Chapter 106: The True Enemy

"..." Nadir and I advance on Delilah. I throw a high kick and he goes low, but she blocks both our legs at once. Even though I already knew Delilah was stronger than the two of us, she doesn’t know how good our teamwork is.

Nadir and I spin our bodies in sync, lifting her and flipping Delilah upside down. My tail spins like a drill and drives toward her stomach, forcing her to release us and grab my tail instead.

But the moment she does, Nadir seizes her leg and swings her into a wall. I shoot at her, and Nadir does too, but she dodges by spinning behind a heavy piece of furniture.

I charge at her, kicking the furniture to crush her against the wall. She jumps upward, twisting in the air and planting her feet on the ceiling, using it to launch herself downward. But Nadir has already closed the distance fast and lands a kick to her face. I slide forward and hit her with another kick as we sync our attacks.

She tries to strike Nadir, but my tail holds her while he strips the belt full of equipment off her. Her expression turns furious, but before she can try to take it back, Nadir tosses it to me.

"You’ve got some pretty interesting things in here." I hurl a bomb straight at her face while Nadir puts distance between them, kicking a chair at her to block her rush.

The bomb bursts into thick, light smoke, but I use my powers to drag the sky like a wall to shove Delilah against the wall. For some reason, though, it doesn’t work.

’Huh? She managed to stay in place even with space trying to drag her?...’ I glance at Nadir, who looks just as unsettled.

"You two are really annoying." She checks the blood vial in her clothes and then runs out the door.

"Bitch!! Nadir, throw me!!!" I shout at Nadir as we burst into the hallway. He grabs me by the waist and spins, hurling me extremely fast. I pull the "sky" beneath me like a platform to spring forward and round the corner without losing much speed, which lets me slam into Delilah’s back and drive her to the floor.

My tail coils around her legs while I throw a punch that she dodges. The punch dents the metal floor plate deep as she twists her body and throws me aside. She steps on the base of my tail, yanks her leg free, and takes off again.

’She’s going to try to use the hole we came in through!’ Since we move fast, we reach it in no time. I look back and see Nadir, so I stop running. When Delilah reaches the hole, Nadir triggers the explosive, and the blast hurls her backward. I start running again, reaching her and grabbing her arm. I twist it and slam her to the ground.

Fast, I stomp on her arm, trying to break it, but she manages to spin and sweep my legs, dropping me while she checks the vial she’s been so desperate to protect.

She leaps through the hole, now widened by the explosion, and I scramble up fast, jumping after her. I see her being hurled toward me, which gives me the opening to land a kick to her back and smash her into the ground.

"You took your time," I say to Maya, who was called in by the chip Nadir set on the wall. She’s the Top 1, so I figure it’s impossible for Delilah to escape her.

"..." But to my surprise, Maya freezes when she looks at Delilah after striking her. A reaction of pure panic catches me off guard. Nadir, reaching us, stares at Maya, who’s in shock.

"Tsk, you’re the last person I wanted to see," Delilah says, her tone dripping with frustration.

"W-What the hell!! W-W-What is that thing doing here!!" Maya’s voice shakes. I swear I’ve never heard her voice tremble like she was scared.

"She’s the hooded woman!! Do something, Maya! Melt her arms and legs off or something!!" Maya steps back.

"S-She’s Nemesis!!" When Maya says that, Delilah’s expression closes into something deeply dark, and the air turns strangely heavy.

’Nemesis? The Nemesis? The monster?’ I’m thrown into confusion by this absurd revelation.

"What the hell are you talking about, Maya!! Nemesis is over two meters tall and looks completely inhuman."

"T-The atomic structure of her body... it’s exactly the same as the Nemesis I saw years ago..."

"..." Delilah glances around as if checking whether anyone else is nearby.

"This is exactly why I avoided you for so long. Of course you had to show up." A "drone" emerges from Delilah’s clothes. I recognize it immediately — the "drone" that serves as Nemesis’s "extra eye."

"...W-What the hell..." I’m scared now too. The strongest monster in the world?! Not only was she infiltrating Aurora Island, she was inside the academy studying humans and also studying how to turn humans into monsters!!

"No one was supposed to know that. Now my disguise is useless." She runs a hand through her hair, stressed, and shoots a look of pure hatred at Maya.

’So that’s why I couldn’t push her? But Nadir tore an arm off her before...’ I think about monsters capable of disguising themselves as humans, and I think of the Nemesis I saw years ago before she retreated.

"MAYA, KILL HER!!! SHE’S WEAKENED!!" I end up screaming at Maya. This is the perfect chance. If Delilah really is Nemesis, she’d need a body that fits perfectly into a human form to slip through all our detection tech — a body far inferior to her normal one. She probably can’t use all the powers she has.

"!!!" Maya seems to reach the same conclusion, and her expression turns almost manic. Maya is someone who normally has zero chance of beating Nemesis, since nothing Maya does works because of the vector resistance. But if she really is weaker, the three of us can kill her.

"..." The drone flying above Delilah fires a laser at me, but I use my powers to reflect it while Maya uses every ounce of her speed to land a punch on Delilah that cracks the air with a boom.

I charge in alongside her and Nadir, but Delilah seems to abandon her human act. She recovers from the punch and makes a humanly impossible motion with her arm to catch my fist while pulling me in as a shield against a strike from Maya.

Maya dismantles the ground beneath her, forming a structure that grabs Delilah’s legs. I spin and kick her face, my tail striking her stomach while Nadir shoots at her back.

Maya lands another punch, and the impact is like a sonic boom that splits the ground around us and draws blood from Delilah.

But she manages to dodge most of the blows while twisting her body and shattering the structure holding her. She leaps upward, but Maya grabs her while molding her own gloves into a chain that locks Delilah’s leg to her hand.

I aim my gun at Delilah’s head, but the drone fires a laser at my weapon and breaks it.

’That drone never did that before. Or did she just never see the need?’ Delilah regains her balance and kicks Nadir, yanking her leg free and breaking the chain holding her. The kick is so strong it sends Nadir flying.

"!!!"

"You’re all very arrogant just because I went easy on you humans." She throws a punch that drives Maya into the floor and tries to strike me, but I catch both her hands. My tail drives into the floor, stabilizing my body.

"You know why I haven’t killed you yet? Purely out of interest. I still need you and that man alive. But you’re really making me reconsider." I glance at the blood vial in her clothes, but she headbutts me.

"I’m not letting you take this from me. But I don’t want to waste time on this either." She twists her arm free from my grip and punches my stomach, making me gasp in pain, but I don’t let go.

"I’m not letting you leave here with my blood. Whether or not you’re Nemesis doesn’t change that." I won’t be responsible for helping her create monsters.

I swing my leg up and kick her ribs beneath her clothes, shattering the vial. Her eyes go wide when she hears the sound.

"No!!! You think this ends here?! I’ll come back again!!" She grinds her teeth as she squeezes my hands so hard my prosthetics creak like they’re about to break. But I hear footsteps — many of them. She looks to the right and sees soldiers arriving while Maya gets back to her feet, slightly dazed.

’Her physical strength is absurd to daze Maya with one punch... but it’s still weaker than the display of power we saw from her in the past.’

"Tsk... you’re lucky." She gives a small hop and kicks my chest with both feet, sending me flying. Then she leaps up onto her own drone, which begins to retreat.

"..." I try to aim in her direction to use my powers, but I can feel some ribs are broken, and moving my hands hurts. Besides, vector attacks are useless if she really is Nemesis.

"...Haa... at least I stopped her from taking my blood and Nadir’s... even though... the blood’s still on her clothes... damn it..." She managed to take our blood, considering the vial broke against her clothes. I just hope it’s too contaminated to be useful after contact with the air, the dust, and her clothes.

"...She ran as soon as she saw more people coming... I think we really could have killed her..." I deeply regret not bringing my students. Eirwen would have been immensely useful for stopping Delilah’s escape, and Rouge and Tanya would have helped in the physical fight.

"She probably really was Nemesis, considering the hooded woman defeated Astrid without being hurt... plus I couldn’t drag her with my powers..." A thousand scenarios run through my head where we finally finished off the strongest monster in the world.

The chance we lost here is a brutal blow to all of humanity. It was an opportunity that may never come again.

’She’ll come back... I know it... her interest was clear... the government will probably keep an eye on me and Nadir and anyone who gets close to us starting today...’