Chapter 51 Currents.

Chapter 51: 51 Currents.

"Devour!" the Captain snarled, and the enormous ice construct came hurtling toward me with startlingly lifelike movement.

Even I had never seen anything quite like it before.

I drifted backward, desperately attempting to create a little distance and steal myself a few valuable seconds. Never fight a elemental without having one of their weaknesses in store.

I just barely reached into my pocket and pulled out several of the heat capsules she’d sold me.

I hurled them toward the beast, using my magnetic abilities to propel them faster, each capsule embedding itself into a separate part of the frozen wolf.

It was practically upon me when the heat capsules exploded, tearing chunks from the creature and sending enormous clouds of steaming vapor billowing outward.

I forced my armour upward, letting the magnetic force launch me into the air as the entire frozen beast crumbled mid-charge. It skidded across the icy floor, shedding chunks of itself before smashing into the far wall with a tremendous crash.

Phew. That had actually worked. But there was no time to celebrate. The Captain was nowhere close to finished, and when I looked back toward him, I realized my instincts had been dead-on.

While I’d been dealing with his creation, he’d frozen the metal chains solid.

His face was contorted with effort and concentration, and with an enraged roar, he shattered the brittle metal binding him, freeing himself as fragments of chain scattered across the room.

Well shit, that explained how he’d climbed so damn high within the Order. I hadn’t intended for things to escalate this far, but if this truly was the final stage, I still had one last trick available.

Literally.

I reached out and magnetically ripped a sidearm from the holster of one of the fallen henchmen. The gun flew across the ballroom and landed perfectly in my outstretched hand.

The Captain actually laughed when he spotted it. Freezing winds curled around his body, spiralling faster as though heralding the arrival of an approaching blizzard.

"So this is your final ploy?" he demanded, chunks of ice the size of sedans forming in the air around him. "Perhaps you should save the last bullet, fool. Spare yourself what is to come."

"Funny you should mention that," I said, and as I took aim. "I’m only going to need one bullet."

Confusion briefly flashed across his features. At the very least, I’d already taught him that dismissing me as harmless was a mistake.

And his caution was justified, because I used my magnetic abilities to push the copper strips I’d sewn into my sleeve outward.

The Captain’s forehead creased as he tried to understand exactly what I was doing. Then his attention shifted to the copper, which had begun to tremble.

Static crackled between the strips as they spun around the gun’s barrel, the increasingly violent whine of magnetic energy rising until it drowned out even the storm raging around us.

"You might want to block this," I said. "Currents are insane. Got that idea from a reader."

Recognition flashed across his face as the meaning finally clicked.

He abandoned the massive chunks of ice he’d been gathering and instead thrust one arm upward in desperation. A thick wall of ice erupted between us, solidifying almost immediately.

"Too late," I said, and fired my makeshift rail gun.

The pistol barely recoiled, but as soon as the projectile entered the magnetic field, the force behind it hurled me backward several feet, nearly tearing my arm from its socket.

The copper strips liquefied beneath the insane friction produced by the shot, while the bullet screamed through the air at such speed that an arctic blast roared behind it.

It slammed into the Captain’s ice barrier and annihilated it as though the wall had been made from fragile glass.

The explosion sent the Captain flying, ripping his feet from beneath him before he crashed into the staircase hard enough to splinter and fracture the steps.

Blood burst from his mouth, speckling his beard as he fell into the crater his body had carved.

I drew in a sharp breath, lowering the pistol as the magnetic vibration slowly died away.

Then the Captain got back to his feet.

I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

He was clearly barely standing, swaying heavily, but sheer stubbornness and rage somehow forced him upright. He stumbled once before locking his gaze onto me, hatred radiating from him with the intensity of someone pushed far beyond his limits.

Despite myself, I felt a strange flicker of respect.

This was a genuine villain.

Someone who simply would not remain down.

A man who’d continue fighting until the bitter end, only to somehow drag himself back into the fight for another round when every sensible rule of combat insisted he should’ve already been finished.

It was the same quality shared by every truly legendary hero and the villain destined to stand against them. And right then, I finally understood that strength, cruelty, and even an impressive sense of style weren’t the sole reasons Captain Zero had earned his place on the Council of 9.

"You think... you think you’ve won?" the Captain said, forcing himself straight as more ice materialized around him in hammer-headed blocks of frost.

I grimaced, quickly running through whatever possibilities I had left. I raised the pistol once more. If I could somehow give that bullet another serious boost...

"Father! Stop!"

Spears of ice ripped through the Captain’s frozen projectiles, their crystalline points smashing the blocks apart with the ease of breaking glass.

What the hell?

I whirled around, stunned, and saw Glacia hovering toward her father, both hands extended like some goddess of the frozen north. More ice spears spun around her, while brilliant blue fire burned inside her eyes.

My jaw genuinely dropped.

Damn! She actually had that much power inside her?

I quickly looked toward the Captain, only to discover that he appeared even more shocked than I was. He stared at Glacia like he was seeing his daughter properly for the very first time.

"Baby!" he finally said, his voice changing from menacing to loving instantly. "You need to stay hidden before you get yourself injured, were we too loud?"

"Stopping this!" Glacia said. "I will not let you two kill each other!"

"Darling—"

"Did you really order to have him killed?" Glacia said, landing between him and me, her entire frame shaking with fury. "Did you really break your word? To me?"

For perhaps the first time, Captain Zero looked genuinely ashamed. He cleared his throat as the crushing cold surrounding the room diminished slightly. "Sweetheart, W-well..."

"You swore to me, father," Glacia said, advancing toward him as frost cracked and snapped beneath her feet. "You made a promise to me, daddy. You said if came peacefully, you’d leave here and him! Since when did you break your promises."

Yeesh. I almost pitied him.

There weren’t many things in existence that could make a man squirm quite like being rightfully called out by a woman he genuinely cared about.

And although Captain Zero might’ve been the most formidable villain from one end of the planet to the other, at that particular moment, I had a feeling he’d happily trade places with anyone sitting on a train headed straight for Siberia.

He cleared his throat yet again, dropping his chin into the cover of his beard while looking about as uncomfortable as a man possibly could.