chapter 194

Both of us stared at each other, neither of us making a move. Playing back what I had captured of all my surroundings, I had to curse, as the one currently standing 20 feet from me wasn’t simply a fast individual. Plenty could achieve that with the proper skills, but no, he fit the actual classification for a speedster.

Fortunately, the laws of physics made it impossible for even magic to accelerate mass greater than a couple of molecules beyond or even close to the speed of light. That was a really good thing, because if there were really speedsters that could go as fast as the speed of light or even faster, there would be literally nothing anyone could do to stop them.

“I found this bag dropped. It seems its straps have broken. Is it yours?” the speedster asked.

Sweeping my surroundings made it clear that there were others here as well, but they had not made their presence known to me yet. Most likely one or multiple of those were the ones currently messing with the cameras.

My normal clothes were already saturated with my armour nano machines. Already, they were emerging to start making the current armour design I had chosen. They would be covering up all of my clothes except for my knee-length duster coat. But even there, my nano machines were emerging, forming into a stronger layer than before.

This did not go unnoticed by the speedster. “Well, that’s rude. I’m only trying to help you. Now play nice, is this your bag? If not, I’m afraid anything inside will be taken to the security office.”

That was quite interesting. My eyes were firmly on him, and I think that unnerved him a bit. He was shorter than me, had scaly skin, but most of it was covered by a skin-tight suit that left nothing to the imagination. Otherwise, he didn’t look impressive at all, but I knew how dangerous people like him could be.

From my inventory, I was already pulling out more nano machines, constantly reinforcing my armour. Not only that, but already my defensive skills were active. It was time to go on the offensive, but not yet physically.

It was easy enough to connect to the nearby cameras, all of which were, for some truly unknown reason, malfunctioning. The hacking was subtle, and I could reverse it, but they would know then. Fortunately, I had a better way of doing things, as I simply commanded one of the cameras to work properly for the next few seconds.

In that window, I responded, “I hadn’t even felt it fall from my back. I didn’t even hear it hit the ground. Where did you say you found it?”

“Oh, so you want to play?” he was about to say more, but stopped and, for the first time, took his eyes off me, looking towards one of the windows on the second floor of the building to our right. So, he wasn’t used to things not going his way; that was good, and meant he wasn’t as experienced as I feared. That would help.

“What did you do?” This time, there was definitely anger in his voice.

Alarms went off, and immediately, I shot the best spark I had managed to produce in a straight line in front of me. The speedster managed to dodge, now standing to the right of me about 15 feet away.

Running back the footage I captured of what happened, I saw he accelerated towards me fast and managed to do the 90° turn. Proper speedsters are able to dodge like that, even if that incoming lightning probably wouldn’t have done anything else but feel a bit painful.

If they accelerated fast enough and to a high enough speed, there were rules that they needed to follow. Now more than ever, I was glad of FH’s research, as one of the topics she covered extensively was dangerous skill combinations and how to fight them.

They could go a lot slower, still super-fast compared to everyone else, and move with complete freedom, but if they wanted to move as fast as they could, they needed to do so in a straight line. They literally couldn’t do anything else unless they had a proper skill combination that would allow them to do 90° turns. Without that, they would simply be a human-sized bullets.

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“I apologise, I get antsy whenever someone approaches me so fast,” I said with a large smile on my face, once again making this time all the cameras stop malfunctioning simply by being connected to them and then using my command skill to override their current hacked state.

The speedster was about to do something, but then stopped. “Fix it, or are you purposely trying to make me fail this mission?” Those words were said with palpable malice that I was certain of.

This time I felt skills being used with the cameras surrounding us. Before, it was just skills boosting hacking, but now they were directly controlling them. If I used my skill now, they would know for sure it was me. I had managed to delay long enough to get my defences strong enough.

Not only did I use my command skill on all the cameras here, but I also started counter-hacking whoever was doing this. Now I wouldn’t be able to keep that up for long, especially if they had proper equipment, but I didn’t need to go far, just to a location that’s more populated.

My fast walking pulled his attention back to me. “Oh, so you think this will save you. You really abandoning everything you purchased?” he said, showing me my bag once again. That was literally an empty bag worth nothing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. That bag is broken anyway. Keep it if you want.”

The next moment, the bag was torn apart and falling towards the ground. Holy shit, once again, I needed to rewind what happened to see how he tore the bag into ribbons so damn fast. That skill build was scary.

Alarms went off. Currently, he was to the side of me and a bit behind. My body was already in a position to brace myself, as I had hoped he would do this. In my left hand, already in position, hidden by my duster, was my sword.

The spirit inside roared in happiness as it started to extend to pierce through my duster and whoever might be running towards me in a straight line to where the speedster had been standing.

My Hardened Connection skill was pushed to the limit as it reinforced everything, even my connection to the ground. My Crimson Empowerment skill barely had time to start taking effect, improving my current defence, before I felt the impact.

Despite my best efforts, he managed to send me flying, but he was coming with me as I not only managed to grab him with my right hand so that he would not be able to escape me, but I could also see the surprise on his face as my sword was currently piercing his chest.

We hit the wall of a building hard, but no one had cheaped out on construction on this station, so while we did some damage, and it hurt so much, the wall held. The speedster could barely concentrate before a simple flick of my wrist cut him nearly in half.

He was dead before he hit the ground. Dozens of people rushed out, and I sent a wave of flame in a circle around me. It was only for show as the flames could barely burn flesh, but it reminded them that I was dangerous. That made them hesitate to rush me, giving me enough time to pull my revolver and unload plenty of high-grade ammunition into the speedster’s head.

Everyone looked at me like I was dumb, but from the back, I could see a person watching who had quite a lot of mana moving around him, or perhaps her; that species was a weird-looking one. Our eyes met, and he knew exactly why I had done this.

Usually, to use a revival skill, you needed to fix the body beforehand, especially if there were objects inside, and the bullets that I unloaded into his brain were made of portal materials, making them extremely costly to remove by healing skills, especially ranged ones.

A trick I learned with my inventory skill had me reload the revolver, which I used to pump his body even more full of metal. Now, I could have used my innate ability to turn his soul into currency, making it impossible for him to be revived, but instead, I made a small piece that remained of one of his ribs disappear, as otherwise my deepest secret might be discovered.

My danger sense flared, and the rest of my sensors managed to pick up the incoming bullet fast enough to make a minute adjustment to my sword, blocking the incoming attack. That was so damn close, but even then, my armour would have blocked it.

Managing to do that, even though it was mostly luck, made almost everyone opposing me quite nervous. Some of the cameras had gone down; I wouldn’t be able to keep them up for much longer. The main street that we could see from here was clearing out, so it meant alerts must have gone out. They wouldn’t have much time left.

I really didn’t know what their next move was, but I was ready. My armour and sword were glowing properly crimson, as my empowering skill was now in full effect. Only now did I notice that, for some reason, my crimson empowerment skill’s effect seemed to darken the surroundings, like it was absorbing light, making everything around me a bit darker, only being lit by crimson light.

Then we heard the alarms. It took me a moment to remember that these were the sirens the station security used. It was obvious that the speedster had been in charge of this operation, and the ones under him didn’t know what to do. Most likely, each of their lives combined was worth less than this speedster, so their main goal would no longer be threatening me, but saving him.

My eyes focused back on the healer as I took a sideways step away from the body. Every gun refocused on me, but no one fired, although some seemed quite nervous. While they might be afraid of me at the moment, I was certain that their real fear came from the ones in charge of them and what they would do if they didn’t save the speedster.

A few steps further away from the body and towards the main street made the healer give some command that I couldn’t hear. Everyone still had their weapons aimed at me, but they were now moving towards the body, slowly, step by step, and with every step, I got further away.

When I was about 30 feet away from the speedster and in the middle of the street, they had a protective line from the healer to the speedster, after which the healer rushed towards him.

It was fascinating to watch him heal him, the bullets popping out one by one. At the same time, the torn flesh stitched back together, as he was using the revival skill every proper battle medic had.

The security forces finally made it here. Immediately, I sent them the full security footage I myself recorded. I wondered what kind of reparations they needed to pay to me, now that no one on their side was hurt.