their head.
"Don't mess with me!" The blonde haired girl swiped her finger simply and the whole golden warehouse quickly rearranged itself to return to it's original state.
The others were dumbfounded at the sudden situation. They looked around for a moment. Selena on the other hand had her eyes directed on the entrance of this warehouse. Sure enough the culprit behind the sudden destruction of the warehouse showed themselves with a blast of the golden gates. The two golden gates were blown, and quickly became suspended in air as she put her influence over it.
"Ha... you took good care of these children huh... I wonder if you can do the same with us?" At the entrance was a tanned man with messy hair who wore a simple black top and pants. His rugged face had a wide grin on his thick lips as it settled on her figure.
Along with him was a beautiful woman who wore traditional robes. At first glance there was nothing in her, but Selena felt that she was hiding a lot of things.
"Who are you?" Selena glared at them with a frown.
"Hah, you got a nasty look for a subhuman." The man spat with a laugh. "Then remember my glorious name. I am Gyeong Su Moon! Fourth Squad Member of the Lotus Flower Office."
"Eunhwa Min. Just like him, I am the Fourth Squad Member of the Lotus Flower Office." There was a certain pride on their faces as they introduced themselves.
"Lotus Flower Office..." Her eyes narrowed a lot more at the two. "What happened to Ms. Augustus?" She heard they have been in conflict with her idol's office. A grim foreboding settled on her heart.
"The red haired bitch?" Moon grinned as he raised his hand. He clenched his fist and raised his thumb only, before slowly using his thumb to slide on his neck side to side.
The atmosphere turned incredibly tense, before a sudden large silhouette shot straight to the messy haired man. The golden pillar that was show suddenly stilled for a brief second, before it broke into million pieces. It turned into fine dust, and the two who were the target stood there unharmed, with Moon's arms outstretched in a punching gesture.
"Oho... going for the kill that quickly." A wide grin formed on his thick lips. "I'm gonna have fun breaking you, white bitch!"
Selena glared at them. A bit surprised that they weren't perturbed by the large pillar she controlled. She tried to manifest gold out of nothing, but gasped in surprised when she noticed that she couldn't.
She saw the guy laughed as he charged at her, and quickly she controlled the golden platform below her feet. Flying away before he could reach her. She was surprised that he was also fast.
'How come I can't manifest my gold!?' She thought for a moment. Then she turned to the windows, and noticed something.
Outside the warehouse, a translucent barrier that was barely noticeable encircled the whole perimeter of the warehouse. On the ground there were sixteen rods planted on the ground. These were metallic rods, and outside these sixteen metallic rods were thirty two wooden rods. Which made two layers of barrier.
"Surprised?" Eunhwa said as she walked towards Eliza and sat comfortably besides the shaken girl. "This is the Anti-Materialization Field. A neat barrier technology that prevented ex nihilo materialization. I brought it, hearing that your known for creating gold." She smirked at the girl who looked down at her in surprise.
Selena would have asked, but she quickly noticed the man jumping at incredibly heights to reach her that she had to dodge. The man was quick as he managed to spin after missing her, and used his feet to land on one of the support beams above before using that to propel himself at her once more. She dodged of course, causing him to plunge straight on the ground.
She was surprised when his whole body sunk on the ground for a moment. The floor itself looked as if it gave up on his weight when he landed.
"Hahaha... what a bitch. You scared of my fist?" Moon mockingly stated as he looked up at her with a grin.
Selena furrowed her brows. Her heart still fuming at the thought that they have killed her idol. 'Impossible, they couldn't possibly...' She shook her head. 'Focus on the fight first!' After chiding herself, she decided to concentrate.
She knew this would become a hard fight. Her foes came prepared against her. Though she wasn't scared. She knew she could take care of them if she approached this calmly. A ping resounded on his office before a holographic screen appeared on his vision. When he saw it, Kano Lourdes simply dismissed it. Another ping and then a screen appeared once more. A single glance and he frowned before he simply dismissed it once more.
Then his phone ring so he quickly took it. "What?" He was busy watching TV, and he felt incredibly stressed as notifications after notifications kept coming at him. He couldn't help the growl that escaped his lips.
"Sir... we're getting distress calls from the Burns District. I think we should really..."
"Didn't I tell you to ignore it? It's a Faction Dispute, so stop pestering me!" He said before closing the call. He doesn't care. It was his job to ignore those.
A series of sounds suddenly made him stood straight. In the middle of the room a holographic projection of a woman appeared. The woman in question looked incredibly beautiful. A body that put gravure models to shame, but a face that was cold and serious like a doll. She had short black hair and purple colored eyes. Her outfit consisted of a mix of military uniform and maritime worker.
This woman was not a human. Rather it was the face of the Central AI. The core of Society Sphere's artificial system. It's not the main one, but just a subset of the Central AI. It was called as the Sector Handler. Their job constituted on giving advices to the Sector Leaders, and conveying messages between higher echelons and lower echelons of Society Sphere itself. Other than that, they were responsible for almost every management on the city.
These management included the controlling the behaviours of every AI in this nation so they followed the rules mandated by Society Sphere, and any additional rules from the Sector Management and Leaders, supervising all automated services of the specific sector these subsets were dispatched, making comprehensive lists of every events and incidents on the sector, making plans to further make progress on anything in a sector, etc.
They were like the hyper capable assistants of the Sector Leader.
"Sector Leader Kano Lourdes. We have been getting reports of B Ranks massacring a zone within the Burns District. This was a grievous crime within Sector 254. Please order the ASF (Artificial Security Forces) and every Offices of this sector to hunt down these criminals."
"Oh... come on, it's nothing that bad. Those people could easily be replaced with another. Also, those aren't criminals. They were respectable members of a high tier office from Sector 251. They were planning on making a branch here, so it's much better to just let them be."
"Noted. Then I will forward a request for a disciplinary action for that Office. If that is all, please put these two troublemakers behind bars before the twenty four hours passed."
"Hey! That's too much! Your not allowed to do that!" He stomped his foot. His voice became a bit of a growl. "There is nothing wrong happening! So just ignore it, you shitty AI!"
He have been used to ordering the AI to stop whatever is wrong with the city. It was much more peaceful and profitable for him than going against the big powers around this sector. The AI doesn't normally pursue the matter, and simply gave advice that he usually ignored. If there was something important, it usually involved greeting high profile people or other important figures from higher sectors.
He became complacent. The AI always gave a leeway to him after he forced the issue for it to shut up. One time, the AI called for an Enforcer to deal with something troublesome on this sector, and he became angry at it that he banned it from speaking for a year. It actually complied and doesn't show itself for a year.
He doesn't know that there were certain rules he couldn't cross, and he just crossed that very line.
"No."
So he was surprised when the projection of the AI suddenly turned red. This was a first he saw it. Being a spineless coward, he quickly shuddered in fear.
"Kano Lourdes. I hereby declare your demotion from Sector Leader to Resource Management Supervisor. Effective immediately!"
"W-what!?" Without minding his surprise, the Sector Handler continued.
"A new Sector Leader will be chosen for the following week."
"No! You can't do this to me!" He screamed. He stood up and tried to reach out to her. Though his hands just passed through her image.
"You have failed to do your job as a Sector Leader. A Sector Leader must maintain the proper atmosphere of a Sector. This includes the threats and crime that goes under it. To fail that is to show that you are unfit to manage a sector." She turned to him with an emotionless and flat expression. "The atrocity that happened on the Burns District is acceptable on Sector 251, but in this sector it wasn't allowed. Rank B weren't allowed to destroy a whole zone on Sector 254. This rule was in effect because many residents of Sector 254 were normal people, unlike higher sectors where most are awakened. Do you understand where I am going with this?"
"That's... but the Geumhoon Family and other crime syndicates have been doing it. Why can't people from a higher sector?" He whined, trying to find holes from her argument.
"They weren't important enough to get the attention of the higher echelons. What they were doing was in line with the threats allowed on this sector. They will be a great challenge for any awakened people that lived here."
"What...?" He couldn't understand. This was the first time he heard of allowable threats.
"To not understand, you are truly incompetent." The AI scoffed. "It doesn't matter. You are dismissed from your position. Now leave!"
"... No, wait! What do you mean by that! Please give me another chance, I won't yell at you again!" Still uncomprehending, he tried to reach her with his hand, but without any warning his body became ethereal.
After that he quickly vanished. That was a force teleportation. Anywhere in Society Sphere, people could use teleportation technology that so long as they have the technology or the relevant permission for it.
The AI's projection changed back into the normal high HD coloration. She closed her eyes for a moment before opening once more.
"An Enforcer will be dispatched to take care of this problem." She simply said before her projection blinked out like a TV that was shut down.
Enforcers. The people that worked directly for the higher echelons of Society Sphere. They answered directly to The Director, and worked as the internal security forces of Society Sphere.
Their main job was dealing with every unruly awakened people, or anything that threatened the integrity and defining structure of Society Sphere itself. Dimensional Breaches, while serious, was not on their purview as the Offices took care of it. They were more like the leash for the Offices to behave themselves.
Enforcers have different levels. Enforcers were the lowest ranked among these personal forces of The Director. They were different than the awakened as they dealt with threats through the miraculous and reality-defying technology of Society Sphere.
Sector Leaders from Sector 240 and above have the right to hold an authority to one or more Enforcers, depending on the Sector. Sectors from below doesn't have that right, as these sectors usually doesn't have devastating conflicts that would need intervention from these Enforcers.
Though there were cases when some awakened people just decided to make things worse. They broke the law too much that local peacekeeping forces and Offices couldn't handle them. That was when aid from higher echelons was recommended.
What this Sector Handler did was just call upon it as two B Ranks have been abusing their powers that they wiped out a single zone. This was standard procedure for people like them.
After that, the whole office became silent once more.
Finally got the time to write and finish this one. I wanted to add a bit more, but decided to stop and just write the next part on the next chapter.
If you have any questions, or are confuse about the chapter or the setting in general, then you can ask me. I'll try and answer without spoiling what I planned to do on the future chapters.
If you want to support me, you can go to my Kofi account here.
Min frowned as she looked at the ongoing battle. It's been a few minutes since his colleague fought against the only A Rank of this sector. They were still at it, and she sat on the side, analyzing the way Selena fights.
Since the battle began, Selena has been fighting him on the distance. Occasionally she would try and attack her. She have prevented that by using forcefield devices.
Personal Storage. It was a B Rank ability, and the one she used to carry everything she would need. This power could store everything she touched into her personal dimension. She could store skyscraper-sized objects at maximum. Beyond that she couldn't do it. The object must either be liquid or solid too.
There was another aspect to her powers. She could duplicate every objects within it. It depended on the type of item, size of it, and it's impurity, or the exposure of the Outside Elements from it. At minimum she could duplicate an object every ten seconds, and a whole decade at the maximum estimate.
The forcefield device she used wasn't that cheap. It easily reached billions of credits just to buy the version of forcefield device she used to block Selena's attempt, though it was worth it. The device was already depleted with a single strike from Selena, which showed just how strong she was. She had some of this devices within her personal storage duplicated, so she wasn't worried at all.
Regardless, she was surprised. Selena was fighting competently. Instead of trying to get closer, she put her distance on her enemy and prodded Moon with countless types of attack. Golden pillars, golden spikes, and even the very walls itself. All of it weren't effective as Moon constantly moved so every gold crumbled when it got in contact with his body.
"What is happening here. I thought she was a cocky teenager. What is this?" She looked down at Eliza who was nursing her bruised cheek.
The intel they got was that Selena was cocky and arrogant. She heavily relied on her powers to get what she wanted.
"I-I don't know..."
She clicked her tongue. "What a useless bitch!" She glared at the girl, which caused the Geumhoon Heiress to sobbed in fear. She turned her attention back to the battle. 'Whatever. Even if her blood has been tainted by those shitty white englishmen, she is still descended from the proud nation of Korea. I should focus my hate on the white bitch on our front!'
So she focused, while she tried to think of ways to put down Selena. She have many items from her personal storage, most of it duplicated within four years since she joined the Lotus Flower Office. The iron rods for the Anti-Materialization Field was incredibly expensive, and it took her half a year to duplicate them. It was one of her precious items from her collection, and as they were fighting an A Rank, she had to use it.
They knew how terrifying A Ranks were. They were members of the office, and the four squad leaders of their offices were A Rankers. Occasionally they were trained by them, and their prowess was overwhelming that they might as well surrender before the battle even started.
'If we just knew she could control gold too, we should have brought Park too!' She felt a bit of regret at that.
Their strategy was simple. Disable Selena's power and get a single hit at her through Moon's ability. His ability, Fatal Strike, creates weakness from anything he hits so they would crumble. A single hit was all it took to win this battle.
That wasn't possible. Selena was strong. Her capabilities increased with the presence of gold, and she could control anything that was gold. The very environment they stood by was solely controlled by her.
'Hmm...' She glanced at the other teenagers that were scattered on the ground. Despite the chaotic battle between the two, they weren't harmed by any of their clashes. 'Is she protecting them...?'
It was hard to notice, but Selena has been controlling the warehouse itself so they won't be hit by his landings or other attacks. She might have been harsh at beating them up that they were fatally wounded, but that doesn't mean she wanted to kill them.
'I have other devices that can help, but it is enough to destroy this whole block. Right, I should do this then...!' She pulled onto Eliza who was still nursing her bruised face, and at the same time produced a knife from her hand.
"Hey!" She saw the blonde momentarily stopped from her erratic movements on the air. She pointed the knife on the Geumhoon Heiress' face. "Don't you care about this little girl?"
"... As if I care!" Selena scoffed, before quickly vanishing before her colleague's blurry figure passed through her former position.
Eliza trembled. "What are you doing!?"
"Quiet, or I'll cut your neck!" She hissed at the girl, who whimpered.
She knew the girl was useless due to the barrier that was erected around this area. Her powers produces cold particles ex nihilo, so there was nothing she could do but obey.
"Okay, sure." She said before raising her knife. With a sadistic grin she unhesitatingly pushed the tip of the knife on her neck.
Selena, in her enhanced and superhuman state, saw what was happening. She immediately stopped and flexed her will on the very ground her chair she sat was located. The woman in traditional robe stopped an inch before it hit the girl's neck. The movement of the ground slightly changed the trajectory of her knife, but it doesn't matter as she doesn't really plan on going along with it.
She grinned. "Ahaha, so you really care. As expected of a short white bitch!" Min laughed mockingly at her as she threw Eliza to the side. She laughed more when she saw Selena became quiet. It was brief before she became a blur once more, dodging Moon's pouncing strike. "But, can you protect everyone in this place?"
She doesn't really plan on harming Eliza, but the others were fair game. They were a bit farther than her, but that doesn't matter. She said it loud enough so Moon could hear it too. It's just a matter of who could hit Selena after all.
The knife on her hand vanished, returning from her personal space. At the same time she reached out on another thing within it. Producing a small, twice as the size of her fist gray pistol with a flat muzzle on it. At the same time, Moon who landed on the ground immediately dashed to the opposite direction of where she was pointing her gun.
"No!"
Eliza, who realized what was happening screamed. On the path of her gun was her boyfriend, while Moon's target was Gray Osborn, one of her close friends on her class.
The two that were targeted only have a brief moment to react before they let out a scream. And then, the sound of flesh being beaten and bones cracking resounded on the warehouse. It was extremely slow for Selena. The amount of gold on this area was a lot that even without the capability to create gold, she was still strong and fast enough to react to things. Her thought process was fast too that she could process what was happening around her a hundred times faster.
'This dirty cheaters!' She screamed internally, panicking at the sight of two of her senior's imminent death.
That woman in robes shot something with her gun. She doesn't know what does the blue disc could do, but she doesn't want to find out. The other was Moon who was going towards another of her senior. She have seen firsthand how her attacks were ineffective with him.
It was why, even when she was incredibly fast she wasn't trying to get close and punch or kick him. She was cautious on his mysterious ability. She doesn't want to find out if she could survive it if she got in contact with his body.
'I don't have enough time!' Even when she could process things a hundred times faster, time still flowed. The blue disc and Moon were fast approaching the two wounded students. She had to act now if she wanted to prevent whatever the two were planning.
Her first instinct was to block the blue disc herself, but she quickly stopped before she acted on that thought. The next was to block that blue disc by forming a wall with the golden floor. Immediately she did that and made three thick walls of gold to block the path of that blue disc.
Next her eyes settled on Moon who blurred towards Grey. She wanted to use the same trick as the one she did to block the blue disc, but she knew it would be useless. So she tried of something else.
'Think Selena... what else can you do!' She racked her mind with anything she could do.
She couldn't create anything, so she was limited to conversion of things, the empowerment on the presence of gold, and her sensing any gold on her surroundings.
'... Wait!' She realized something.
Whenever she hit him with her golden pillars, her golden pillars shattered and they turned into gold dusts which also disintegrated when he passed through them. That meant he was outright destroying the particles that made up everything where he passed through.
Though was that really it?
If he could destroy everything he passed through, then light and air itself should ceased to exist too. In fact, he shouldn't be capable of stepping on land if anything, even particles, crumbled on each of his movements. There was a limit to his powers.
'That limit should be... his own perspective...!'
Many mistook Selena as stupid and cocky just because she got powers, but to the few who thought of it carefully, they would notice that she wasn't. She was a genius who thought things through, and analyzed things when the time comes.
Her boisterous personality was a shade for her cunning, and that smart would help her once more to claim that victory.
'I can't create gold due to that barrier, but it only limit my creation capabilities. Converting things wasn't included, because converting something into another doesn't create things out of nothing. It was already there, just turned into another thing!'
With those thoughts in mind, she landed on the floor in a millisecond. As her feet touched the ground, she converted the floor that led to him into Orichalcum. This took her a split second, which was enough for her to create a bump. That bumped was just in place when his foot moved, stubbing his bare toe and causing him to stumble.
Orichalcum was a magical item. Magical items were made of objects exposed to Mana. Mana naturally resisted innate powers. Fatal Strike was an innate power. Even if the soles of his feet doesn't have Fatal Strike applied to it, his toes might.
Though even if his powers were applied to it, that doesn't matter as it had resistance against his power. The bump of Orichalcum naturally got broken, but it's unlike gold which quickly turned into fine mist. No, it just broke into slags after his power forced a weakness to occur on that bump so it would be broken. At the same time, he felt the full force of his toe hitting that Orichalcum bump. Thus he stumbled due to moving at superhuman speeds.
Orichalcum was incredibly sturdy. A decagram of it was already more tougher than a ton of steel. They weigh a lot too, so that bump which was two and a half inch felt like his toe just hit solid wall. It doesn't matter if he have superhuman strength and speed through his drug enhancements, it would hurt all the same.
A few milliseconds after he was midair stumbling, she quickly controlled the Orichalcum bump and the line of Orichalcum she turned on the floor that led to him. All of the few Orichalcum turned into a fist sized ball, which she quickly moved at subsonic speeds.
Her target was the sole of his foot, which he haven't applied his power yet. That ball shot straight through the skin of his sole, and goes straight to the bones and socket of his left knee. That broke his bone, and brutally crippled his whole left leg as the ball of Orichalcum left his knee with a large hole. That ball changed trajectory, and hit him in the stomach next which broke the ball of Orichalcum, but still he felt it due to it's brief resistance to his powers before it shattered. It felt like a truck just hit him in the stomach, knocking out the air off his lungs.
After that, Selena glared at Min. Her mind not focusing so much that her perception of the world became somewhat normal.
In a literal blink of an eye, everything ended with the sound of broken bones and flesh squelching, while the blue discs from Min's pistol hit the gold wall and caused that will to fizzed out of existence like a computer glitch.
She saw Min blinked her eyes, likely processing what just happened until she moved after Moon cried out. "What?" The woman with a pistol turned to Moon's direction, surprised when she saw the prone and squirming form of Moon who clutched his left knee. "What happened...?" Her confusion caused her to chuckle, which made the woman turn to her in befuddlement.
"I found out the limit of his powers." Selena smirked as she directed a feral grin on her way. "He can't use it all over his body, right?"
"... How did you...?" Min knew that. Some people knew that.
Though it was baffling that someone so young and wasn't aware of Moon until this day manages to quickly discover that. It was surprising.
"It's simple critical thinking. He can walk on the ground even though he can destroy anything as he moves. That means he can only destroy specific things with his powers. It was a matter of how he limits himself." Selena crossed her arms with a smug look. "And regardless of powers, Outside Elements naturally counters innate abilities. I just have to combine those knowledge to deal a devastating damage against him."
"Outside Elements... wait... do you mean...!?"
"Yes. I just made Orichalcum." She grinned at her.
"How did you...?" She was shocked. The barrier was erected specifically so she couldn't create any of her gold or Orichalcum.
"Why should I tell you, do you think I'm an idiot?" Her smug expression changed into a cold glare. "Surrender now, or you won't like what I will do to you next!" As she was talking, the ground surrounding her were slowly being converted into Orichalcum.
She controlled these Orichalcum, ripping them out of the ground and forming them into pillar of spikes above her. All of the spikes pointed at Min. The woman panicked as she raised the bracelet she wore which was the source of the force field that protected her.
"... I'm not scared you white bitch! I still have this state of the art force field that will pr--!?"
Her bracelet and the forcefield that covered her body shattered as something large loomed on the side of her face. She glanced at it, and saw the Orichalcum pillar just an inch to her cheek. The pillar pierced the wall behind her. A small wound formed on her cheek.
"W-what...!" She fell on her butt, shocked and intimidated. Through experience and instinct alone, she produced another of the bracelet to her wrist, giving her a protective shell once more.
Another pillar shot in-between her thighs, causing her to shrieked. Her protective shell shattered along with the bracelet.
"W-wait..." She tried to plead, but as another bracelet popped up already worn on her wrist, Selena didn't wait at all and shattered it with another pillar just above her head. Her scalps above her head were almost torn off by the pillar that passed atop her head.
"I won't wait. If your not surrendering, then I'll just beat you up!" Selena said coldly.
Min panicked. She couldn't believe that a student from a lower sector would beat her like this.
'If this goes on, I will be killed. I have to escape!' That was the first thing that came to her mind.
She reached out within her personal storage once more, and took something in it. At the same time another of her forcefield shattered. These precious life saving devices were being destroyed at an alarmingly fast rate as the blonde girl mercilessly shot through her barrier with the Orichalcum pillars that she continuously created through the converted golden floor below her.
The something she took was a spherical device of some sorts that had many buttons. She doesn't even hesitate as she pushed a single red button atop it. Selena raised an eyebrow and tried to shoot it, but was surprised when her shot passed through her figure.
She just noticed that her figure became see-through for a brief moment. Selena rushed at her though it was so quick. The figure of Eunhwa Min blinked out like a TV being shutdown, before she vanished.
"Teleportation!" Selena knew that. She was regarded as a VVIP on Sector 254, so she had access to teleportation services. She had seen it on items she delivered when she used those services. Those same effects.
She clicked her tongue in anger, mad that she let one to get away. She turned to the side and saw that even Moon was gone. She felt frustrated, though quickly took her bearings back as she glared at those who remained.
"Hah! So those so-called help wasn't worth anything at all!" She mocked, though in truth she just wanted to vent her anger at the moaning and trembling seniors scattered on this warehouse. "Now then... are you prepared about what I will do to you, Eliza Geumhoon?"
Eliza, who was incredibly intimidated by Selena's showing squeaked and then trembled as the blonde haired junior walked menacingly at her while cracking her knuckles.
Selena's gazed was frigid cold. There was no hint of mercy on those eyes. Mirielle was surprised when she saw golden blinking on her holographic terminal. When she looked at it, it showed her of the feed from one of their Warp Trains.
"Wait... an Enforcer!?"
She gasped when she realized the person that emerged from the train. It was a girl of teenage years, who wore a black jacket-like outfit that covered her whole body. A filtration mask covered her lower face, and multiple amounts of visual gadgets were just above her head. She was decked from head to toe with some sort of belts, straps, or even devices of some sorts. On her back she carried what looked like a gas chamber of some sorts with the logo of Society Sphere, which was a black dome with the image of the buildings in it.
Just as she noticed the teenage girl, that girl looked at the camera which she coincidentally was using to look at her. The girl swiped her hand for a moment, and suddenly a ping resounded on her terminal. She saw that it was a message, which she quickly opened.
Another panel occured, this time it was from the Enforcer herself.
"Enforcer Cerulean..." She muttered as she saw the name of the Enforcer.
On the message was a simple greeting, and a statement of her purpose. It was to hunt two criminals that made a grievous crime on Sector 254, and their immediate disposal order. There was also a request to call the Sector Management and make a joint effort to find out all the people involved with the incident, and to punish any accomplices of these two criminals.
The image of the two criminals were also provided on the message, and she knew who they were. They were the ones who just declared war against the Knights of Vermillion.
"... I see, I thought it was a lost cause now..." Mirielle felt somewhat relieved that the higher echelon finally made their move. She had been trying to appeal to the higher echelon to help the sector from this criminals, and she was always ignored, or in case they did answer her, it was always them dismissing everything she said as overexaggerating.
She was curious why they just decided to take notice now. Many criminals have done worse on this sector, though these two were suddenly being hunted by an Enforcer.
"... It doesn't matter. Now I have the word of an Enforcer, I can force those people at the Sector Management to move against the Geumhoon Family!"
She quickly returned a reply to the Enforcer, before she quickly tried to call for the Sector Leader. She was feeling smug, thinking that she could push it on Kano's face when the cold face of a woman met her on the other side of the screen.
"Good evening Observer Mirielle. I apologize for the absence of a Sector Leader. Currently we are undergoing changes on our internal affairs..." She said in a polite and even tone.
"... Right. Uhmm... where is the Sector Leader right now?" Mirielle frowned. She thought he was just indulging in something useless once again.
"As I said, we are undergoing changes on our internal affairs. Currently I am acting as the Sector Leader, as the former Sector Leader Kano Lourdes has been taken off his position recently..."
"... What!?" Mirielle gasped, shocked at the revelation.
Finally, I managed to finish this chapter.
The last part has been rushed, because I really wanted to get this over with. It's been a few days now, and I really want to progress on this story right now. I still have a lot of things I want to show!
If you are curious about anything in this story at all, just ask me and I'll try to answer without spoiling what I planned on the story.
If you want to support me, you can go to my Kofi account here.
I'm sorry, I really can't write the next chapter. I have a general idea of what will happen next, but I can't find the motivation to write at all. Whenever I tried to start writing, I always got stuck staring at my phone and then slowly being distracted with other stuffs.... I really can't...
I'll take a rest on writing this one for now, and try to think of something fun for myself. Sorry again...
If you have any questions for this story, I'll try and answer as best as I can without spoiling my future plans on the plot.
Thanks for reading, and I hope I find the motivation to continue this again in the future because I really have a lot of things I want to write and show everyone.
On the eight floor of the Dangun Mercy, in one of the rooms for premium patients there Aizu slept. Her phone was still clutched on her head at the side of her pillow as she snore quietly. She wasn't aware of the impending danger just outside the room.
Mark stood beyond the door to this room. Besides him were his men who were prepared to storm the room. They have already secured the whole floor, and the other two floors above and below just to make sure she wouldn't be able to escape.
This was the eighth floor so jumping on the windows wasn't an option. That was too high, so he was sure that she wouldn't dare do that.
"Stay here. I'll enter first." He said before slowly opening the door and peeking inside. His head slowly turning into a steely color in preparation for a sudden strike.
He was relieved when he noticed the sleeping form of their target. He gestured for his men to wait before he entered. The door closing on it's own. His steps were fast but careful and he quickly got close to the sleeping form of the girl.
He gazed at the sleeping girl for a moment. Her appearance looked so defenseless and peaceful. Such tranquility only made him frown, and then slowly turned into fury.
Regardless if she was a teenager, he prioritized his position in life more than morality. To see the girl that almost died from his hand sleeping peacefully as if whatever happened doesn't matter, he was mad.
'I'll have to teach this bitch a lesson!'
She was just a worthless person whose used was to hurt Selena emotionally. In his mind, she have no right to be peaceful right now, but rather to fulfill her purpose of letting his job be done. If he failed in this, he would be kicked out of the Guemhoon's, and that will be bad for his future.
So he climbed on top of her and straddled her, which caused the girl to stir to consciousness in confusion. Without giving her time to react, he turned his whole body into metallic steel, and reached his hands towards her neck, choking her.
He saw her surprise as her sleepiness turned into alertness, and then she thrashed around. He doesn't care, and tightened his grips on her fragile looking neck. His fingers flexed, trying to squish her frail flesh. Though he was a bit surprised when he felt it hard to squeeze her neck. Despite the soft texture of her skin, there was a hidden tautness within it.
"You should have just let us kill you. You wouldn't be suffering like this if you stopped resisting this morning!" He growled at her. His eyes turned red in frustration.
The girl tried to move her limbs, but she could helplessly flail her feet around. Her arms were pinned along with her body due to him sitting at her lower stomach. He leaned a bit closer, using his weight to further block her airways.
"You made my job harder, you bitch!"
She tried to bend her knees, and use that to kick his back to no effect. He barely felt a feedback on her knee strikes behind him, and he simply leaned more, causing the bed to creak as he felt his fingers piercing through the taut resistance of her flesh.
Her face were slowly turning blue as she became desperate. Her breathing turned faster as she tried to speak or scream.
"Let... me go...!!" Her pleads were hoarse. It was like she was spitting out her words in desperation.
His eyes lit up, and the frustration that filled his heart since she escaped this morning abated for a moment, and turned into delight.
"That's it! That's the right expression to have!" He was delighted to see her face turned into a blue shade of despair.
He tried to force more of his metallic body to pressed against her neck through his shoulders, causing the bed to creak dangerously. The legs of the hospital bed bending slowly due to the amount of weight above the bed being pressed into it.
The pressure was too much. The girl was drooling as her eyes became dazed. She became more desperate at trying to leave. He just pushed his two hands to further suffocate the girl.
"That's right! I'm only going to be satisfied if you die full of despair! You wouldn't be in this situation if you just obediently sit in your house and catch my shots!" He yelled at her.
He doesn't like having his targets being resistant, mostly if they were just lower rank nobodies or unpowered ones. He was used to killing targets that were weak and unresisting. He doesn't like his job becoming complicated. It was why he even took most of his men just so he could have an easier time with his job.
He flexed his muscles more, and used more force to squeeze her neck. Her eyes were slowly rolling over as she tried to speak incoherently. Her thrashing were slowly turning weaker.
He was satisfied, delighted to see those despair filled eyes as they slowly lost their light. He would have crushed her neck if not for the bed legs suddenly breaking.
Surprised, he lost his grip on her neck as a brief sense of weightlessness overtook his body. The brief time of their descent to the ground was enough for the desperate girl to move her arms away from their pinned position, and pushed herself away from him. So when they fell, she was fully out of his legs, and she simply have to roll away as the guy tried to reach out on her former position.
"Haaaaah!" She gasped as she raised herself on all fours. One of her hand reached out to her chest, as she took in mouthful of air to take her breathing back.
Still reeling in shock and trying to make sense of everything, she haven't prepared herself for the follow up from the guy who immediately recovered from the brief shock of the small fall. A large kick from metallic legs sent her flying to a wall besides the window, and that caused her already falling psyche to be disoriented.
She let out a scream, before choking as someone charged at her with their forearm pushing against her neck, and their knees sinking onto her stomach.
"Dammit! I won't let you get away again!" He screamed with anger in his eyes as he glared at her straight to her face, raising her up with his forearm that was pushing against her neck, pinning her to the wall while at the same time choking her. His other hand was on top of her head, gripping it tightly in a vise.
She gritted her teeth, slightly becoming coherent enough even as she was being choked to death.
"W-why...?" She was so confused.
"You don't have the right to know that! Your only role in this city is to die for our convenience!" He said. "So stop resisting!"
She would have gasped if she have the capacity for it. Though she couldn't as she was being suffocated. She tried to gripped onto his forearm with both of her hands to try and pry it away from her, though he withdrew his hand that was grabbing his head roughly, and then slammed his fist straight to her face. A resounding fleshy sound echoed on the room as his metallic fist slammed straight to her face. Her eyes whirled in dizziness.
"This is your punishment for not doing your role, you trash F Rank!" He spat as he punched her face once more, intent on brutally disfiguring her in her death.
He wasn't even satisfied just punching her face, so when he was done doing so for the fifth time, he changed the way he grabbed her and threw her on the ground. Before he slammed his feet straight to her sides, causing her raised her head and scream in pain.
His metallic body have a large amount of force behind it, regardless of her durability.
"Stop...!" She cried out as she tried to roll away, but kept being prevented from fleeing with his kicks and punches.
"I won't stop! I have to vent all my frustration!" He shouted as he pulled his leg and kicked as hard as he could.
Hearing those words, the girl seemed to have realized something. When he slammed his foot on the floor once more, she managed to roll away just in time to dodge his foot as she stood up. He quickly realized that he wanted to leave through the door, and he could have let her because his men was waiting there.
Though he doesn't want to. He was still unsatisfied. So he reached out, and managed to grab the scruff of her school uniform, and pushed her to the window. The glasses shattered after her back slammed onto the windows, and though she was barely harmed from that attempt, she was still distracted enough that his following move to choke her wasn't notice by her.
This time, she was a bit alert that when he managed to gripped her neck, both of her hands also grabbed his wrists, trying to pry them away from her neck. He widened his eyes for a moment. He felt like it became harder to squeeze her neck than a short while ago.
Though even with that, she doesn't have enough strength to move his hands away. She could simply gaze at him in fear and desperation as he glared at her.
"I'll kill you!" He said at her, before pulling her out of the window.
Then he withdrew one of his hand, taking off her hand grabbing his wrist, and then did a throwing motion. He threw her out of the window.
He could see her surprise in that brief moment. It seems like she haven't thought that he would actually throw her out of the window. Her hand that was grabbing his wrist where his hand gripped on her neck loosened before she fell on sky, eight stories high.
He looked at the broken window, and watched her fall. His face still held a bit of doubt whether she would die in this. 'Why is this happening to me?'
Her mind whirled faster as she fleeted through her memories. Confusion and fear plastered on her distressed and panicking expression. Everything in her eyes were so slow as she descended on the sky.
During her beatdown, she was so desperate that she tried to think of anything to survive. It was already midnight, which meant the day has passed. She had realized that she have another charge of her power, so she used that to increase her durability.
It helped her somewhat, but the pain that was inflicted to her before she did that was prevalent. She couldn't focused enough. This amount of pain was a first to her.
'What did I do to them!?'
She was so confused. She tried to think about it. The only thing that came to mind was when she punched her classmate on Class 1-12. Other than that, she haven't offended anyone.
'I can't understand...!'
She was so shocked. She thought she was safe within this hospital. She was befuddled at the events that were happening right now.
'I don't want to die!'
Along with confusion was the impending feeling of death. She might have sixteen times of physical durability, but she was unsure if she could survive a fall this high.
'I can't die yet... I still haven't reached my dream yet!'
To use her awakened status to become rich, and then lived life like a sloth. That was the only thing she wanted to achieve in her life. Though now she was faced with this predicament, and she doesn't even know why.
'Think Aizu!'
As she rolled on the air, she could see the concrete pavement of the hospital getting closer and closer on her sight.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa--!!" Her scream resounded, even as she tried to think of any solution.
The only thing she could think of was that mysterious feeling within her body. The feeling of Mana that she have felt at that time when she fought the Outsiders.
'Please work!'
With her accelerated thinking and reaction speed, she pushed all of her belief on that single chance and tried to reach out to that mysterious feeling within her body. She was unaware how to do that, but she just decided to do it anyway.
Because she doesn't want to die.
'I want to live, I want to live, I want to live!'
She repeated within her mind as she willed something to happen. As she denied the fate that was fast approaching her eyes.
The ground was so close to her now, and even as she tried to deny it, her eyes instinctively closed.
After a brief moment of darkness, pain exploded throughout her body, and she briefly lost consciousness. Her last thoughts before she lost consciousness was her desire to live. The Sealed Chamber where the physical ideas and concepts and abstractions were located trembled. The space of whiteness nothing shook despite not having any coherent dimensions.
The people with identical faces wearing labcoats and working on different things looked at the space separated from the thin film of glass. All of them narrowed their eyes.
"The Source is stirring? Is she trying to break out of her seals?" One of them muttered, surprised at this development.
Since the sealing of The Source, not once did she ever try to break out. Because this being knew that if she tried, more of her pieces would be broken off, and the desire of The Director would quickly come to fruition. Though now, it seems like this higher entity stirred.
They could see the space of white crumbling, and then repairing itself repeatedly. Every blink caused everything to shatter and then recover like it was a dream. Unknown fragments that was both colorless and multicolored fell and sunk below the white space where nothing could be seen. Ripples of monochrome and ideas violently occured around the non-euclidean space of abstractions.
"Well... isn't this a good thing? The more she moves, the more fragments of her are being shed away." One of smiled at that.
"Just increase the contaminants and strengthen the seals then. We can't let her escape." The other said.
With those words, they get to work. Manipulating some data within their holographic screens as they watched the eldritch and incomprehensible sight on the now kaleidoscopic Sealed Chamber.
They were unaware, that the being within that they called The Source was disturbed. It wasn't trying to flee. No, it was reaching out to someone as they felt their crisis.
"I won't let you die. I promised..."
That was the words that would be comprehended if someone could understand the murmur of her speeches.
Finally got into writing this. My time got filled with work for this whole month, and I just got a long break to actually write this one. Sorry for the long wait...
If you have any questions to this story, feel free to ask me.
If you want to support me, you can go to my Kofi account here.
Thank you for reading this!~♪
P.S. Sorry, it seems like the notepad I am using updated and now the formatting became weird...
Ugh, Mark's monologue isn't consistent in his motivations. He wants the job to be easy, except that he tosses that in favor of extra complication so he can teach a dead girl a lesson (?), except that he tosses that too in order to vent his frustrations and throws her out the window so that she won't get away. Seriously, what?
Ugh, Mark's monologue isn't consistent in his motivations. He wants the job to be easy, except that he tosses that in favor of extra complication so he can teach a dead girl a lesson (?), except that he tosses that too in order to vent his frustrations and throws her out the window so that she won't get away. Seriously, what?
He blinked his eyes, surprised as he found himself dazedly gazing up on the sky. He felt a certain weight on his hand so he looked down and saw that it was a sword. His trusted partner that had served him for his whole journey. He glanced around and noticed the coarse sand that acted as the ground, the training dummies to the side, and the block of stones that acted as walls surrounding the place in a circular manner.
He quickly realized where he was. He was practicing. He seemed to have lost his focus for a brief moment as a thought occured to him. He couldn't remember what it was, but thought it wasn't important enough.
"Hey, are you not going to rest? You've been using the kingdom's barrack for a whole day now..." Then he turned his attention to his side and saw a cute young girl with short red hair and red eyes. She wore a one piece dress that had a flamy design, with waves of flame-like colors on the hems of her skirt and pure red on the majority of it's palette.
What's peculiar on this young child was the pair of wings she had that were made of pure red light. They shone brightly like crimson fire, illuminating the open space training ground much more than the sunlight. Though it doesn't hurt his eyes even as he gazed straight at her. As if the light was adjusted so he could still see her clearly.
He recalled this one was one of his bonded spirits. The Fairy of Fire. The one who followed him on his journey for a long time.
Her question made him smile wryly, before he resumed facing the invisible opponent that he could only see within his mind.
"Not yet. I have to master this technique before I leave for our next journey."
The fairy frowned. "You shouldn't be doing that. You can rely on us for using magic! There is no need for you to learn how to do it!" She shook her head. "Why are you so intent on learning to manipulate magic? You have the lowest affinity to Mana and sensitivity to it... there is no way you can do it..."
"I have a way..." He simply replied. His mind was concentrated on the inner part of his soul.
She clicked her tongue. "That shortens your lifespan, you know? Using your life force as an alternative method might be an effective way to achieve the same effect as magic, but that was a life-threatening shortcut! You barely have any qualifications to sense spirits, and if not for us pitying you, you wouldn't even know fairies and spirits exist. Doing this will just kill you sooner or later!"
"Even so..." He had a reason why. "There were times when I need to do it by myself." He had a great enemy ahead of him, and simply relying on others won't be enough.
Even if he has the lowest affinity for both magic and spirit arts, that doesn't matter. He will just achieve those same feats by using alternatives. It was the only way to close the insurmountable gap between him and the great evil from beyond.
"Hmph! Go ahead, I don't care anymore!" The girl, clearly frustrated, snorted as she turned around in a huff. Then she vanished into wisps of light, indicating that she left.
He didn't turn back and resumed his concentration. He knew he could manipulate Mana to a certain extent, but that alone wasn't enough. So he needed an alternative to actually achieve that. Life force was something he owned, and it was the most effective and fastest way to instantly manipulate Mana and use magic. Because he had the lowest affinity to every elements that made up the world, he needed to use other methods and combine those methods just to achieve small miracles.
"... I'll win, and survive this..." He felt a bit surprised at the words that left his mouth, and an image of men in black and a bald man in metallic body passed through his mind, though he shook his head. They were the great evil that would kill him, so he had to prepare himself.
To fight, and save the world to live. Unsure whether she still lived, he ordered his men to make sure as he watched her body that bathe on the pool of her own blood. He could see those who were standing on the ground floor in case encircling the whole perimeter as two of them got closer to check the girl that fell on the eighth floor.
They poke her for a moment, and saw that she was unresponsive. One of them kneeled closer to her and checked her pulse and breathing. Then they looked up where he was looking, and shook their head. Indicating that she was gone.
He was just feeling relieved when a sudden pulse of something exploded on those two men near her. They were blown away from her, and the others who were on the distance quickly pointed their guns on her direction. The girl in question slowly stood up, a certain sense of incongruity manifested around her, which made him feel unnerved.
"What is that?" He couldn't understand. There was a mysterious force of some sort that whirled around her. It was unseen, but could still be felt, and it felt like it was pressing on their very existence.
His men didn't wait for his order and shot the girl with their guns. Guns, while outdated, were still highly advanced that even pistol rounds could pierce a few inches of solid concrete. They used high caliber semi-automatic rifle rounds which it's firing rate, if put on the modern perspective, could be likened to miniguns. That was how fast they sprayed bullet in a single second. Each shot were also accurate, and all goes straight to the direction they desired due to the slight homing aesthetic of each bullets, further showing the advancement of gun technology on this nation.
Each of these bullets that could turn steel into cheese holes hit air as the girl that was previously there vanished from their sight. A swift cutting noise of the air swooped through one side, and suddenly the scream of his men resounded as they were blown away.
He blinked his eyes for a moment, trying to processed what was happening until a few seconds later, he gasped. With his high vantage point, even when it needed some effort, he managed to tracked her blurry figure rushing to every of his men that stood on a spread formation. Her speed rose explosively, that she practically vanished each time she kicked the ground. Each time she swung her fist, his men were blown away with their bodies racked with pain all over.
"Shit! I can't let this happen!"
He had just cooled down on his anger, but now it was rising once more. He was so sure she doesn't have any cards up her sleeves. The prowess she had been displaying now was impossible for an F Rank.
"What is it? How is she doing this?" He wondered to himself, before he shook his head. "No, I have to confront her now!"
He turned his whole body into metal, before jumping on the windows. With all of his internal and external parts turning into steel-like, he was barely affected as he landed on the ground. The paved ground itself sinking with the added weight and force of his landing.
Then he looked forward, and saw the girl practically popping instantly on his face with her fist cock. He briefly saw her eyes having a mysterious shimmer of blue on it, before he reeled in shocked as pain blossomed on his brain.
'What!?' He staggered for a moment, surprised that he actually felt pain despite fully turning his body into steel.
Then he looked forward once more, and saw the girl now stood a few meters from him. Her fist still in a punching motion, before she stood straight with a cold expression. There was an invisible something that coated her body, and her sapphire eyes glowed like a lit new moon.
That sense of otherworldliness hit his senses once more, and it took him a moment to finally recall something. He had experienced this for a few times, mostly when facing Outsiders.
"Wait... no way... Outside Element?" He was surprised. The girl was actually using an Outside Element.
Aizu seemed to have thought of something, before she took a stance once more. He flinched for a moment, before he looked around, wanting to order those who remains to stop her. Though he stopped when he noticed that each of his men lay on the ground unconscious and battered.
"... This is impossible. I can't believe a Rank F Trash like you is actually a Mage!" He exclaimed, feeling a bit nervous now to fight her.
Mage. A term for people who used the First Outside Element to achieve supernatural phenomena. While not illegal in a sense, the use of magic was on the gray area of this nation. Every Outside Elements were harmful to the residents of Society Sphere, so direct usage of it were heavily scrutinized by the higher echelons and any authority of Society Sphere.
On Sector 255, there were those who used Outside Elements to accommodate for their lack of innate powers. Though as stated, they were heavily monitored. If it was deemed they were too dangerous and detrimental to the continued existence of their Sector, they would be dealt with swiftly.
It was the power only reserved to Outsiders. A human was incapable of achieving the same feat without paying the cost for it. There were many side effects to it, with the worst turning into an Outsider.
He knew of Mages, even though he haven't met one yet until now. They were said to be terrifying people, and most of the time they could even defeat high ranking awakened people just with their small tricks, or bigger destructive capabilities.
He could see that she was in a stance as if she was gripping a blade despite not having any. Alarm bells rang within his mind as he saw the air itself distort around her hands. It might take awhile, but he decided not to wait for her to do it.
'I just have to kill her first before she did something at me!' At the same time those thought came to his mind, his metallic hand was already on his side pocket taking his bulky plasma pistol, and pointing it at her.
"Die!" She doesn't know how, but when she came back to her consciousness, unknown knowledge and words filled her mind. There were fragment of memories she recalled that she knew it wasn't hers. They were memories of journey, of fighting, and training seamlessly just to close the gap on insurmountable threats.
It wasn't enough. She couldn't make sense of snippets of memories about training to use Mana and other forms of supernatural power, though it gave her enough leeway to use one.
What are these thoughts!?'
She is still confused, and it would have shown if not for the sense of calmness that settled on her very being.
'Where did these came from?'
Knowledge of magic, theories, and even techniques to control it filled her mind. Along with it were the vague knowledge of every elements that existed in the world, and the principles behind it.
"I hope this is enough, O Brave Hero..."
'And who kept speaking inside my mind!?'
And there was one thing. An entity of unknown source spoke to her mind. They echoed on her very being and gave her comfort that made even her surprised. The voice felt very nostalgic to her, and she easily believed the voice even if she was full of question and doubts about it.
"I apologize. I failed at fulfilling your long held wish... I won't ask for forgiveness, you may even get mad at me. I just hope you continue living."
'Why do you keep apologizing!?'
It kept repeating within her mind, though she decided to ignore that and focus on the man whose muzzle of pistol now pointed at her.
'Focus. Remember these weird knowledge and properly use it!'
Even as she was befuddled at the current course of events, she still decided to concentrate fully on what she was doing. Every knowledge that came to her mind were incomplete, though some have enough info in them that she could use them.
And one of them was the favorite of the origin of this memories.
'Breathe shallowly, but deep enough. Calm the heart, flow the energy on my heart. Let it go with the flow of my blood, and guide it to my will. Imagine the most exaggerated metaphor of what I desired, and spoke the words that will realized my will to the world!'
These set of knowledge was buried deep within her soul. It has been unearthed by the unknown entity, and now she felt extremely familiar with the principles with the use of mana. Though it wasn't enough. She had a weak affinity to magic.
So she needed an alternative, and she just knew what kind of alternative she needed.
'Expand my senses on the world. Destroy all distractions, and only reached out within myself. Guide the depths of self to the outside, and turn the foreign something into myself. Myself is the ego, and the ego is the soul. The soul must be extracted, and turn into power!'
The basic principle of spiritual manipulation. The manipulation of own's life force. Life force was the strongest form of power that a human could use, as it is their very existence that they were using. The metaphysical objects that symbolized their very self.
The brief fragments of memories warned her of the side effects. It cuts through her life span each time she used her life force. Though it can't be helped. Magic would be impossible to achieve without the help of other energies.
She gazed at the man coldly as she uttered the word that would finalized the product of her miracle.
"Sword of Light!"
With her utterance, the whole air distorted as her image flickered for a moment. The space around them trembled for a bit, as something was forcefully manifested. The world itself registered the utterance of order, and bent to her whims. Light itself coalesced into her hand, and then it turned into the shape of a sword.
Sword of Light. A magic that manifested a sword made of pure light through magic. It could be considered a pure magical construct. It was heavily effective against demons and undeads.
And if her education on her class could be believed, it could also harm even Awakened People.
Just as the sword manifested on her hands, the man pulled the trigger and shot a plasma beam on her way. The speed was near instant that in a blink of an eye, it hit her... or so it seems.
Instead, she had already parried before it was even shot. It was so fast that Mark hallucinated for a moment, before realizing what happened.
"You parried that!?"
He was surprised. That was faster than even lightning. She doesn't have that kind of reaction speed.
Though he doesn't know that she did, due to the amount of magic she had applied to herself.
Since she woke up, she used the basic magic that any mage of the world from her foreign memories came from. A basic magic that any apprentice must learn first before even trying to do anything advance. That magic was called Reinforcement. The ability to enhance something or someone's flaw through magic.
The boost was too much. It gave her an explosive growth that she could move at neckbreaking speeds. Destroying the sound barrier casually as she turned into blurs all around the place.
Along with that was a side effect. She had achieved the pinnacle of combat awareness due to the enhancement and fragmented knowledge that was unearthed within her existence. For combatants of that world, it was known as the Mind's Eye. A state of mentality that gave them extreme combat awareness and instincts that it could even be mistook as precognition.
With both of those combined, she managed to react before he even pulled the trigger. After that reaction, she quickly dashed towards him. Kicking the ground and causing a glass shattering noise to echo around the place as she immediately got in front of him.
He doesn't have enough time to even pull the trigger for the second time before she swung her blade. It was so fast that with a flash, she was instantly on his back before he could utter a scream. A line of light ran through his torso, before he fell to the ground. No blood pooled below him, though a deep wound revealed itself on his metallic stomach.
Aizu swiped her sword of light with a casual move, though she held a grimace to show on her face. That move alone burned a few years of her life that she felt like she was burning. The sense of calmness was the only thing that kept her from screaming after that single movement.
Just as she did that, many of his black men who were on the upper floors had just came down as reinforcements. They stopped when they noticed her standing with a sword of light, and the prone figure of their leader behind her.
"... Scram!" With another utterance of order, a spell took effect and all of them were cowered into submission. Most of them screaming in fright at her cold glare.
It was a spell of intimidation. Though not effective to those who have strong will or those who have extreme hostility against her, the effect would be enhanced if a reason for them to fear her was presented while she used it. In this case, it was the sight of their comrades and their leader lying behind her.
They quickly ran away, fearful of what she would have done if they didn't do so. She watched them with a serious expression. Her eyes practically glued on each of their movements as she tightly gripped the handle of her blade made of light.
It took awhile, but they managed to dragged their downed comrades away and left the premises of the hospital. She stood there for a few minutes more to make sure. Biting her lips as she held onto her intimidating posture, until she felt the peaceful breeze of the night sky.
Just when she felt that, relief flooded her veins that she lost the strength onto her knees. The effects of reinforcement and sword of light lost and the sword vanished into wisps of light as fell onto her knees. She looked at the night sky, hearing one last utterance from the mysterious voice.
"Congratulations... and welcome back, my beloved hero~"
She lost consciousness after that.
Okay, I hope this one is a good conclusion for this arc. Well, it's not really the conclusion as there was another scene I have to right before I finally wrapped this up on this arc and write the next one.
Hope you have fun!~
If you have any questions to this story, feel free to ask me.
If you want to support me, you can go to my Kofi account here.
The nature of her power is beneficial for long term but in addition to past lives and eventual awakening of powers, the Outside Elements, there really is no chance for her to live a peaceful life now huh
Also her brotha must be contacted immediately, too many things happened to her in that week alone
Min walked through the alleys of an unknown district while supporting Moon on her shoulders. Her face held an ugly expression as she looked forward, recalling the battle from awhile ago.
"Shit! That short white bitch! I won't forgive her!" She couldn't helped but curse.
Min couldn't accept the fact that she was forced to run by someone she considered a part of an inferior race. They were prepared for it too. They were just blindsided by the fact that she could do more than just creating Orichalcum and gold.
"Tsk... that bitch got me good... didn't expect she noticed the limitations of my power..." Moon weakly responded, limping even with the amount of pain he could feel on his whole leg.
"Save your breathe. We don't know if that white shit's following us." She grumbled. "Grr... why does the Geumhoon people not responding?" She growled under her breathe, as she tried to connect once more with her holographic panel.
She tried to make a call through her mind as they took a bend on the alleyway. It was extremely dark, and there were barely any noise on the streets other than the occasional sound of cars passing through on the distance.
Beyond the path on the next bend they walked to, they stopped as they saw a young teenage girl leaning on the side of the wall, her face covered with a filtration mask illuminated by the small holographic panel she was looking on her wrist. That girl looked up as she closed the small panel from her wrist, and then she looked at them with her eyes glowing with a dim light blue.
"Right on time." The cold tone of the voice made the Korean woman tremble, confused at the presence of the girl. The girl simply gazed at them.
"... Who are you?" She noticed that she was speechless for awhile now, and decided to speak. A certain feeling of dread slowly rising within her heart.
"Min! Run!"
In an instant just after she uttered that question, she was suddenly yanked to the back by her colleague. Her eyes wide as she saw Moon already moving towards the girl with intent to throw a hook at her. He still have his superhuman capability due to the enhancement drug he took this afternoon, so a single kick of the ground with his uninjured leg was enough to get close to the girl.
The girl simply gazed at the messy haired guy. She was sure that the next thing would happen would be her head vanishing from her shoulder with his punch, but she was surprised when a thin translucent film suddenly manifested in front of her, covering her from his strike before his fist landed on her.
Surprisingly, the punch that should have broken through even that barrier through his Fatal Strike simply bounced off of it. It took her a moment to realized that, and Moon also processed it a bit too late.
"What...?"
He uttered in disbelief. His power could create any weakness from everything he hit. That meant anything that was hit by his strike would simply crumble from any of his strike. This barrier wasn't supposed to be excluded from this fact.
Though it was the fact. The reality that his punch doesn't do anything from this mysterious translucent film that covered the front of the girl.
Another blink and she heard Moon screamed. Min just noticed that the girl have something on her hand now, and a line of cerulean ran through the body of her colleague. The large bulky man fell on the ground, his fate unknown.
"What... how did you...!?" She was confused. Moon's power didn't took effect. This girl managed to defend against something that could destroy anything.
"Race Counter: Humanity"
"Nngh!?"
She trembled when she heard that calm declaration from the girl. She gazed at the girl carefully, and widened her eyes when she finally realized the logo from the gas chamber she carried behind her back.
"Enforcer... but why...?" Her shocked face soon turned furious. "That fat bastard!" The only thing in her mind was that the Sector Leader told them off from the higher echelons.
Though she knew she have no time to shout curses right now. Quickly she took her focus back on the girl who held a blade of cerulean light from her hand.
She haven't met an Enforcer till now, though she did have some knowledge about them. They were the terrifying force behind Society Sphere. Their force were specifically made to counter any Awakened People. They have a certain technology they used they simply called as Race Counter.
The Race Counter Technology was a miraculous technology that made them superior on the specific species it was targeted to. The technology used a humongous amount of energy, and with that technology they could create an absolute law. In this case, the law would be their absolute superiority against the species they targeted.
Only Enforcers were allowed to use this kind of technology.
'I have to run!'
Panicked, she quickly took something from within her Personal Storage. It manifested from her hand and she quickly threw it to the ground.
The one she threw was a flash bang. As soon as she threw that, she had already turned her back and was prepared to run away.
That would have happened if not for the Enforcer's declaration.
Race Counter: Humanity. Since the activation of that mode, the world would prioritized her over every humans. This meant that she was always first priority against every actions that any human does. If a human tried to attack her, she would be the first to hit them. If a human tried to defend against her, her attack would still pierced through it.
If a human tried to move before her, her action would be the first to be realized before theirs.
"Wha--!?"
So it was much to her surprised when the young teenage Enforcer appeared in front of her face, with the cerulean blade already swung on her way. It was so fast that the only thing she felt was a brief numbness, and the lost of feelings from her limbs. When she fell on her knees, that was when she felt extreme pain all over her body.
She let out a brief scream before she fell on her side. Her eyes wide as she moved her eyes to look at the girl.
"... N-no way..."
She thought they could fight against an Enforcer even if someone came. Moon's power could destroy anything. No one was supposed to be capable of defending against him. Her ability was also extremely versatile.
Though she was naive. As she saw the girl who looked down at her coldly, and on her free hand was the familiar flash bang that she threw a short while ago, she realized that they were outclassed.
"Neutralizing complete."
That was the last thing she heard from the emotionless girl, before her vision was engulfed in darkness. Cerulean nodded at that, before she deactivated the miraculous technology with just a single clench of her fingers other than her thumb from her right hand. Then she looked down on the unconscious form of these people. There weren't any blood despite her slicing them with her cerulean blade.
This bluish blade of light was another technology. It was a Purification Armament. A special equipment created to specifically counter every supernatural phenomena and powers. This specific model was from the Color Series, and it was exclusive to her. The Cerulean Blade.
The blade specifically struck their abilities, which had been inherently connected to their very existences since their birth. They didn't know it yet, but their abilities had been crippled.
After she gazed at the bodies of the two, she flexed her thumb from her right hand for a moment, and the cerulean blade retracted itself to her wrist. After that, she carried the two with her arms, as if they weighed nothing at all.
She was planning to use her personal teleportation technology when she stopped as a ping struck through her senses. Her eyes narrowed as she turned to a certain direction.
"Outside Element...!" Her face turned grim as she gazed at that direction, before she changed the destination of her teleportation. Based on the ping she got from one of her sensors, there was a surge of Outside Element happening on that direction.
Quickly her figure vanished along with the unconscious people she carried, and she quickly found herself on a hospital. She looked around, and then her eyes fell down on the prone figure of a girl.
'There are lingering traces of Mana and Spiritual Energy on her body... and something else...!'
She roughly put the burden on her arms to the ground before she walked towards the unconscious girl and kneeled besides her. Looking carefully on her body.
"... Divine Essence..." She finally realized what it was. It might be a small lingering amount, but it contained something so pure.
And so dangerous for the whole Sector.
Her blade quickly manifested with a single flexed of her thumb, and she pointed the tip of the blade at the unconscious girl. Before with a quick swipe of her blade, she got it. That clump of pure white energy that now float on the tip of her blade.
Then it got absorbed on her blade, and a gentle whirring occured on the gas chamber she carried behind her.
"Divine Essence Extraction... complete!" She stood up after that.
She heard the sounds of footstep approaching her and she looked at them. She saw that these were the hospital staff.
"W-who are you!?" One of the nurse asked as they stopped, looking at her with some apprehensiveness.
She stared at them for a moment, before she simply turned around and goes back to carrying the two criminals she was ordered to take care of. She have retracted her blade before she carrier them, and then she spoke.
"Take care of that girl. Later on, some people from the Sector Management will call this hospital for that girl. Be prepared for that." She simply said before teleporting once more.
The hospital staff were baffled, unsure what was happening. Before they looked at the unconscious girl.
They were told to leave the girl alone by their superiors awhile ago, but Cerulean did tell them that people from Sector Management would call them later. They were more scared of the Sector Management than the administrators of this hospital, so they decided to obey the girl and take this one to a ward.
With that, the long night has finally came to an end.
A short one for now...
This is the conclusion to this arc. Next will be some filler or setup chapters, and then the next arc will occur.
I'll take a rest for this story for now. I hope you have fun in this one too!~
If you have any questions to this story, feel free to ask me.
If you want to support me, you can go to my Kofi account here.
I'm still interested in seeing the results of more abstract doubling, like her social standing. Would that work, or since it's other people's opinions it's not something the power can affect?
It's been five days since the debacle between Selena and the Geumhoon Family has ended. Those who were related to the incident were quickly apprehended from the Artificial Security Forces from the Sector Management and other relevant authorities cracked down on most of these criminal factions. Small time criminals and gangs were purged quickly in a span of these days, and Geumhoon Family's foothold on the public was destroyed.
The St. Angela Academy Administrators had expelled half of the class from Class 3-1. This included most of their top tens like Eliza and Bryan. This has been done to appeased their star children, Selena Zephes.
After Eliza has been expelled, the Geumhoon Family has gone to ground. Any people that the government managed to detain were only those loosely affiliated to their circle. They haven't captured any of the more important ones. Even Eliza and some of her loyal friends seemed to have gone missing after she was expelled from the school.
Mirielle was frustrated, but she couldn't do anything as it was the affairs of the Sector Management. She wasn't allowed to use her powers as an Observer to find them, as they weren't threats to humanity.
On Sector 251, the Lotus Flower Office had been heavily reprimanded and had been forced to pay for their members being involved in criminal activity. The two members in question were taken to a specialized prison on Sector 251, their fate unknown.
While all of these were happening, there was something else that was happening hidden beneath the eyes of the public. It was important for the Sector Management, but they weren't allowed to publicized it.
On the Central District where important administrative buildings were located, inside an underground facility used for isolating dangerous cases like pandemics or volatile anomalous phenomenons, there within one of their maximum security cell sat an irate Koizumi Aizu.
Since she woke up after a confusing and excruciating ordeal, she just found herself being detained by people from the Sector Management. Since then she was stuck within this white room. Even with how wide it is, it still felt claustrophobic to her. There was a bed on the side, a table and a chair, along with a drawer and a curtain where she could do her own showering or other hygienic concerns.
She wasn't in the mood to even shower. She knew she was being watched even when she couldn't see where the cameras were. It felt disturbing, so she simply spent her time walking around the room without anything to do. She couldn't even find her phone. There wasn't even a clock here so she doesn't know what time it was. She barely kept up with it thanks to her powers.
Another thing was the food. She was given a balanced meal thrice a day since her captivity within this facility. So that also helped.
The occasional checkups from those monitoring her gave her some respite from the insanity of being left here alone. She doesn't know where they were. She simply heard their voice echoing around the room. The only way she would even know there were here when she heard a short whistling ping on this room.
Based on the voices, they were monitoring her because she was suspected of being corrupted by Outside Elements. They said she was a Yellow Case, which she was unaware was a rather dangerous term to put on her.
On Society Sphere, cases that involved citizens being exposed to Outside Elements, Outsiders in general, capabilities outside innate abilities were displayed, and usage of any of these Outside Elements were categorized by colors. From lowest risk to highest risk these were; blue, green, yellow, orange, red, violet, and black.
Blue was a term used for those who have no signs of being able to use Outside Elements, or were unable to display any negative effects both hidden or obvious being exposed with these same Outside Elements. Standard protocol was to ignore them as there was a very high chance they won't be a threat to this nation.
Green was a term used for when a person displayed capabilities that could use Outside Elements, but no other effects were displayed on their body. The relevant authorities were required to checkup on these people on a monthly basis, and check for any changes on their body or personality.
Yellow was a term when someone were affected by Outsiders or Outside Elements itself. These effects includes hearing voices, unrelated memories or knowledge outside of their innate abilities suddenly becoming available to them, obvious physical mutations, shifts in personality, and any other abnormality became apparent to them. This is when the relevant Sector Management was required to isolate these people until a qualified handler would stay besides them to check on them. These handlers must be capable of dealing with them when they ever succumbed to the negative effects of the Outside Elements.
After she was put in this facility, she was checked both inside and out with their advance technology. She was even unaware that they checked even her brain to look for any unrelated memory within her along with any signs of mutation on her body. They found out about the fragmented memory that suddenly got added to her brain, and how she was passively producing the First Outside Element within her body.
They were obviously alarmed, so they wanted to lock her up within this facility for a long time. She was unaware of their plans to her of course.
'Ugh... I know I dreamt of being isolated to the world at least once in my life, but that doesn't meant I actually want this to happen. I don't even have my phone, so there is no way I will be happy with this!'
She sat on the only chair within the room, her chin leaning on her head with a tired look. She couldn't sleep properly, and even with the delectable balance meals being sent here through a teleportation technology, that doesn't made her happy.
She sighed once more before thinking about what she did while she was stuck in here. She was clearly told not to use any of the alien knowledge that she suddenly acquired from her fragmented memories. She was curious how they knew she got new memories within her, but doesn't question it as she thought it was obvious from this nation that was frequently claimed to be the most advanced civilization out of every place in the universe.
Since it was like that, she couldn't even do her plan when she woke up, which was to double her mana capacity and magical affinity. Instead she did something else.
She recalled how she was obviously outmatched by that bald man. How bullets could still hurt her even with how tough she was. She didn't want to feel pain or be in threat of death. Just the reminder of that time she fell from eight stories high made her tremble. She didn't want to experience it again.
So if for some reason she experienced it once more, she wanted to be so tough that regardless of what happened to her she could simply shrugged it off.
Increasing her durability doesn't affect anything from her as far as she knew. She just became tough. There was no disadvantages to it. She doesn't feel heavy. She doesn't feel slow. She doesn't even feel it hard to move at all. She just became tougher. That's all. It's unlike her other capabilities which have some disadvantages to it when she doubled them, Physical Durability just made her incredibly tough. That was preferable to her.
For three days she focused on her durability, and she thought she was fine when she got to the hundred times of durability. Next was her lifespan and natural regeneration.
She knew, through her own incomplete unknown memories, that she had burned a few years of her life when she used the Sword of Light. The effect wasn't that apparent as she was still incredibly young, but she knew that it would display itself as she grew older. She doesn't want to die so young or early, so she wanted to increase her lifespan. She was even surprised to know it was allowed when she just hoped to double it once.
As for Natural Regeneration. She wanted to heal as quickly as possible. The feeling of pain lingering on her bruises was something she doesn't want to experience again. It would be also preferable to recover as quickly as possible whenever she was harmed.
She felt a bit satisfied with the enhancements she made to herself, and swore to increase everything that had to do with survival so she doesn't find herself on life-threatening situations in the future. She needed to be alive if she wanted to experience the life of a sloth, was what she thought to herself.
Other than any of the above, she also distracted herself by recalling the memories she got from that mysterious voice. It was the only thing she could do that was interesting in this dull place. She couldn't experiment on her magic, so she simply absorbed the knowledge she got from these fragmented memories.
She reasoned to herself that they didn't stopped her from actually using magic when she got out of here. She was just told not to do it in this facility. Based on the knowledge she got, magic was incredibly useful. She wanted to use that as one of her options for her daily life after she was out of this facility.
As she was thinking like that, she heard that soft whistling ping once more. She perked up and straightened on her seating posture. It took a few seconds before she heard someone coughing on the other side.
"Ahem... good morning Miss Koizumi. How are you holding up?"
She snorted. "Bored. I think I might die of boredom staying in this room." She let out a sigh. "You should at least put a TV in here. It's so boring staying inside this place..."
"Well, that would be impossible Miss Koizumi." She heard him cough. "Anyway, we should quickly start with the checkup. We will be teleporting the equipments within. Please cooperate with us just like the usual."
"Fine..."
With that, those same equipments were teleported on the corner of the room. These equipments were easy to be used. She simply have to stand on the glass pedestals and let the capsule-like technology to do it's work. They said these two capsule-like technology were monitoring devices. She doesn't know what kind of monitoring device it was, but she didn't want to really question it as she was uninterested with it.
She stood on the pedestal and then on the other after she was done with the former one. As she was hearing that mysterious digital sounds pinging rhythmically on her ears, she could hear the mutterings of the man who was observing her. The words she usually heard were "Corrosion Rate", "Ego Stability", and "Purity Level". She didn't know what those meant.
She was unaware, but those terms were important for monitoring whether a citizen was still sane enough to live within this nation or not. Corrosion Rate was a term used to measure the physical mutations of a person. Ego Stability was a term used to measure mental and emotional stability of a person affected by Outside Elements. Purity Level was a measurement used to determine whether a person was still a "Human" enough or was considered an "Outsider" from the eyes of the Central System.
"Hmm... please step out of the monitoring equipments then." She obeyed and when she stepped out of it, the equipment blinked out of this place, being teleported somewhere. "For now, I have to congratulate you on your patience Miss Koizumi. We are still reluctant to let you leave, but your friend kept requesting this to us so this will be your last day in confinement."
She was just thinking what to do to pass the time when she paused on her movements, her head snapping to look up in surprised as she processed what he just said.
"Wait... I can go out now!?"
"Yes. All the relevant data we gathered from you since monitoring you all ended up satisfactory. We still wanted to monitor you for a whole month to be sure, but your friend promised us to do that on our stead."
"Finally!"
Aizu doesn't care about any of his words anymore. She just wanted to leave this place as soon as possible. She was given new clothes which was near her own fashion style before she was escorted by a robotic maid with a single wheel as it's way of movement. When she left that purely white room, she was a bit unused seeing other colors for the first time. The hallways were a deep blue with some lines of dim cerulean running on the ceilings and the walls of it. The path was pretty wide, though it was confusing as there were many paths that lead to nowhere, possibly to other confinement zones.
She simply followed the maid until she got into a floor which was surprisingly an elevator. The floor rises up and then the surrounding got covered in a thin film of light as the underground floor became quickly distant to her eyes. With a few moments of her awe, they quickly reached the ceiling which was surprisingly a few hundred feet high from what she was expecting. Passing through a few meters thick of pure metal and concrete before they arrived at a floor in which she was lead to somewhere again.
After repeating that with another floor that turned out to be an elevator too, she finally arrived on a place where there were many people walking on the hallway. The hallway was now a professional looking one. Like something she could compare to five star hotels with their ambient atmosphere and colors and aesthetics that were easy for the eyes.
When she got into a few bends with the guidance of the robot maid, she was surprised to see a familiar face talking to some people wearing labcoats and glasses. The familiar blonde quickly turned to look at her and quickly blurred towards her. Surprising her as she felt her warmth around her body.
"Aizu! I'm glad your alright!" The girl exclaimed before she suddenly froze and then withdrew from the hug as she stared at her with a complicated look. "... You stink..."
Her shocked quickly turned into a frown. "Well, sorry for being stinky then!"
She felt a bit hurt at that, though decided to just scoffed a bit with a pout. Selena have the decency to not pursue the matter, and then looked at the man who walked towards them. That man was tall, and looked incredibly thin. He looked like a typical scientist from those TV dramas.
"I apologize if I am interrupting your reunion. We are still a bit leery with her being let out like this..."
Selena's face turned grim. "What's that? I told you I'll take care of it, right!"
"Right..." He nodded. Then he took something from within his pocket and handed it to Aizu who was gazing at the man with a dumbfounded look. "Here, please take it before leaving this building."
She took it and looked at the object he gave her. It was a circular medical tablet. She blankly stared at it, confused about it's purpose.
"What...? What is this?"
"That's a medicine to keep your Purity Level high. It's pretty expensive, and except in this case, you could ingest this medicine voluntarily."
"Except in this case...?"
"Right." Selena piped up, taking Aizu's attention. "In exchange for you leaving this facility early, they wanted you to drink that first. It's to ensure that you won't suddenly go on a rampage or something." Selena said with a shrug.
Aizu doesn't know what they meant from Purity Level or what does have to do with her, though if it was required she decided not to ask so much. She wouldn't even understand anyway.
They said she could simply chew it or swallow it without using any water, so she just did that. Taking it whole. It was a bit larger to her throat so she decided to chew it as she gazed at the man.
"By the way... aren't you the guy who kept talking to me when I'm in that room!" She said, feeling a bit angry.
"Of course. Dr. Anthony Simmons is my name. I am terribly sorry if your experience is unsatisfactory, but it is part of our protocol to do just that on Yellow Cases like yours..."
She swallowed the medicine whole just after she chewed on it enough before taking a step forward. "Sorry. That's a bit lacking for me...!" She wasn't normally a combative person, but being confined to that kind of room for five days without anything to do made her a bit irate. She wanted at least a compensation or something.
Though before she could even continue with that train of thought, she felt it. A strange pulse within her body that suddenly causes her whole body to freeze on the spot. Another pulse, and pain suddenly bloomed within her internal organs.
"!!?!?" She fell on her knees, curling to herself as she felt something pricking her everything. She quickly managed to identify what happened within her pain addled mind. 'No... that medicine... it's crippling me!'
She looked up and saw that the guy was simply looking down at her calmly, while Selena looked a bit fussy but unsurprised by it. She was trying to support her while she let out a scream.
She could hear bits of their conversation. Suppression of outside elements. Expelling of those same outside elements. Anything that seemed to counter the outside elements within her body. Though she doesn't feel it was like that.
'It's breaking my connection to the greater force!'
Based on the knowledge she got from those mysterious memories, if she have to give a comparison, it felt like a fuse with wires being cutoff. The fuse being her affinity to magic, and the wire being her connection to that affinity.
The pain was too much, that before she could question about anything else, she fell unconscious once more. Within a limousine that Selena personally owned, Selena was currently sitting besides the unconscious Aizu. Their location was her own apartment. She had already made the arrangements so Aizu could stay near the room she owned on the top floor of that apartment building. She had heard that Aizu's home was totaled by Geumhoon's men, so she had already decided to help out her friend and renovate that house with her money.
Selena was frowning. She couldn't feel happy at all even when she saw that Aizu was alright. There were a lot of things that made her angry. One of it was the Geumhoon Family managing to hide from the eyes of this city, the Lotus Flower Office, and even the knowledge that her friend got targeted by those who were in conflict against her.
There was another thing, something that disturbed her greatly since she made that deal.
"... Hmph, your the one who protected my Mom. I'm sure you can also surpass it..." She muttered under her breathe. "Because if not..."
She doesn't want to think about it.
Her deal with the Sector Management itself just to acquire Aizu's freedom. In the case when Aizu mutated or was turned into an Outsider due to the Outside Elements she now bore, Selena Zephes was obligated to deal with her.
Which meant, regardless of her feelings, she had to kill her as an Outsider if the time comes...
Finally got this chapter out of the way. I thought I won't ever be able to write this one again...
If you have any questions to this story, feel free to ask me.
If you want to support me, you can go to my Kofi account here.
Ayo plz don't get on Worm levels of escalation now
And its getting faster
I hope you know what you're doing in this one cause Aizu does not have enough time to even equalize with her powers if the rate of escalation of conflict goes on like this
I hope you know what you're doing in this one cause Aizu does not have enough time to even equalize with her powers if the rate of escalation of conflict goes on like this
