Published at 30th of August 2026 9:29 am

Chapter 372: Crossfire

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

Nicolai pressed through the compound, a world of large buildings surrounded by park-like environs, packed with undead. Here and there he began seeing tall obelisks made of bones, which he recognised as towers through which the defence system could attack trespassers.

To him, the defence systems favoured son, these towers were the opposite of a threat, and he leveraged them and the undead defenders to aid him with scoring kills. The system was very happy to send undead or utilise its towers against any intruders, once he pointed out their locations.

The people he was going after were all skilled and dangerous, good at avoiding a knife in the back, but he knew how they thought, and he knew that when faced with a sudden attack by undead there would inevitably come a moment in which they were vulnerable. He eliminated them one after the other, managing for a time without ever being spotted.

Alas against those with sonar his stealth was less effective, and one Cyborg caught sight of Nicolai before he could close. The man had finished off the undead quicker than expected, and when Nicolai burst from a bush with Knife raised, a jetpack on the guys back sent him up with a roar. The man twisted midair, taking aim with some kind of railcannon.

With stealth having failed, Nicolai switched approaches. The gun limbs uncoiled, snake-like, and as they took aim he felt Aimings sudden glee at finally being able to make use of them.

A single shot from a rail cannon like that would likely go through every shield he had, but aided by the strange knowledge of the Dark, and able to focus entirely on reading his opponent, Nicolai simply stepped out of the way of the first shot, then the next. And all the while the gun-limbs screamed out a barrage of 7.62, Aimings accuracy predictably perfect. By the time the jump-pack user was loading a third rail cannon charge, his Shield splintered and he was gone in a flare of blue. Nicolai reached for the magazines.

There came the scrape of a foot on the ground. That would have been his only warning of the cultivator currently dashing at him, a woman who held the exact same kind of Knife as he did. Except the Infiltrator, lurking invisibly on a nearby wall, had detected and tagged her the moment she began creeping up on him, and it was already taking measures. The hornet bug smasher caught her just as she was stretching out to stab him with a Knife much like her own. The metal ball blasted her spinning to the side, Shield cracked.

She righted herself, landing like a cat. But by then hed finished reloading, and the gun-limbs took aim. Just as they began to fire some Symbiotic force launched her several metres towards Nicolai, covering the space in an instant. She appeared right before him, face twisted into a snarl, knife extended, Shields splintering as bullets poured onto her, but they wouldnt break through fast enough.

In mimic of his previous opponent, the jets on Nicolais body flared to life and tossed him into the sky, and she stumbled as her strike found nothing but air. The gun-limbs thundered on. Her Shield broke and she too was gone.

Nicolai landed and immediately set off in a sprint, eager to put some distance between himself and this place where hed made too much noise. Hed grown the gap between himself and most of the others on the eliminations scoreboard, but the one called Severin was keeping pace.

Nicolai now knew who, precisely, that was. His strategy of padding the killcount had led to an unexpected benefit. Over in the centre, the one he considered his ultimate rival had started moving around. He was now actively defending the place, rather than lying in ambush and waiting for Nicolai. Through the strange vision the defence system gave him, he was able to compare when his rival made a kill with Severins killcount, and had thus worked out it was him.

Nicolai opted to keep waiting, keep killing. There was still some time to go before the hacker would get the orb free. He would arrive at that moment when the chaos would reach its peak. Better not to show any of his cards to his rival prior to that point. In the meantime, through the defence system, he was taking note of the strategies the man used. Already their eventual battle had tilted a little in his favour.

There were a few more kills he could score. One of the buildings he was coming toward was a kind of black spot. Through the system hed seen a number of assassins go in, but none come out. There was someone in there with quite a few eliminations.

Hed come to realise that some of those he eliminated counted as more than one. Some comparison with the score board had led him and the Modules to determine that when you eliminated an individual with eliminations of their own, you gained half their number. An assassin whod scored ten eliminations would be worth five. If he could take out a couple like that, hed be able to put himself well ahead in preparation for reaching the centre.

The building was a large, almost circular structure with a dome-like roof. It was lined by balconies, which gave him an easy route in, simply floating up to one and creeping inside. Drones under his control entered through other balconies, finding open doors or windows. The Infiltrator found a higher-up entrance on the roof.

Inside he found some kind of giant theatre. One of his drones made it to the centre of the building first, showing him a view of long rows of seating facing a wide stage, the upper level possessing another long row of seating flanked by balconies.

A Cultivator wearing dark clothing lounged on the upper level, gazing down at the stage. Nicolai shifted his route to come from behind, meanwhile the Infiltrator found a high-up vantage to peer down into the room. Using its spiritual vision it took a careful look around, and saw that there was some kind of spiritual effect at work in this place. The whole room was blanketed with it, and Threat Analysis determined it was some kind of method of sensing, a way for that Cultivator to know about anything that moved in the room.

Nicolai knew then that he was looking at a trap, a place where the ground had been well set to give this man advantages.

After a moment conferring, Nicolai entered the upper layer and began creeping towards the man.

Nicolai did not truly expect to make it without being spotted, and he was well aware he was walking into a trap. He simply didnt care. He wanted to see what strategy was used. He wanted to learn from a challenging fight, and he wanted that boost to his kill count.

Before hed even covered a couple of metres, the odd energy shivered and the man rose. He turned and his eyes settled on Nicolai.

It was no one Nicolai recognised, but that didnt go both ways.

Its you, muttered the man, then he grinned. Killing you will be very good for my kill count.

Nicolai nodded, because that was exactly what he was thinking. He immediately launched into a sprint, running over the tops of the seats.

Ripples poured out as the man spread his arms then a cloud of blackness appeared between them. Nicolai reversed momentum immediately, kicking out with his legs to catch one of the seats and launch himself backwards. He threw out a few scans but discovered that nothing penetrated the cloud. His Soul Sense darted out to investigate and he called up the Spectral Claw, taking an experimental slash at it. The Claw seemed to damage it slightly, but all that happened was it shrunk slightly. Threat Analysis concluded that being inside was unlikely to seriously hurt him, but it would slow him down, slightly weaken his Soul, and of course, he would be unable to communicate or see outside, as radio waves also didnt penetrate the blackness. Far from ideal.

Fortunately, he hadnt entered it. Though he couldnt see the assassin on the far side with his own eyes, he had vision from various drones and the Infiltrator upabove. He saw the assassin raise his hand, then a streak of black energy burst out and punched into the cloud. It was slower than a bullet and hed stepped out the way well before it lanced out the other side, darting past him to blow some unfortunate seating into splinters.

His gun-limbs took aim and he pulled his anti-mat from the Big Mouth. With drones and the Infiltrator he had plenty of information to fire accurately, and he began dashing around the edge of the blackness as he fired.

But on the far side his opponent became wrapped in another cloud of blackness, which then split into six, all of which moved in different directions. Two of them went sideways along the railing, found the walls and began climbing towards the ceiling. Another two leapt off the edge of this upper layer and plummeted down to the layer below. The last two came straight at him.

He backed up quickly, and for a moment stopped firing, as he only had so much ammunition and he wasnt sure which of the clouds his enemy was in. As the two orbs of blackness pressed towards him he called up the Spectral Claw and sent it out in a great looping slash. It tore through both the clouds, and where it had proved of little use against the larger cloud, it was able to entirely destroy these two.

Threat Analysis cried out a warning as another blast of black energy erupted from one of the clouds up on the ceiling. Nicolai spun out of the way once again, but another bolt followed right after. He was forced to dance side to side, and the gun limbs took aim.

But at that moment the latest bolt of black energy grew, expanding with an odd spiritual twist into a veritable wall. Having expanded at the last instant there was no time for him to dodge, and it caught him fully, slammed him backwards much like the Bug Smasher had slammed that Cultivator.

He crashed into a wall but recovered in an instant. His soul sense had barely been affected, nor had his shield. In fact, the blast hadnt really done anything to him except throw him backwards and prevent him firing for a moment. The gun-limbs opened up on the spot of blackness up there.

All the clouds except the one he was firing at disappeared, then that one split. Once more, six clouds darted over the ceiling.

Nicolai snorted as he watched them, using the time to reload.

Ripples poured out, and Threat Analysis quickly determined where they came from. But by then he already knewa large shield had appeared, shaped somewhat like a triangle, the tip toward him. Similar as when he occasionally shaped his Sheltering Glove, to better deflect bullets.

That newly formed Shield was between him and the furthest-away patch of blackness. He was unsurprised when bolts of black energy burst out from there, arrowing in on him. He immediately read their lines and started to step out the way, but when the bolts passed through the shield, they sped up significantly. His steps turned frantic, forced to move faster than he was entirely capable of. At this speed, the only way to properly dodge was to predict where theyd be fired at the moment they were launched, and, unable to see his opponent, he was unable to fully read them. One of them caught him and almost broke his Shield in one.

But there was always a way. Hed learned from Serrin that with many Symbiotes it was possible to deflect Arts, had discovered the Spectral Claw was one such.

He raised it, held it extended before him. With one of the Claws talons he caught one bolt then another, flicking them aside with faint twitches. There was something deeply satisfying about doing so. Finally able to close the ground, he launched himself forward. However, hed only taken a few steps when one of the bolts broadened into that wall of force. It slammed into the Claw and knocked it towards him, then caught him and sent him backwards too. It felt strange, like being kicked by something very heavy but very soft, imparting a great deal of backwards force to him without otherwise damaging him.

He rolled to his feet, Spectral Claw ready, but no attacks came.

You stand no chance against me! cried a reedy voice. My strategy cannot be defeated by a brainless bruiser like yourself. Give up now and bare your throat!

Nicolai snorted and had Aiming fire on the enemy. As anticipated, the shots hit the shaped shield and the bullets were scattered to the sides, which caused a cry of mocking laughter from the blackness behind, followed by more black bolts.

He did his best to close the distance, but it took significant focus to deflect the fast bolts, and he struggled to find a solution for when they shifted into the wall of force. But Nicolai was neither angered nor concerned, quite the opposite. This was one of his favourite kinds of fights, a fight in which there was a problem to solve. His opponent wanted him as far away as possible, to keep him passive and on the defensive. It was a good strategy. With that, his enemy could simply pick him off, keeping on firing, while Nicolai became gradually whittled down and overwhelmed.

Dodging and deflecting attacks like this was a difficult, tiring thing for most people. Most would eventually make a mistake, which would lead to another mistake, which would lead to them losing the fight. Presumably his opponents mocking cries were an attempt to reinforce this by playing on his emotions.

A strategy doomed to failure. Nicolai could have happily stood there all day long deflecting black bolt after black bolt, working to refine his skill at doing so. His focus was unbreakable and he would never become dispirited. Alas, he didnt have all day. He needed to work out how to deal with the walls of force.

He kept fruitlessly pushing forward, knowing it would inspire his enemy to fire more of his force blasts. There was very little time to react when the black bolts transformed, but he did what he could. He made minor shifts to the positioning of the Claw, and with the Modules analysed what happened in response. After perhaps eight more force attacks and dozens of black bolts, he found the trick.

Upon the next force wall he formed the Spectral Claw into an almost pinching shape, all fingers coming together, all the sharp talons pressed into one, and worked to blend it slightly until the Claw was almost like the triangle shape his opponent was using with that shield, Nicolai sheltered beneath its hand.

This time, the force attack moved around the Claw, running over its edges without imparting its full force. He was forced to halt when it hit, as his method wasnt perfect, but he was not knocked backwards. He knew that if he took the time to put more work in, further refine the technique, he would be able to reach a point where he was barely slowed at all.

It was a source of great sadness to Nicolai that, tactically, it would be unwise to prolong this any further. He exploded forwards, and Aiming resumed firing the gun-limbs. At the same time, the Big Mouth opened and a small swarm of hunter-killer drones emerged.

Bullets poured onto the big triangular shield, putting dents in it but not breaking it. The HK drones buzzed forward, pressing toward then past the shield on all sides. There came more blasts of force, but now they merely slowed him and for the first time Nicolai reached the railing, the edge of the upper layer. He leapt off and his Hornet Wing Symbiotes beat.

The orb of blackness split into six which all ran in different directions. But this time Nicolai didnt stop shooting. He sent a hunter-killer drone at each one of those orbs, and had Aiming split its fire between all of them.

His opponents strategy was to keep him at a distance and under pressure, because pressure stopped one properly fighting back. So it would be if Nicolai could put him under pressure. Whether the attacks landed barely mattered.

One of the black orbs suddenly stopped moving as a hunter-killer drone came close to it. A much larger cloud of darknessthe same as had appeared at the start of allthis to block Nicolais initial rushappeared between it and the hunter-killer drone. The hunter killer drone entered and was lost, cut from communications.

Nicolai felt an urge to redirect his drones to all target that orb, but an instant of thought between him and the increasingly merged Modules and he stopped. This could well be a trick. He kept the drones on to their current targets, and this decision was rewarded a moment later.

From a different orb there burst a few black bolts. One of them caught the HK drone rushing it, blew the thing into pieces that pinwheeled to the ground. Nicolai immediately re-oriented with a beat of his wings and directed all drones toward that cloud. He could feel it, the momentum of the fight, the pressure his aggression was putting his opponent under, knew that if he could keep it up hed crack him like a nut.

The fake orbs disappeared and the one which had fired split once again.

Nicolai had closed some of the distance, powering through the centre of the room, and he was close enough to strike with the Claw at one of the orbs dashing by on the ceiling. The orb vanished in a flare of black, revealing nothing inside. Two other orbs were blown apart by screeching HK drones.

Then one of the orbs stopped, and that triangular Shield appeared between him and it. This was followed by a barrage of black bolts, all aimed right at him.

And Nicolai knew his opponent had lost his nerve. He should have kept running and kept trying his tricks. Nicolai only had so many drones, and the gun-limbs were about spent.

He deflected the first two of the bolts but many more followed after, the assassin in the orb firing them faster than before, and from the ripples Nicolai knew he was burning some kind of resource to do so.

For the first time, he utilised his jets. With a flare of screaming light from his left hip and shoulder he dove sideways through the air, quick like a fighter plane, then the larger jet in his back flared and he was launched, the world turned a smear of colour, at great speed toward that final orb. As though in slow motion he saw the bolts of black gradually shifting, the aim belatedly following after him.

But too slow. He arrived in a rush and slashed out with the Claw, and at last as it tore through the orb it caught at something else. The figure of the assassin was punched free from the collapsing orb, sent tumbling and flailing through the air.

With another flare of jets Nicolai dove like a hunting bird, reached out, caught his prey by an arm. He saw a snarling face, eyes wide with disbelief.

The assassin raised his free hand as they both fell towards the ground, black energy forming in his palm. But Nicolai struck out with the quiet knife and the hand spun away into the air, blood geysering after it from the stump, and the assassin screamed with pain and shock.

He fell silent a moment later when the knife dug into his eye. Nicolais disappointment was titanic in scope when, rather than a glorious burst of blood and the wonderful silence of a corpse with a knife in its head, the assassin disappeared in a flare of blue.

He landed in the centre of the stage, cast a look around, and saw no enemies. The big mouth opened wide and the remaining hunter-killer drones returned to roost. He sheathed the Quiet Knife, drank a couple dozen Oma crystals into dust, and got moving. A glance at the list revealed his kill count had increased by six.

###

A hooded figure with a long knife in either hand powered towards the Summoner.

Serrin saw her eyes widening and heard the cries of her companions. The bald man was starting to move, trying to get in front of her. The golden light fizzled out around her hand as she flinched backwards. Serrin lunged into motion, skidding around the corner and dashing towards her, spear levelled.

But he realised that he, just like all the rest of them, was too late, and the assassin was too close. The sharp tips of his knives glinted in the light sharp points of those knives glinted as the man angled them up, beginning his thrust.

A lance of green energy crackled past Serrin, caught the hooded figure in his side and tossed him away down the street to land in a tangle of arms and legs.

Serrin skidded to a stop, head turning, trying to see where it had come from, but saw only milling figures everywhere. It was then that he realised he was in a pitched battle. He saw the hooded figure struggling to his feet, only for a tall, armoured man to stride past and casually slice down, lopping his head off. The armoured man then let out a roar as he charged at another similarly armoured figure.

Serrin saw a flash from the side and threw himself down just in time as some kind of javelin sliced over his head, chips spraying from the wall as it slammed home with a deep crack. Serrin, staring in disbelief, at the thing stuck in the wall, realised it was a Tier 2 Artifact. The ripples intensified and it shimmered and was gone.

Turning his head, he saw it appear in the upraised hand of a shirtless man. He was glaring at Serrin through the eyeholes of a mask with some kind of snake-like design on it, and hed drawn his arm back to throw againprompting Serrin to scramble to his feetwhen a figure in black and gold robes, surrounded by shadowy mist, appeared and struck out with what looked like two Soul Sense tendrils turned real, each tendril deep blue and ending in a jagged mouth. Their fight disappeared into the chaos of the street.

Everywhere Serrin looked, he saw people fighting. Two figures fell from a roof, stabbing at one another. When they landed, one rose and the other lay dead. The figure whod risen was struck down by a savage blow from behind. The sky above released a dull rumble then a great spear of lightning blasted down. A chunk of street disappeared in coruscating white light, the figures within twitching and screaming. A figure wearing green robes had vines rising all around him, sprouting and tearing from the ground, those around backing away. Only for a giant spiritual wolf to appear just feet behind him, snap out instantly, and the green-robed figure was gone in an explosion of blood. The vines flinched then tore at the wolf, twining around it, but it simply disappeared into a puff of mist.

Figure after figure was struck down, only for their killers to be stabbed in the back by another, who in turn would be pinned or crushed by some monstrous spiritual blow.

He saw humans, both from Earth and from Shenra, heard the rattling of some kind of heavy gun, saw bullets slicing through the crowd, cracking Shields and tearing into the unshielded in sprays of blood. There came a chorus of sharp bangs as grenades went off somewhere.

He saw a Person surrounded by undead, and many other races and beings he had never seen before, all set upon killing one another in a carnage which seemed entirely random and senseless.

He was even shocked to see, as his gaze turned further, a Hornet flicker out of invisibility, stab down with an Artifact spear, then vanish again. In the time before it disappeared he had time to register its exoskeleton was pale white, nothing like his own yellow.

He backed up and put himself against a wall, not possessing a clue what to do.

The Summoner and her companions had reacted similarly, gathering tight around her. The small creature was leaping about, firing weapons from its strange armour. The woman in the black robe was tossing potions that released all kinds of strange effects where they landedbursts of ghost-like mist and eruptions of fire that clung strangelywhile using her Soul Sense to defend the others. The Summoner had once more raised her hand, limned in golden light. The big bald man stood before her, seemingly trying to put himself between her and every source of danger at once. Someone equally large charged them, and he lunged forwards to meet them. Grappling, the two stumbled side to side, smashing at one another.

Serrin dove forward. He flared his Wing Symbiotes, aiding his rush, and managed, just barely, to put himself between the charging man and the summoner. He instantly stabbed out, aiming for a gap in the armour, but his opponent reacted equally fast. With a small twist of his body he moved the gap out the way, and Serrins spear glanced off the armour. The masked man grunted, set his feet, and sent his huge weapon in a great arc at Serrin, the air whistling around it.

Serrin ducked low and it passed over him. He struck out in the same moment, but once more his opponent simply shifted slightly and the strike caught a hard plane rather than the gap hed aimed at. The masked man launched a Soul Sense attack and Serrin responded in kind.

Gradually, he was driven back by heavy, endless blows. If one of them hit him, he would be dead, whereas his opponents strange armour had entirely defeated his Artifact spear. He had never seen the like. He started aiming his stabs at the mask instead, and was pleased to find his opponent didnt like that at all. The man backed up, stance turning more defensive. Serrin surged forwards, striking again and again, capitalising.

But the man abruptly stomped on the ground, releasing a powerful ripple. That was all the warning Serrin had as the street beneath him seemed to punch up at him and he was launched into theair. For a moment his legs flailed at nothing, confused and disoriented. Another great swing was coming right at him, liable to cut him clean in half.

In that moment he was reminded of his increasingly frequent spars with Nikolaispars in which he had been forced to develop his skills further. Always, the human found some tricky method of catching him, but Serrin had become increasingly used to it, become ever more skilled at finding desperate ways out of the binds Nicolai put him in. This moment reminded him distinctly of a similar trick Nicolai had pulled. It had caught him out, but later on hed thought about what he couldve done.

With a powerful twist of his entire body and a matching beat of his wings, he managed in an instant to lever his body until he was horizontal. The blade hummed past just beneath him as he finished the movement. Midair, Serrin countered, striking out at another gap, and this time he caught his opponent out. The spearpoint found that gap and dug deep into the masked mans armpit.

The man stepped backwards, releasing a string of furious curses. His eyes, visible through the gaps in his armour, were icy blue. Serrin landed, legs bending, and spun his spear back into a ready position as he followed. Ripples poured from his opponent, and he prepared to spring out the way as the man raised his hand and it shone with a dull energy. Then he experienced a jolt of shock with the realisation that he was in front of the Summoner, that if he moved she would be struck.

A deafening boom and flash of light sounded behind him, and the ground shook. Serrin stared around in the sudden dimness, finding himself in the shadow of something vast. The masked mans eyes snapped up, widening, and then he vanished in a shimmer like heat haze.

The street erupted in light and fire as a thunderous roar sounded out from almost directly behind Serrin. He was not sure if it lasted for minutes or seconds, but by the time it ended he felt strangely dizzy and sick.

The street was a site of ruin, strewn with corpsesthough far less, he dimly realised, than hed have expected. It seemed the vast majority of the attackers and defenders alike had vanished, just as his opponent had.

He felt a sense of terrible danger and spun, and there it was.

The killbot loomed over him, a pile of metal and armour wielding gigantic weapons, all aimed right at him. He stumbled backwards, raising his spear.

It boomed at him in a harsh voice, and he made out a reedy translation from his implants, but couldnt quite comprehend it: something something IMMEDIATELY. One of those great guns began to spin up and all he could think was Am I going to die here?

But a voice cried out. Hey, leave him be, you big thug! He helped us!

The killbot grumbled again in its thunder-voice, but it lowered its weapons. The Summoner appeared from behind one of its legs, the rest of her group with her. A moment later, he felt a strange popping sensation and the blood-red tinge vanished from the air. He couldnt help but slump slightly with relief at the realisation the Restriction had returned.

Get the bodies, get the bodies! the Summoner cried, and the killbot exploded into motion. Serrin threw himself to the ground as many tons of metal moved at a far greater speed than seemed reasonable right over him, legs like tree-trunks blurring.

He stared after it uncertainly and saw it slow to reach down at some of the bodies on the street. But before it could grasp them, they shimmered and were gone. Then there was only the wreckage of the street, burn marks and rubble and splintered wood, and large blood stains from the bodies that had been.

No! the Summoner cried, incensed. Every time like this, every time! What do they want?

Cheer up, we got somethin way better than a body, this time, spoke a gruff little voice from the ground. Serrin peered around and with a start realised the small armoured wolf-thing was right there in front of him, staring up.

It was soon joined by the big bald man who came up quick to loom over Serrin in a much-reduced impression of the killbot, heavy metal arms crossed over his chest, scowling at Serrin in a way he was pretty sure spoke of deep suspicion.

You helped us, so you must be on the side of those who dont want us dead, spoke the bald man. High time we got some explanations. Whats all this about?

A moment later the summoner and the black-robed woman had joined them and he was surrounded, all staring at him expectantly.

• Previous
• Report
• Next

Share

0