Chapter 875: The Eye That Sees Fate (11)
The attack came just as their discussion about what to do next was ending.
But Lennok hadn’t forgotten that he was walking a tightrope, in a place where being discovered at any moment wouldn’t be strange.
For both Lapis and Lennok, it was a difficult situation to hide their presence and conceal themselves, let alone flee far away.
Though they had been found sooner than expected, he had to take solace in the fact that they had at least bought a little time to rest.
“He belongs to a mercenary office. Platon?”
Lennok’s expression turned slightly odd as he confirmed the identity from inside the corpse’s clothes.
It was an office he had heard of a very long time ago, but whose name he had hardly heard for quite some time.
“Wizard. The opponent was just one person.”
Unaware of the circumstances, Partisha helped Lapis to her feet and asked.
“Rather than pinpointing our location, it seemed they were just coincidentally searching the area. Was there a reason to kill him and draw attention?”
“The documents were forgeries, but the district chief’s seal was real. It means it’s not a lie that the District 21 office is cooperating.”
Lennok said, rummaging through the fallen corpse’s clothes.
Snatching the terminal and the brush the corpse was holding from an inner shirt pocket, Lennok stood and spoke.
“In time, the entire district will be locked down. Once the roads are blocked, moving at all might become difficult. In that case….”
Fwoosh!!
He took a lighter from his pocket, lit it, and threw it onto the bed.
Watching the bed quickly catch fire, Lennok immediately gestured to Lapis.
“The priority is to focus their attention here and escape to another district. Let’s move.”
“Understood.”
If there was a chance that both roads and sidewalks would be blocked now that the district office was cooperating, moving immediately was the best course of action.
Understanding Lennok’s words, Lapis immediately left the room and dashed out into the hallway.
The moment Partisha followed, intending to guide Lapis toward the emergency stairs.
KWAANG!!
The doors of the guest rooms lining the hallway burst open as if exploding, and mercenaries appeared from all directions.
A dozen or so superhumans, fully armed with all sorts of firearms, explosives, and mana-infused equipment, blocked the hallway.
“Eyes of Blue!! That’s them, right?!”
“Capturing them alive pays the most, so don’t kill them! We have to get more by taking them alive!”
“Bullshit. The fastest way is for one person to take just the head. Anyone who gets in my way is dead.”
The mercenaries shouted at each other, rapidly closing the distance.
Partisha, who had spread her wings and stood protectively in front of Lapis, was shocked.
“Since when…?! Were they hiding here in advance?!”
“They must have climbed in through the guest room windows as soon as they knew our location.”
Lennok, having instantly seen through the mercenaries’ movements, muttered.
“Their actions are too fast. It’s like they had a manual prepared beforehand.”
When he put the stolen terminal to his ear, dozens of voices were shouting the name of Lennok’s hotel.
Through mana detection, he could feel dozens of superhumans simultaneously changing course toward the nearby streets.
“Lapis Falcia. Right?”
Kuuung!!
A purple-skinned giant at the forefront asked, smoke like poison gas leaking from him.
His two eyes were black and bloodshot, lacking any focus, and the veins around them bulged, giving him a menacing impression as if he would go berserk at any moment.
“I heard you’re the granddaughter of that Heavenly Sight, but you’re far too young.”
“…”
“The bloodline of an Ascendant sells for an extremely high price anywhere. There are rumors that just bringing back the corpse earns an incentive in the tens of billions.”
Clank!!
The giant, biting down on the hooked harpoons clutched in both hands, spoke.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d resist moderately and then give up. I need to take at least one organ intact to get a satisfying payment.”
The giant’s chilling monologue. But Lapis didn’t even blink upon hearing his words.
“I don’t have a life to give away to someone who’d be satisfied with just one of my organs, let alone my entire corpse.”
“What?”
“I was prepared to risk my life. What more needs to be said?”
The moment Lapis, turning with a cold expression, raised her mana and waved her hand.
The vision of the mercenaries who had been blocking the hallway distorted on the spot.
Kiiing!!
“Damn it, what is this?!”
“Wait, my body…!!”
She swapped the mercenaries’ fields of vision, making each one see the world through another’s body.
In an instant, the disoriented mercenaries staggered in confusion, and Lapis threw herself backward to retreat.
Fwoosh!!
Lennok, with his hands clasped and one eye closed, stepped forward.
Between the fingers of his horizontally held, clenched hands, hot flames overflowed as if about to explode at any moment.
The moment a few mercenaries, who witnessed the red gleam flashing from Lennok’s fingertips, paled and tried to retreat.
As Lennok opened his hands as if letting go, a tremendous amount of flame swept through the hallway, pouring out from his grasp.
Flame-type Unique Magic
Property Transformation Emission Manifestation
[Crimson Accumulation]
[Wave of Resonating Fire]
Flash!
In that instant, a scorching heatwave exploded, flowing through the hotel floor’s connecting hallway, guest rooms, windows, and vents.
KUGWAGWAGWAGWA!!!
“Hwaaaaaaak!!”
“My body, my body…!!”
With desperate screams, mercenaries collapsed all around, their bodies engulfed in flames.
The purple-skinned giant at the front, exposed to the flames with his bare body, had already evaporated without a trace.
The other mercenaries, unable to bear the heat and pain, fled into the guest rooms or threw themselves out the windows.
But the flames clinging to their bodies did not subside, burning away human muscle and flesh without leaving anything behind.
The screaming fireballs that fell from the windows wriggled upon impact before their breath ceased, leaving only piles of ash.
Watching the horrific scene, Lapis silently closed her mouth, while Partisha, in contrast, gaped with her crane’s beak wide open.
Lennok paid no mind to their reactions and immediately turned, gesturing to Lapis.
“The elevators will be unusable by now. This way.”
The flame magic Lennok had just used was a unique magic that compressed fire to its limit and forcibly detonated it.
Its range and power were quite high for the mana consumed, but in exchange, it was a spell whose direction could not be specified from the moment of casting.
It was difficult to use because it couldn’t be aimed at a specific target, but in a narrow hallway like this, Lennok could block one direction and unilaterally wipe out the enemies.
Now that delicate control had become difficult after absorbing mana from the Outer Sea, he had no choice but to commit to unleashing this kind of area-of-effect saturation attack.
WEEEEEEEEEE!!!
The fire alarm blared in the hotel hallway and lobby, and the sound of police sirens could be heard from the distant street.
“Sir Evan. I can’t reach the Watchers right now.”
Lapis said, half-running to keep up with Lennok.
“They’ve probably blocked all communication networks in this district.”
Lapis’s eyes grew calm as she looked down at the half-open entrance to the emergency stairwell.
The stairs had melted, making them difficult to walk down. It would be faster to just jump through a window.
Having made her decision, Lapis threw open a nearby guest room door and said.
“First, let’s escape this district. I’ll use an artifact I have to try and make contact a different way. For now—”
Jjeooooong!!
At that moment, a strange, resonating sound, as if the sky itself was being crushed, echoed from above Lapis’s head.
A bizarre hallucination, as if the nearby atmospheric pressure was warping entirely, distorting all audible sound.
The moment Lapis raised her mana to envelop herself in the power of Chogyeon, and Partisha shook her head and spread her wings.
Lennok grabbed both of their collars and threw himself out the window.
Immediately after, a missile struck the roof of the unmanned hotel, and the entire building shattered and scattered as if exploding.
KWAAAAAAAANG!!!
The entire street was engulfed in a blinding inferno and shook, the asphalt melting like liquid and overflowing onto the sidewalk.
As Lennok fell, clutching Lapis and Partisha, his senses simultaneously detected dozens of presences aiming at them.
Click-clack!!
The pursuers reacted, aiming and firing firearms and mana mixed with will-thought from the ground and building windows.
It would be too late to react after landing.
Sensing this, Lennok connected Lapis and Partisha with Magic Scribes, tied them to his back, and immediately cast a flame magic spell.
With a simple hand seal, he spun his body, pulling out mana with a downward swing.
Flame-type Unique Magic
Property Transformation Bestowal Superimposition
[4-Stack Ignition: Acceleration]
[Seal of Flame: Joined Wings]
Fwoosh!!
Flames erupted from Lennok’s fingertips, accelerating the three of them away from the exploding hotel building as if pushing them from behind.
“Kyaaaaak!!”
Wrapping the long jets of flame around himself like four wings of fire, Lennok’s body accelerated at an incredible speed immediately after falling.
Spinning without a center of gravity, he traversed the downtown area of District 21 at a speed invisible to the naked eye.
Dududududu!!!
“He’s getting away!!”
“He set himself on fire for propulsion, that crazy bastard!!”
“Get him! We have to bring him down inside the restricted zone!!”
Mercenaries sprinted at high speed between the abandoned cars stopped in the middle of the road.
There were those who chased by running along the sides of buildings, and snipers who were already waiting on the rooftops, preparing to fire.
“Sir Evan!”
As soon as Lapis saw the snipers, she blocked their vision and made the pursuers running along the walls lose their balance, causing them to fall.
Flap! Flap!
Assassins who were stealthily following with knives or daggers were pushed back by the wind from the flap of Partisha’s wings.
The spirit beast, barely managing to hold its crane head upright, shouted at the rapidly spinning Lennok.
“Wizard, can’t you maintain some balance…!”
“If I maintain balance, our trajectory will become obvious.”
Whoosh!!
Lennok replied with a pale face.
“It’s better to keep swerving like this to confuse their aim and avoid getting targeted—”
Shuuuuung!!
At that moment, a missile that had slithered like a snake between the buildings flew right in front of Lennok’s nose.
On the missile’s head, a living eyeball was embedded, writhing bizarrely, and on the projectile’s outer wall, bloodshot veins bulged, giving it a gruesome appearance.
It was a cursed weapon, created with a spell based on human sacrifice to maximize its control and homing capabilities.
The moment Lennok, realizing this, tried to veer sharply to narrowly evade the missile by changing the direction of the flames he was using as a booster.
The missile’s head split open like a beast’s maw and exploded right in front of Lennok.
KWAAAAAAAANG!!
He caught and swallowed the cursed mana that exploded mid-air, preventing it from reaching Lapis.
From the recoil, Lennok’s body was thrown far away, and Lapis and Partisha, who were tied by the Magic Scribes, fell powerlessly to the ground.
“Kuk…!!”
“Lady Lapis!”
Lapis gathered her mana to quickly regain her balance and, with Partisha’s help, landed safely on the sidewalk.
“I’m fine. Sir Evan…!!”
“I saw him use Blink at the last moment. He’s okay!”
“…!!”
Lapis, wiping the ash from her face as she stood up, was speechless as she looked back at the horrific scenery of the street they had just passed through.
The hotel building, bombed by a missile, burning fiercely and collapsing, and the ownerless cars abandoned and stopped all over the road.
The chaos, filled with the deafening sounds of gunfire and explosions, was so intense that one could believe it was the middle of a battlefield, not a city.
Staggering to her feet, Lapis struggled to brush back her hair and muttered.
“…In Vulcan, do they really launch missile strikes on a busy street like this so casually?”
“That’s—”
“It’s not a common event.”
At that moment, a cheerful voice echoed from beyond the blazing street.
A man with glasses and a dark impression was walking from outside the flames, holding a file folder.
His white coat, which he wore like a researcher, was caked with soot, and the ends of his sleeves were already burned and tattered.
But his gaze, staring intently at Lapis from within the flames, was strangely expressionless and eerie.