Chapter 669: I Just Need to Touch You

Before he could finish the thought, a massive, bright ball of concentrated heat appeared in the air high above him.

It shone with the intensity of a sun and was large enough to swallow three full buildings at once.

The light from it washed over the street, over the stones that bound him, turning the shadows sharp and the air itself hot and dry.

Benjamin recognized the work at once. It was Saharit’s doing.

And the ball of heat began to fall.

BBBBBBOOOOOOMMMMM!!

The heat that erupted from the descending sphere was so intense that the air itself began to twist and shimmer like glass held too close to a flame.

The street stones cracked and blackened before the ball even touched them.

Long before the massive ball of concentrated fire finished its fall and struck the earth, the ground directly beneath the point of impact started to soften and melt.

Stone became wax, and wax became liquid. Magma forced its way upward through sudden, jagged cracks in the stone, and rivers of bright orange lava spread outward in every direction.

When the attack finally completed its strike, a wide and deep crater of bubbling lava sat in the middle of Lot.

The edges of the hole glowed with a white-hot intensity that made the surrounding air ripple. The center remained a molten pit that showed no sign of cooling or settling.

Thick smoke and heavy heat waves climbed steadily toward the sky, with the sharp scent of scorched stone and vaporized earth.

The smell was the smell of a world being remade into something that could not support life.

The Apex Girls were still struggling to recover their breath from everything that had come before.

Hawthorne stuck to a wall carefully with one broad shoulder, supporting his weight so that his head rested against the side of the wall neck.

His other arm hung loose at his side, and his chest rose and fell in slow, heavy movements.

Zanya stood a short distance away with one hand pressed tightly against her side. The place where Benjamin had struck her earlier remained raw and painful beneath her fingers, and each shallow breath made the injury protest. She stood there, breathing carefully, her eyes fixed on the crater.

Saharit’s face still had the clear hope she had placed in that final, overwhelming attack. The expression held for only a moment longer.

Then her eyes blew wide open at the sound of a voice cutting cleanly through the heat, the smoke, and the low roar of the lava afar.

"Sheesh, you guys are really hoping to kill me, huh?"

Benjamin stood casually on top of a tall pile of broken rubble some meters away from them.

Fine dust and drifting ash moved around his feet with the shifting air.

His clothes were unmarked, and his hair was undisturbed. He looked completely untouched by the explosion that had just reshaped the ground into a molten wound.

He looked like a person who had stepped out of a pleasant walk rather than a blast that had melted stone.

"Why...?! I sensed no magic fluctuate! How are you here?! Were you here the whole time?!" Saharit yelled the questions at the top of her voice.

Each word rose higher than the last until her throat strained with the force of them, the sound sharp and disbelieving.

Her hands were clenched at her sides. Her shoulders were tight. The hope on her face had not yet died, but it was dying now, and the death was not gentle.

"Uwah, Saharit lost her cool," Benjamin mumbled under his breath.

A small chuckle followed the observation, soft and private.

He looked over the battered group with open amusement, taking his time as he studied each of them in turn.

His eyes moved from face to face, lingering on injuries, noting who was standing and who was not, who was breathing hard and who was breathing easy.

"I planned to save Zanya for last, but that idea was foiled minutes ago... Then again, maybe I should save Saharit for last instead. Every one of you have information that concerns me, and I intend to take all of it."

"We will never tell you anything!" The words came from a weak and kneeling Zanya.

She had forced herself awake enough to lash out. Her voice was weak and strained from exhaustion and the slap, but the defiance in it remained sharp and unbroken.

"What are you talking about, oni?" Benjamin laughed at the claim. The sound was light and completely unbothered, as if her refusal meant nothing at all. "I don’t need to force any of you to talk. I just need to touch you for a bit."

"Tsk. Still perverted, I see. We will never lose to a sexually frustrated god-touched!" The comment from Zuri landed harder than the others.

The words were sharp and dismissive, and something in Benjamin’s expression tightened at once, a brief flicker that passed across his face before it settled into something colder.

The amusement drained out of his eyes. What replaced it was not anger, exactly. It was more focused.

In the next heartbeat he was already moving. He crossed the remaining distance in a blur of speed that left the air itself disturbed behind him, reaching her before anyone else in the group could take a single step.

The rubble beneath his feet did not even have time to settle.

"Zuri, look out!"

Zanya’s warning came too late.

The words were still leaving her mouth when Benjamin’s hand closed firmly around Zuri’s neck.

Then the two of them shot into the air like a fired bullet, the ruined ground falling away beneath them in an instant.

Strong wind tore at their clothes and hair as they covered a good distance away from the rest of the group in only a few seconds.

The broken cityscape below shrank rapidly, the glowing crater becoming a distant orange wound in the earth. The others grew smaller and smaller, their faces turning upward, their voices lost to the distance.