Chapter 169: On Purpose.

Thunder Strike took to the sky and dove into the sea of clouds, summoning his lightning and absorbing any that responded to his call. Sensing that he had gathered the necessary charge, he completed his transformation, turning into a single bolt of lightning before diving back to the plaza down below.

A single tree stood at the center of a spreading vortex of roots and vines, formed from several trunks twisting around each other like a spiral, aiming to pierce the sky itself. Instead of reaching the heights it was aiming for, however, all it did was turn itself into a massive lightning rod.

Light flashed through the city hall plaza, and a deafening boom exploded a moment later, echoing through the entirety of Neo-Vatra. The ground shook and trembled. Cracks spread through the streets and buildings. Cars blared their alarms, and the massive screens littering the City Center froze at the same time.

An eerie calmness followed the devastating roar, and for a while, nothing moved in the district where the lightning had struck. The city hall was silent as well, and so was the plaza spreading before its gate. As the seconds began to pass, a single crackle shattered the silence.

A wisp of flame ate through a piece of charred wood, snapping it in half. Little by little, the vortex of roots and vines began disintegrating, turning into a pile of burnt wood and charcoal. The pseudo-Genome whose powers had manifested all of it seemed to have survived the lightning, though he was no longer in a state to continue resisting the inevitable.

Having confirmed that, Strike switched back to his human form and set his sights on a certain building. Arriving on its roof, he took in the surroundings and spotted a certain humanoid shadow sitting at one of the tables.

“You’re late,” Erebus said. “He already left.”

Strike’s expression darkened.

“How?”

His shadowy teammate seems to have noticed the anomaly and went to check it, which is why he didn’t help suppress the woody Genome, but if that was the case, then Strike wanted to know why he failed to resolve it.

“He teleported away.” Shrugging, Erebus shook his head and sighed. “To think he could do that.”

Strike’s left eye twitched. He continued to stare at his teammate, waiting for a proper explanation, but Erebus didn’t offer any. Eventually, the white circles representing the shadow’s eyes lost their upper half as if to show he had lowered his eyelids.

“What? You don’t believe me?”

“You could’ve cut his access to the outside world.” Strike noted.

“What makes you think I didn’t?” Erebus replied.

Silence lingered between the two, and eventually, Strike sighed and looked away. His eyes fell on the motionless corpse of a man in a black suit. A look of disbelief was frozen on his face, and a large section of his chest seemed to be missing, leaving behind a gaping hole the size of a soccer ball.

Strike searched his surroundings once more, but Erebus spoke up.

“The second one fell off the edge. He’s probably smashed somewhere on the walkway below.”

Another pang of annoyance hit the blond hero and he had to squeeze his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“So, let me get this right.” He said. “Not only did you let him escape, but you also watched him kill two people and did nothing?”

“Whoa, calm down, zappy boy. You make it sound like I did it on purpose.”

“How was it not on purpose!!?”

Responding to his anger, tendrils of electrical energy jumped out of Strike’s body, causing his blond hair to stand. He fixed his shadowy teammate with an enraged glare, waiting for a logical explanation, but as expected, it turned out he was asking for a lot.

“Hey now, I… just wanted to see what he could do? That armor is-”

The table and its surroundings exploded, struck by a crackling bolt of lightning. Its target was nowhere to be seen, however, which only helped anger Strike even more.

“That idiot!” He stomped his leg, causing the floor to crack. “How could he be so lax about this!!?”

~[ ]~

A few seconds earlier, in an empty room in the city hall, a spatial distortion manifested for a moment, producing a bulky monster made entirely from metal.

It resembled one of the power armors used by the military, although far more intricately designed, with smooth round edges, spherical shoulders, and barrel-like limbs. Its dark blue plating fit seamlessly together, and its joints had a far wider range of movement than what appears at first glance.

The head section, which peeked through a circular gap in the torso, seemed to be made mostly from lustrous obsidian glass, glimmering under the light of the room without offering the slightest glimpse at what lies behind its visor.

At the center of the chest area, a small disc shimmered with a faint, bluish white light. Before its soles touched the floor, the monstrosity suddenly disintegrated into countless threads of light that vanished into the shimmering disc, and from their midst, a red-haired youth emerged.

Dante fell to the floor and rolled, slamming into a wall before coming to a stop. He remained motionless for a moment then slowly pushed himself up, resting on his elbows as his head hung down. His cheeks bulged the next moment and the contents of his stomach rushed up his throat. Unable to stop it, he emptied everything right then and there.

“Fffffffuuck…”

The nausea lingered for a while, and he found himself unable to do much of anything.

’I… I never thought…’ he tried to take a deep breath but broke into a coughing fit instead. ’Damn it… Why… why didn’t you warn me?’

[Unfortunately, I do not have enough data to provide an accurate prediction of the effects of teleportation on humans.]

“Fucking… hell…”

Desperate times call for desperate measures. The moment he caught sight of the humanoid shadow, Dante knew that his chances of escaping were null unless he did something drastic, and sensing his desperation, Volcan executed the emergency measure they had agreed on beforehand.

In case Flame Guard’s heroes turned their attention to them before they could escape, Volcan would change whatever armor his host was wearing to Type 8-5 and immediately activate its main ability, Teleportation, returning them to one of the empty rooms in the city hall.

Before deciding on that part, the only questions Dante asked were if Teleportation could be detected, and if it would cause a big enough disturbance that it would risk exposing them. When Volcan assured him of its stealthiness, Dante forgot all about the potential complication of instant transmission, and the result was his current state.

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