Chapter 512: The Sniper’s True Worth (2)
“Odd jobs aren’t my specialty.”
Lennok scoffed, yet still checked the number of agents left standing.
Engaging in combat by the river flowing beneath the bridge, it was undeniably a better environment for Soryu, who possessed cryokinetic abilities.
There was no reason to refuse when someone offered to handle that troublesome skilled individual.
Soryu’s form, obscured amidst the scattering ice shards, instantly vanished and collided with the black-visored agent who had been nodding at the end of the bridge.
Ignoring the cold air and black waves erupting from behind him, Lennok immediately turned his head.
“The Black Spirit is bound.”
“A sorcerer remains. Are they planning to tie us down?”
“It’s absurd they’re even trying to gauge their chances…! Subdue them!!”
Aegis’s response was swift.
Thump-thump-thump!!
The green-visored agent, exuding potent venom from their blade, and the yellow-visored agent, unleashing two dogs and charging forward.
Even the gray and jade-visored agents, casting spells at Lennok from both front and rear positions.
As the five figures intersected on the spot, the magical threads that erupted from all directions began to draw intense curves and dance.
Kwaaaang!!
Dodging the rain of arrows pouring down from all sides, pushing back the waves of murderous intent that pierced through the immediate vicinity.
He continued an endless tightrope walk between rampant sensations and the chilling cold rising along his spine.
Using intuition and perception akin to precognition surging in his mind as a foothold, he simultaneously tightened and loosened the magical threads erupting from his fingertips hundreds of times.
Chwarararak!!!
The posts located between the avenues, the arrow Evelyn Marcia had shot and stuck diagonally, nearby street trees, and overturned, broken car bodies.
He strung his magical threads among all those obstacles, continuing a tug-of-war between reality and the ideal.
“Damn it, this is–!!”
“We can’t reach him. What kind of range control sense is this…?!!”
He was merely dancing in a trance amidst a wave of threads that couldn’t even be properly sensed.
The agents, realizing they couldn’t reach the masked sorcerer who, inverted, commanded with sweeping hands at the center, gritted their teeth and drew up their magical power.
“This side is trying to use our offensive against us. Control your power.”
“The opponent is a special-type sorcerer of manipulation. Strictly avoid mid-range combat and engage.”
“Stop-Come (停來) spell bombardment ready. Fire sequentially, occupying the entire space!!”
“The spirit of the curse said his presence feels very alien. Everyone, keep a close watch on his movements…!!”
“Too much thinking.”
Paat!!
Lennok, who had infiltrated by blinking reversely through the rapidly conversing agents, smiled behind his mask.
“Ambiguously knowing something is often worse than not knowing at all.”
“…!!!”
The agents, shocked that he would approach them first, let out cries of alarm, but their bodies reacted mechanically.
The blade held by the gray-visored agent and the dagger of the green-visored agent crossed diagonally.
The heavy mace held by the yellow-visored agent swung, aiming precisely for Lennok’s lower back inside his robe.
A coordinated attack, timed exquisitely to account for Lennok’s magical thread manipulation ability.
But Lennok did not use magical threads at such close range, where he could practically hear the agents’ breathing.
Instead, he used three consecutive blinks to instantly reverse his body’s direction, move behind the gray-visored agent, and merely placed his hand on their shoulder.
“That helmet.”
Chee-ii-eek…!!
The glass tube in Lennok’s hand mercilessly jabbed into the goggles inside the visor.
“Let’s see how hard it is.”
“…!!!”
Kwaaaang!!!
The chain explosion of a Mana Resonance Area Control Resonant Incendiary Bomb (MAPHI) that had almost blown off Logier’s jaw.
Using the force of the explosion, he immediately blew away the abdomen of the yellow-visored agent charging from behind, then glanced at the green-visored agent rushing frantically from the side.
He leaned back, evading the dagger the agent thrust out.
He skillfully adjusted the magical threads at his fingertips to support his own falling body, while conversely binding and twisting the sword thrust by his opponent.
Ooduduk!!
This absurd magical thread manipulation, simultaneously adjusting his own body and the opponent’s offensive to distort their positions.
Lennok’s manipulation ability, honed through dealing with magical threads in all sorts of situations, was sharp enough to engage in zero-range combat with a top-tier superhuman.
The blade, swung at subsonic speed, twisted along the arm as if folding, grazing the visored agent’s own helmet.
Chee-eek!!
A drop of liquid falling from the tip of the dagger’s blade melted half the helmet, revealing the haggard young man’s face.
Even as the bent dagger blade at its end twisted, aiming precisely for the young man’s own neck, he showed no panic.
Instead of struggling to stop his arm, which was caught and twisted by the magical threads, he struck his own shoulder with his other hand.
Cheolpeok!!
The young man, who had unhesitatingly cut off his left arm, brazenly drew the dagger.
The distance between the two was so close that there was no room to extend another arm.
Clenching the dagger’s hilt in his mouth, he swung his head and sprayed potent venom onto Lennok’s mask.
At a range so close there wasn’t even time to extend new magical threads.
But the moment he thought the toxic spray had reached Lennok’s face.
“Not a bad choice.”
The shadow robe Lennok wore flipped inside out on the spot, and his figure vanished without a trace.
Immediately after, the shape of a carapace shield slammed down directly onto the young man’s lower back.
Kwoo-woo-woong!!!
“Ugh…!!”
The young man let out a gasping groan for the first time.
Lennok smiled, pressing down hard on the young man’s nape with his foot.
“To be able to so unhesitatingly abandon a real arm, not a prosthetic, is quite a sense. Though if it wasn’t a real arm, you wouldn’t have been caught so easily.”
At those words, the young man spoke for the first time.
“…You knew from the start… what…!!”
“That’s right. I had a rough feeling.”
Lennok said, slowly turning his head.
“I’ve just finished a very tricky battle recently. It seems my senses haven’t loosened up yet.”
Amrita, the 10th Apostle, reborn by taking over Izel’s body.
As an Apostle and a wizard hunter, an excellent warrior, and a precognitive, she was a more challenging and dangerous opponent than any Lennok had faced recently.
Lennok’s nerves, having engaged in a spatial battle against her, simultaneously reversing dozens of attacks and defenses, were sharper than ever.
Even though he knew he could simply evade the young man’s venomous sword attack with a blink, he had chosen to counter with magical threads on the spot.
Kkwaaak…!!
Lennok, pressing hard on the young man’s nape with his boot, spoke.
“You wouldn’t have many complaints if I killed you here, would you?”
It took 3 seconds for the green-visored agent to rush in, reveal his bare face, and attempt a counterattack by cutting off his own arm.
It took less than 5 seconds in total for Lennok to subdue and pin the young man with a single counterattack immediately after.
It was too short a moment for other Aegis agents to intervene and change the situation, and too ambiguous to offer help.
Lennok had thoroughly aimed for that gap from the start, singling out one agent and subduing him before others could intervene.
“…”
But despite Lennok’s indifferent threat, the other Aegis members did not recklessly charge at him.
They merely watched Lennok’s actions closely, as if the life or death of their captured comrade didn’t matter.
Indeed, for them, the fate of a captured comrade was not important.
They were merely acting with a single purpose in mind, thoroughly cutting off thought and emotion.
He had thought it when he encountered them before, but they were certainly no ordinary special agency.
“I don’t know where types like you popped up from in the mega-city of Vulcan.”
Ooduduk!!
Lennok said, twisting and breaking the young man’s other arm, which was bound by magical threads.
“The very fact that several special agencies were established as soon as the Prohibition Edict was lifted suggests that the City Government itself had made preparations.”
“You know a lot about Vulcan’s affairs.”
The gray-visored agent chuckled softly.
“Considering you even know about the Prohibition Edict and the establishment of special agencies, are you perhaps from Vulcan?”
“…”
“If a sorcerer like you had been in the mega-city, no matter how vast Vulcan is, rumors would surely have spread.”
The visored agent’s tone was somehow strange.
Their attitude was peculiar, as if they were more interested in Lennok himself than the captured young man.
But if one could read the underlying situation, one could roughly grasp what that fact implied.
Lennok thought so and quickly pulled the magical threads a few times.
Kil-lik!!
The tightly constricted magical threads twisted, binding the young man’s limbs.
He then proceeded to break the young man’s remaining two legs and spine, rendering him nearly paralyzed.
Dudududuk!!!
“…”
“…!!!”
The other agents faltered at his unsettling yet extremely skilled technique.
What did it mean to break a high-tier physical ability user’s limbs with only the movement of magical threads, without even blocking their magical power, while they were still conscious?
It was proof that he accurately saw the flow of magical and vital energy within the young man’s body, precisely targeted those gaps, and exploited them.
He wasn’t merely specialized in magical thread manipulation; he was a veteran who was thoroughly accustomed to combat against humans.
Perhaps he hadn’t expected to be rendered nearly crippled rather than killed on the spot.
The young man, who had only silently grimaced as if impervious to pain, now showed a distinct change in expression.
Lennok chuckled, looking at Aegis’s reaction.
“Why, did you think I’d kill him?”
“…”
“If I keep him alive, he’ll make an excellent burden. There’s no need to kill him immediately. He also seems to have a very strong will to survive.”
The decision to unhesitatingly cut off his own arm was considerable, but Lennok could read a strong desire for life in that action.
If he could preserve his life, limbs were a luxury.
A daring gamble impossible without the underlying mindset of not valuing things that could be replaced.
Because Lennok could read such a psychology in the young man’s actions, he intended to keep him alive and force a choice upon the Aegis agents.
Would they continue to push Lennok, even if it meant killing their own comrade with their own hands, or would they retreat to save their comrade and regroup?
“Keep going.”
The gray-visored agent’s choice was the former.
“Siabel, don’t resent me.”
“Ha, what now…?”
Leaving the young man’s sneer behind, just as Lennok was about to draw upon his magic again between the swaying bridge sections.
Hwoo-ook!!
A lukewarm breeze swept past his spine.
The outermost edge of the satellite city, impossibly far away, seemingly without end.
A single streak of intent, shot from an altitude so low it was hard to even guess the location.
But that single flash, imbued with black-green intent, became a more terrifying and sharper flash than any attack, racing across the ground.
Swae-ae-ae-ae-eek!!!
As the thick black flash surged across the asphalt, the road surface tore up and rose due to the impact.
The flash, surpassing the speed of sound, had reached a power beyond the concept of archery.
The arrow, running across the ground as if it had no interest in the four people fiercely battling on the main street in front of the theater, pierced directly through the theater’s main entrance.
It then penetrated the hallway, audience seats, and main hall in a single shot, reaching the object within.
Kwaaaang!!!
An absurd explosion, as if a missile had been fired.
Simultaneously, a swirling, pitch-black sphere erupted from the epicenter.
Lennok’s mouth slightly opened as he confirmed the sight of two arms of The Idol being shattered and falling beyond it.
“…Dangerous.”
The pinnacle of archery, shot with full power by Divine Bow Evelyn Marcia.
The ultimate technique of penetration, completed by embedding her own Miniature Universe into a single arrow.
Evelyn Marcia had succeeded in striking The Idol with a single precise shot that even Maiya couldn’t react to, embedding her Mind Imprint within the pouring rain of arrows.