Chapter 746: Normal Bullets.

Just to be safe, Dante decided to leave the beasts in their frozen prisons. Smashing the spheres would likely kill them, but he wasn’t about to risk it;

’They aren’t going to melt it, right?’

He watched them for a few seconds, but they didn’t show any signs of transforming into their flame form.

"Whoa! What was that!!?" Merry ran over, eyes sparkling. "Where did you get that!!?"

The bright hero immediately began checking his new arm, which had ripped through the sleeve of his jacket. For a moment there, Dante considered reverting it back to 4-3, but he dropped the idea.

"It’s a dream, remember?" He said. "This is just another one of my implants, though I rarely use it."

"Since when do bionic implants give you water and ice powers?" Merry asked.

"They aren’t your typical implants."

Understanding the logic of this particular dream was threatening to give Dante a headache. There was no telling when new enemies would show up, and they weren’t anywhere close to discovering a way out.

"Let’s keep moving," Dante said.

Just as he was about to turn around, a certain motion caught his attention, and he leaned his head to the side. The bang of a gunshot echoed in the hallway, its source being Boris’s pistol. The big guy pulled the trigger three more times.

"GRAAA!!!"

The pained cry came from behind Dante. New beasts had appeared, and each received a bullet right between the eyes. As impressive as it was, Boris didn’t seem to be too focused on the feat he had just performed.

"Dante! Around the corner!"

Being too focused on the beasts, Dante failed to catch the thing peeking at them from behind the corner. Or maybe it was someone? Realizing they might be whoever trapped them in the dream, he was about to give chase, but then he stopped himself.

’Damn it!’

Chasing after whoever that was meant leaving the others behind, and that was something he couldn’t afford. The risk had left him paralyzed, but it seemed he was the only one.

"What are you waiting for!"

A massive shadow passed him, and when he checked, he saw the big guy already running, carrying Nana with one arm. The difference in size made it so the preschool teacher fit in the palm of his hand, which left him with the other one free to shoot when needed.

"Let’s go!"

Merry took off as well, and Dante had to force himself to follow after her. This time, he took the rear just in case, keeping a watch on the others and preparing to interfere at a moment’s notice.

With all three of them enhanced—Boris being a Level 2 Advanced Cyborg—they were able to move quite fast, allowing them to keep up with the suspicious individual from before. From a distance, he appeared to be a muscular man. Just as he was about to turn the corner, he stopped to glance at them, then did some motion with his hands.

Two more flaming dogs spawned out of his shadow while he turned the corner and continued to run. Boris shot them between the eyes just like the others, and for some reason, they never got up after that.

Smashing them till they lost their form wasn’t enough to kill the beasts, but normal bullets worked just fine. The subtle oddities of the dream just kept on confusing Dante. As the thoughts kept piling up, something entered the edge of his Absolute Awareness, causing his to go wide.

"Wait, wait, wait! STOOOOOOP!!!"

Boris pressed Nana close to his chest and skidded to a stop, his foot almost slipping beyond an edge that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Merry almost hurled herself over it, and only Dante managed to slow down in time. Turns out accelerating to catch the stranger was the wrong choice after all.

The floor just disappeared at a certain point, along with the wall and the ceiling. The resulting opening led to a massive hole that seemed to be infinitely deep, and Dante would have thought that they were gazing at the outside if not for the surrounding walls, which showed the interiors of a bunch of identical rooms.

A quick glance told Dante that the layout couldn’t possibly match that of the hotel, meaning the hole wasn’t just blasted through the building. As he couldn’t see any way down, Dante felt that staying near the edge was a very bad idea, but just as he was about to tell the others, his Absolute Awareness picked something up once more. This time, it came from behind them.

Without hesitation, Dante whipped his arm backward, forming a finger gun. It was only then that he realized his 2-4 Module didn’t have the Hydrokinesis Ability required to use his water gun attack. As he moved to activate Hydro Pulse instead, he saw that the thing he had detected was the man they had been chasing. The hallway was empty, so he didn’t have anywhere to hide. Even if he managed to slip past them, Absolute Awareness should’ve caught him.

’Where did he-’

Before Dante could finish the thought, three black beasts manifested from the man’s shadow. Two shot forward, colliding with the wave of water and disintegrating on impact. The third one, on the other hand.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

It suddenly exploded, growing to the point that it filled the entire hallway. Dante rushed to stop it, but the force with which it slammed into him went beyond what he was expecting, and before he could adjust, the black beast pushed him back, throwing him off the edge.

"Wha-"

"Shi-"

Merry went pale as the floor disappeared from under her, while Boris and Nana froze. Gravity didn’t wait until they peeked down before pulling on them. They had been pushed so far from everything else that they had nothing to cling to, and that left Dante with very few options. With death already reaching for them, he was about to give the command to equip 8-3. That was when his Absolute Awareness once again picked up on something moving at a speed he couldn’t ignore. When he turned to block it, he realized it was a tall black woman.

"You are coming with me."

Saying as much, she grabbed him with one hand and flung him at the nearest wall.