Chapter 172: Sorry for ordering like an owner

Myles suddenly stopped.

His body remained suspended in the air, unmoving despite the battle still raging around him.

...

Something was wrong.

Blake’s heartbeat, he couldn’t hear it anymore.

Or, at least, not completely.

It was faint, so faint that it blended into the countless other heartbeats surrounding the battlefield.

Myles was able to distinguish every sound perfectly. For someone else, there would’ve been no difference but, for him, the sudden change was deafening.

His eyes narrowed, trying to listen again. Not once in his life did he have to actually stop to try and listen, it was something he could do naturally.

Ba-dump...

He could hear a weak, uneven, tiny rhythm, like a candle about to burn out.

Myles’ pupils contracted slightly.

Without another thought, he shot upward, the air cracking beneath him as he climbed higher.

Above the collapsing factory.

Above the smoke.

Above the clouds of dust.

Still listening.

His ears sifted through the chaos below.

Hundreds of heartbeats, explosions, concrete collapsing, metal tearing apart, wind.

He separated every sound instinctively.

Still, nothing changed.

The heartbeat didn’t become clearer.

If anything, with time, it became even harder to distinguish.

’Where?’

Behind him, Mori appeared again, his fist crashing toward his hack.

Myles twisted his shoulder.

The punch grazed harmlessly past him.

Without even turning around, Myles grabbed Mori’s wrist.

It was a simple motion, nothing too dramatic. Then, he rotated his body, using Mori’s own momentum.

Then flung him downward.

Mori crashed through the roof of a nearby warehouse before bouncing back into the sky.

He refused to stay down.

His face was bruised beneath the broken helmet, blood dripping from his chin.

Yet he still charged, like a machine that had forgotten how to stop.

Myles barely acknowledged him, simply continuing to dodge.

Mori’s fists never connected, which made him even more frustrated.

’Damn it!’

Then, instead of aiming for Myles, he abruptly changed direction, shooting upward toward the building itself.

His fist drew back, every muscle tensing, and then threw one punch, with enough force to tear through the already unstable structure.

Myles’ eyebrow twitched.

He vanished, the distance literally disappeared instantly.

His hand caught Mori by the throat before the punch landed.

For one brief second, the two simply floated.

Then Myles swung effortlessly.

Mori’s body slammed violently against a tree, snapping it in half. The impact echoed faintly.

Silence returned.

Myles looked back toward the building.

’Is Blake really dying?’

Inside his chest, something faltered.

’No, he can’t die, he’s my person.’

Not again.

Something tugged annoyingly inside his chest.

It was quite the familiar memory, one he mostly ignored.

His breathing slowed and became strangely heavy.

Everyone had a role.

The one person who was around him since birth had repeated the same words countless times throughout the years.

"Myles, this is your duty. Don’t forget why you’re here. You have to do this."

The plan, it had existed for longer than he could remember.

Everyone involved wanted the same ending.

So why... why did none of it matter right now?

Myles slowly closed his eyes.

Only to try find a single heartbeat.

Then opened them again.

His own heartbeat had slowed.

Oddly so.

Because of his composition, Myles’ body reacts to strong emotions by slowing his heart. It not a fixed thing thanks to his human side. However, both cases were extremely rare.

Even stranger, his ears rang. It was a thin, sharp vibration speeding through both sides of his head.

His eyebrow twitched.

’What is this?’

His hearing had never failed him, not once.

So why did it continue to sound so distant?

The ringing changed gradually, sharp vibration softening.

It rose, then fell.

It was a rhythm, so not random.

It was truly a familiar melody.

It was soft and broken, coming from somewhere above.

Myles slowly lifted his head, his eyes landing in the rooftop.

At the very edge, something stood there.

Or... someone.

His eyes focused only briefly.

The image blurred almost immediately afterward.

He blinked, however, the vision refused to settle.

’Why...’

Then, understanding struck him.

Even though he could only hear it for a few seconds, even though it remained unbelievably weak...

The heartbeat, the one he’d been searching for, was coming from there.

’Blake.’

Behind him, the battle resumed.

Nar struggled to one knee.

Blood streamed beneath his shattered visor.

Deli staggered forward, clutching one broken arm.

Mori was still nowhere to be seen.

But dozens of armored soldiers poured from the ruined building.

The ones who had originally been chasing Blake had now abandoned the search.

Every single one of them targeted Myles instead.

The sky filled with armored bodies.

Myles slowly exhaled.

’I can’t waste any time.’

None of it mattered.

His attention remained fixed upward.

Then, above the explosions, the collapsing concrete, the screaming, he finally heard the voice he was searching for.

"CATCH!!"

The sound tore through the battlefield.

The instant it reached him, The weak heartbeat exploded back into existence.

Every beat resonated inside Myles’ ears as clearly as his own. It was strong, loud and beautiful.

Without thinking, he moved.

The acceleration detonated the air beneath him.

BOOOOOOM!!

A circular shockwave erupted outward.

The armored soldiers surrounding him were violently hurled away as if struck by an invisible wall.

Nar slammed into a broken pillar.

Deli spun uncontrollably through the air.

Dozens of others lost control completely.

Myles never looked at them. None of this mess mattered if Blake wasn’t going to make it.

His entire world had narrowed to one point.

Blake threw himself off of the building.

The world seemed to freeze.

Concrete.

Smoke.

Dust.

Wind.

Everything slowed around Myles, just one person was actually in front of him.

And that person’s shirt lifted from the rushing air.

His hair fluttered wildly.

His eyes never left him.

"Myles..."

The name left his lips as nothing but a whisper, which made Myles reach him before gravity truly could.

One arm wrapped firmly around Blake’s waist, the other supported his back.