"The trap has already been deployed. We have 30 minutes to do this, so let's be quick with this." One of the hooded men said seriously as the fiddling with a blue metalic box that gave off a slight shine.
"I'll take the lookout, Sixteen you focus on taking down the kid quickly and silently. We can't afford to let him notice. The fact that he also completely alone should make things easier for you." One of the other hooded men explained as he took a visor from his cloak.
"Got it Fifteen. I just wish we could have Heiran's help as well, but luck had it and his Soul started acting up again." The hooded man that went by the name of Sixteen explained as he shook his head when he saw another hooded man that was sitting slumped on the ground.
"Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about. Let's just stick to protocol and once we are done, we take boss and the book out of here." Fifteen answered as he shook his head before he went on top of a rather high building and started looking down on the streets. After he positioned himself on top of one of the buildings, he took out a black visor from the bag inside his cloak and looked around the entire sealed area. Before long, he found the person that trapped with the three of them and said quietly as he touched the side of his hoodie:
"Target has been located at 7 o'clock. Engage immediately."
"Roger." Sixteen answered as he was touching the same of his hoodie as Fifteen as touching his own side. After that, he took out a black suitcase from his bag and once he opened it, it was revealed that it was some sort of compacted machine. The machine itself, once unpacked, was some sort of tripod with a cannon barrel and a square scope on it and Sixteen set up the cannon in a few seconds, he aimed towards Soren's direction before asking:
"How far is he?"
"200 meters, use the Compact Mana Cartridges." Fifteen answered back as he looking at Soren's outlined silhouette.
"Instructions received. Shooting in 15... 14... 13..." After Sixteen started counting down, he quickly loaded a CMC and aimed towards Soren's position.
"5..."
At that moment, Sixteen had locked on Soren's location.
"4..."
The cannon was gathering power as it was slowly starting to glow a bit.
"3..."
At that moment, a green light lit up next to a red button at the side of the cannon.
"2..."
"Where is everyone? Isn't it supposed to be a busy street right about now?" Soren said to himself as was slowly looking around.
"1..."
Sixteen put his finger on the red button before he said with a face full of killing intent:
"Die." *click* At that moment, an unusually big Mana Ball came out of the cannon and started heading towards Soren at a high speed. Soren on the other hand, barely had any time to process the fact that an attack was heading towards him before he used his tail on the ground to quickly jump away while he casted the thickest Mana Wall he had ever conjured in his life.
*boom*
After the explosion, Soren was launched away from the blast site and started rolling on the ground for a bit before he stopped. After he stopped rolling, he slowly for up from the ground and started swimming away from there and went inside of one of the empty buildings that were nearby. As for his body's condition, it wasn't good. It was filled with scratches, while he also had a faint burn scar on his hands and face and he was also experiencing a constant feeling of pain that felt somehow a bit familiar to him.
*cough* "Dammit... What the h*ll?" Soren muttered painfully as he was struggling to get up and slowly hide one of the buildings.
...
"Did that do it Fifteen?" Sixteen asked emotionlessly as he was looking at the exploded area.
"Can't say. With the sand cloud now, I can't see anything in that area." Fifteen asked as he took off his visor and proceeded to swim in the sand cloud. After entering stealthily, the cloud started to clear up slowly and before long, most of the cloud had subsided, but there was nothing left of Soren or any of his belongings.
"Kid's alive and probably hiding somewhere close. He shouldn't be far since he was probably caught in the explosion and I doubt he would be getting off with just a light injury." Fifteen reported with a quiet voice before swimming on top of another building and putting his visor again.
'Hmmm... So I truly am their target.' Soren thought to himself as he was seeing Fifteen swimming upwards, so he decided to be quick and hide near another building. As he was trying to swim as fast as he could, he felt like he wanted to scream his lungs out from pain, but he had to hold it in at all costs. He knew that if he alerted them, then it would truly be the end of him so very slowly, he started making his way out of this area.
Soren swam slowly as he kept his Third Eye ability on at all times, since he could detect the magic attacks and dodge them as quickly as possible, but he was still having a feeling of uneasiness. After five or so minutes, Soren made his way towards a thin wall of water that seemed similar to a barrier, but he also saw that the wall was on the other side of a wide road. Despite the fact that there were no carriages going through it right now, he knew that going towards the road was extremely dangerous, since he would lose the cover from the buildings and expose himself to danger. With no other alternative, he decided to keep moving slowly and keep an eye on his surroundings.
*boom* Another explosion was heard nearby and the direction of the explosion was at the area he was standing a couple of minutes ago when he was checking on the barrier.
'The probably must have caught a glimpse of me just now, but why shoot there? I had already left from there and I can get pretty far in a couple of minutes to make them lose me, but... *sigh* Can't say what is going through their heads.' Soren thought to himself before finding cover in one of the empty buildings as he started to rest.
'I wonder what is going on? What happened to everyone or how come no one is noticing the explosions? Those things are loud enough to shatter your ears, so come no one is trying to come in? I would expect that there would be a couple Sea Knights who would come immediately when a commotion was happening or at least, a couple of curious onlookers. But no one is coming here. I have to get to the bottom of this.' Soren thought to himself as was checking the surrounding area.
In the meantime, Fifteen was rather angry with Sixteen, when he missed his second and started scraming at him:
"HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO MISALIGN THAT SECOND SHOT!? I TOLD YOU THAT HE ALREADY MOVED FROM HIS POSITION, BUT YOU HAD TO SHOOT THAT AND WASTE A CARTRIDGE. Why did I even bother going into lookout? God I swear..."
"Here comes the nagging part. I swear, that guy just doesn't know how to calm down these days. No wonder he is still fifteenth. If it wasn't for that flaw of his, he would have easily made to the top ten of our team. Just ignore him and focus on the kid, even though it's easier said than done with this loudmouth." Sixteen could only say to himself to comfort him, while listening to the constant nagging of Fifteen. After a quick moment, he shot another cartridge towards another direction.
*boom*
As Soren was moving from building to building, while his injuries were still giving him a burning feeling on most of his body, he heard another explosion in the middle of the street he had just gone across to, only to see that the street had turned into a pit on the ground. As he was looking at the blast site, he noticed something that shouldn't exist in the first place.
In reality, he had this nagging feeling that there was something obviously wrong with the entire situation, ever since the first blast. He knew that those guys were after his red book, since it was just a matter of time until trouble came knocking on his door, but he didn't expect that they would be going this far to get one book. He felt rather angry with this situation as well, he didn't know why, he just knew that he did and that feeling was making a bit nervous as well. In the end, he decided to calm himself down a bit and then decided to go towards the direction that the attacks were coming from.
On his way there, he decided to try and solve the mystery of these abnormal mana explosions. He knew that upon impact, these would just blow up on the point of impact with a bigger radius, rather than the usual explosion radius, since the had used Water Ball hundereds of times and he knew the basic characteristic of this spell.
What he knew for sure, was that no matter your amount the mana that was used in the Water Ball spell or stats that you had, those things never affected the size of the spells, or it's aftereffects. It only affected the amount damage it could do and he had tested with the Mana Ball spell a few times as well, for his theory, while he was hunting with Lavenza. So chances were either some soft of special spell, which he felt it was rather unlikely, or it was some sort of contraption, which he felt it was more likely to be, despite the fact that he knew that it could be neither of those.
As he was slowly making his way there, he noticed that there was an unmoving hooded merman who was laying down the ground. He tried to pick him up and wake him, but even when he tried to shake him violently, he still wouldn't wake up at all. In the end, Soren decided to hide him somewhere and the hope that the man wouldn't be found by the people who were after him. Conveniently, he found a couple of buildings that had open windows and he decided to put him inside one of those and hid him inside a closet. As he was carrying the man, the man's hood fell and revealed a smooth and beautiful face of a man with long black hair and he felt a bit lightheaded and his vision was starting to become a bit red, but Soren assumed that it was mostly his fatigue and injuries hitting him once again.
After taking care of the mysterious man, Soren quickly left the building and decided to make for a quick swim away from the building and hid behind a building, three intersections away from the building he hid the man. Now, his current objective was to somehow get out of this entire situation.
*boom*
Another explosion appeared right next to Soren's hiding spot and he quickly dodged to the side before stealthily hiding in another building that was nearby.
'These guys are persistent, that's for sure. Honestly, what's up with these guys? Don't they ever change locations, at least? I'm expecting at least an ambush in close quarters at this point, but they only shoot these Mana Spells. Not that I'm complaint, at least with this, I have a chance to escape, if I ever find an opening.' Soren thought to himself as he was looking at the streets.
At some point, as he was peeking from the corner of the building, he saw something small and wiggly on top of one of the buildings in the central area, but before he could make out more, he saw a bright light ball that suddenly appeared from the building right next to it and it was coming straight at him with high speed. Realising what the light ball is, Soren quickly left the area and moved near another building.
*boom*
Another explosion appeared in the area that Soren was standing previously on. The explosion destroyed the entire corner of the building and kicked a big cloud of debris and sand and while Soren looking at the explosion, an idea lit up in his head, as if a light bulb suddenly turned on, on top of his head.
...
"Tsk. Don't you have any better aim than this? I thought you were decent with ranged combat." Fifteen yelled at Sixteen once again as he was feeling like he wanted to crush his visor and punch him on his head.
"Let's see you try using this Magic Artillery Cannon and then you'll see how easy it is to hit something with it." Sixteen yelled back at Fifteen as he was also feeling the same urge as Fifteen.
"Fine. Take my visor and tell me his location. I'll show you how it's actually done." Fifteen then threw his visor towards Sixteen before going to the Cannon.
"You'll see how easy it is to aim with this thing." Sixteen said sarcastically as he caught the visor and put it on. After switching positions, Sixteen tried looking around the entire area for any sighting of Soren's current location. As he was looking around, Fifteen started to set the aim for the cannon, but he found out that the controls were a bit complicated and while trying them out, he accidentally sent a shot towards an empty square.
*boom*
Soren quickly hid behind one of the buildings near the intersection where the explosion just happened. He was a bit surprised that they managed to predict his path, but after looking towards the direction the explosive projectile came from, he saw some sort of mechanical cannon, but it seemed to turn left and right randomly. On a nearby building as well, he saw another man, but he seemed to just look towards the edges of the area and didn't seem to even pay any attention towards the explosion area that appeared right now.
After waiting for a minute, he quickly made his way towards the building where the cannon was set up and hid under the doorway of the building, in a blind spot of the man who kept looking around the area.
*boom*
Another explosion was heard, but the explosion this time was much further way from the previous one, so Soren just heaved a quick sigh of relief, before entering the building by opening one of the nearby unlocked windows. The building itself had a fancy interior decor on the first floor with a few plates of food on some of the tables, but there were no customers, waiters or chefs. It was just him alone, the two men on top and the mysterious man that his somewhere else in this entire isolated area.
After swimming past a couple more empty floors with similar decorations, he started hearing some angry voices from the roof of this building.
"...do you... say for... to aim..."
"...easy... the Mag... llery... ...think be..."
The angry voices were pretty muffled and he could barely hear bits and pieces of their quarreling, but he decided to start executing his plan.
...
"So, what do you have to say for yourself now, seeing how easy it is to aim with this thing?" Sixteen asked with a serious expression as he was staring at Fifteen who looked pretty nervous.
"Uhhh... I... uhhh... found that it was... pretty easy. I don't g-get what's s-so hard about it. The M-Magic Artillery Cannon is s-such an easy weapon to use, so I don't think t-there will be any easier weapons to u-use than t-this." Fifteen answered nervously as his complexion started to slowly become pale. There was no way for him to admit that he was wrong about the cannon, so decided to keep up the act, as much as he could.
"Suuuuuuuuure. Now I believe you." Sixteen answered sarcastically at Fifteen's statement.
"Besides, how's the search of the little runt? I'm sure you still have him in your sights, am I right?" Fifteen asked as he was eyeing Sixteen who seemed like he was staring towards one direction constantly.
"I do and he still hasn't moved at all." Sixteen answered as he waved his hand away and kept staring at one of Soren's previous hiding spots. As he was still staring, he suddenly asked:
"Say, when do you think leader will get up? It doesn't usually this long for him to be in that condition."
"I have to agree with you on that one, but until he comes back, we have to continue the mission without him. Securing that book is the highest priority currently and we only have less than ten minutes left before the AD Zoner runs out of power." Fifteen exclaimed as he was struggling a bit to use the cannon.
"Say, is it me or you feeling a bit of pressure here?" Fifteen asked a few seconds after his exclamation.
"What do you actually mean? I don't feel any pressure." Sixteen answered with a confused expression as he was staring at Fifteen.
"Oh. Maybe that was just me. I mean, what I would I-"
*boom*
Suddenly, an explosion happen right under the cannon was caused both the cannon and Fifteen to get knocked away from the top of the building before falling down on the ground.
"FIFTEEN!" Sixteen immediately dove down to grab Fifteen before he got buried by the scraps of the Magic Artillery Cannon.
*rumble* *crash* *boom*
The cannon exploded the moment it touched the ground and white flames could be seen a bit after the explosion, as they were burning the scraps of the broken cannon. After a quick moment, Soren peeked from the top of the building he just exploded with his big attack and saw that the two hooded men were on the floor with Sixteen holding Fifteen over his shoulders.
As for the reason of the big explosion, it was actually something that Soren had come up with a while ago, when he was doing his big hunting quest. At the time, he had experimented with Mana whenever he had a bit of free time, he would always experiment with it to make various objects out of Mana. and mess with their properties.
The results of the experiments taught him three things about Mana Manipulation, as an ability. First, is that every item that is created by Mana, is bound to be hollow and that Mana is used to make a shell. Second, one item made our of Mana could technically hold an infinite amount of Mana, as long as Mana was fueled on the vessel. And finally, one Mana Point was actually a bigger amount of Mana than Soren had thought. The actual amount of one Mana point would be equivalent to around 10 minutes of Mana ejection, similar to when Soren had used Mana to coat his hands back in the day of the Summoning Ritual. Of course, the amount of Mana that could be ejected was adjustable.
With those three facts combined, Soren actually managed to create a special Mana Ball that was holding around 50 Mana Points and then cut the top part, causing all the Mana to spill out like a geyser and cause the massive explosion from before.
"Didn't expect that to be this powerful. Thankfully it didn't actually explode like a bomb, otherwise that would have killed me." Soren spoke with a relieved expression as he peeking down before leaving from the building.
"Bastard! Suffer!" *swoosh* An angry male voice was heard before an arrow suddenly flew past him and grazed his cheek. Soren immediately turned around and saw that one of the hooded people were holding a black bow and then shot another arrow.
"AAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!" Soren screamed loudly as this arrow actually pierced through his right shoulder before he quickly swam behind one of the buildings and as he was swimming, a couple more arrows grazed Soren's body. Sixteen on the other hand didn't stop shooting his arrows and actually wanted him to suffer immensely for the cheap attack he pulled on his partner. Although Fifteen didn't die from the explosion, his body was heavily burnt from the explosion and he would have probably lost his life, if he were to get buried by the rubble.
The chase continued for a bit if time, with Soren swimming through the buildings and Sixteen constantly shooting him on spots that make sure that Soren would feel pain. Soren could barely hold himself up at this point, since he had a number of wounds on his body, his right shoulder had a big arrow sticking out of it and his body still was pretty injured from the first explosion. Before long, Soren's body couldn't take anymore pressure and it collapsed in the end.
"So, you finally collapsed, haven't you?" A make angry voice was heard from behind Soren. Soren couldn't even turn around to see who was talking to him, but he knew that it was the man with the black bow that was relentlessly hunting him.
"I guess... This is it... For me..." Soren said weakly as his body was hurting him and barely keeping himself conscious.
"Don't blame us. Blame yourself for getting involved into this mess." Sixteen said coldly, before he shot an arrow straight through Soren's heart. The moment the arrow pierced his heart, his body quickly started to feel cold and his consciousness started to fall slowly into darkness. Soren was feeling all kinds of emotions during his final moments. Anger, sadness, fear, regret, frustration. He didn't want to die and didn't want to drag others, but he knew that there was one was going to be dragged to death with him. Lavenza would probably get dragged with him, the moment his life waned out and he wanted to give anything, so at least Lavenza wouldn't get dragged to death with him. In the end though, the only thing he could do was to weakly mutter his last words, as his eyes were tearing out:
"I'm... so... r... ry..."
...
...
...
Darkness. The moment Soren's consciousness kicked in once again, he could only see darkness. He was familiar with this darkness. It was the space between worlds. It was this place where he met Pandora and reincarnated him into his new world.
"I guess... I'm dead, aren't... *sob* I...? DAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMIIIIIIIIITTT!!!!" At this moment, Soren's eyes started tearing out and he started crying out without any restraint. He cried for many reasons. He did because he still wanted to live. He did because he still wanted to speak with the people he had formed connections with, such as Rohan, Matt, Jay, Tobias, Laventhign, Toby and others as well. And he cried because he also dragged Lavenza to death with his own death, when she didn't even know the situation at all.
[Don't tell me you are going to give up like that.]
Suddenly, a blue panel appeared in front of him. It was the system panel that was used for his status checks, his skill checks and any information he might have need for the world. Soren was actually pretty surprised by the system. He didn't expect that this kind of message would come out at all. In the end though, he could only say with with a sad expression:
"I'm dead. What's the point of persisting now? Not only that, but I also dragged her to death with my own death."
[And who said you were dead?] Another message appeared immediately after Soren's answered.
"I was shot in the heart. I felt my body grow cold as I was sinking into the abyss. I WAS LITERALLY SHOT TO DEATH! I'M NOT THE LIVING DEAD YOU KNOW!" Soren then burst out angrily as was looking at the message and feeling the urge to literally punch it with all of his power.
[I don't think you are understanding your current situation. Your body has just fainted from overworking.] The system answered immediately once again, but it seemed to be slightly purple.
"Overworking? OVERWORKING!? ARE YOU MESSING WITH ME!? WHAT PART OF "BEING SHOT IN THE HEART", DIDN'T YOU UNDERSTAND!? YOU DUMB SYSTEM! I MAY NOT KNOW A LOT OF BIOLOGY, BUT I KNOW THAT BEING SHOT IN THE HEART IS USUALLY FOLLOWED BY DEATH! WHAT PART OF THAT HAVE YOU UNDERSTOOD AS OVERWORKING!?" Soren yelled furiously at the panel as loudly as he could. He was literally seeing red and it was because of the system, something that would normally have no chance of pulling off normally, but Soren was too angry to even think clearly.
[Currently, your body has no power, so it requires a stimulus to regain its energy once again.] The panel answered with a more purplish hue now.
"Stimulus? ARE YOU PULLING MY LEG NOW!? I'M NOT A MACHINE DAMMIT. I'M A NORMAL PERSON. A HUMAN WITH A FISH TAIL. I'M NOT SOME ANDROID!" Soren continued yelling as his anger was increasing.
[Usually, emotional stimuli are more than enough to trigger a restoration, but it may need a stronger stimulus than usual.] The system continued ignoring Soren's yelling as it was presenting its solution and turning from purple to red.
"WHAT EMOTIONAL STIMULI ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? ARE YOU BUGGING OUT OR SOMETHING!? STOP TALKING OUT OF *SS ALREADY YOU BUGGY SYSTEM!"
[...] The system only showed a panel that was mostly red, but it had a bit of a purplish hue.
"So now you are ignoring me? I'M STILL NOT DONE WITH YOU AND YOUR STUPID BULLSH*T THINGS THAT YOU HAD TO SAY!"
[...Hehehe...] At that moment, the panel had turned completely red before the voice function was automatically turned on.
"Wait what? What is going on now?" Soren answered with a startled expression as he was looking at the red panel in front of him.
"I don't think that you seem to have realised how this game will go on." A distorted voice was heard all of a sudden. From the darkness, a silhouette could be seen that was coming slowly towards Soren.
"Who are you?" Soren asked angrily as he was seeing the mysterious stranger coming slowly towards him.
"Who am I? You should already know me Soren. Although I doubt that you would want to remember me." The mysterious man answered as his voice was slowly becoming less distorted.
"I already know? Remember you? What the hell are talking about?" Soren asked again with an angry expression on his face.
*sigh* "Unfortunately, this isn't our time for reunions yet. But I will tell you this. When you wake up, you won't be sitting here. But you will have to explain to your friends about us." The mysterious man shrugged as his voice was becoming even less distorted and started to become familiar.
"Wait, what do you mean? Explain yourself."
"Our time is up here. Your body won't be able to last without someone controlling it anymore. I'll take care of things from now on." The moment the man finished his last sentence, he suddenly appeared in front of Soren and then a red blinding light appeared from his right hand, which caused Soren to faint immediately when that light came right in front of him.
...
...
...
"Tsk. You were far too much trouble than you should have been, rotten brat." Sixteen exclaimed angrily as he was looking at Soren's corpse with scorn. In the next moment, he went for his bag then started taking look into his stuff. Unsurprisingly, the red book that he was looking for was in there, so he took it out immediately upon finding it.
"Finally, mission accomplished. Kid should have probably been Ava's retainer. He showed no signs of that bastard's abilities, so it works by process of elimination." Sixteen exclaimed with a tired expression as he put the red book in his own little bag and then proceeded to leave Soren's corpse. As Sixteen was leaving though, he suddenly felt a chill on the back of his spine and decided to quickly turn around, only to find out that a sword was coming straight at him, so he quickly used his black bow to block the attack. As he was blocking the attack, he saw the attacker's face, which was Soren's, but he felt that there was something off about it.
"You did quite a number on me and you'll leave without taking responsibility? You truly are a piece of sh*t." The entity said with a arrogant tone as he had his eyes closed.
"How are you still alive?" Sixteen asked with a surprised expression as he was looking on the entity.
"Shouldn't you already know the answer to that already?" The entity then opened its eyes suddenly and it showed its shining red eyes, unlike Soren's green eyes.