Chapter 273: Enemy
The sirens howling across Port Kalen blended into a singular, deafening scream.
Red emergency beacons flashed along the parapets of Berth Nine, painting the mist in crimson. From the northern airspace above the city, the low-frequency hum of turbine engines vibrated through the ground. Three armored corporate gunships cut through the low-hanging smog, their dual searchlights sweeping the docks in white arcs.
“Move!” Hide barked, his voice cutting through the wailing klaxons.
They abandoned the dockworkers’ cover. There was no point in pretending to be deckhands anymore.
Beneath the collar of his blue jacket, Hide gave a sharp mental command. The thin, disguised layer of Abyssal Slime dissolved from his face and hair, flowing back down his neck. His untamed silver locks spilled across his forehead, and his piercing ocean-blue eyes locked onto the towering glass-and-steel monolith piercing the clouds out of the mainland: the continental headquarters of the International Exterminator Corporation that was built out of the main city to conceal the reverse one way gate.
“We don’t take the highways,” Ryan shouted, sprinting beside him with his datapad clamped under his arm. “The central avenues have automated perimeter gates that will drop the second the alarm registers. We will have to go through the outer remains of the industrial sector, that leads straight to the plaza beneath the main tower!”
“Lead the way,” Gideon grunted, his boots hammered the cracked pavement.
The eight of them sprinted like shadows through the maze of rusted freight warehouses, veering into the cavernous concrete channel of an empty stormwater viaduct.
Beside Hide, Sora matched his stride. Her knuckles were white around the grip of her rapier, her eyes fixed forward, but her breath came fast and uneven. The lingering horror of having stayed Hide’s blade—and the disastrous transmission that followed—hung over her like a suffocating shroud. Hide glanced at her pale profile, his jaw tightening.
‘Look at her,’ the mocking voice in his skull hissed, slithering across his thoughts like venom. ‘Guilt is written all over her face. She broke your rhythm, and now she knows she signed their death warrants. How many of them will be corpses before you reach the front doors?’
‘Get out of my head,’ Hide snarled inwardly, pushing his speed faster.
They burst out from the end of the aqueduct, vaulting onto the elevated marble concourse of the corporate district.
Before them stretched the Grand Continental Plaza—a massive, half-mile expanse of polished obsidian stone leading directly to the colossal, two-hundred-story glass pyramid of the International Exterminator Corporation.
And standing directly across the plaza, blocking their path, was a barricade of nightmare proportions.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Heavy boots cracked against the marble in absolute unison.
Walter Bigiva had not sent ordinary riot guards.
Waiting for them in the center of the concourse was a strike detachment of five High-Ranking Elite Exterminators—veterans adorned in ornate, customized black-and-gold runic plate, each radiating the crushing, suffocating mana density of upper A-Rank combatants. Behind them stood three squads of enforcers armed with heavy heavy-frequency suppressors and barriers.
At the center of the elite line stood a hulking brute clad in spiked earth-iron armor, holding a three-ton slab-sword that dragged against the ground. To his left, a lean swordsman with twin rapiers crackling with gale mana; to his right, a lightning mage enveloped in blinding violet plasma. Flanking the rear were a shadow assassin in shifting dimensional mist and a summoner holding an obsidian talisman that hissed with dark serpentine familiars.
“Fugitive Hide Volter,” the iron brute rumbled, his voice amplified by an integrated runic amplifier until it shook the glass windows of surrounding skyscrapers. “By executive decree of Commander Walter Bigiva, your existence terminates here. Surrender, or we will have no other way but a fight.”
Hide didn’t break his stride. He reached for the hilt of the katana, preparing to unleash his dark mana and carve a bloody trench straight through the line.
“HIDE! KEEP RUNNING!”
Gideon’s booming roar tore across the plaza.
The massive veteran didn’t wait for orders. With an earth-shattering bellow, Gideon charged forward, his warhammer igniting with brilliant, molten-gold mana.
“YOU WANT A SLAB-SWORD TO CRUSH, YOU UGLY PIECE OF SHIT?!” Gideon roared, leaping ten feet into the air and bringing his warhammer crashing down toward the armored brute. “FACE A REAL TANK!”
BOOM!
The collision between Gideon’s warhammer and the brute’s slab-sword detonated like an artillery shell, blowing a ten-yard crater into the marble plaza.
“Go!” Gideon bellowed through gritted teeth, holding the monstrous sword at bay with physical fury.
Before the violet lightning mage could unleash a concentrated arc toward Hide’s blind spot, a jagged bolt of pure blue-white electricity slammed down from the sky, detonating the mage’s barrier in a shower of sparks.
ZZZZT—CRACK!
Ryan skidded to a halt on the marble, his spectacles gleaming with lethal brilliance, both hands wreathed in roaring, high-voltage lightning.
“A-Rank against A-Rank,” Ryan said coldly, his coat billowing in the electrical storm. “Let’s see whose lightning strikes faster. Don’t look back, Hide! Move!”
HURRRR!
From the left flank, the summoner unleashed a swarm of twelve shadowy, three-headed serpents that lunged toward Hide with venom-dripping fangs.
ROAAAR!
A massive, ethereal white tiger materialized from thin air, its claws tearing the lead serpents into ribbons of dark mist! Beside it, a nine-tailed spirit fox danced through the air, spitting fire that incinerated the rest of the beasts.
Evelyn walked into the fray, her revolver barking in steady, rhythmic succession.
“Leave the summoner to me and the beasts,” Evelyn shouted over the gunfire, her eyes sharp and unyielding. “Kiko, watch the flank!”
Fwip! Fwip!
The shadow assassin lunged from the mist with twin daggers, aiming for Hide’s neck. But before his boots could touch the stone, dozens of shimmering, razor-sharp threads tightened across his path.
Kiko stood with her arms outstretched, her grey hair whipping in the wind as her wires sliced the assassin’s armor plates and pinned his wrists against an obsidian monument.
“I won’t let anyone touch him!” Kiko cried out, her voice filled with desperate resolve. “Hide, run!”
A squad of ten riflemen tried to flank Hide’s right, but the concussive screech of hydraulic servos tore through the chaos.
PNEU-HISS!
Kai planted his leg into the marble, the pistons hissing as he pivoted with blinding speed. He thrust his focus staff forward, firing a massive, swirling maelstrom of high-pressure water spears that swept the ten riflemen off their feet, smashing them against the plaza walls.
“WE PROMISED WE’D SEE YOU TO THE END!” Kai roared, sweat and grim determination pouring down his face as he blocked the advancing reinforcements. “DON’T STOP FOR ANYTHING!”
One by one, his friends formed a unbreakable wall behind him. They traded their blood, their mana, and their lives to clear a path through the army.
Hide ran.
Beside him, only Sora remained.
They crossed the remaining two hundred yards of the concourse, reaching the grand entrance of the International Exterminator Corporation’s central tower. The colossal titanium doors hung half-open, but standing on the marble steps was the final interceptor: the swordsman, his twin blades drawn, radiating a lethal, whistling vortex of compressed wind.
“Hello there, darling,” the swordsman declared, blurring forward in a blinding lunge.
SHING!
A flash of silver light intercepted the strike.
Sora’s rapier met the twin blades with pinpoint precision, deflecting the lethal thrust. Gale-force shockwaves rippled between them, tearing chunks of marble from the floor.
Hide skidded to a halt, turning toward her. “Sora—”
“Go!” she shouted fiercely, her wind mana flaring around her body like an armor of silver.
She pushed the enemy swordsman back, turning her face toward Hide for a brief, breathless second. Her dark eyes were bright, stripped entirely of her earlier hesitation.
“I hesitated at the dock, Hide,” she said, her voice rich with unwavering conviction. “I won’t let anyone hold you back now.”
She offered him a fierce, fragile smile.
“Remember your vow,” she whispered. “Survive to marry me.”
Hide’s chest surged with an overwhelming, incandescent fire. The taunting whispers in his skull were utterly drowned out by the thunder of his own heartbeat.
“I will,”
He turned and bolted through the shattered doors of the tower.
Inside the headquarters, the world turned deathly silent.
There were no alarms echoing through the marble lobbies. No squads of security guards sprinting through the corridors. The sprawling, multi-tiered atrium of the world’s most powerful organization was hollow, bathed in sterile, cold white light. Every terminal was shut down; every office door stood locked.
Walter had cleared the building.
Hide stepped onto the private executive lift and surprisingly it worked.
The elevator ascended in silence, climbing a hundred stories into the clouds. Hide stood alone, his hand resting on the pommel of the katana.
DING.
The elevator doors parted smoothly.
Before him stretched the Grand Executive Sanctum—a cavernous, circular hall spanning the entire top floor of the tower. Massive, floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows looked out over the sprawling metropolis and the distant, smog-choked ocean.
In the center of the room sat a massive obsidian desk.
Behind it, seated in a high-backed leather chair, was Walter Bigiva.
The 1st Commander of the International Exterminator Corporation looked unbothered. He wore his gold-trimmed commander’s uniform, his hands resting calmly over a crystal glass of amber liquor on the polished stone. He was completely alone. No guards, no barriers, and no weapons in hand.
As Hide stepped off the elevator, his boots clicking against the polished floor, Walter slowly looked up.
The old man’s weathered face creased into a faint, knowing smirk.
“You made quite a mess at the docks, Hide,” Walter said smoothly, his voice carrying the calm, terrifying resonance of a man who held the world in the palm of his hand. “I was wondering how long it would take you to find your way back to me.”