NOVPUB
Chapter 37: The Villain They Need
I had to make this quick. Sooner or later, Ava would find out that I set her up andme chasing after me, along with Liam, no doubt. I wanted to be long gone by then, especially since there was another person who needed my attention. To be honest, it was long overdue.
If memory served me right, Katherine was a specialist and Julius was a manifester. It was probably best to take out Katherine first, as she would most likely try to protect Julius. Having identified my first target, I prepared to attack, but just then, a blast of water came flying at me. I managed to dodge it, but another attack followed.
This time, it was pointed rocks that spun like drills. I dodged them one by one, but more attacks came. The onslaught wasming from Katherine as she chanted strange incantations. It turned out she was a mage. Her spells seemed limited to elemental magic, and I noticed she wasn't using any fire spells. She must have known about my resistance to fire from my battle with Rizor.
All her tactics were aimed at keeping me at a distance. She must have figured I needed to get in close to actually harm her.
"You're fast," Julius said. "Let's see if you're faster than lightning."
A surge of electrical energy erupted from Julius's fingertips and struck me. My body pulsed with energy as electricity crackled around me. For me, electrical energy was no different from heat energy; all I had to do wasnvert it.
With that energy, I created a small explosion—enough not to kill them but strong enough to disrupt the battle as dust and debris flew through the air, obscuring their vision. I seized this opportunity to take out Katherine first. I saw the panic on her face as I closed in on her. In a desperate attempt to defend herself, she unleashed a barrage of water and ice spells, none of which had any effect on me.
I delivered a devastating blow to her solar plexus, causing her tough up blood. Her eyes flickered before she lostnsciousness, but I wasn't finished yet. In one swift motion, I grabbed her arm and dislocated it—the same arm she had been using to cast spells, the same arm that griped myllar that one time. Her scream was muffled against my handvering her mouth. To finish her off, I executed a palm strike to her carotid artery, knocking her outld.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Julius wailed. He turned to run for Liam, hoping to get help, but I was instantly in front of him, blocking his path. "Look, you can have the flag! Just stop!"
This wasn't about the flags. It was more like a message: It was a message to anyone planning on bming my enemy in the future. With the way things were going, it was only a matter of time before I was betrayed by them. I would never allow that to happen again. I had seen this play out before, where everyone came together to take down the villain. The list of people who hated me just kept rising; I needed to thin the herd.
Impressed heat energy inside the palm of my hand. This was the same technique I had used against Rizor. It was called a thermal explosion. It occurs when heat is generated at a rate that exceeds how fast it can be dissipated, leading to a violent release of energy.
With this, Iuld create an explosion large enough to level the entire mountain if I wanted to. Through meticulous practice, I had developed the skill to fine-tune the explosion so it would cause as much damage as I wanted it to. I started by practicing with candles. First, I needed to develop totalntrol over my ability. I had been perfecting this technique ever since I was reborn.
By the time I entered this school, I had totalntrol over my heat manipulation, and through meditation, I was able to siphon more energy from myre without going supernova. Myre is the gift I received from Lucifer; it is the very essence of my being and what separates hellhounds from other creatures.
The force of the explosion was enough to send Julius flying. His clothes were a mangled mess of fabric, his bodyvered in burns and lacerations. I stood over what was left of him as he lay on his back. Glancing at his arm, I saw it was a tangle of cuts so deep that they exposed bone—no doubt broken from his last-snd attempt to block my attack with his hand.
Never expected him to be this badly injured, but the fool had to do something that resulted in him getting burned. Luckily, the flags weren't damaged. I picked them up and left the area before Ava and Liam arrived.
Using my keen senses, I made my way through the forest in search of a certain someone. He was quite a distance away from where I was—over 80 kilometers, in fact.
About 10 kilometers from my target, I stopped, noticing something strange: every presence on the mountain had disappeared, all except one. Strangely enough, it was very person I was after.
When I arrived at his location, he was sitting at the edge of a cliff, his back turned to me so Iuldn't see his face.
"Why does it seem like you were waiting for me, Leto Manasseh?"
"Haven't you noticed?" he asked, ignoring my question, his voicentaining a hint of sorrow.
"You're talking about how the presence of everyone on the mountain hasmpletely vanished. Is it your doing?"
"So you haven't noticed. Well, not really. It's not that all the presences on the mountain have disappeared; it's that the presence of everyone in the world has. That's right— you and I are the only two people that exist in this timeline. It's a little thing called time duplication. I didn't want it tome to this, but you leave me no choice. An angel's job is to protect life, not to take it."
The entire time he spoke, he never even looked at me. Iuld hear the regret in his voice. It was nothing personal, but the two of usuldn'texist.
To me, his presence was like a cyst; Iuldn't sit right if it was right on my ass, and to him, I was probably like a virus eating away at something he was meant to protect.. The reality of the world is that opposing forces are never meant to meet. They should exist far away from one another, and if they do meet, one of them must be swallowed up.
"I understand what you're saying, and just so you know, cheap tricks like this won't do you any good."
"Oh, I haven't even started yet. The reason I created an alternate timeline is so that I won't have to hold back when I'm killing you." He stood up, and that's when I saw his face for the first time during our entirenversation. "I truly hope that during your time here, you've made it so that at least one person would cry for you like this." 𝓃𝓸𝓋𝓹𝓾𝓫.𝒸ℴ𝓶
He was crying... for me?
