Chapter 68: Remained the same.

A second passed, then another. The fluorescent lights of the parking lot flickered back on one by one, and though they failed to banish the darkness entirely, they provided enough luminescence to reveal the center of the devastation.

The dust gradually settled and a truck-sized hole in the ground was revealed, wide cracks spreading from it as its edge crumbled, sending more rubble into the darkness below. The entire floor seemed to bend toward the hole, as if it were the center of a whirlpool that threatened to swallow everything.

A couple of meters away, Rocky stood motionless, his left arm still extended. Sparks danced between its retracted panels, most of which were missing, blasted to who knows where. The synthetic skin around that side was entirely burned off, wisps of smoke slowly rising from the charred metallic plating that was hidden underneath.

As if a thread had been cut, the arm fell to the guard’s side. His head twitched as he tried to glance in its direction, but his expression remained static. He sent a command to his busted cannon of a limb, intending to switch it back to its normal form, but the actuators failed to pull the components together, leaving the segmented plating stuck moving back and forth.

As the deathly silence filled the parking lot once more, Epsilon carefully peeked his head from beside his giant guard. He released himself from the giant’s hold, jumped down, then studied the scene of devastation with bated breath while the ringing in his ears had yet to fade. As the seconds passed without anything happening, he allowed himself to ask.

“Did you… Did you get her?”

Rocky’s mouth twitched as he tried to answer, but before any words could come out, a clenched fist met the left side of his head.

“NNGAAHHH!!!!”

Flare put every ounce of power her enhanced body could produce into a single punch. The glow coating her hands had dimmed, showing that she was holding back her flames. The power behind that strike was more than enough to decapitate a normal human, however, and if it weren’t for all the bionic enhancements holding his head in its place, the giant guard would have suffered that exact fate.

As the impact spread through his sturdy frame, Rocky was lifted off the ground before blasting off to the other side of the parking lot, smashing into one of the pillars then dropping to the ground, a pile of rubble raining on his motionless body.

Behind his mask, Epsilon’s eyes almost popped out. Rocky, his tank of a guard, was sent flying. The guard he had invested so much in, equipping him with enough armor to survive a missile strike. The guard who could rush through enemy lines while being showered with bullets and grenades. That Rocky was just overpowered, and by nothing more than a delicate-looking girl.

With terror gripping his heart, Epsilon slowly turned to face the hero.

~[ ]~

Cold sweat coated Flare’s entire body. Her lungs seemed to forget how to work on their own, making her gasp for each breath. Her heart thundered, each beat like a hammer strike threatening to break her ribcage. Then there was her arm.

Flare couldn’t remember when was the last time she put everything in a single punch. The horror of almost taking a railgun blast to the face had ripped away the chains restraining her, and for the seconds that followed, the young hero forgot all about holding back.

Feeling the sharp pain coursing through her right arm, she raised her head and looked at the collapsed body of the giant man, buried under a pile of rubble several meters away.

Her shaky vision blurred all of a sudden and her consciousness almost slipped away. Straightening her back, she squeezed her eyes shut and sucked in a deep breath.

’Don’t think about it…’

This was not the first enemy whose death she might have caused. It would be a while before she’s over the results of those actions, but right now, she still has a job to do.

Flare turned to face her target, and the moment her eyes landed on him, he let out a frightened squeal and fell on his behind.

“S-stay back!”

Pathetic. That was the only way to describe the state of the short man. Though she couldn’t see his face, under her gaze he appeared the farthest one could be from high high-ranking member of a powerful gang.

She took a step toward him and watched a shiver shake his entire body. He let out another squeal and turned away to run only to trip and fall again, this time on his face. He continued to crawl, desperate to put a single centimeter between the two of them, and just as he tried to pull himself up again, something fell at his feet with a faint clatter.

A small flat box the size of one’s palm.

For a moment, Flare felt that she recognized the item, but as she tried to remember, her thoughts turned strangely sluggish.

The noise made by the small gray box caught the short man’s attention as well, and upon seeing what it was, he turned back and snatched it from the ground. He stared at it for a few seconds then raised his head and looked at the hero. As if making up his mind, he reached up, grabbed the bottom of his mask, and ripped it off without hesitation.

This time, it was Flare’s turn to shiver. The visage hidden behind the mask was nothing short of harrowing. Its skin was peeled off entirely, leaving only a mutilated scar that exposed the bone underneath. Artificial optics nested in the eye sockets, their pupils expanding and contracting like the lens of a camera. A flattened hole stood for the nose and right beneath it two rows of teeth lined up.

The skeletal face added to the chaos rampaging through the hero’s thoughts, diverting her attention from the man’s hand. In that one second, he popped the small box open, grabbed the blue capsule stored inside it, and without hesitation tossed it in his mouth.

His dry throat made a loud gulping sound as he swallowed, and though he didn’t have lips to smile with, Flare could have sworn he was smirking when he turned his sight to her once more.

“Haha…hahaha…aaAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

The man’s shrill laugh echoed through the devastated parking lot. Flare’s expression darkened and the thought of knocking the capsule out of him crossed her mind. She took far too long to decide, unfortunately.

By the time she made up her mind, the short man was already on his feet. His cloak fluttered slightly, blown by a nonexistent gust of wind, and as his laughter grew louder, his body slowly rose from the ground, carried by a force the eye couldn’t see.

“You… you should have killed me when you had the chance, hero.” He craned his neck and cackled some more. “Now that I have it in my veins, you will never win!”

Gritting her teeth, Flare raised her left hand and clenched it into a fist. Embers ignited between her fingers and quickly coalesced into a raging flame. Noticing the light, Epsilon turned his mutilated face toward her.

“Uh-oh, I see you still have a fight in you…” Speaking in a mocking tone, he slowly raised his arms, spreading them by his sides. “But I already told you,” The wind enveloping his body raged, bringing the tension to its peak. “Now that I have it in my veins, you will never-”

His mouth opened, but before he could utter the last word, a flower of brilliant crimson bloomed from the right side of his head, its petals scattering into the air at the same time. The next instant, the force holding him in the air vanished and he fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Flare had braced herself for an intense clash, her thoughts entirely focused on how to win with an injured arm. That’s why she found her already lagging thoughts slowing down even further. By the time she understood that the man had been shot in the head, her body had reflexively shifted to face the direction from which the first bullet came.

Something flashed a short distance away, and sharp pain pierced her chest. The flash returned an instant later, and with it came another wave of blinding, excruciating agony. Another followed, then another, and another.

After the sixth, her mind no longer registered the sting. Only the horror of each shot remained, the sound that accompanied them echoing through the vast but mostly empty parking lot.

The world swayed around her, and before she knew it, the high ceiling was the only thing within her line of sight.

’Do you have a carry permit?’

Several thoughts floated to the forefront of her mind.

’You need one to carry around a weapon!’

’Guns… guns are a weapon of murder…’

’If we don’t set a line that distinguishes us from criminals, how are we any different from them?’

’If you’re fine with using a gun without a permit, what other crimes have you committed so far?’

As a shadow fell on her face, a few words in particular stood out to her.

’You… did you kill people before?’

The question came from her own mouth. The anger that clouded her mind back then was gone, and now that she thought back on it, the way he answered her lacked any seriousness, as if to say it mattered so little to be accused of committing that vile crime.

Her eyes veered to the left, and she finally got to see his face. The annoyed expression was gone, replaced by cold-blooded indifference. He didn’t click his tongue, nor did he yell at her. He simply stared for a while, then his hand moved.

“Your intuition, huh?You really shouldn’t be trusting it so much. It might get you killed one day.“

’… ah…’ Even as he pointed a gun at her, Flare’s—Liliana’s feelings remained the same. ’I never asked… his name…’

In the silence filling the devastated parking lot, the sound of a single gunshot felt deafeningly loud.

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